John 15:22

Besides this, depriving those others of excuse, and putting also another source of comfort, He saith, "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin." Showing that they shall do unjustly both what they do against Him and against them. "Why then didst Thou bring us into such calamities? Didst Thou not foreknow the wars, the hatred?" Therefore again He saith,...

(Tract. lxxxix. 1) Christ spoke to the Jews only, not to any other nation. In them then was that world which hated Christ and His disciples; and not only in them, but in us also. Were the Jews then without sin before Christ came in the flesh, because Christ had not spoken to them? By sin here He means not every sin, but a certain great sin, which includes all, and which alone hinders the remission of other sins, viz. unbelief. They did not believe in Christ, who came that they might believe on Him. This sin then they would not have had, had not Christ come; for Christ's advent, as it was the salvation of the believing, so was the perdition of the unbelieving. But now they have no cloke for their sin. If those to whom Christ had not come or spoken, had not an excuse (προφασιν, excusationem Vulg. cloke E. T.) for their sin, why is it said here that these had no excuse, because Christ had come and spoken to them? If the first had excuse, did it do away with their punishment altogether, or only mitigate it? I answer, that this excuse covered, not all their sin, but only this one, viz. that they did not believe in Christ. But they are not of this number to whom Christ came by His disciples: they are not to be let off with a lighter punishment, who altogether refused to receive Christ's love, and, as far as concerned them, wished its destruction. This excuse they may have who died before they heard of Christ's Gospel; but this will not shield them from damnation. For whoever are not saved in the Saviour, who came to seek what was lost, shall without doubt go to perdition: though some will have lighter, others severer punishments. He perishes to God, who is punished with an exclusion from that happiness which is given to the saints. But there is as great a diversity of punishments, as there is of sins: though how this is settled is a matter known to the Divine Wisdom indeed, but too deep for human conjecture to examine or pronounce upon.

The Lord had said above to His disciples, "If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not Him that sent me." And if we inquire of whom He so spake, we find that He was led on to these words from what He had said before, "If the world hate you, know ye that it hated me before it hated you;" and now in adding, "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin," He more expressly pointed to the Jews. Of them, therefore, He also uttered the words that precede, for so does the context itself imply. For it is of the same parties that He said, "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin;" of whom He also said, "If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also; but all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not Him that sent me;" for it is to these words that He also subjoins the following: "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin." The Jews, therefore, persecuted Christ, as the Gospel very clearly indicates, and Christ spake to the Jews, not to other nations; and it is they, therefore, that He meant to be understood by the world, that hateth Christ and His disciples; and, indeed, not those alone, but even these latter were shown by Him to belong to the same world. What, then, does He mean by the words, "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin"? Was it that the Jews were without sin before Christ came to them in the flesh? Who, though he were the greatest fool, would say so? But it is some great sin, and not every sin, that He would have to be understood, as it were, under the general designation. For this is the sin wherein all sins are included; and whosoever is free from it, has all his sins forgiven him: and this it is, that they believed not on Christ, who came for the very purpose of enlisting their faith. From this sin, had He not come, they would certainly have been free. His advent has become as much fraught with destruction to unbelievers, as it is with salvation to those that believe; for He, the Head and Prince of the apostles, has Himself, as it were, become what they declared of themselves, "to some, indeed, the savour of life unto life; and to some the savor of death unto death."

But when He went on to say, "But now they have no excuse for their sin," some may be moved to inquire whether those to whom Christ neither came nor spake, have an excuse for their sin. For if they have not, why is it said here that these had none, on the very ground that He did come and speak to them? And if they have, have they it to the extent of thereby being barred from punishment, or of receiving it in a milder degree? To these inquiries, with the Lord's help and to the best of my capacity, I reply, that such have an excuse, not for every one of their sins, but for this sin of not believing on Christ, inasmuch as He came not and spake not to them. But it is not in the number of such that those are to be included, to whom He came in the persons of His disciples, and to whom He spake by them, as He also does at present; for by His Church He has come, and by His Church He speaks to the Gentiles. For to this are to be referred the words that He spake, "He that receiveth you, receiveth me;" and, "He that despiseth you, despiseth me." "Or would ye," says the Apostle Paul, "have a proof of Him that speaketh in me, namely Christ."

It remains for us to inquire, whether those who, prior to the coming of Christ in His Church to the Gentiles and to their hearing of His Gospel, have been, or are now being, overtaken by the close of this life, can have such an excuse? Evidently they can, but not on that account can they escape damnation. "For as many as have sinned without the law, shall also perish without the law; and as many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law." And these words of the apostle, inasmuch as his saying, "they shall perish," has a more terrible sound than when he says, "they shall be judged," seem to show that such an excuse can not only avail them nothing, but even becomes an additional aggravation. For those that excuse themselves because they did not hear, "shall perish without the law."