3:21-26 The righteousness of God

3:21-26 The righteousness of God

God's 'righteousness' (dikaiosyneä) stands at the heart of this great text. It is mentioned four times (21, 22, 25, 26), while the occurrence of two cognate words, 'justify' (dikaiooœ; 24, 26) and 'just' (dikaios; 26) reinforces its centrality. Paul develops his exposition of God's righteousness in four steps.

First, he announces 'the righteousness of God' (21). The NIV righteousness from God is a possible but surely incorrect rendering, because Paul is referring to an activity of God (as in 1:17) not to a gift or status from God. Paul's wording deliberately echoes 1:17, as he returns, after the necessary backdrop of 1:18-3:20, to the theme of 1:18-4:25. Here, however, Paul's focus is less on the way that God's activity of 'making right' or justifying is revealed in the preaching of the gospel than on the historical foundation for that justifying in the cross of Christ (the perfect tense of has been made known suggests this). Further, in positive confirmation of what he said in 3:20, Paul makes clear that this righteousness of God has been made known apart from law. The NIV rendering suggests that this phrase could modify what comes before it: 'an apart–from–the–law righteousness of God', but the phrase probably modifies the verb. Paul's point is that a new era in God's plan has arrived now and that his way of bringing people into relationship with himself takes place outside the confines of that old era, of which the Mosaic law was a central component. But Paul is careful at the same time to emphasize the continuity in God's plan. God's righteousness may not take place within the old era, or covenant; but the law and the prophets of that covenant testify to it.

In the second step of his exposition, Paul highlights the universal character of God's righteousness. Experiencing God's justifying activity is possible only through faith in Jesus [p. 1128] Christ, and is for all who believe; for all are alike in needing God's righteousness, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (22-23). The NIV translation through faith in Jesus Christ presumes that the genitive Ieäsou Christou is objective, but many scholars are convinced it is a subjective genitive and translate the phrase 'faith [or faithfulness] of Jesus Christ'. Paul would then be saying two separate things in v 22b: that God's righteousness is based on Christ's faithfulness and that it is available for everyone who believes. This is certainly a possible interpretation, but it is probably best to stick with the NIV rendering at this point. The idea of Christ's 'faithfulness' (expressed with the word pistis) is not clearly attested elsewhere in Paul, while this whole section of Romans focuses again and again on the centrality of human faith in Christ for justification (see especially v 26 at the end of this paragraph). Paul, then, repeats the notion of human faith in v 22 because he wants to say both that God's righteousness comes only by faith in Christ and that it comes to everybody who has such faith. V 23 is a succinct summary of 1:18-3:20.

The third part of the paragraph (24-25a) draws attention to the source of God's righteousness. Are justified at the beginning of v 24 harks back to God's righteousness in vs 21-22. (The connection is not clear in English because we have to use words from two different roots—'justify' and 'righteousness'—to translate Greek words that come from the same root.) God's act of putting people into a new and right relationship with himself is an act of sheer grace: he acts without compulsion and apart from any 'reasons' outside his own will (see also 4:4-5, 13-16; 11:6). This is why faith, an act of acceptance and surrender, is necessary to experience this righteousness. Our justification, furthermore, has its source in the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Redemption (apolytroœseoœs) is another of the important theological terms in this paragraph. It denotes an act of 'buying out of slavery' and suggests that God provided in Jesus Christ a full 'payment' for our sin that we might be released from its bondage (see 3:9) to serve a new master.

V 25 continues this thought by describing in more detail the nature of Christ's work on the cross for us. The key word is hilasteärion, translated 'sacrifice of atonement' in the NIV. Many think, in light of the use of this word in secular Greek, that it means here 'propitiation,' that is, an act in which the wrath of God is turned away. Others (e.g. Dodd) insist that the word means 'expiation' (see the RSV), an act in which sins are forgiven and 'wiped away'. But the evidence of the word's use in the LXX points in a slightly different, and broader, direction. The word there usually refers to the 'mercy seat' a component of the altar in the tabernacle. The word is particularly prominent in Lv. 16, where the ritual of the Day of Atonement is prescribed. It is on this 'mercy seat' that the blood of the sacrifice is sprinkled, in order 'to make atonement' for the people. Since in its only other NT occurrence (Heb. 9:5) hilasteärion refers to this mercy seat, it seems likely that Paul uses the word with this meaning. His point, then, would be that Jesus Christ is the NT counterpart to the OT 'mercy seat'. As this 'mercy seat' was the place where God took care of his people's sin, so now Jesus Christ has been presented (publicly displayed for all to see) as the 'place' where God now deals, finally and forever, with his people's sin. Atonement now takes place in him and this atonement, as in the OT, includes both the forgiving of sins—expiation—and the turning away of God's wrath—propitiation. This propitiation is, of course, a far cry from the sort of 'bribery' of capricious and self–serving gods featured in some ancient religions. The propitiation that takes place at the cross is the gift of God himself and involves the satisfaction of his own righteous and holy anger at sin.

The fourth step in Paul's exposition of God's righteousness asserts that God's way of justifying sinners maintains his justice and holiness (25b-26). The key to understanding these verses is to realize that 'righteousness of God' has a different meaning here than it has in vs 21-22. As in 3:5 (see the notes there), it refers to God's faithfulness to his own person and word in a general sense. Hence the NIV translates the dikaiosyneä as 'justice' in both its occurrences in these verses. God has, in the past, 'passed over', failed to punish with full severity (paresis) the sins of his people. He has justified people like Abraham and David without extracting the full penalty for their sins. That penalty has now been paid by Christ on the cross, revealing God to be just both in his passing over of those sins committed beforehand (25b) and in his justification of sinners at the present time (26a). Thus, in a sentence that summarizes the whole paragraph, God is now seen to be the one is both just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus (26b). James Denney provides his own beautiful summary of this paragraph: 'There can be no gospel unless there is such a thing as a righteousness of God for the ungodly. But just as little can there be any gospel unless the integrity of God's character be maintained. The problem of the sinful world, the problem of all religion, the problem of God in dealing with a sinful race, is how to unite these two things. The Christian answer to the problem is given by Paul in the words: "Jesus Christ whom God set forth a propitiation (or, in propitiatory power) [p. 1129] in His blood''' (J. Denney, The Death of Christ [Tyndale, 1951], p.98).