CHAPTER 2
Lecture 6
19 For I, through the law, am dead to the law, that I may live to God; with Christ I am nailed to the cross.
20 And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me. And that I live now in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and delivered himself for me.
21 1 cast not away the grace of God. For if justice be by the law, then Christ died in vain.
Here the Apostle amplifies the solution given above. First, he explains the solution. Secondly, he concludes to his principal proposition (v. 21). It should be noted that the Apostle proceeds in a very thorough manner, leaving no doubt unexamined. Hence his words, although they seem involved, nevertheless, if they are carefully considered, say nothing without a purpose. This is plain from the words he uses. Therefore, he does three things:
First, he manifests the solution;
Secondly, he explains his manifestation of the solution; (v. 19): with Christ I am nailed to the cross;
Thirdly, he settles the question (v. 20): That I live now in the flesh.
Therefore, because the Apostle had said, For, if I build up again the things which I have destroyed , which is understood to refer to the Old Law, for one might regard him as a destroyer of the Law and consequently impious according to Psalm (118:126): “They have dissipated thy law,” for that reason the Apostle wishes to show how he destroys the Law without being impious, saying, For I, through the law, am dead to the law. Here it should be noted that when anyone destroys a law by means of the law itself, he is indeed a prevaricator of the law, but not impious. For a law is destroyed by means of the law when the law itself contains some local or temporary precept, such that the law should be observed for such a time or in such a place and no other, and this fact is expressed in the law. If someone, therefore, after that time or outside that place, does not use the law, he destroys the law by means of the law itself, and in this way the Apostle destroyed the Law. Hence he says: I somehow destroyed the Law, but by means of the Law; because through the Law I am dead to the Law , i.e., by the authority of the Law I have rejected the Law, as being dead to the Law. For the authority of the Law, through which he is dead to the Law, is cited in many places in Sacred Scripture. For example, although not in so many words, it is had in Jeremias (31:31): 1 will make a new covenant with the house of Israel”; “The Lord will raise up to thee a prophet of thy brethren like unto me” (Deut 18:15), and in many other places. Therefore the Apostle is not a destroyer of the Law in the sense of a transgressor of the Law.
Or else, I by the law spiritual am dead to the law carnal. For he dies to the Law when, being freed by the Law, he casts it aside, according to Romans (7:2): “If her husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.” Now inasmuch as the Apostle was subject to the spiritual law, he says that he is dead to the Law, i.e., loosed from the observances of the Law: “For the law of the spirit of life, in Christ Jesus, hath delivered me from the law of sin and of death” (Rom 8:2). Again there is another possible way of setting the law aside without prevarication, because, namely, a law, when it is written on a scroll is called a dead law, and when it is in the mind of the lawgiver it is called a living law. Now it is plain that if someone were to act according to the word of the lawgiver against the written law and break the law, he would both be set free of the dead law and be acting according to the command of the lawgiver.
He says, therefore, along these lines, I am dead to the law , which is written and dead, i.e., I am loosed from it that I may live to God , i.e., that I may guide my movements according to His precepts and be ordained to His honor. For a law that has been passed does, indeed, hand down something in writing on account of those outside and of those who cannot hear the words spoken by the lawgiver; but for those in his presence he does not lay it down in writing but in words alone. For in the beginning, men were weak and unable to approach unto God; hence it was necessary for the precepts of the Law to be given to them in writing, so that by the Law, as by a pedagogue, they might be led by the hand to the point where they might hear the things He commands, according to the words given below: the law was our pedagogue in Christ, that we might be justified by faith (3:24). But after we have access to the Father through Christ, as is said in Romans (5:2), we are not instructed about the commands of God through the Law, but by God Himself. Hence he says: Through the Law leading me by the hand I have died to the written law, in order that I may live unto God, i.e., to the maker of the Law, i.e., to be instructed and directed by Him.
Then when he says, with Christ I am nailed to the cross, he amplifies what he said. Now he had said that he died to the Law and lives unto God. Hence he explains these two things:
First, that he died to the Law, he explains by saying that with Christ I am nailed to the cross ;
Secondly, that he lives unto God, when he says (v. 20): I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me.
