Romans 5:8

18. Moreover, we do not prejudge when the Lord is to be the judge; save that if He shall find the repentance of the sinners full and sound, He will then ratify what shall have been here determined by us. If, however, any one should delude us with the pretence of repentance, God, who is not mocked, and who looks into man’s heart, will judge of those things which we have imperfectly looked into, and the Lord will amend the sentence of His servants; while yet, dearest brother, we ought to remember that it is written, “A brother that helpeth a brother shall be exalted;” and that the apostle also has said, “Let all of you severally have regard to yourselves, lest ye also be tempted. …

14. Since those also which are called our deserts, are His gifts. For, that faith may work by love, “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” And He was then given, when Jesus was glorified by the resurrection. For then He promised that He Himself would send Him, and He sent Him; because then, as it was written and foretold of Him, “He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.” These gifts constitute our deserts, by which we arrive at the chief good of an immortal blessedness. “But God,” says the apostle, “commendeth His love towards as, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. …

21. Why then should the death of Christ not have come to pass? Nay, rather, why should not that death itself have been chosen above all else to be brought to pass, to the passing by of the other innumerable ways which He who is omnipotent could have employed to free us; that death, I say, wherein neither was anything diminished or changed from His divinity, and so great benefit was conferred upon men, from the humanity which He took upon Him, that a temporal death, which was not due, was rendered by the eternal Son of God, who was also the Son of man, whereby He might free them from an eternal death which was due? The devil was holding fast our sins, and through them was fixing us deservedly in death. He discharged them, who had none of His own, and who was led by him to death undeservedly. …

For the man who wishes to give aims as he ought, should begin with himself, and give to himself first. For almsgiving is a work of mercy; and most truly is it said, “To have mercy on thy soul is pleasing to God.” And for this end are we born again, that we should be pleasing to God, who is justly displeased with that which we brought with us when we were born. This is our first alms, which we give to ourselves when, through the mercy of a pitying God, we find that we are ourselves wretched, and confess the justice of His judgment by which we are made wretched, of which the apostle says, “The judgment was by one to condemnation;” and praise the greatness of His love, of which the same preacher of grace says, “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us:” and thus judging truly of our own misery, and loving God with the love which He has Himsel …

7. Moreover, what greater reason is apparent for the advent of the Lord than that God might show His love in us, commending it powerfully, inasmuch as “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”? And furthermore, this is with the intent that, inasmuch as charity is “the end of the commandment,” and “the fulfilling of the law,” we also may love one another and lay down our life for the brethren, even as He laid down His life for us. And with regard to God Himself, its object is that, even if it were an irksome task to love Him, it may now at least cease to be irksome for us to return His love, seeing that “He first loved us,” and “spared not His own only Son, but delivered Him up for us all.” For there is no mightier invitation to love than to anticipate in loving; and that soul is over hard which, supposing it unwilling indeed to give love, is unwilling also to give the return of lov …

Likewise because it belongs to divine judgment, not human, what sort of punishment and how great is due to every fault, it is thus written: "O the height of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! how inscrutable are His judgments and his ways past finding out!" Likewise because by the goodness of God sins are forgiven to the converted, the very fact that Christ was sent sufficiently shows, who not in His own nature as God, but in our nature, which He assumed from a woman, died for us; which goodness of God with reference to us, and which love of God, the apostle thus sets forth: "But God commendeth His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us; much more now being justified in His blood we shall be saved from wrath through Him. …

But on account of what does the same apostle say, that we are reconciled to God by Christ, except on account of what we had become enemies? And what is this but sin? Whence also the prophet says, “Your sins separate between you and God.” On account of this separation, therefore, the Mediator was sent, that He might take away the sin of the world, by which we were separated as enemies, and that we, being reconciled, might be made from enemies children. About this, certainly, the apostle was speaking; hence it happened that he interposed what he says, “That sin entered by one man.” For these are his former words. He says, “But God commendeth His love towards us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more, then, being now justified in His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. …

6. The love, therefore, wherewith God loveth, is incomprehensible and immutable. For it was not from the time that we were reconciled unto Him by the blood of His Son that He began to love us; but He did so before the foundation of the world, that we also might be His sons along with His Only-begotten, before as yet we had any existence of our own. Let not the fact, then, of our having been reconciled unto God through the death of His Son be so listened to or so understood, as if the Son reconciled us to Him in this respect, that He now began to love those whom He formerly hated, in the same way as enemy is reconciled to enemy, so that thereafter they become friends, and mutual love takes the place of their mutual hatred; but we were reconciled unto Him who already loved us, but with whom we were at enmity because of our sin. …

9. “Let us love, because He first loved us.” For how should we love, except He had first loved us? By loving we became friends: but He loved us as enemies, that we might be made friends. He first loved us, and gave us the gift of loving Him. We did not yet love Him: by loving we are made beautiful. If a man deformed and ill-featured love a beautiful woman, what shall he do? Or what shall a woman do, if, being deformed and ill-featured and black-complexioned, she love a beautiful man? By loving can she become beautiful? Can he by loving become handsome? He loves a beautiful woman, and when he sees himself in a mirror, he is ashamed to lift up his face to her his lovely one of whom he is enamored. What shall he do that he may be beautiful? Does he wait for good looks to come? Nay rather, by waiting old age is added to him, and makes him uglier. …

10. “My righteous help is from the Lord, who maketh whole the upright in heart” ( ver. 10 ). The offices of medicine are twofold, on the curing infirmity, the other the preserving health. According to the first it was said in the preceding Psalm, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak;” according to the second it is said in this Psalm, “If there be iniquity in my hands, if I have repaid them that recompense me evil, may I therefore fall by my enemies empty.” For there the weak prays that he may be delivered, here one already whole that he may not change for the worse. According to the one it is there said, “Make me whole for Thy mercy’s sake;” according to this other it is here said, “Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness.” For there he asks for a remedy to escape from disease; but here for protection from falling into disease. …

34. “Command, O God, Thy Virtue” ( ver. 28 ). For one is our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we in Him, of whom we read that He is “the Virtue of God and the Wisdom of God.” But how doth God command His Christ, save while He commendeth Him? For “God commendeth His love in us, in that while yet we were sinners, for us Christ died.” “How hath He not also with Him given to us all things?” “Command, O God, Thy Virtue: confirm, O God, that which Thou hast wrought in us.” Command by teaching, confirm by aiding.

2. “Bow down Thine ear, O Lord, and hear me” ( ver. 1 ). He speaks in the form of a servant: speak thou, O servant, in the form of thy Lord: “Bow down Thine ear, O Lord.” He bows down His ear, if thou dost not lift up thy neck: for unto the humble He draweth near: from him that is exalted He removes afar off, except whom He Himself hath exalted from being humble. God then bows down His ear unto us. For He is above, we below: He in a high place, we in a lowly one, yet not deserted. “For while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. For scarcely for a just man will one die: yet for a good man peradventure one would even dare to die:” but our Lord died for the wicked. For no merits of ours had gone before, for which the Son of God should die: but the more, because there were no merits, was His mercy great. …