For to the one who works, it is not accounted by mercy, but rendered as a debt. The wage he has earned is given according to righteousness. To the one who works, the reward is not accounted according to grace. That is, what is rendered to him is not said to be adjudged to him according to grace. Rather, it is said to be his wage, and it is given not according to grace, but "as a debt," because righteousness requires it. If this was not said of Abraham, then it means that works did not govern everything in his case. If it is said, "he believed, and it was accounted," then the chief thing here is faith. To say, "faith is accounted for righteousness," is possible only of one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly. Therefore the whole force here lies in faith.
This fully determines the meaning of the present texts. Yet to understand them completely, one must define more precisely what the Apostle means by the one who works and the one who believes, and by working and faith. What are working and faith? Although the Apostle contrasts the one who works with one who does not work, and regards the one who does not work as equivalent to the believer, the whole course of the discourse shows something else. For him, the believer does not mean one who does nothing, but one who not only believes, but lives in the spirit of faith. For below (see Rom 4:11-12), after indicating that Abraham became through faith the father both of the uncircumcised and of the circumcised, he adds an explanation. By the latter he means not only those who are of the circumcision, but those who walk in the steps of faith. To walk in the steps of faith means to live in the spirit of faith. Therefore faith signifies not merely the mental acknowledgment that something is true, but rather a characteristic of life. By contrast, working must now be understood not as works alone, but rather as the character of works, the spirit of working, or the spirit of an active life. It follows that here the Apostle contrasts one spirit of life with another.
What are these spirits? Let us again take the word "believer." What features does the Apostle ascribe to him here? He says, "to the one who believes in Him who justifies," επί τον δικαιοΰντα. To believe with επί means to be established on someone by faith. It means to rely on someone with unshakable assurance. It means, by the power of faith in someone, to be filled with the same feeling of safety as one who stands on a granite cliff amid waves raging around him. Therefore the believer is the one who does everything required, but bases his assurance of salvation and justification not on works, but on faith in God. He believes that the One whom he serves with all his soul and all his heart, in His goodness, will not allow him to perish, but will save and justify him.
After this, the one who works is defined by contrast with the believer. He is one who believes that there is a God, Creator, Provider, and Rewarder, who is well pleased with those who serve Him. Yet he has the support of his assurance of salvation and justification not in the goodness and power of God, who saves and justifies those who serve Him. He has it in the works that he manages to do while serving God. Here only the main characteristic features of the spirit of the believer and the worker are indicated. Faith in the first is not without works, and works in the second are not without faith. Their difference lies in what they rely on for the hope of salvation. Faith relies on faith, without neglecting works. Working relies on works, without abandoning faith.
Such are they in essence. But in experience they may appear with different shades. One believer may incline so far toward faith that he completely neglects works. Then faith remains without works. Likewise one worker may become so absorbed in works that he forgets faith and accounts it as nothing. Then works remain without faith in God. These are the extremes in the manifestations of the believing and working spirit. On one side there are faith with works and works with faith. On the other side there are faith without works and works without faith. Between them, each spirit appears in different forms, depending on the degree to which works are joined to faith and faith to works.
The normal spirit is this: faith with unremitting working, while relying on faith. All other manifestations of life are deviations from this norm and must be rejected. Unremitting working with faith, while relying on works, could have a place if it were possible to accomplish everything that is due. But since this is impossible, this spirit, for all its fair appearance, is alien to truth. It leads into destructive delusion by placing a rotten support beneath the chief part of the building. Therefore the norm is faith with unremitting working, while relying on faith.
That faith here is not alone, but with works or with a firm resolve for works, is made clear by the words, "to the one who believes in Him who justifies the ungodly." Ungodliness embraces all violations of due relations to God and of every will of His, and therefore unbelief also. Thus ungodliness excludes faith. Consequently, the reverse is also true: faith excludes ungodliness. The believer ceases to be ungodly. Therefore, when the holy Apostle speaks of one who believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, he means not another ungodly man, but this very believer. He gives us to understand that this believer ceased to be ungodly at the same time that he believed.
Whom exactly does the Apostle mean here? He means one who was ungodly, but, having accepted faith, turned away from ungodliness and resolved from then on always to live piously. God receives such a convert with merciful Fatherly embraces, as is depicted in the parable of the prodigal. For the sake of his faith, God forgets his former ungodliness. He receives this faith in place of all the righteous works that the man ought to have shown throughout the whole time of his ungodliness. At that moment, faith alone replaces every righteousness. Thus faith cuts off all past ungodliness and covers it. It makes it as though it did not exist, and thereby draws the accounting of righteousness. But if faith cuts off ungodliness, this means that, by the very essence of faith, the believer ceases to act ungodly from the moment he receives faith and begins to live piously. That is, he becomes right in heart.
Does this, however, suppose complete sinlessness? No. For there is another law in the members, drawing one toward what one does not want. What then is to be done with this intrusion of unrighteousness into the realm of righteousness? It too is covered by the same faith that covers all ungodliness before the moment of faith. This occurs because of repentance and because of the heart's constant desire for righteousness and unwillingness toward unrighteousness. Therefore, if there are righteous people before the face of God, they are only believers. For the sake of faith, God accounts righteousness to them when, together with faith, there is present in the heart the rejection of every ungodliness and unrighteousness, and the desire for every righteousness.
Yet faith manifests such power not by its own essence, but by the goodness of God, who is pleased to unite such effects with faith. This is the direct work of grace, not a due recompense. Recompense is given to work as payment, and it is given according to the measure of the work. If you have done a ruble's worth, take a ruble. But to faith, although it is itself an exalted act of the spirit, there is not given a reward for this work. Rather, merciful mercy is shown. Opposite works stand wages and recompense according to debt. Opposite faith stand mercy and the accounting of righteousness according to grace.
Why is this so? Because of the spirit of the worker and the believer. The worker believes, but relies entirely on works. Therefore he is repaid for works: take what you sought and wished to earn, what you earned, and in the measure you earned it. The believer, however, works unremittingly, but does not rely on works, only on mercy. Therefore he is given not according to the measure of works, but according to the measure of mercy. He ascribes no significance to works. He has them neither in memory nor in his hopes. He relies wholly on the mercy of the One in whom he believes. He passes beyond God's righteousness and enters the realm of God's mercy. The mercy of God is the treasury of gifts according to mercy alone. Since it is boundless, it gives without any limits, not according to what one has earned, but according to what one can contain.
Thus a gift according to grace corresponds to faith, without any calculation according to works. This is not because faith has no works, for faith without works is not faith. Rather, it is because faith does not rely on works, even though it is rich in them. One might think: what is this? Is there unrighteousness with God? One man sweats over works and receives only according to the measure of works, while another merely believes and receives without measure? But it is impossible to believe sincerely without readiness for every work. It is impossible to believe, or to keep faith, without unremitting working in the spirit of faith. Faith completes and fulfills works. Therefore it is higher than they are and is the most perfect act of the spirit. If it is higher, then it is just that it receive more.
"The one who works," writes blessed Theophylact, "receives the wage as something given to him for labor as a debt. But the believer, although he does not work, that is, does not rely on works, nevertheless presents faith on his part, a thing of very great significance. For to be convinced that God can not only free one living in ungodliness from punishment, but also make him righteous, is an act of high worth." Therefore the believer cannot be considered one who does not work, by reason of the very significance and height of the act of faith. Saint Chrysostom says: "It would not be accounted to the believer if nothing had been done on his side. The believer too has God as his debtor, and this debt is not slight, but significant and of high worth."
THEOSIS