Since Paul wants to liberate the Jews from the law, which is a veil over their faces, but does not want to appear to desire this out of any hatred for Judaism, he shows his love for them and says many good things about the law. But he teaches that the time for obeying the law has come to an end and by doing this bears witness that he is concerned for them, if only they will listen to him and not assume that he is their enemy.

Paul continues to demonstrate his deep-seated good will toward the Jews. . . . He even does his best to find excuses for them, but in the end he is overcome by the nature of the facts and cannot do so.

Here Paul begins to speak of his hope for the Jews, lest the Gentiles in their turn become condescending toward them. For just as the pride of the Jews had to be countered because they gloried in their works, so also with the Gentiles, lest they become proud at having been preferred over the Jews.

Here Paul shows that he prays for his enemies not only with the tongue but also with the heart.^[1]

If someone has a love for God but does not know that love must be patient, kind, not envious, not acting wrongly, not puffed up, not ambitious, not seeking its own and so on; if he does not have these things in his love but only loves God in his emotions, then it may rightly be said of him that he has a love for God but not according to knowledge.

I know that you [Emperor Theodo-sius I] are God-fearing, merciful, gentle and calm, that you have the faith and fear of God in your heart, but often some things escape our notice. Some people have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge. Care must be taken . . . lest this condition steal upon pious souls.

Should not the Jews be excused if they have erred because of some misguided zeal? Notice how Paul goes on to remove this excuse from them.

The Jews are zealous in pursuing the law, but they do not understand that Christ came according to the law and that they cannot be justified by the law. Indeed, it is risky to do something without knowledge, because it often turns out contrary to what was expected.

Paul adds criticism to his praise, just as food sometimes contains a hook, so that they might derive some benefit from what he had to say.

Having once been one of them himself, Paul understood and bore witness that the Jews fought against the gospel out of zeal for God, yet it was a zeal uninformed by true knowledge.

Paul says that the Jews did not accept Christ because they were mistaken, not because there was any malice on their part.

Once again, ignorance would seem to be an excuse for pardoning them. But it turns out to lead only to a stronger accusation. . . . It was from small-mindedness and a desire for power that they erred rather than from ignorance, and even their own righteousness was not based on keeping the law.

Paul said this about the Jews who because of their self-confidence rejected grace and as a result did not believe in Christ. The Jews, he says, seek to establish a righteousness of their own that comes from the law, not that the law was established by them but rather that they had placed their righteousness in the law which comes from God by supposing that they were able to fulfill this law by themselves. For they were ignorant of the righteousness of God, not that righteousness whereby God is righteous but the one which comes to man from God. ^[1] [PSEUDO-]CONSTANTIUS: By their own righteousness Paul means the law of the Pharisees. For the sacrifices of the law and the other things which were a shadow of the truth, which were to be fulfilled in Christ, ceased to operate once he had come. But this they did not want to believe. The apostle was right to talk of their own righteousness, because it was not of God but of themselves. ^[1]

Because the Jews did not know that God justifies by faith alone and because they thought they were righteous by the works of a law they did not keep, they refused to submit themselves to the forgiveness of sins, to prevent the appearance of having been sinners, as it is written: But the Pharisees, rejecting God’s purpose for themselves, refused to be baptized with John’s baptism.^[1]

When Paul talks about the Jews’ own righteousness he means their inappropriate way of keeping the law. For they were trying to keep something which was already out of date.

The Jews did not understand the intention of the law and so failed to practice it. They made up their own version and thought that that was what the law intended. They had no faith in the prophetic power of the law. They followed the bare letter, not the inner meaning—fear, not faith.

How is Christ the end of the law if he is not also the cause of it? For he who has brought in the end also created the beginning.

Christ is the end of the law, but only for those who believe. Those who do not believe and who do not have Christ do not have the end of the law and therefore cannot come to justification.

There was indeed a time long ago when attention was to be paid to these shadows and figures prescribing abstinence from foods pronounced good in their creation but forbidden by the law. When Christ, the end of the law, came, he cleared up all the ambiguities of the law and all those things which antiquity had shrouded in mystery.

Christ furnishes believers with holy righteousness, because he is the end of the law, and the law prepared the way for Christ by showing that he was the fulfillment of it, the salvation of mankind.^[1]

There is only one righteousness, which finds its fulfillment in Christ. . . . Even someone who has failed to keep the law properly will be righteous if he has Christ . . . but the man who does not have Christ is a stranger to the law as well.

