Sermon 158
SERMO 158
ON THE WORDS OF THE APOSTLE (ROM 8:30-31):
"Those whom He predestined, He also called;"
And those whom He called, He also justified, etc.
"If God is for us, who is against us?"
AGAINST THE PELAGIANS
No one is able to harm the predestined.
We have heard the blessed apostle exhorting and strengthening us, when he said to us: If God is for us, who can be against us? And for whom God is, he showed earlier, where he says: Those whom he predestined, he also called; and those whom he called, he also justified; and those whom he justified, he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? God is for us to predestine us; God is for us to call us; God is for us to justify us; God is for us to glorify us. If God is for us, who can be against us? He predestined, before we were; he called, when we were turned away; he justified, when we were sinners; he glorified, when we were mortals. If God is for us, who can be against us? To those predestined by God, called, justified, glorified, whoever wants to oppose, let him prepare himself, if he can fight against God. For where have we heard: If God is for us, who can be against us? unless he who conquers God, does not harm us. And who is it that conquers the Almighty? Whoever wishes to resist, harms himself. This is what Christ also called out from heaven to Saul, still Paul: It is hard for you to kick against the goad. Let him rage, rage as much as he can; he who kicks against the goad, does he not rage against himself?
God has become a debtor to us because of the promises.
In these four notable matters commended by the Apostle, which pertain to those for whom God is—namely, predestination, calling, justification, glorification; in these four matters, therefore, we must consider what we already possess and what we still await. In these things that we already have, let us praise God the giver; in these things that we do not yet have, let us hold Him as a debtor. For He has been made a debtor, not by receiving anything from us, but by promising what pleased Him. In one sense, we say to a man: You owe me because I gave you; and in another sense, we say: You owe me because you promised me. When you say: You owe me because I gave you, the benefit came from you, but it was lent, not given. But when you say: You owe me because you promised me, you gave nothing, yet you still demand. The goodness of him who promised will give, lest faith turn into wickedness. For he who deceives is wicked, but shall we say to God: Give back to me because I gave to you? What have we given to God when everything we are and all the good we have, we have from Him? Therefore, we have given Him nothing. There is no way we can demand God as a debtor with this voice, especially since the Apostle says to us: For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor? Or who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid? Therefore, we can demand from our Lord in this manner, saying: Give what you promised, because we have done what you commanded; and this you have done, because you have helped those who labor.
We have been called and predestined by grace.
Therefore, let no one say: God called me because I worshiped God. How could you have worshipped if you had not been called? If God called you because you worshipped Him, then you gave first, and He repaid you. Does not the Apostle take away this thought from you when he says: Or who has first given to Him, that it should be repaid to him? But behold, when you were called, you already existed. How would you have been predestined if you did not exist? What did you give to God when you did not yet exist to give anything? What then did God do when He predestined you who did not exist? As the Apostle says: Who calls things that are not as though they were. If you already existed, you would not be predestined; if you were not turned away, you would not be called; if you were not impious, you would not be justified; if you were not earthly and abject, you would not be glorified. Who then has first given to Him that it should be repaid to him? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. What then do we repay? To Him be the glory. Because we did not exist when we were predestined; because we were turned away when we were called; because we were sinners when we were justified; let us give thanks to God and not remain ungrateful.
Whether we are now justified. The struggle remaining here in the justified.
But we had proposed to consider from these four things what we have already achieved, what we still expect to obtain. For we were predestined even before we existed. We were called when we became Christians. Therefore, we already have this as well. Justified, what? What is it: justified? Dare we say that we already have this third thing? And will any of us dare to say: I am righteous? For I think that this is: I am righteous, which is: I am not a sinner. If you dare to say this, John confronts you: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. What then? Do we have nothing of righteousness? Or do we have something, but not all of it? Let us therefore seek this. For if we have something, and we do not have something; let what we have grow, and what we do not have will be fulfilled. See, men are baptized, all their sins are forgiven them, they are justified from their sins; we cannot deny this: yet there remains a struggle with the flesh, there remains a struggle with the world, there remains a struggle with the devil. But he who struggles, sometimes strikes, sometimes is struck; sometimes wins, sometimes is killed; it is considered how he leaves the stadium. For if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Likewise, if we say that we have nothing of righteousness, we lie against the gifts of God. For if we have nothing of righteousness, we do not have faith either; if we do not have faith, we are not Christians. But if we have faith, we already have something of righteousness. Do you want to know how much that something is? The righteous lives by faith; the righteous, I say, lives by faith; because he believes what he does not see.
Justification truly through faith.
Fathers, holy rams, leaders of the Apostles, when they announced, not only did they see with their eyes, but they also handled with their hands; and yet the Lord preserving for us the gift of faith, to one of his disciples handling, touching, seeking and finding the truth with his fingers, exclaiming: My Lord and my God; the Lord himself and God said: Because you have seen, you have believed. And looking towards us in the future: Blessed, he said, are those who have not seen and believed. We have not seen, we have heard, and we have believed. We have been called blessed, and do we have nothing of righteousness? The Lord came in the flesh to the Jews, and was killed; he did not come to us, and he was accepted. A people whom I did not know served me, upon hearing with their ear they obeyed me. We are they, and do we have nothing of righteousness? We certainly do have. Let us be grateful for what we have: so that what we do not have may be added, and what we have may not be lost. Therefore, even this third thing is now performed in us. We have been justified: but that righteousness itself, as we progress, grows. And how it grows, I will say, and in a way discuss with you; so that each of you now established in that justification, having received the remission of sins through the washing of regeneration, having received the Holy Spirit, progressing day by day, may see where you are, approach, progress, and grow, until you are consummated, not to end, but to be perfected.
