What Paul is doing is showing that righteousness by faith is not alien to the Jewish tradition. He refers to the example of Abraham, whose faith in the promise God reckons to him as righteousness. In Romans 4:1-5, Paul makes the point that God justified Abraham by his faith. Paul is telling his audience that when it comes to God’s promises it is not what we do to earn them, but what God does graciously to bestow them. Paul invites us to place our deepest trust not in what we do for God but in what God does for us. The example is important for Judaism looks upon Abraham with such veneration. Through faith, Abraham becomes the patriarch of us all. 1What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh? 2For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but (ἀλλ’ forceful use of the adversative conjunction) not before God. I will be pointing out the forceful use of the adversative conjunction throughout this text as Paul shows Paul’s determination to draw an unequivocal distinction between divine standards of grace and earthly standards of quid pro quo, between faith that trusts in God and works that trust in human accomplishment. We are to imagine his Jewish interlocutor pursuing this line of thought. Paul has rejected boasting in 3:27 because of the “law of faith.” Paul now aligns Abraham with that rejection of boasting. Not even the highly venerated Abraham can boast, because his upright status before God comes from divine grace and favor. If Abraham had no reason to boast in God’s sight, neither does any other human being. 3 For what does the scripture say? In Genesis 15:6, it says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned (in the books that God keeps) to him as righteousness (δικαιοσύνην).”[2] Here is the basis for the notion of imputed righteousness, due in part to the translation Erasmus made and Luther followed. Adam Clark considers the doctrine of imputed righteousness “dangerous.” He thought Christ did not fulfill the moral law, but he did fulfill the sacrificial law. It is our duty to fulfill the moral law. This view runs contrary to Paul’s whole argument, as we have already shown. Paul never distinguishes between the moral and sacrificial law. Christ has fulfilled both. In addition, Paul’s point is that no one can fulfill the moral law, witness his whole argument since 1:18. However, the warning is one we need to heed. When we look upon the whole argument of Romans, Paul in Chapters 1-11 will be urging upon us to turn toward the revelation of God in Christ and embrace this truth by faith, but then urge us to also embrace the transformation of our lives in accord with the will of God in Chapters 12-15. Much of the transformation to which Paul will direct us is consistent with the Old Testament moral law and the Ten Commandments. The teaching of imputed righteousness often turns the truth revealed in Christ into an abstraction that turns out to have nothing to do with the way we live our lives. Making of grace and faith such an effect is far from what Paul teaches. Rather, the reconciling and redeeming work of God through Christ and in the power of the Spirit begin in our lives as we embrace the truth by faith, live our lives out of love for God and others, and live with the hope that God will redeem creation. Thus, Paul points out that God grants this righteousness through faith, not self-righteousness that one might earn through works. This is to say that God’s gracious initiative is at the center. Authentic human righteousness can only come from God, who alone is completely righteous. Abraham, in receiving justification before he became a Jew, verifies the point Paul is making. To take one’s stand under the Law of Israel means to stand in the sphere of the divine wrath.[3] Paul conceives of the God of Christians as already the God who chose Abraham and called him to faith that he might become such a model or paradigm. There is, indeed, continuity between Abraham and Christian believers in a divine plan that embraces human history.[4] 4 Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but (ἀλλὰ forceful use of the adversative conjunction) as something due. The language of calculating payment due is inappropriate to describe God’s dealings with human beings where the initiative lays with God. Paul presses the meaning of “credit,” making it mean one receives credit for something for which one has not paid. Thus, one has not earned that for which one has received credit. 5 But (δὲ forceful use of the adversative conjunction) to one who without works trusts (πιστεύοντι) him who justifies (δικαιοῦντα) the ungodly, or “him who deems the ungodly to be righteous,” such faith (πίστις) is reckoned as righteousness (δικαιοσύνην). Any righteousness we experience is because God chooses to justify us, chooses to deem us to be righteous — chooses to set us right in relationship to God and humankind — by passing over our sinfulness (see 3:25-26 again). This is a creative, redemptive, and sustaining activity, most fully fulfilled in the reconciling work of Christ (Romans 5-7) and the ongoing sanctification of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8). We can only come to terms with the grace of such righteousness by humbly receiving it through a faith like Abraham’s. Paradigmatic for the close relation between faith and hope is the description of the faith of Abraham. If one works, one receives the wages due. However, if one trusts God, who justifies the ungodly, then such reckoning or counting as righteousness is a gift. Faith in God is more important for our righteousness before God than works of the law. The circumcision of Abraham comes later. For Paul, the true children of Abraham are those who live by faith.[5]
