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§9 Jesus Christ: The Righteousness of God (Rom. 3:21–31)

We return now to the opening theme of the epistle which Paul announced in 1:16–17, righteousness by faith. There it was like a first glimpse of the Himalayas seen from the plains of Nepal, shimmering on the horizon. Then the trek began in earnest as the reader was led up the rugged terrain of argumentation and proof from 1:18–3:20, in which Gentiles and Jews were confronted with a landslide of evidence against them. The inspiring first vision was long since obscured, and more than once the trekker was brought to the brink of discouragement. “But now,” says Paul (3:21). Suddenly a bend is rounded and there is a stunning massif of peaks. The original glimpse had not been a mirage after all, nor had the arduous trek miscarried. The Mount Everest of Scripture looms before us.

Like the Himalayan giants whose immensity is compromised because of their proximity to one another, Romans 3:21–31 may at first deceive the reader because of its compactness. Here is a veritable glossary of the Christian faith, and surely the most succinct and profound expression of the gospel in the Bible. The presence of so many terms otherwise unusual or foreign to Paul—and without explanation—indicates that the apostle is here resorting to familiar concepts, perhaps even to an early Christian formula.

Paul employs a wide variety of vocabulary in developing the theme of righteousness by faith. One set of terms comes from the law courts, consisting of “righteousness,” “law,” and “reckoning” (NIV, “maintain,” 3:28). The first two terms are heavy-weights; in this passage of some 150 words “righteousness” recurs nine times and “law” seven times. A second set of terms, deriving from the institution of slavery, includes “redemption” and perhaps “grace.” A final set comes from the ritual of animal sacrifice and includes “expiation” (NIV, “sacrifice of atonement”), “sin,” and “blood.” The most common word in the entire section, “faith,” recurs ten times. It is the key to the vocabulary of the whole, and the means by which these momentous truths are appropriated by the believer.

3:21 / The finale of redemption begins with a pronouncement (which is emphatic in Greek), But now (see also 8:1). This is not entirely surprising. Paul introduced redemption at 1:16–17, but held it in abeyance until now. Like a rail switch in a train yard, this wee phrase is a small piece of equipment with great consequences. But now presupposes everything Paul said in 1:18–3:20, that humanity stands justly condemned by God’s wrath. This is not the final verdict, however. But now is an exclamation of hope which marks the transition from wrath (1:18) to righteousness (1:17). The transition is important both logically and temporally: logically, because it belongs to the strategy of Paul’s argument; temporally, because at a given point in history God intervened to consummate the plan of redemption. The temporal sense is reinforced by has been made known (Gk. pephanerōtai). The perfect tense here specifies something which began in the past and is still valid. When someone says that he or she has been married ten years, for example, it means that ten years ago a condition was brought into existence which is still valid. When Paul says that righteousness from God … has been made known he means that the cross of Jesus Christ has inaugurated the means of salvation which is valid for all people ever after. Righteousness has now been manifested in the once-for-all redemptive act of God in Jesus Christ.

The most important issue in verse 21 is the relationship between God’s righteousness and the law. Paul calls it a righteousness apart from law, but a righteousness to which the Law and the Prophets testify. There is a delicate relationship between righteousness and law, a “sweet antithesis,” to quote Bengel (Gnomon, vol. 3, p. 47). Luther’s bitter controversy over indulgences with sixteenth-century Catholicism has stamped Protestantism in general with a skepticism towards law. The result has been to overstress righteousness apart from law and to undervalue righteousness to which the Law and the Prophets testify. Verse 21 offers a more balanced understanding of the two themes. On the one hand, righteousness occurs apart from law, which means it is neither subordinate to law nor derivative from law; it depends wholly on God’s initiative. God is not indebted to human achievement, and humanity can take no credit for the righteousness which comes to it in Christ. The thrust of 1:18–3:20 has been to prove that no one is righteous on the basis of moral achievement, and what is more, that works of law (aside from the issue of whether the law can or cannot be fulfilled) are insufficient to save one (3:20).

