(42.) God’s Promises Conditional. Saints of the Old Testament Were Saved by the Grace of Christ.

He, however, thought he had discovered a great support for his cause in the prophet Isaiah; because by him God said: “If ye be willing, and hearken unto me, ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye be not willing, and hearken not to me, the sword shall devour you: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken this.”216    Isa. i. 19, 20. As if the entire law were not full of conditions of this sort; or as if its commandments had been given to proud men for any other reason than that “the law was added because of transgression, until the seed should come to whom the promise was made.”217    Gal. iii. 19. “It entered, therefore, that the offence might abound; but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.”218    Rom. v. 20. In other words, That man might receive commandments, trusting as he did in his own resources, and that, failing in these and becoming a transgressor, he might ask for a deliverer and a saviour; and that the fear of the law might humble him, and bring him, as a schoolmaster, to faith and grace. Thus “their weaknesses being multiplied, they hastened after;”219    Ps. xvi. 4. and in order to heal them, Christ in due season came. In His grace even righteous men of old believed, and by the same grace were they holpen; so that with joy did they receive a foreknowledge of Him, and some of them even foretold His coming,—whether they were found among the people of Israel themselves, as Moses, and Joshua the son of Nun, and Samuel, and David, and other such; or outside that people, as Job; or previous to that people, as Abraham, and Noah, and all others who are either mentioned or not in Holy Scripture. “For there is but one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus,”220    1 Tim. ii. 5. without whose grace nobody is delivered from condemnation, whether he has derived that condemnation from him in whom all men sinned, or has afterwards aggravated it by his own iniquities.

42. Magnum autem aliquid pro sua causa se invenisse arbitratus est apud Isaiam prophetam, quia Deus dixit, Si volueritis et audieritis me, quae bona sunt terrae manducabitis; si autem nolueritis et non audieritis me, gladius vos comedet. Os enim Domini locutum est haec. Quasi non lex tota hujusmodi conditionibus plena sit: aut ob aliud superbis praecepta ista data sint, nisi quia lex praevaricationis gratia posita est, donec veniret semen cui promissum est (Galat. III, 19). Unde subintravit ut abundaret delictum; et ubi abundavit delictum; superabundavit gratia (Rom. V, 20): id est, ut acciperet homo praecepta, superbe de suis viribus fidens, in quibus deficiens et factus etiam praevaricator, liberatorem salvatoremque requireret; atque ita eum timor legis humilem factum, tanquam paedagogus ad fidem gratiamque perduceret. Ita multiplicatis infirmitatibus postea acceleraverunt (Psal. XV, 4), quibus sanandis opportune Christus advenit. In cujus gratiam etiam justi antiqui crediderunt, eadem ipsa gratia ejus adjuti, ut gaudentes eum praenoscerent, et quidam etiam praenuntiarent esse venturum: vel in illo populo Israel, sicut Moyses, et Jesus Nave, et Samuel, et David, et caeteri tales; vel extra ipsum populum, sicut Job; vel ante ipsum populum, sicut Abraham, sicut Noe, et quicumque alii sunt, quos vel commemorat vel tacet Scriptura divina. Unus enim Deus, et unus mediator Dei et hominum, homo Christus Jesus (I Tim. II, 5), sine cujus gratia nemo a condemnatione liberatur, sive quam traxit ex illo in quo omnes peccaverunt, sive quam postea suis iniquitatibus addidit.