Revealed in the Flesh, Counted Righteous in the Spirit

To begin with your assertion that the Spirit filled with righteousness what was created, and your attempt to prove it from the apostle’s words, “He appeared in the flesh, was counted righteous in the Spirit”: both statements are made in an unsound sense and a wild spirit. You insist that he was filled with righteousness by the Spirit in order to show that he was empty of righteousness, since you claim that being filled with it was given to him. And in using the apostle’s words for this, you garble the order and meaning of the sacred passage, for the apostle did not say it as you have quoted it, cut short and spoiled. For what does the apostle say? “And clearly great is the mystery of godliness, which was revealed in the flesh, was counted righteous in the Spirit.” You see, then, that the apostle declared that it was the mystery, or sacrament, of godliness that was counted righteous. [a]

He was not so forgetful of his own words and teaching as to say that the one he had always proclaimed to be righteousness was empty of righteousness. He says, “who was made for us righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” And elsewhere he says, “But you were washed, you were counted righteous, you were sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” How far, then, was he from needing to be filled with righteousness, when he himself filled all things with righteousness! And how could his glory lack righteousness, when his very name makes all things righteous? You see, then, how foolish and wild your blasphemies are. You are trying to take away from our Lord what he is always pouring out on all believers, in such a way that, though it is supplied without end, it is never lessened.