“As David also termeth the blessedness of a man, to whom God reputeth justice without works: ‘Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord hath not imputed sin.’ This blessedness then, doth it remain in the circumcision only, or in the uncircumcision also? For we say that unto Abraham faith was reputed to justice. How then was it reputed? When he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.”
The blessed Apostle then pulls in another Old Testament source for the sake of the Jewish Christians in Rome, a Psalm of David, that it is in the forgiveness of sin, a restoring of friendship, rather than in greatness of virtue, works of the law, or personal merit, that blessedness consists. This reference to Psalm 31 indicates it, because by saying “whose iniquities are forgiven” there is termed the forgiveness of venial sin, “sins are covered” the forgiveness of mortal sin, “to whom the Lord hath not imputed sin” the healing of original sin. All three are swallowed up like sticks cast into the endless inferno of God’s merciful love: “And behold a fire, coming forth from the Lord, devoured the holocaust, and the fat that was upon the altar: which when the multitude saw, they praised the Lord, falling on their faces” (Leviticus 9:24). Because it is man alone who failed in the mutual relationship with God, it is God alone who restores this relationship, and in forgiving your sin with a word, He opens the door for a relationship of love to be established: “If we walk in the light, as he also is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Blessed are you then, Theophila, who have cast your sins into this furnace, forgetting them: “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremias 31:34), and instead walking in joy and love with your God: “I will shew thee, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requireth of thee: Verily, to do judgement, and to love mercy, and to walk solicitous with thy God” (Micheas 6:8). Some thought this blessedness to be only open to the circumcised, which St. Paul refutes, as this walk prefigures even Abraham: “And all the days of Henoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And he walked with God” (Genesis 5:23-24), but is seen in a particular way with the father of the Jewish people. Abraham received his justification by faith, and walked with God before his circumcision, for Abraham heeds the voice of God and obeys him in Genesis 12: “And the Lord said to Abram: Go forth out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and out of thy father’s house, and come into the land which I shall shew thee… So Abram went out as the Lord had commanded him” (Genesis 12:1, 4), was deemed just in Genesis 15: “Abram believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice” (Genesis 15:6), but only received circumcision in Genesis 17: “This is my covenant which you shall observe, between me and you, and thy seed after thee: All the male kind of you shall be circumcised” (Genesis 17:10). Therefore, the love of God is seen not to be confined to the act of circumcision, but open as a treasure for all who hear his word and turn to Him: “The Lord will open his excellent treasure, the heaven, that it may give rain in due season: and he will bless all the works of thy hands” (Deuteronomy 28:12); “The same is Lord over all, rich unto all that call upon him” (Romans 10:12).