Paul continues his teaching concerning justification by faith from 3:21. When printers “justify” margins, the point is to set the type in such a way that all full lines are of equal length and are flush both left and right. They put printed lines in the right relationship with the page on which they intend to print and with each other. Paul writes of justification in a comparable way. Receiving the gift of justification is a matter of God bringing humanity into right relation.[6] Paul recognizes the broken quality of humanity. Humanity lives by mending the brokenness. He saw the grace of God as the glue.[7] Paul has shown in the first three chapters that he is deeply aware of the human tendency toward exaggerating the depth of character we possess while treating leniently our flaws. Let us call this our tendency toward hypocrisy. We consciously and unconsciously put forward a better image of ourselves than we are in reality. The outward appearance and the inner reality, which God knows fully and self and family know partially, simply do not match.[8]
Paul and James do, in fact, even use the same passage of Scripture, Genesis 15:6, to prove their respective but opposing points. The difference lies in their conception of faith. For James, faith is assent to the belief in God, and so he wants to prove that intellectual assent is not enough. James’ use is more strictly life. The point is that intellectual assent must bear itself out in one’s life. For Paul, however, faith was of such a nature that the question of works would not even arise, for works was a natural outgrowth of faith. Thus, Paul might have considered the argument of James trite. Yet, James may have written to counteract distortion of Paul’s teaching. Faith in Paul’s sense was a complete casting of one’s self upon God and God’s mercy. Then God gave the individual the Spirit, and thus strength to live a life worthy of God. This would negate the need for James’ argument, as long as one properly understands Paul’s conception of faith. According to faith, Abraham is the Patriarch not only of Israel, but of Gentiles as well. Paul will explain this more fully in 4:6-12 vis-à-vis the timing of Abraham first trusting God and then receiving the seal of circumcision. Likewise, according to faith, one does not receive God’s promises through the palpable earthly purposes of the flesh — even religious obedience — but through thoroughly sight unseen trust in the grace of divine purposes.
Then, in Romans 4:13-25, Paul begins a discussion of promise, faith, and hope. Paul is continuing his argument concerning the centrality of faith by pointing to the example of Abraham. He is showing that his teaching is a fulfillment of the Old Testament at its basic level, going behind the Torah to Abraham. The promise comes only to the people of faith. He now shifts to the part in Genesis 15 where it refers to the belief in God. The emphasis of Paul on humble trust is in line with the best elements of Judaism. The point of the passage before us is that Abraham was right with God because of his faith, not the Law or circumcision. Thus, it is faith that justifies, and therefore, when God promises that Abraham will be a father, it means his descendants are through faith not circumcision or Law. Finally, he shows that Christ is the revelation of this plan, or shall we say the clear setting forth of the plan, and it is through him that we receive justification. Such considerations might lead us toward a practical application. Whenever people suppose themselves consciousness of the emotion of nearness to God, whenever they speak and write of divine things, whenever we think of sermon making and temple-building as an ultimate human occupation, whenever people are aware of divine appointment and of being entrusted with a divine mission, sin abounds. Being an heir of the promise, then, must depend on faith, so that the promise rests on grace toward those who share the faith of Abraham, who is father of us all, even as the promise finds its fulfillment.[9]
In Romans 4: 13-17, Paul sets forth the priority of promise and grace over Law, works, and merit. The justification of the godless and the life that comes of the raising of the dead belong together. In an analogous way, the righteousness of faith and the validation of the promise in the raising of Christ belong together. If the promise is set in force by God, then it confers righteousness by faith. It is of faith so that it might be by grace, to the end that the promise sure to all the seed, defined as those of the faith of Abraham. The point is that promise would no longer be the promise of God if it had anything to do with the law.[10] 13 For the promise (ἐπαγγελία) that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the Mosaic law but (ἀλλὰ forceful use of the adversative conjunction) through the righteousness of faith. Paul is implicitly assailing the Jewish view that all blessings came to Abraham because of his merit in keeping the Law, which he was supposed to have known in advance. For Paul the heirs of the promise of inheriting the world are not the observers of the Mosaic Law, but the people of faith. 14 If it is the adherents of the Mosaic law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise (ἐπαγγελία) is void. The Law succeeds only in producing sin. Paul creates a dichotomy: promise, faith, and grace opposed to law, transgression, and wrath. 15 For the Mosaiclaw brings wrath (Romans 1:18-3:20); but (δὲ forceful use of the adversative conjunction) where there is no law, neither is there violation. Law means transgression of the law. Where one has no Law, one has no condemnation. Where most of his Jewish contemporaries would prefer to say, “The law brings about righteousness,” Paul has argued resolutely that righteousness comes about through faith. The role of the Law shifts to the production of wrath. The Law has more to do with the situation described in 1:18-3:20 than with its solution in 3:21ff. The Law is more a tool of the wrath of God than of righteousness. Verses 16-17 underscore what Paul has been saying about the gracious divine initiative and the faithful response of Abraham. 