The Urgency of Good Works

Knowing that the time is pressing and that virtue is required, those who formerly were ignorant of the truth and were passing through the night and darkness of error were appropriately like those sleeping in the inaction of good works; but those who have now been enlightened by the memory of the Savior and have come into the day owe it to themselves to rise from the laziness of sleep and to lay hold of good works.

For our salvation is now nearer to us than when we first believed, that is, when we knew those works which are most profitable; it has become easier for us to be saved than when we were being catechized on the word of faith, for we did not at once possess belief in Christ and the precise grasp of what must be practiced, nor was it previously manifest to us which deeds we should abstain from and which deeds were fitting to adopt (Rom 13:12).

Night and darkness are called ignorance, which he says we were running through until we were made known to the practices (Rom 13:12), but day and light are the precise knowledge of pious truth. But the Savior, having said, 'Until it is day, work the works of light; night comes when no one is able to work' (John 9:4), urged the conduct in this life as providing us the time for works, but referred to the night as the things to come and the eternal, as when it is no longer possible to do anything, but as being in darkness in inaction, having lost the time for works.

Instead of merely imitating him in what you do, 'put on the Lord Jesus Christ,' he says, and show him through you in how you live (Rom 13:14). How then would anyone imitate Christ? He showed this by saying, 'Do not provide for the flesh for the sake of lusts'; for he who is occupied with the flesh and fulfilling the pleasures of the flesh certainly neglects the soul. 'Who are you, you who judge another's household?' (Rom 14:4). The household of Christ, which Christ received, is a stranger to the law. Who then are you, judging from the law the one who is a stranger to the law? Now he speaks concerning fasting (Rom 14:6); he says that both the one fasting, consuming the day in thinking and seeking divine things for the Lord, and the one thinking on the Lord, does this by having his hopes upon him.

Likewise, he who wastes the day not on thinking but on the enjoyment of filth—and this one does not think toward the Lord, as his laziness and his laxity toward God become—this one is not even cast away; for he does not do this by abandoning or denying the Master, but by being bold in the philanthropy of God in whatever things he may be lazy or think to be lax. So, let him who eats give thanks to the Lord for those things of which he enjoys, and let him who does not eat glorify God rightly for the self-control which he has, strengthening him. Even if someone eats according to God, or fasts according to God, he will do well.

For this, he says, Christ both died and rose and lived, so that he might rule both the dead and the living (Rom 14:7–9). What then? Was Christ not Lord of all before the passion? But he was. What then is the surplus from the humanization? Because in truth and by nature he was Master of the one who made the things made, but to the turning away of the ungodly he was not. Regarding those who worship the creation rather than the Creator, he was not considered to be ruling, but the things worshiped by them; so that his incarnate presence brought those who were with him and those who will be with him under the lordship of God, but his presence remaining until death, showing the economy by the departure of those who perished in ignorance of salvation, and he broke through the bonds of death, and became the firstfruits of the resurrection.

I know and am persuaded, he says, that nothing is common through himself, that is, nothing is common and unclean through the faith received toward Christ Jesus (Rom 14:14). It is good, he says, not to eat meat, if your brother is scandalized by this, thinking you to be a slave to the stomach (Rom 14:21). And from the opposite again: if not eating meat, you might seem to abstain from unclean things, eat so that you may not be found a stumbling block to others (Rom 14:21).

He who does not judge himself; this is the one touching the filth with faith, whom he also blesses as faithful, but the one having a soul irregular concerning faith and not being bold in himself but wavering, if he eats, he is condemned (Rom 14:22–23). So it is better for such a one to abstain, so that he may not strike his own conscience. He wishes to say that our Lord and Savior did not please himself, but incarnated so that he might have compassion on weak men and through the incarnate economy bring them to a firm godliness (Rom 15:3).