Faith that justifies is distinguished from the faith of demons by hope and charity.
Man begins with faith; what pertains to faith? To believe. But let this faith still be distinguished from unclean spirits. To faith, what pertains? To believe. But the apostle James says: Even the demons believe, and shudder. If you only believe and live without hope, or do not have love: Even the demons believe, and shudder. What great thing is it, if you say Christ is the Son of God? Peter said this, and heard: Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah; the demons said this, and heard: Be silent. Peter is blessed and hears: Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. The demons, however, hear: Be silent; they say the same words, but are repelled. The voice is the same: but the Lord questions the root, not the flower. Hence it is said to the Hebrews: Let no root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled. Therefore, first distinguish your faith from the faith of demons. How do you distinguish it? The demons said it fearing, Peter said it loving. Add, therefore, hope to your faith. And what is hope, if not from some goodness of conscience? And to this hope, add love. We have the most excellent way, as the Apostle says: I show you a more excellent way: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal; and he enumerates other good things, confirming that without love they profit nothing. Therefore, these three remain, faith, hope, love: but the greatest of these is love. Pursue love. Therefore, distinguish your faith. You are already among the predestined, called, justified. The Apostle Paul says: Neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith. Say more, Apostle, add, distinguish; because: Even the demons believe and shudder; therefore add and distinguish, for the demons believe and shudder regarding what they hate. Apostles distinguish, circumcise my faith, and discern my cause from an unholy people. Clearly, he distinguishes, discerns, and circumcises. And faith, he says, which works through love.
Free worship of God. Who alone satisfies the soul.
Therefore, each one, my brothers, should inspect himself inwardly, weigh himself, test himself in all his deeds, in his good works, which he does with charity, not expecting temporal retribution, but the promise of God, the face of God. For whatever God promises you is worth nothing besides God himself. God would not satisfy me at all, unless he promised me himself, God. What is the whole earth? What is the whole sea? What is the whole sky? What are all the stars? What is the sun? What is the moon? What is the army of angels? I thirst for the Creator of all these: I hunger for him, I thirst for him, I say to him: For with you is the fountain of life. He who says to me: I am the bread that came down from heaven. My pilgrimage hungers and thirsts, so that I may be satisfied by his presence. The world smiles upon many things, beautiful, strong, varied: he who made them is more beautiful, stronger and brighter is he who made them, he who made them is sweeter. I will be satisfied when your glory is revealed. Therefore, if the faith that works through love is in you, you already belong to the predestined, the called, the justified: therefore let it grow in you. For faith that works through love cannot exist without hope. But when we come, will there still be faith there? Will it be said to us: Believe? Certainly not. We will see him, we will gaze upon him. Beloved, we are children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be. Because it has not yet been revealed, hence faith. We are children of God, predestined, called, justified; we are children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be. Therefore, for now, faith, before it is revealed what we shall be. We know that when he is revealed, we shall be like him. Is it because we believe? No. Why then? Because we shall see him as he is.
Hope, in this pilgrimage, comfort.
What is hope? Will it be there? Hope will no longer exist when the reality comes into being. For indeed, this hope is necessary for our journey, it is what comforts us along the way. For when the traveler labors in walking, he tolerates the labor because he hopes to arrive. Take away from him the hope of arrival, and immediately the strength of walking is broken. Therefore, even the hope that is here pertains to the righteousness of our journey. Listen to the Apostle himself: "We ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption." Where there is groaning, that happiness cannot yet be said to exist, about which Scripture says, "Labor and groaning have passed away." Therefore, he says, "we groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our bodies." We still groan. Why? For we are saved by hope. But hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. In this patience, therefore, the martyrs were crowned; they desired what they did not see, they despised what they endured. In this hope they said: "Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation? Or distress? Or persecution? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or sword? Because of you." And where is the one for whom this is done? "Because of you," he says, "we are put to death all day long." Because of you. And where is it written, "Blessed are they who have not seen and have believed?" Look, where it is — it is within you, because even faith itself is within you. Does the Apostle deceive us, who says, "Christ dwells in our hearts by faith?" Now by faith, but then by sight: now by faith, as long as we are on the way, as long as we are in exile. For as long as we are in the body, we are away from the Lord; for we walk by faith, not by sight.
God will be all in all to the blessed. Charity alone always remains.
If this is faith, what shall be the vision? Listen to what it shall be: That God may be all in all. What does it mean: all in all? Whatever you were seeking here, whatever you esteemed greatly here, He Himself will be for you. What did you desire here, what did you love? To eat and to drink? He Himself will be food for you, He Himself will be drink for you. What did you desire here? Frail and fleeting bodily health? He Himself will be immortality for you. What did you seek here? Riches? Greedily, what then will suffice for you if God Himself does not suffice? But what did you love? Glory, honors? God will be glory for you: to whom it is also now said: My glory, and the one lifting up my head. Indeed, He has already lifted up my head. Our head is Christ. But why are you amazed? Because the head and the other members will be exalted; then God will be all in all. Thus we believe, thus we hope: when we arrive, we shall hold; and it will be vision, not faith: when we arrive, we shall hold, and it will be reality, not hope. What about love? Indeed, will it exist now and not then? If we love by believing and not seeing; how will we love by seeing and holding? Therefore, love will be, but it will be perfect; as the Apostle says: Faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. Having and nurturing this, confidently persevering in it with His help, let us say: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? until He Himself has mercy, He Himself perfects. Tribulation? Distress? Hunger? Nakedness? Peril? Sword? For your sake, we are put to death all day long, we are accounted as sheep for slaughter. And who endures? Who tolerates all? But in all these things we conquer. How? Through Him who loved us. Therefore, If God is for us, who can be against us?