That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Paul says that sin has been condemned in order that the righteousness of the law given by Moses might be fulfilled in us. For once removed from the power of the law we become the law’s friends. Those who have been justified are friends of the law. For how is this righteousness fulfilled in us unless the forgiveness of sins is given to us, so that once we have been justified by the removal of our sins we might serve the law of God with our minds? This is what it means to walk according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh. The devotion of the mind, which is the spirit, will not succumb to the desire of sin, which sows lusts in the soul by means of the flesh because sin dwells in it. But if sin has been condemned, how can it be indwelling? Sin has been condemned by the Savior in three different ways. In the first place, he condemned sin in that a person should turn away from it and not sin. Next, sin is said to have been condemned on the cross, because it enacted sin itself. The power by which it held people in hell because of Adam’s sin was then taken away. After that it would no longer dare to hang onto anyone who had been signed with the sign of the cross. In the third place, God condemned sin by canceling it out in the case of those who had received forgiveness for their sins. For although a sinner ought to be condemned for his sin, God forgave him and condemned the sin in him instead. So if we follow our Savior’s example and do not sin, we are condemning sin. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