But having granted this, Paul does not establish an antithesis, or worse, hostility, between righteousness and law as he does, for example, between spirit and flesh. There is rather a corollary between law and righteousness. First, the law reveals sin (3:20) in that it demonstrates the need for a salvation apart from law. Moreover, the law testifies to righteousness. It bears witness to Jesus Christ and finds its proper culmination in him, as we shall argue at 10:4, “Christ is the end of the law.” This does not mean that Christ is the negation of law, but he is its goal and fulfillment. This agrees with Galatians 3:24, where the law is regarded as a chaperon (paidagōgos) who escorts a schoolboy (Israel) to the headmaster (Christ). The law leads to Christ, but only Christ can teach salvation. Finally, as Paul will assert in verse 31, righteousness does not abolish the law, but “upholds the law.” The explication of this statement must await chapters 12 and following, but Paul will argue that righteousness by faith is the necessary prerequisite to fulfill the intent of the law (e.g., 8:4).

The opposition of righteousness and law is largely due to a false dichotomy. Paul nowhere claims that law, rightly understood, was ever a means of salvation. It had a preparatory and subordinate function to reveal sin (3:20), and thereby to lead one to Christ (Gal. 3:24). But that salvation had always been intended by faith is evinced in the case of Abraham, who even before the law was given was promised righteousness by faith (4:1–25; Gal. 3:1–20).

3:22 / Paul repeats his leitmotif again in verse 22. Righteousness from God is not simply an attribute of God or an idea, a theological truth, or even a religious dogma. It is present in a person, Jesus Christ; and because Jesus is the personal manifestation of God’s righteousness, righteousness must be received through a relationship of faith in God’s Son.

The concept of righteousness is the seminal idea in this passage, and perhaps in all Pauline literature. The English nouns “justification” and “righteousness” (as well as their adjectival and verbal forms), all translate the same Greek word, dikaiosynē. Paul’s use of dikaiosynē is guided by the same model which informs the Greek writers as well as the Hebrew OT (e.g., Ps. 98:2; Isa. 43:9), namely, a court of law and the absolute righteousness of God’s judgments. The NIV correctly translates the Greek original, dikaiosynē theou, as righteousness from God (see particularly Phil. 3:9), i.e., righteousness not as God’s attribute (which no one doubts), but righteousness which comes from God to guilty humanity, effecting a condition of righteousness in it. God as judge pronounces a verdict of acquittal upon a guilty party, thereby reckoning or imputing to that party a quality which it does not possess on its own, nor can it possess apart from God’s pronouncement. This is primarily a forensic or covenantal understanding of righteousness rather than a moral or ethical understanding, for it begins with God’s treating humanity in a way which its unfaithfulness and wickedness do not warrant. When God acquits a sinner or restores a faithless covenant partner on the basis of trust in the saving work of Jesus Christ, the forgiven party is at the time no better or worse than it was before. It is a righteousness utterly independent of merit, otherwise the reward would be a payment or obligation of God (Rom. 4:4). As it is, righteousness from God is a gift, wholly unmerited and freely given, which is motivated by grace and received by trust or faith (Rom. 4:5).

Lest the voltage of this truth dissipate into sentimentality, we must recall that a judge who hands down a lenient sentence to a guilty party (not to mention acquittal) has done a monstrous thing at law. In so doing the judge violates the one thing judges are obligated to do—to mete out justice by matching punishment with wrongdoing. Is then the justification of sinners an injustice on God’s part? It might be regarded as such if the discussion were divorced from 1:18–3:20. Three times in 3:25–26, however, Paul declares that righteousness by faith demonstrated God’s justice. How can this be? Moral outcries against injustice arise from parties desiring redress (i.e., from innocent parties which have been wronged), but they are never heard from guilty parties. Whether one is the wronged or the wrongdoer makes a vast difference in one’s attitude towards the decision of the judge. The party in the right expects justice, a “therefore.” The party in the wrong hopes for mercy, a “nevertheless.” But Paul has shown in 1:18–3:20 that all people stand justly condemned by God. Neither Jew nor Gentile is innocent; both are guilty. What to the morally faultless is a travesty is to the sinner grace. There is thus no “injustice” in God’s imputing righteousness to sinners—at least humanly speaking—for as sinners all humanity stands under God’s wrath, and justly so. The only injustice might be to God’s nature, but, as Paul will explain in verses 24–25, Jesus Christ has satisfied the requirements of justice by his “sacrifice of atonement.”