On the day that one believes in Christ it is as if one has fulfilled the whole law.

This does not mean that Christ is a part of the law but rather that he is the beginning of a new life. The law has come to an end; it has ceased.

Christ fulfilled the law’s purpose by granting the righteousness which comes by faith in him to all those who accepted him.

Moses did not say that the man who practices the righteousness of the law will live forever but only that he will live by it in this life.^[1] For Christ is the end of the law, as the apostle says, and without Christ it is impossible to fulfill the righteousness of the law.^[2]

Scripture says not that he will find life through the law, in the sense that through it he will live in heaven but that he will find life through it to the extent that what he will reap what he deserves in this world.^[1]

Paul says this because the righteousness of the law of Moses did not make people guilty as long as they kept it.

Paul says that the man who fulfilled the law would enjoy the good things promised by it, that is to say, a land flowing with milk and honey.^[1]

In fact this has proved to be impossible, and therefore the law’s righteousness has failed those who tried to keep it.

Moses distinguished between two kinds of righteousness, the righteousness of faith and the righteousness of works. The latter justifies the suppliant by deeds, but the former justifies by belief alone. . . . In this age no one keeps the law perfectly without Christ. Believing in him is also implied in the law. On account of this passage some think that the Jews have earned only this present life by the works of the law, but the words of the Lord show that this is not true. When he was asked about eternal life the Lord stipulated the commandments of the law: If you would enter life, keep the commandments.^[1] From this we understand that one who kept the law at that time had everlasting life.^[2]

Comparing the law with the glory of grace, Paul says that even Moses could not have been justified by the law unless he fulfilled all the commandments of the law. ^[1] CONTRASTING TWO KINDS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. [PSEUDO-]CONSTANTIUS: Wanting to demonstrate the difference between the righteousness of the law and the righteousness of faith, the apostle calls Moses as his witness. Moses said of the righteousness of the law that the man who practiced it would live by it. But concerning the righteousness of faith, he says: Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ which means: Do not doubt but believe the command which Christ will announce in the future, when he will come to give you righteousness by faith. ^[1]

These are the words not of Moses but of the God of all things, who was using Moses as his mouthpiece.

We are not to think that Christ is in heaven in such a way as to be absent from the depths. . . . Furthermore, if someone should go down into the depths in his mind and thought, thinking that Christ is contained there and that he can somehow be called back from the dead . . . let him realize that he ought to think of Christ as he thinks of the Word, the truth and the righteousness of God. These things are not limited to a particular place but are present everywhere, nor can they be called up from the lower depths, but they can be grasped only by the mind and the intellect.

The quotation is from Deuteronomy [30:12], but the last phrase is the apostle’s own addition. He says that someone who does not doubt about the hope which is in Christ has the righteousness of faith.

The Word of God leaves believers in no doubt either about the descent of the Lord from heaven for our sake or about the resurrection from the dead and the ascent into heaven.

Here we have to bear in mind the important distinction between what is possible in theory and what is realized in practice. . . . Christ, who is the Word of God, is potentially near us and near everyone, but this is only realized in practice when I confess with my mouth that Christ is Lord and when I believe in my heart that God has raised him from the dead.

By this Paul indicates that Christ is in the heart of all men by virtue of his being the Word or reason [logos] embedded in all things by sharing in which all men are rational.

This is said in Deuteronomy [30:14] in order to show that belief [in Christ] is not all that foreign to our mind or to our nature. Even though we cannot see him with our eyes, what we believe is not out of harmony with the nature of our minds and our way of speaking.

Historically speaking, Moses said this about the law, but the apostle applies it to Christ, because the law was neither in heaven nor in the abyss. Or it may mean that Paul is ordering them to meditate constantly on the law^[1]so that they may find Christ in it.^[2] The word of faith which we preach is the New Testament.

The creed builds up in you what you ought to believe and confess in order to be saved.

The testimony of the heart is the confession of the mouth. You will be saved from past transgressions, not from future ones.

It is better for a man to be silent and be a Christian than to talk and not be one. . . . Men believe with the heart and confess with the mouth, the one unto righteousness, the other unto salvation. It is good to teach, if the teacher also does what he says.

