Fireside Romans Chats: Romans 3:21-31

These are some of the thickest and most difficult verses to interpret in the New Testament!

Paul has ended Romans 3:20 with an allusion to Psalm 143:2, which is in the psalm I just posted. If you look at the LXX translation in my last entry, God's righteousness features in it. While "David" recognizes that he does not merit God's "justification" or acquittal, he recognizes that it is in the nature of God's righteousness to rescue and have mercy on His servants. Richard Hays notes in Echoes that while the point of the Paul's quote from the psalm (in Rom. 3:20) is to highlight the fact that no one stands excused before God, the echoes of the psalm from which it comes carry overtones of God's mercy in the midst of helplessness. Neat!

So when Romans 3:21 commences with another reference to the righteousness of God, it almost certainly must refer to God's righteousness, because that is what the psalm is talking about and, as Kasemann argued, this is a phrase with a history--Jews would recognize the phrase as a reference to God's propensity both to be just and to save His people (of course I think the audience of Romans is predominantly "conservative" Gentiles). The law only brings a knowledge of sin (3:20), but it does nothing to justify us before God. If we could be perfect doers of the law (2:13), that would be a basis for justification, but no one is (3:19).

So now, apart from the Law, God's righteousness has become apparent (3:21a).
So the NIV is almost certainly wrong to translate this verse in reference to a righteousness we get from God. It is of course possible Paul has a double meaning in mind here--the mention of justification or being declared righteous in 3:20 makes this double meaning a possibility. It's not that this is bad theology, just that it doesn't seem to be what Paul had primarily in mind.

Even though the way in which this righteousness has become apparent is "apart from law," it is "witnessed by the Law and the Prophets," that is, the Scriptures. How has this righteousness been made apparent? It is the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ to all those who have faith (3:22).

Hays (Faith, "Pistis and Pauline Theology: What is at Stake?") has of course long argued that this verse is redundant if it is translated as most versions: "through faith [pistis] in Jesus Christ to all those who have faith [=pisteuo, usually translated "believe" here]." After over a decade of wrestling with this verse, I have conceded to Hays (Dunn is the principal counter to this reading). I have decided on this interpretation for three main reasons:

1. The flow between God's righteousness and Christ's faith is smoother than a flow between God's righteousness and our faith would be.

2. We find a similar train of thought in Romans 5:19: "Just as through the disobedience of one human many were confirmed as sinners, so also through the obedience of the one human many will be confirmed as righteous [dikaios, "innocent"]. Similarly, we find the glide from God's love to Christ's act in Romans 5:8: "God demonstrates His love for us because while we were still sinners, Christ died on our behalf."

3. In my opinion, the train of thought of 2 Corinthians 4:13 works best if Paul interprets Psalm 116:10 in terms of Jesus' faith that God would raise him from the dead. While this verse seems to refer to faith as trust rather than faith as obedience, and thus is slightly different from here (an issue I need to address), it demonstrates to me that Paul could think of Jesus as having faith.

So God has demonstrated His righteousness through Jesus' obedient act of faith in death (cf. Phil. 2:8).

Romans 3:23-24 thus repeats the same train of thought we have already seen in this chapter:

Compare:
1. Romans 3:22b:
All have sinned and lack the glory God intended them according to Psalm 8. There is no distinction

Romans 3:9
We charged all under sin

2. Romans 3:24a
And are justified freely by His grace

Romans 3:21
Now righteousness of God is revealed

3. Romans 3:24b
through the redemption in Christ Jesus

Romans 3:22
through the faith of Jesus Christ

This redemption through Christ Jesus has occured through his sacrifice, a sacrifice offered by God: "whom God offered as an atoning sacrifice, through [Christ's?] faith, by means of his blood" (3:25).

Most scholars believe that Paul here has incorporated a traditional, creedal type statement that existed before he wrote this letter. This idea makes sense because of the obvious shift in the "his" in reference to Christ in 3:25 followed by a "his"six words later that clearly refers to God: "to demonstrate His righteousness after he passed over sins that had previously taken place in God's forbearance" (3:26). A good writer would not shift the referent of the pronoun in such a small space without clear warning.

I suspect that the original statement was "God offered him as an atoning sacrifice by means of his blood." The "through faith" statement interupts the flow of the verse and thus is more likely to come from Paul than from the "creed." In terms of whose faith is in mind, a reference to Christ's faith fits the chain of "his-es" better and the context as I've presented it. So I'll go with a reference to Christ's faith here. On the other hand, if Romans 1:16 means "from God's faith to our faith," then it is possible that Paul means that God offered Jesus "through [His] faith" (cf. 3:3). In either case, a reference to our faith in this verse seems least likely.

The sins that God had passed over previously are either the sins of Israel, the sins of the Gentiles, or both. Given the "there is no distinction" comment in 3:22, perhaps it is most likely that Paul has the sins of "all" in mind again (cf. 1:18).