16 For this reason (Διὰ τοῦτο), which can also have the translation of “therefore,” “on this account,” and “for this cause.” The phrase signifies that what follows will address the underlying cause or reason something is or ought to be, is done or ought to be done. The promise depends on faith, in order that the promise (ἐπαγγελίαν) may rest on grace (χάριν). Faith is trust in the gracious purpose of God, not trust in our own capacity to accrue divine benevolence by being obedient. The promise does not rest on some quid quo pro arrangement that has God owing Abraham for being dutiful. God will guarantee the promise to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but (ἀλλὰ forceful use of the adversative conjunction) also to those who share the faith of Abraham. The promise of God to Abraham is a complete act of grace, which means openly extending kindness and mercy to those who do not deserve it. Grace is no longer grace when earning it appears. Abraham does not earn the promise of God for descendants. God grants this promise and Abraham receives it through trusting — having faith — that God will do what God promises. Paul then offers his biblical support by reminding his readers (for he is the father of all of us, 17 as it stands written in Genesis 17:5, “I have made you the father of many nations.” Abraham could believe the promise because he was in the presence of the God in whom he believed. Abraham knew that this God gives life to the dead, referring to the childlessness of Sarah, and calls into existence the things that do not exist, connecting childlessness with creation. In the second of the Eighteen Benedictions, Paul would have prayed something like “Remember us unto life, O king, who delights in life. Who resembles You, O King, who orders death and restores life, and causes salvation (Yeshua) to spring forth? You are faithful to revive the dead. Blessed art thou, O L-rd, who revives the dead.” When we think theologically here, in a sense, the essence of God is not available to us apart from this revelation, that God raised Jesus from the dead. We again see the significance of the moment or event in Christian teaching. Here is an area in which neither individuals nor communities can co-operate. Giving life to the dead is an act of God alone.[11] Paul puts the resurrection of the dead alongside creation out of nothing. Paul is suggesting that the Easter event and the resurrection on which sets Christian hope is limitless as creation. Only the Creator can awaken the dead, and resurrection from the dead shows what it means to be Creator. The act of creation finds consummation in the resurrection. Resurrection is the supreme enactment of the will of the Creator that wills the existence of creatures. Indeed, by using this imagery, Paul makes a connection between God overcoming the childlessness of Abraham and Sarah (“gives life to the dead”) with creation (“calls into existence the things that do not exist”).[12] The dynamic of God’s grace and Abraham’s faith operating in 4:16-17 helps substantiate what goes before in the passage. God is present where we wait upon this promise in hope and transformation. The things that are not yet, the things that are future, become thinkable because we can for them.[13] In simplest terms, Paul is telling his audience that when it comes to the promises of God, it is not what we do to earn them, but what God does graciously to bestow them.
[1] Pannenberg, Jesus God and Man, 72; Systematic Theology, Volume III, 225.
[2] The NT Greek text of Erasmus used the Latin word “imputatum” which Luther then used in his translation, and which Melanchthon and Lutheran Orthodoxy eventually derived their idea of the forensic understanding of δικαιοσύν or imputed justification.
[3] Barth, Church Dogmatics, II.2 [34.2], 215-16.
[4] Wilckens
[5] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume III, 63.
[6] Here is how writer Friedrich Buechner put it:
In printers' language to "justify" means to set type in such a way that all full lines are of equal length and are flush both left and right; in other words to put the printed lines in the right relationship with the page they're printed on and with each other. The religious sense of the word is very close to that. Being justified means being brought into right relation. --Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking (Harper & Row, 1973), 48.
[7] Eugene O’Neill, in a play written in 1926 called The Great God Brown, has a wonderful little line:
Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue. --Eugene O'Neill, The Great God Brown
[8] CS Lewis identified the human problem we in the church face.
Anyone who has ever taught or attempted to lead others knows the tendency in all of us toward exaggerating our depth of character while treating leniently our flaws. The Bible calls this tendency hypocrisy. We consciously or subconsciously put forward a better image of ourselves than really exists. The outward appearance of our character and the inner reality (that only God, we and perhaps our family members know) do not match. —C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
[9] Barth, Romans, 136.
[10] Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 146.
[11] Pannenberg, Jesus God and Man, 130.
[12] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume I, 417.
[13] Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 30.
Nice commentary on this text. I am reading in the context of our conversion about those who have never heard. It does make the case.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
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