With these twin trumpets of heart and mouth we arrive at that holy land, viz., the grace of resurrection. So let them always sound together in harmony for us, that we may always hear the voice of God. Let the utterances of the angels and prophets arouse us and move us to hasten to higher things.

What Paul previously spoke about he now makes clear. The rule of faith is to believe that Jesus is Lord and not to be ashamed to confess that God raised him from the dead and has taken him up to heaven with his body, whence he will come again.

The understanding must be strongly fixed in pious faith, and the tongue must herald forth by its confession the solid resolution of the mind.

The innumerable and multiple rites by which the Jewish people had been oppressed have been taken away, so that in the mercy of God we might attain salvation by the simplicity of a confession of faith.

Did not almost all those who disowned Christ in the presence of their persecutors keep in their hearts what they believed about him? Yet, for not making with their mouth profession of faith unto salvation they perished, except those who repented and lived again.

This condition is fulfilled at the time of baptism, when faith and profession of faith are all that is demanded for one to be baptized.

This profession of faith is the creed which you will be going over in your thoughts and repeating from memory.

We who expect to reign in everlasting righteousness can only be saved from this wicked world if while for our neighbor’s salvation we profess with our lips the faith which we carry about in our heart, we exercise a pious and careful vigilance to see that this faith in us is not sullied in any point of belief by the deceitful snares of heretics.

If faith avails for righteousness and confession for salvation, there is no distinction between the Jew who believes and the Gentile who believes.

If no one who believes in him will be put to shame, it is clear that those who sin will be, just as Adam sinned and was ashamed and hid himself.^[1] So whoever incurs the shame of sin obviously does not believe.

On the day of judgment, when everything will be examined and all false opinions and teachings will be overthrown, then those who believe in Christ will rejoice, seeing it revealed to all that what they believed is true and what was thought to be foolish was wise. For they will look at others and see that they alone are glorified and wise, when they had been considered contemptible and crazy. This will be the real test, when rewards and condemnation are decreed.^{[1] [2]} THE PENITENT THIEF. [PSEUDO-]CONSTANTIUS: Take for instance that thief who was crucified next to Christ and who confessed Christ with his heart and his mouth (the two parts of him which were free)^[1] and thus deserved to hear the reply: Today you will be with me in Paradise.^{[2] [3]}

This applies not only to the Jews but to everyone. Do not put believers to shame, therefore, on account of their former actions, since the Scripture says that they cannot be put to shame.

Israel ought not to suppose that salvation by faith is a blessing peculiar to it. For Scripture says that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, whether Jew or Gentile, whether slave or free.^[1] The universal God saves everyone without distinction, because all things belong to him. Thus we say that all things are recapitulated in Christ.^[2]

Paul says that in general everyone is lumped together because of unbelief or else exalted together because of their belief, because apart from Christ there is no salvation in God’s presence, only punishment or death. For neither the privileges of their ancestors nor the law can do the Jews any good if they do not accept the merit and promise made to them. Neither do the Gentiles have anything to boast about in the flesh, if they do not believe in Christ. . . .

Paul says that God bestows his riches not on those who believe but on those who call upon him, so that after believing the mind will not cease to ask God for what it has been taught to ask the Lord for.

Christ finds his wealth in the salvation of our souls.

There is one Lord of all, who abounds in mercy and possesses salvation, with which he is generous to all.^[1]

God himself, when he was seen by Moses, said to him: My name is the Lord.^[1] This is the Son of God, who is said to be both a messenger and God. The Son is not to be confused with the Father from whom all things come, but is to be acknowledged as the One through whom all things come and to whom all things belong.^[2] He is called God because the Father and the Son are one.^[3] He is also called an angel, because he was sent by the Father to announce the promised salvation.

The words Everyone who believes^[1] point out faith, but the words Everyone who calls upon point out confession.

By faith in Jesus Christ is granted to us both possession of the little beginning of salvation and its perfecting, which we await in hope.

As I said above, you have to believe first if you are going to have the faith to ask for anything. It is obvious that Christ cannot be believed in if he is not obeyed. It is likewise clear that whoever rejects a preacher does not accept the one who sent him either.