God’s righteousness cannot be earned (v. 28), nor is there anything one can give in return for it. It can be received only through faith in Jesus Christ as a gift of which one is absolutely unworthy. Faith is an attitude and action of pure receptivity. Paul does not say “the faith,” in reference to faith as a creed or formula. Faith as an affirmation of certain truths in order to merit God’s acceptance is really but a substitute for works. True faith is a response of trust in Christ and a confession that in oneself one has nothing to bring to God.

Verse 22 concludes with an emphasis on the universality of righteousness by faith, to all who believe. There is no difference (see also 10:12). It had been Paul’s purpose in 1:18–3:20 to show that all stand under God’s wrath; it is now his purpose to show that all are objects of God’s grace. “For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all” (11:32)! The gospel is the universal answer to universal need.

How might righteousness by faith have been heard in first-century Rome? In the introduction we suggested that the polarities between Jew and Gentile, which were extreme in the best of circumstances, were likely exacerbated in Rome due to the expulsion and return of Jews surrounding the edict of Claudius. This would have been due, in part, to the fact that the church, which had grown out of the Jewish synagogue, had become increasingly Gentile after Jews were expelled from Rome. Upon their return, perhaps in A.D. 54, it would be surprising indeed if friction and divisions had not developed. In light of this, Paul’s protracted strategy in 1:18–3:20 must have been read as more than an abstract theological exercise. The guilt of both Gentiles and Jews is underscored, and the right of either to judge the other is undermined. Moreover, God’s righteousness is offered to all who believe. There is no difference. We can well imagine the reconciling and healing effect which the doctrine of justification by faith must have had for Jews and Gentiles in such circumstances.

3:23 / For all have sinned. This is Paul’s categorical summary of the human experience. In chapter 3 he repeats this judgment nine times (vv. 4, 9, 10, 11, 12, 19, 20, 22, 23)! Regardless of the distinctions humans draw among themselves, in God’s sight “there is no difference.” All have sinned is an essential prelude to verse 24. Only in the light of grace can humanity recognize and lament its rebellion; only in the light of its rebellion is humanity humbled to receive grace. If humanity is to be saved, salvation must come from outside it, for on its own humanity stands under wrath. The Reformers referred to this as “alien righteousness,” salvation from outside, salvation not from humanity, but freely and entirely from God. Karl Barth presses this idea into service when he says, “Genuine fellowship is grounded upon a negative: it is grounded upon what men lack” (Romans, p. 101). There is no denominator common to humanity, whether social status, nationality, race, or whatever interests, which constitutes the fellowship of righteousness. All humans share a solidarity of impoverishment with one another in God’s sight. The one thing they have in common is that which makes them objects of both wrath and grace, their unworthiness before God.

Unworthiness is characterized by a falling short of the glory of God. Paul said earlier of those who sought glory and did good that “glory, honor, and peace” would await them (2:10). It might be supposed that the human predicament is actually a failure to “come of age” or attain its destiny. This is quite an alien thought for Paul. Falling short of the glory of God is surely a reference to Adam’s sin in Genesis 3. Humanity lacks glory not because it has failed in its potential, but because it has lost it through disobedience. The lacking of glory draws our attention not to a hopeful evolutionary spiral, but to the state of sin (“under sin,” 3:9), resultant from humanity’s exchanging the glory of God for its own will (1:21–23).

