37 But why do we argue, and why are we eager to frame a clever and victorious reply to our opponent? “Old things have passed away, behold all things have become new.” I will run through the utterances of the Apostles, and as to the instances afforded by Solomon I added short expositions to facilitate their being understood, so now I will go over the passages bearing on Christian purity and continence, and will make of many proofs a connected series. By this method I shall succeed in omitting nothing relating to chastity, and shall avoid being tediously long.
Amongst other passages, Paul the Apostle writes to the Romans: “What fruit then had ye at that time in the things whereof you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end eternal life.” I suppose too that the end of marriage is death. But the compensating fruit of sanctification, fruit belonging either to virginity or to continence, is eternal life. And afterwards: “Wherefore, my brethren, you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ; that you should be joined to another, even to him who was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto God.
For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were through the law, wrought in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that wherein we were holden; so that we serve in newness of the Spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.” “When,” he says, “we were in the flesh, and not in the newness of the Spirit but in the oldness of the letter,” we did those things which pertained to the flesh, and bore fruit unto death.
But now because we are dead to the law, through the body of Christ, let us bear fruit to God, that we may belong to Him who rose from the dead. And elsewhere, having previously said, “I know that the law is spiritual,” and having discussed at some length the violence of the flesh which frequently drives us to do what we would not, he at last continues: “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me out of the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And again, “So then I myself with the mind serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”
And, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and death.” And more clearly in what follows he teaches that Christians do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit: “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the spirit is life and peace: because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be: and they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you,” and so on to where he says, “So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh: for if you live after the flesh, you must die; but if by the spirit ye mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” If the wisdom of the flesh is enmity against God, and they who are in the flesh cannot please God, I think that they who perform the functions of marriage love the wisdom of the flesh, and therefore are in the flesh.
The Apostle being desirous to withdraw us from the flesh and to join us to the Spirit, says afterwards: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And be not fashioned according to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say, through the grace that was given me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think according to chastity” (not soberly as the Latin versions badly render), but “think,” he says, “according to chastity,” for the Greek words are ἐ ις τὸ σωφρονεὶν.
Let us consider what the Apostle says: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” What he says is something like this— God indeed permits marriage, He permits second marriages, and if necessary, prefers even third marriages to fornication and adultery. But we who ought to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service, should consider, not what God permits, but what He wishes: that we may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
It follows that what He merely permits is neither good, nor acceptable, nor perfect. And he gives his reasons for this advice: “Knowing the season, that now it is high time for you to awake out of sleep: for now is salvation nearer to us than when we first believed. The night is far spent, and the day is at hand.” And lastly: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” God's will is one thing, His indulgence another. Whence, writing to the Corinthians, he says, “I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto you were not able to bear it, neither yet now are you able. For you are yet carnal.” He who is in the merely animal state, and does not receive the things pertaining to the Spirit of God (for he is foolish, and cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned), he is not fed with the food of perfect chastity, but with the coarse milk of marriage. As through man came death, so also through man came the resurrection of the dead.
As in Adam we all die, so in Christ we shall all be made alive. Under the law we served the old Adam, under the Gospel let us serve the new Adam. For the first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. “The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is of heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God; neither does corruption inherit incorruption.” This is so clear that no explanation can make it clearer: “Flesh and blood,” he says, “cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, neither does corruption inherit incorruption.” If corruption attaches to all intercourse, and incorruption is characteristic of chastity, the rewards of chastity cannot belong to marriage. “For we know that if the earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens.
For verily in this we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven. We are willing to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord. Wherefore also we make it our aim, whether in the body, or out of the body, to be well-pleasing unto God.” And by way of more fully explaining what he did not wish them to be he says elsewhere: “I espoused you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ.” But if you choose to apply the words to the whole Assembly of believers, and in this betrothal to Christ include both married women, and the twice-married, and widows, and virgins, that also makes for us.
For while he invites all to chastity and to the reward of virginity, he shows that virginity is more excellent than all these conditions. And again writing to the Galatians he says: “Because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” Among the works of the law is marriage, and accordingly under it they are cursed who have no children. And if under the Gospel it is permitted to have children, it is one thing to make a concession to weakness, another to hold out rewards to virtue.
Source: Against Jovinianus (New Advent)