Paul says that salvation by the calling of the Lord is common to all but that the above mentioned rejection of this universal grace hardened the Jews, making them unable to receive the common good. As a result the mission and the message did not go to them but to the Gentiles, along with the hearing, the faith and the calling. For just as the light is by nature common to all but becomes something else to those who are blinded, so that the blind cannot see the sun, nor can the deaf hear the message when it is proclaimed, so those who have been sent to preach to the Jews have had little effect. They cannot hear the message because they have become deaf to God’s calling.

The preaching of predestination should not hinder the preaching of perseverance and progress in faith, so that those to whom it has been given to obey should hear what they ought to hear. For how will they hear without a preacher?

Those who believe rightly believe that they may call on him in whom they have believed and may be strong to do what they have learned in the precepts of the law, since faith obtains what the law commands.

God sends his angels and gathers together his elect from the four winds, that is, from the whole world.^[1] Therefore, the church must necessarily be found among the nations where it does not yet exist, but it does not necessarily follow that all who live there will believe. The promise was to all nations but not to all men of all nations, for not all have faith.

Here we have an objection raised by the Jews concerning the Gentiles, viz. , that they could not call upon God.

This is why you first learned the creed. Here is a rule of your faith which is both short and long—short in the number of words, long because of the weight of the thoughts.

It seems to me that there is some difficulty with this [verse]. For if we understand it to mean that nobody preaches because nobody is sent . . . then it would appear that the reason they are not saved is ultimately the fault of Christ for not having sent them.

But it is better for us to understand this as follows. It is as if the apostle were saying: We, the heralds and preachers of Christ, would not be able to preach, nor would we have any power to proclaim, if he who sent us were not also present with us. So if you do not want to listen to us when we preach, that is your problem, if hearing you do not believe, and not believing, you do not call on him, and not calling on him, you are not saved.

The beauty of the preacher’s feet must be understood in a spiritual, not in a physical sense. For it would make a mockery of the apostle’s meaning to suppose that the feet of the evangelists, which can be seen with the physical eye, should be regarded as beautiful in themselves. . . . Only those feet which walk in the way of life can make this claim. Given that Christ said that he is the way, you should understand that it is the feet of those evangelists who walk according to that way which deserve to be called beautiful.

Nobody can be a true apostle unless he is sent by Christ, nor will he be able to preach without a mandate to do so, for his testimony will not reflect his signs of power.

Paul quotes the prophet Nahum.^[1] By talking about feet he means the coming of the apostles who went round the world preaching the coming of the kingdom of God. For their appearance enlightened mankind by showing them the way toward peace with God, which John the Baptist had come to prepare.^[2] This is the peace to which those who believe in Christ are hastening. Then St. Simeon, seeing the discord in the world, rejoiced at the coming of the Savior, saying: Lord, now let your servant depart in peace,^[3] because the kingdom of God is peace, and all discord is taken away when everyone bows the knee to the one God.

It is clear even from the prophets that it is impossible to believe if nobody preaches the gospel.

Paul is saying that by disbelieving, the Jews are not disbelieving the apostles only but also the prophet Isaiah, who foretold many years before that they would be sent to preach the gospel.

If the heralds of these things are deemed worthy of such great admiration, how essential and how advantageous a thing the teaching of the apostles must be.

Not all the Gentiles have believed the gospel nor have all the Jews, but many have, and many more Gentiles have believed than Jews. In this passage, who has believed really means few have believed. . . . Isaiah here is speaking prophetically in the person of the apostles, to whom the work of preaching was entrusted. It was they, when they saw how few believers there were in Israel, who exclaimed: Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?

The prophets were never sent to the Gentiles. If not all those to whom the prophets were sent obeyed, how much less those to whom no one was sent!

The first part of this [verse] ought to be read as a question to which the second part is the apostle’s answer. . . . There is nothing surprising about this, for Isaiah also testifies to the small number of believers.^[1]

It is obvious that unless something is said, it can neither be heard nor believed.

The Jews were forever seeking a sign^[1] . . . but Isaiah promised them no such thing. Rather, it was by hearing that they were to believe.

From here on we have the apostle’s reply to the above questions.

It is perfectly clear to us, says Paul, following the voice of the prophet and what we have said, that there can be no faith without teaching, and the teaching of godliness is impossible unless it shows the truth about God.

