Augustine on Romans 8:10

I am currently trying to finish a book on Augustine--an introduction to Augustine for a Protestant audience.  I am thoroughly enjoying it.  Today I was reading Augustine's On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins and on Infant Baptism.  He is arguing against the Pelagian argument that Adam would have died, whether he sinned or not.  In do doing, he gets to Romans 8:10.

Augustine then writes:

But he in fact said that the body is dead on account of sin and the spirit is life on account of righteousness, assigning different recompenses to different things: to the body of death the punishment of sin, but to the life of the spirit the reward of righteousness. Hence, it is beyond doubt that the spirit is life on account of righteousness (Rom 8:10), that is, as a reward of righteousness. How else then ought we or can we understand the words, the body is dead on account of sin, except as the punishment of sin, unless, of course, we are going to try to twist and distort the perfectly clear meaning of scripture as we choose? The following words also throw light on this. In describing the grace of the present era, he said that the body was indeed dead on account of sin, because the punishment of sin, that is, the necessity of death, remains in the body which has not yet been renewed by the resurrection. But the spirit is life on account of righteousness, because, although we are still burdened by the body of this death (Rom 7:24), we already breathe more easily in terms of the interior human being (Rom 7:22), since we have begun to be renewed in the righteousness that comes from faith. Nonetheless, so that human ignorance might not be without any hope for the resurrection of the body, he says that the very body which he called dead in the present world on account of the punishment of sin will be brought to life in the world to come on account of the reward of righteousness. And it will be brought to life, not merely in the sense that it will become alive after being dead, but in the sense that it will become immortal after being mortal.

Details

Written by Brad Green Brad Green

Category: Uncategorised Uncategorised

Published: 16 November 2016 16 November 2016

Hits: 4441 4441