3:24 / In all Scripture there is probably no verse which captures the essence of Christianity better than this one. Here is the heart of the gospel, the mighty Nevertheless, the momentous divine reversal. Everything in verse 23 was due to humanity; everything in verse 24 depends on God. Paul slashed through the stubborn underbrush of idolatry and pride in order to remove any thought of a righteousness from below, for such a righteousness leads to boasting before God and distinctions among peoples. There is another righteousness, however, founded not on human stratagems but on the sovereign grace of God. By it humanity is justified freely. Freely underscores that God’s righteousness is unwarranted and determined by nothing but his sovereign will; “the beneficiary has no contribution to make: he receives all and gives nothing” (Leenhardt, Romans, p. 100). All this is motivated by God’s grace. How pleasant is the sound of this word after the incriminating argumentation which has gone before. In this word is the sum of the gospel, for in grace God acts towards sinners out of love and mercy rather than from wrath and judgment.

The heart of the matter is the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Here Paul depicts the work of Christ according to a second metaphor, deliverance from slavery. The Greek word, apolytrōsis, translated redemption, was frequently used in the Hellenistic world with reference to ransom paid for prisoners of war or redemption from slavery. Not the least significant aspect of this word is its concreteness: it refers to an event rather than an idea, a fact which must have been of some consequence to the addressees of the epistle, many of whom (to judge from the names listed in chapter 16) were themselves slaves or freed persons. Redemption means an act on behalf of an inferior, e.g., a prisoner, slave, or sinner. In the OT it often refers to the “redeeming” or buying back of slaves, indentured servants, or land (e.g., Lev. 25). More importantly, the term is often used in the OT of God’s deliverance of Israel from oppression in Egypt or exile in Babylon. But in the fulness of time, redemption happens by Christ Jesus. In the Christian faith redemption is defined by the person of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice on the cross. Redemption is an abstraction apart from the person of Jesus, whose name means “deliverer” in Hebrew. Redemption can never be severed from the person of Christ.

3:25 / Paul continues with Christ’s agency of salvation in verse 25. In Greek the verse begins with a relative pronoun, “whom God put forth,” which refers back to Jesus in verse 24. Everything in verses 25–26 therefore depends upon and is fulfilled in Jesus. The Greek word, protithēmi, here translated presented, can mean either “to set forth publicly” or “to plan or determine beforehand.” The latter meaning cannot be doubted. It is often supposed that when the human experiment went foul, God initiated a stopgap measure by sending his Son to remedy it. But Jesus Christ is far from a last minute, scissors-and-paste solution to sin (Gal. 4:4; Heb. 1:1–2). He belongs to the eternal purpose of God, and before the foundation of the world he was ordained as our saving partner (Eph. 1:3–4; Col. 1:15–20). True as this is, however, Paul likely intends the first meaning of protithēmi, “to set forth publicly.” The following references to the sacrifice of atonement and his blood seem to indicate the crucifixion as a public demonstration of God’s love. The efficacy of the various mystery cults of Jesus’ day—Eleusis, Mithra, Isis, Dionysis, and Cybele, to name the most common—depended on anonymity and secrecy. But the gospel had not been “done in a corner,” to quote Paul’s defense before Agrippa (Acts 26:26). Jesus Christ undertook a public ministry (Luke 2:31), his crucifixion was an official and public act, and the kerygma, the earliest Christian preaching, was public proclamation.

The key to the verse is hilastērion, rendered sacrifice of atonement. With this term Paul changes the metaphor from deliverance to sacrifice. The rarity of the term (and cognates) in the NT (Luke 18:13; Heb. 2:17; 9:5; 1 John 2:2; 4:10) is no indication of its importance. Hilastērion translates the Hebrew ḵapōreṯ, which designated the lid or mercy seat of the ark of the covenant (Exod. 25:17–22). The ark was locus revelationis, the place of revelation symbolizing the very presence of Yahweh, where Israel’s sins were forgiven. Paul transfers the imagery of the ark (which had perished six centuries earlier) to the cross of Jesus Christ. What had been revealed provisionally and proleptically in the Holy of Holies has been effected consummately in the cross of Christ: God put forth Christ as the means of forgiveness of sin, finally and forever!