Faith comes by hearing, because when we hear the holy Scriptures we believe in the teaching of the Holy Spirit. This faith is made perfect by all the things which Christ has ordained; it believes truly, it is devout and it keeps the commandments of him who has renewed us. For he who does not believe in accordance with the traditions of the catholic church or who through untoward works holds communion with the devil is without faith.

Who else have the nations of the world believed in but Christ, who has already come?

This passage, taken from Psalm 19[:4], must refer to the Gentiles.

They heard but they did not want to believe. For there are some who, in spite of the fact that they hear, do not believe. For they hear but do not understand, because their heart is blinded by wickedness.^[1] . . . If the sound of the gospel has gone out to the entire world, it is not possible that the Jews have not heard it, and so none of them can be pardoned from the sin of unbelief.

If the ends of the world have heard, how can the Jews claim that they have not?

Paul wants this passage to be understood allegorically to refer to the cries of the prophets.

It is clear that Paul did not put this here as a kind of prophecy but rather as a statement of what was actually going on at the time.

Having just spoken of the Gentiles Paul goes on, as is his custom, to talk about Israel as well. His intention is to demonstrate by suitable quotations that Israel has no excuse for its rejection of Christ.

In this passage it is true that Moses the friend of God wanted to attach blame to the people of God, but he also foresaw in the Spirit that if someone wants to be wise in this world he must become foolish, in order to be wise in the sight of God.^[1]

By calling a people foolish Paul explained what he meant by those who are not a people, viz., a foolish people ought not to be called a people at all. But he says that the Jewish people will be angered by the Gentiles’ faith, because they have received what the Jews have rejected. . . . Even though entire peoples were foolish idol worshipers, they nevertheless put away their paganism by believing. Thus Paul said: If a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?^[1] Thus he means: I will make you jealous of those who once were not a people but were made a people, because although they were once a foolish idol-worshiping people, they put aside their paganism through their faith in Christ.^[2]

Paul means here that of course Israel knew. . . . They all heard but they did not all believe.

The jealousy of the Jews arose from their envy at seeing a people which earlier had been without God and barbarous claim the Jewish God as their own and receive the promise which had originally been made to the Jews. . . . Nothing destroys a man so much as jealousy, which is why God made it the avenger of unbelief, because that is a great sin.

Israel ought to have known even on the basis of Moses alone how to tell who were the true preachers, not merely from the fact that they believed, nor from the fact that the preachers spoke of peace, nor from the fact that they brought glad tidings of good things, nor from the fact that the word was sown in all the world, but from the ironic fact that their inferiors, the Gentiles, were receiving greater honor than they had.

Israel did not understand that the Gentiles were to be called to faith. Moses is first because the prophets after him spoke of the salvation of the Gentiles. Before they believed in God, they were not God’s people. Therefore it is as if he says: I shall call those who are not my people, and they will believe in me in order to provoke you, so that although you should have been better than they are, you will be glad to be their equals. It is just as if someone has a disobedient son and in order to reform him gives half his inheritance to his slave, so that when he finally repents he may be glad if he deserves to receive even that much.

From the context, it is obvious that this must refer to the Gentiles.

Having made us aware of the words of Moses to talk about the rejection of the Jews, Paul here adds the testimony of the prophet Isaiah in order to make his point clearer still. . . . Isaiah here is speaking in the role of Christ.

The Gentiles did not enquire after God in the law but after idols in ignorance. They asked not of God but of demons through the augurs, astrologers and haruspices of the idols.

The Hebrew text does not contain the words and contrary, but here the apostle has followed the Septuagint and quoted the passage as they understood it.^[1]

The hands of the Lord lifted up to heaven were not begging for help but were sheltering us, his miserable creatures.

Here Israel refers to the Israel of the flesh, those who are children of Abraham but not according to faith. For the true Israel is spiritual and sees God by believing in him. All day long means always.

This passage may also refer to the Savior, who held out his hands on the cross to plead forgiveness for those who were killing him.^[1]

It appears from the holding out of his hands that God is calling the people to himself. It is also a sign pointing toward the form of the cross.

Throughout the period of the old dispensation, God held out his hands to the Jews to call them and draw them to himself.

The same prophet who made promises of this sort to the Gentiles issues similar warnings here to the Jews, so that you may know that both were foretold. The holding out of the hands means, allegorically, the cross.