It seems important to Paul to "justify" God's delay in judging the sins of the world: to demonstrate His righteousness [dikaiosune] at this present time so that he is just [dikaios] and justifier [dikaioo] of the person 'from faith of Jesus' (3:26). God is showing through Jesus that He is just--He does in fact judge sin, and Jesus as a sacrifice assuaged His wrath (some debate here, Joel Green would disagree). And he justifies the person "from the faith of Jesus."

The idea of a person "from the faith of Jesus" is much debated. Does Paul mean "a person justified from faith in Jesus" or a person justified because they have faith like Jesus. Hays would say something like "from the faithful death of Jesus." The phrase "from faith" is a formula for Paul he uses over and over again and it comes ultimately from Habakkuk 2:4: "the righteous person on the basis of faith will live." So whatever the phrase "from faith" (ek pisteos) means, its meaning runs throughout Paul's use of the phrase in Galatians and Romans.

If I have identified the train of thought thus far correctly, then a reference to the faith of Jesus would be most appropriate in terms of this particular context. Hays and others indeed consider the matter beyond question because of the parallel statement in Romans 4:16, "to the one from the faith of Abraham." Similar structure to that statement there and clearly in reference to Abraham's faith. The use of Jesus in the phrase "the faith of Jesus" rather than Christ may also push us toward seeing a reference to Jesus' faith. However, for reasons I will mention later, I wonder if Paul has a double meaning in mind here, faith in Christ and the faith of Christ.

What does it mean, then, to be justified because a person is justified "from the faith of Jesus"? Part of the equation is believing in the efficacy of the atoning death of Jesus (Rom. 3:22, 24-25). But when we read it as a reference to Jesus' faith, it is less about our believing in Jesus as it is about what Jesus did objectively. In other words, God has done it; we just need to sign on. Probably there are overtones of Paul's theology of being incorporated "in Christ." Perhaps there are overtones of trusting in God like Jesus. The phase seems highly ambiguous in itself, and we wonder if Paul left it in this way because all the different nuances are part of the equation.

The text here leaves us hanging on some of these questions. We will have to take them up as we go further. My sense is that Paul is thinking something like the following, and I think this line of thought fits with his Jewish background:

1. No one can earn justification before God (see Psalm 143:2).

2. But God is righteous. He punishes sin but He also finds ways to save His people because of His mercy.

3. The way a person appropriates this mercy is by faith or trust in God (see Romans 4, the next chapter).

4. In this present time, indeed, as the climax of history, God's way of showing mercy is through Jesus Christ, who himself as a human demonstrated faith. In other words, Jesus' death has eschatological significance and is not just one among many demonstrations of God's righteousness. Here is where Paul's fellow Jew might differ with Paul.

Once we have reached 3:27, we can relax our exegetical muscles considerably.

3:27: Where then is boasting? It has been excluded. By what rule [nomos]? The rule of works? No, but the rule of faith [nomos].

Since it is all a matter of God's righteousness and mercy, there is no room for boasting. It is all God's mercy. By the way, Paul uses the word "law" in a funny way in this verse. It's a bad joke to play on us word study people, because he seems just to be lightheartedly using the word in a tongue and cheek kind of way that might make him smile, but not us in IBS class.

3:28: For we reckon that a person is justified by faith apart from works of law.
This is the general principle. It is faith (in God) that has always led to justification. Performing the law never in itself made a person right with God. Put in this way, I think any Jew would have agreed with Paul.

3:29-30: Or is God over the Jews alone? No, He is also over the Gentiles, since God is one, who will justify the circumcision on the basis of faith and the uncircumcision through faith.

Since God is one, Paul argues (alluding to the Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4), He must be God of the Jews as well as the non-Jews, Paul argues. So presumably the faith that justifies the Jew must also justify the Gentiles. This statement is akin to Romans 2:14-16 and 2:26. The crucial factor is that faith in God now has a very important content: the atoning death of Jesus. Faith in God now involves faith in what God has done through Christ. The Jew is thus justified on the basis of faith even though that Jew keeps the law. The Gentile comes to God through faith even though they are not under the law.

3:31: Therefore, do we cancel law through faith? God forbid! But we establish law. It is possible to read the train of thought thus far and see no contradiction in this comment. In the line of interpretation we have made thus far, Paul's point has only been that the law does not justify anyone. He has not discarded the law for Jews in any comment he has made. He has simply argued that justification only comes through faith in God.

But taking into account only what Paul has said so far, we might still think that faith in God required law keeping for a Jew--not that such law-keeping in itself justified you before God, but that it was a part of showing genuine faith in God. It seems to me, however, in the light of other passages in Romans and elsewhere, that Paul does not believe Christians to be "under the law" in the same way they used to be, whether they be Jew or Gentile (e.g., Rom. 7:1-6 and 1 Cor. 9:19-23).

On the whole, it seems most likely to me that Paul is refering to the "righteous requirements of the law" in this comment, mentioned in 2:26 and 8:4, perhaps roughly equivalent to what Paul calls "Christ's law" in 1 Corinthians 9:21.