The great Reformer introduces and prefaces his commentary on Paul’s greatest New Testament letter
This epistle is in truth the most important document in the New Testament.
It is the gospel in its purest expression. It is the soul’s daily bread, and can never be read too often. It is a brilliant light, almost enough to illumine the whole Bible. The first thing needed is to master Paul’s terminology. What does he mean by such words as law, grace, faith, righteousness, etc?
The law
You must not understand the term ‘law’ in its everyday sense as something explaining what acts are permitted and what forbidden. God judges according to your inmost convictions; his law must be fulfilled in your very heart, and cannot be obeyed if you merely perform certain acts. If we do not choose goodness freely, we do not keep God’s law from the heart. Then sin enters in and divine wrath is incurred even though, to outward appearances, we are doing many virtuous works. To fulfil the law, we must meet its requirements gladly and lovingly; live virtuous and upright lives without constraint of the law, as if neither law nor its penalties existed. But this joy, this uncon-strained love, is put into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (5.5). But the Holy Spirit is given only in, and through faith in Jesus Christ. Faith itself comes only through the Word of God, the gospel. This gospel proclaims Christ was the Son of God; that he was man; that he died and rose again for our sakes, as Paul says in chapters 3, 4 and 10.
We reach the conclusion that faith alone justifies us and fulfils the law; and this because faith brings us the spirit gained by the merits of Christ. The spirit, in turn, gives us the happiness and freedom at which the law aims; and this shows that good works really proceed from faith. That is Paul’s meaning in 3.31 when, having condemned the works of the law, he sounds as if he had meant to abrogate the law by faith; but says that, on the contrary we affirm the law through faith, i.e., we fulfil it by faith.
Sin
The word ‘sin’ means something more than the external works done by our bodily action. It means the impulses operating in the depths of our hearts. Even where nothing is done outwardly a person may still fall into complete destruction of body and soul. In particular, the Bible penetrates to the root and the very source of all sin, i.e., unbelief in the depth of the heart. Just as faith alone gives us the Spirit and the desire for doing good works, so unbelief is the sole cause of sin; it exalts the flesh, and gives the desire to do works that are plainly wrong, as happened with Adam and Eve (Genesis 3.6). Christ therefore singled out unbelief and called it sin (John 16.8f ).
Grace
The words ‘grace’ and ‘gift’ differ inasmuch as the true meaning of grace is the kindness or favour which God bears towards us of his own choice, and through which he is willing to give us Christ and to pour the Holy Spirit and his blessings upon us. Paul makes this clear in 5.15f. Nevertheless, both the gifts and spirit must be received by us daily; although even then they will be incomplete; for the old desires and sins still linger in us and strive against the spirit, as Paul says in Romans 7.
Yet grace is sufficient to enable us to be accounted entirely and completely righteous in God’s sight, because his grace does not come in portions and pieces, separately; rather it takes us up completely into its embrace for the sake of Christ our mediator and intercessor, and in order that the gifts may take root in us.
Faith
‘Faith’ is not something dreamed, a human illusion, although this is what many people understand by the term. Whenever they see that it is not followed either by an improvement in morals or by good works, while much is still being said about faith, they fall into the error of declaring that faith is not enough, that we must do ‘works’ if we are to become upright and attain salvation. The reason is that, when they hear the gospel, they miss the point; in their hearts, and out of their own resources, they conjure up ‘belief’, which they treat as genuine faith. All the same, it is but a human fabrication, an idea without a corresponding experience in the depths of the heart. It is therefore ineffective and not followed by a better kind of life.
Faith, however, is something that God effects in us. It changes us and we are reborn from God (John 1.13). Faith puts the old Adam to death and makes us quite different men in heart, in mind, and in all our powers; it is accompanied by the Holy Spirit. O, when it comes to faith, what a living, creative, active, powerful thing it is. It cannot do other than good at all times. It never waits to ask whether there is some good work to do. Rather, before the question is raised it has done the deed. A man not active in this way is a man without faith.
Faith is a living and unshakeable confidence, a belief in the grace of God, so assured that a man would die a thousand deaths for its sake. This kind of confidence in God’s grace makes us joyful, high-spirited, and eager in our relations with God and all mankind. That is what the Holy Spirit effects through faith. It is impossible, indeed, to separate works from faith, just as it is impossible to separate heat and light from fire. Beware therefore of wrong conceptions of your own. Offer up your prayers to God, and ask Him to create faith in you; otherwise you will always lack faith, no matter how you try to deceive yourself, or what your efforts and ability.
Righteousness
‘Righteousness’ means precisely the kind of faith we have in mind, and should properly be called ‘divine righteousness’, the righteousness which holds good in God’s sight, because it is God’s gift, and shapes a man’s nature to do his duty to all.
By his faith, he is set free from sin, and finds delight in God’s commandments. In the way he pays God the honour that is due to him, and renders him what he owes. Righteousness of this kind cannot be brought about in the ordinary course of nature, by our own free will, or by our own powers.
Preaching Christ
The first duty of a preacher of the gospel is to declare God’s law and describe the nature of sin. Everything is sinful that does not proceed from the spirit, or is not experienced as the outcome of faith in Christ. The preacher’s message must be to show men their own selves and their lamentable state, so as to make them humbly yearn for help. St Paul follows this plan [in Romans]. Salvation can only come to them, unearned, by virtue of faith in Christ. Christ has earned it for us through his blood. For our sakes, he has become God’s ‘mercy seat’, and so God forgives us all the sins we have committed in the past. In this way, God shows that his own righteousness, which he confers through the medium of faith, is our only help. He revealed this righteousness when the gospel was preached; but the law and prophets already testified to it. Faith, then, lends its support to the law, although at the same time it repudiates works done according to the law.