Exactly how God removes sin by Christ’s sacrifice remains unresolved in theology. Various theories of the atonement attempt to present models or images of this divine mystery. That the same theories—ransom, classical, substitutionary, and moral—continue to be debated millennia after they were first proposed is evidence that each contains a germ of truth. But none exhausts the mystery. Paul’s use of hilastērion is itself a model of a high priest throwing blood from a sacrificial victim on a holy place in order to remove the sins of those for whom it was offered. But how redemption is thereby effected is much debated. Hilastērion is sometimes rendered “propitiation,” which means an action intended to alter God’s disposition of wrath. At other times it is rendered “expiation,” which means an action intended to alter the human condition of guilt. That the wrath of God discussed in 1:18–3:20 is indeed removed by redemption in Christ Jesus argues in favor of propitiation. But other observations argue for expiation. The emphasis in 1:18–3:20 is less on God’s wrath than on the human condition of faithlessness and unrighteousness. The fundamental problem is not God’s wrath but human wickedness and rebellion; once the latter is resolved, the former is dissolved. It is, after all, the human problem which redemption chiefly addresses. The thought behind expiation closely agrees with the scriptural testimony that God initiates reconciliation (thus, God presented him). The sinner has absolutely nothing to bring to appease God’s wrath. But God, out of his fathomless love and holiness, gives what the sinner cannot give, namely, himself on the sinner’s behalf. The ultimate sacrifice of God’s offering himself in the person of his Son on behalf of humanity removes the barrier of unrighteousness and estrangement between the two.

The syntax of through faith in his blood should not be construed as faith in the agency of blood. Were that Paul’s meaning he would have used the preposition eis (into) instead of en (in). Paul nowhere teaches believers to trust in Jesus’ blood, but in the blood of Jesus (NIV, his blood), whom God put forth as a sacrifice of atonement. The OT taught that life resided in the blood (Gen. 9:4; Lev. 17:11; Deut. 12:23), and the offering of blood at the altar symbolized the giving of life back to God. Moreover, the efficacy of a sacrifice consisted in the blood of an innocent victim. Placing their hands upon the head of an unblemished animal before it was slaughtered, sinners transferred their sins to the sacrificial victim and claimed its innocence for themselves. At the cross, however, the blood is efficacious not as blood per se, nor as innocent blood, but as Christ’s blood. Paul will return to this image in chapter 12 when he speaks of Christian ethics, though with this significant change: Christ offered of necessity a bloody sacrifice, but the believer must offer a “living sacrifice” (12:1).

Animal sacrifice in Israelite religion served two functions. First, it covered sin provisionally. This is confirmed in verse 25, God did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. This does not mean that God overlooked or disregarded sin. The gravity of sin was equally heinous before Christ, although God allowed a partial remedy until a complete one should come. Patience with sin should not be mistaken for toleration of it. God, of course, would not be thoroughly good if he were content to pass over sin indefinitely. This introduces Paul’s second understanding: animal sacrifice had a proleptic function; it was a harbinger of a final sacrifice which would remit the full consequences of sin. It is hardly surprising that early Christianity saw in such imagery the perfect prototype of “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).

3:26 / God’s righteousness is revealed in two ways in verses 25–26. In the past it was revealed in forbearance by “leaving sins committed beforehand unpunished” (see also 2:4). In the present it is revealed through faith in Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross. In this Bengel noted a great paradox: in the law God was seen as just and condemning, but in the gospel he is seen as just and yet the justifier of sinners (Gnomon, vol. 3, p. 51). In both forbearance and faith God remains just. The cross of Christ adequately expressed both God’s justice and love, and compromised neither. The cross is not a hope of the subconscious or a gestalt of the archetypical memory; it is a historical fact, a demonstration of God’s justice. But in addition to its historical reality, it is an existential reality, for God justifies (the Greek tense indicates contemporary time) those who believe in Jesus.