The first point can be explained in two ways. In one way, as in a Gloss, thus: every man according to carnal origin is born a child of wrath: “By nature we were children of wrath, even as the rese, (Eph 2:3). He is also born in the oldness of sin: “Thou art grown old in a strange country” (Bar. 3:11). This oldness of sin is removed by the cross of Christ, and the newness of spiritual life is conferred. Therefore the Apostle says, with Christ I am nailed to the cross , i.e., concupiscence or the inclination to sin, and all such have been put to death in me through the cross of Christ: “Our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin may be destroyed” (Rom 6:6). Also from the fact that I am crucified with Christ and have died to sin; and because Christ rose again, I, too, have risen with Him rising: “Who was delivered up for our sins, and rose again for our justification” (Rom 4:25). Thus, therefore, does Christ beget a new life in us, after the oldness of sin has been destroyed. Hence he says, And I live , i.e., because I am nailed to the cross of Christ, I have the strength to act well, now not I according to the flesh, because I no longer have the oldness which I formerly had, but Christ liveth in me , i.e., the newness which has been given to us through Christ.
Or, in another way: a man is said to live according to that in which he chiefly puts his affection and in which he is mainly delighted. Hence men who take their greatest pleasure in study or in hunting say that this is their life. However, each man has his own private interest by which he seeks that which is his own. Therefore, when someone lives seeking only what is his own, he lives only unto himself; but when he seeks the good of others, he is said to live for them. Accordingly, because the Apostle had set aside his love of self through the cross of Christ, he said that be was dead so far as love of self was concerned, declaring that with Christ I am nailed to the cross , i.e., through the cross of Christ my own private love has been removed from me. Hence he says God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (6:14): “If one died for all, then all were dead. And Christ died for all, that they also who live may not now live to themselves, but unto him who died for them” (2 Cor 5:14). And I live, now not 1, i.e., I no longer live as though having any interest in my own good, but Christ liveth in me , i.e., I have Christ alone in my affection and Christ Himself is my life: “To me, to live is Christ; and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21).
Then when he says, And that I live now in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, he answers a twofold difficulty that might arise from his words. One is how he lives and yet it is not he who lives; the second is how he is nailed to the cross. Therefore he clears up these two points. First of all, the first one, namely, how he lives and yet it is not he who lives. He answers this when he says And that I live now in the flesh I live in the faith of the Son of God . Here it should be noted that, strictly speaking, those things are said to live which are moved by an inner principle. Now the soul of Paul was set between his body and God; the body, indeed, was vivified and moved by the soul of Paul, but his soul by Christ. Hence as to the life of the flesh, Paul himself lived and this is what he says, namely, and that I live now in the flesh , i.e., by the life of the flesh; but as to his relation to God, Christ lived in Paul. Therefore he says, I live in the faith of the Son of God through which He dwells in me and moves me: “But the just shall live in his faith” (Hab. 2:4). And note that he says in the flesh , not “by the flesh,” because this is evil.
Secondly, he shows that he is nailed to the cross, saying: Because the love of Christ, which He showed to me in dying on the cross for me, brings it about that I am always nailed with Him. And this is what he says, who loved me : “He first loved us” (I Jn 4:10). And He loved me to the extent of giving himself and not some other sacrifice for me : “He loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood” (Rev 1:5); “As Christ loved the church and delivered himself up for it, that he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life” (Eph 5:25).
But it should be noted that the Son delivered Himself, and the Father His Son: “He spared not even his own Son, but delivered him up for us” (Rom 8:32). Judas, too, delivered Him up, as is said in Matthew (26:48). It is all one event, but the intention is not the same, because the Father did so out of love, the Son out of obedience along with love, but Judas out of avarice and treachery.
Then when he says, I cast not away the grace of God, he draws the principal conclusion. First, he draws the conclusion; secondly, he explains it. He says, therefore: Because I have received from God so great a grace that He delivered Himself, and I live in the faith of the Son of God, I cast not away the grace of God , i.e., I do not repudiate it or show myself ungrateful: “The grace of God in me hath not been void, but I have labored more abundantly than all they” (1 Cor 15:10). Hence another version has, I am not ungrateful for the grace of God.” “Looking diligently lest any man be wanting to the grace of God” (Heb 12:15), i.e., by showing myself unworthy because of ingratitude.
A form of repudiation and of ingratitude would exist, if I were to say that the Law is necessary in order to be justified. Hence he says, For if justice be by the law, then Christ died in vain , i.e., if the Law is sufficient, i.e., if the works of the Law suffice to justify a man, Christ died to no purpose and in vain, because He died in order to make us just: “Christ also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust, that he might offer us to God” (1 Pet. 3:18). Now if this could have been done through the Law, the death of Christ would have been superfluous. But He did not die in vain or labor to no purpose, as it is said in Isaiah (49:4); because through Him alone came justifying grace and truth, as it is said in John (1:17). Therefore, if any were just before the passion of Christ, this too was through the faith of Christ to come, in Whom they believed and in Whose faith they were saved.