The central truth in verses 24–25 is Jesus Christ who defines each of the surrounding terms and concepts. Jesus is the redemption whom God put forth as an expiation, whose blood demonstrated God’s righteousness, a righteousness through faith in him who justifies the ungodly. That is, to be sure, high caliber vocabulary, but Paul is not indulging in conundrums and sophisms. He is striving to put universal and eternal verities into finite language, and his words are straining under the load. That should not surprise us. If dogs or dolphins were capable of penetrating human knowledge, we presume their language skills would be taxed in describing the Grand Canyon or a Beethoven concerto. Barth was right when he compared the desperate picture of humanity in 1:18–3:20 with the sublime restoration of grace in 3:21ff. It is indeed nothing less than creatio ex nihilo (Romans, p. 100).

3:27 / Election, circumcision, law—these were so inextricably part of Judaism, and themselves a source of pride and error, that Paul could not fail to consider them in light of the breathtaking news of righteousness in 3:21–26. He reverts here briefly to the rhetorical or diatribe style which he used in chapter 2. The style of verses 27–31 is deft and decisive, likely the result of ample experience with such issues on the mission field. Where, then, is boasting? Earlier Paul spoke of boasting in Jewishness (2:17) and the law (2:23). But God’s righteousness excludes boasting, lest credits and privileges begin to calculate merits with God. The NIV renders verse 27 loosely, whereas the original Greek maintains a distinct parallelism between “law of works” and “law of faith.” The exact meaning of “law of faith” is a matter of debate. Paul may employ it as a figure of speech, conforming to “law of works.” Then again, he may mean that since the advent of Christ the law must ever after be regarded in terms of faith, not as a reward for virtue but as a summons to faith. What is clear is that grace stands in conflict with boasting. Justification by works is the presumption to calculate what God owes to one and not to another. The arithmetic of legalism juggles the figures to show a refund due in my column which God must pay. But the arithmetic of grace is based on a bottom-line that all have failed, but that God has mercy on all. The arithmetic of grace shows a balance due in my column, and yet a cancellation of debt!

3:28 / Verse 28 recapitulates the main ideas of verses 20–26 (see also Gal. 2:16; 3:12). Even more clearly than in verse 20, Paul here affirms that righteousness could not be attained by the law. There were not a few virtuous souls in Judaism who were believed to have fulfilled the law (Paul included, Phil. 3:6), but not even this constituted righteousness with God. Paul introduces a word that will play a leading role in the following chapter, logizomai, “to reckon or impute” (NIV, maintain). Logizomai is a strategic word logically because justification by faith is a necessary corollary of the universal condemnation of the law; it is strategic theologically because God reckons sinners righteous solely by grace through faith, and not by works.

3:29–30 / If it is true that righteousness is received from faith and not works, then it is universally applicable to Jews and Gentiles. Both Jews and Gentiles are equally guilty of sin; thus, both are equally candidates for grace. Jewish rabbis of Paul’s day would have taken strong exception to this. Writing a century after Paul, Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai granted that God was the God of all peoples as creator and judge, but to Israel alone God had given his name, and to Israel alone he belonged (Str-B, vol. 3, p. 185). Paul reminds the Romans, however, that God is not only creator of the Gentiles but also their redeemer, because there is only one God. Thus, the doctrine of salvation by grace alone is rooted in monotheism, in the oneness of God. Sola gratia derives from solus deus!

3:31 / Paul concludes the discussion of righteousness with an obvious question: Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? He denies this categorically, Not at all! The purpose of the law had never been to bring salvation, as he will argue in chapter 4 (4:13f.; see also Gal. 3:1–20). The law’s function had been to reveal sin (3:20) and to demonstrate the need of a savior apart from the law. In 2 Corinthians 3:6 Paul says, “The letter (law) kills, but the Spirit gives life.” In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus repeatedly reinterpreted the law in terms of its motive or intent (e.g., Matt. 5:21–22, 27–28). The purpose of the commandment, in other words, had been to engender a proper attitude and behavior toward God’s will. It is this original intent or motive which faith perceives, for “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good” (7:12). The law drives one to Christ, and where one lives by faith in Christ, there one fulfills the intent of the law. “The righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit” (8:4).