Sola Fide: Part 3

Our righteousness

The primary discussion taking place in Romans 4:1-8 is a matter of how or by what God regards his children as righteous. This is commonly referred to biblically and extra-biblically as justification. The idea behind justification is that because of some reason God in some way deems the unrighteous human being as righteous and therefore worthy of communion with himself.[1]

But what is this “righteousness?” Or rather, what does this term “righteousness” refer too? According to W.E. Vine “righteousness” may carry a couple of different ideas with it. The first is the idea of “righteousness” as “right action.” We see this usage employed by Paul on five occasions in Romans 6, in Ephesians 6:14 and in other places throughout the New Testament. The other usage implies that of a gracious gift given by God to bring those who believe in Jesus Christ into right relationship with himself (Vine, 980).

In my estimation it seems to be this second definition which Paul is implying in his use of the word righteousness. There are two primary reasons here in support of this definition. The first is that we see this idea prominently throughout Paul’s writings and especially in close conjunction to his discussions of justification and reconciliation before God. II Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” just after urging the Corinthians to be reconciled to God in verse 20. Titus 3:5 shows that our salvation is not because of any righteous works that we have committed but because of God’s own mercy upon us. Paul states a similar idea in Ephesians 2:8-9 and says that it is by God’s grace alone that we are saved through our faith with no relation to ourselves and completely apart from any works. And lastly Paul gives us these ideas in Romans just prior to the passage in question. No one will be declared righteous because of law observance, but the righteousness we do have is from God, apart from the law, and through faith in Jesus Christ.

The second reason for my understanding of the word “righteousness” is that if we take “righteousness” to mean “acts of rightness” or “right action” then all of the above statements by the apostle implicitly contradict themselves. We cannot affirm that our righteousness is granted to us apart from our own action while at the same time claiming that it is by our righteous action that we were justified before God. For if we do then either we need to seek a new understanding of such statements, or they must be accepted as logically false statements in which the case we must reject the whole of the gospel.

I believe that Paul was quite intentional of his use of the word righteousness. He quite clearly departed from Jewish tradition showing that the right action idea was wrong. According to both Josephus and Philo righteousness is an “ethical conception” or “chief cardinal virtue which originates in the soul” and “is meritorious” (Bromiley 171). So when Paul goes against the grain of popular Jewish thought and pairs righteousness with faith he is quite clearly making a statement about what he believes righteousness to be and how he thinks it should be viewed in light of the gospel message he is preaching.[2]

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[1] The reason and way of God’s justification has yet to be addressed. The focus here is on Paul’s understanding of righteousness and how exactly God views this righteousness. Discussion of the means of obtaining righteousness will be included under point II (consult outline for reference.)

[2] It should be noted that Paul’s argumentation against the Jewish train of thought is important to this passage and integral to its proper interpretation. This idea of Paul’s argument against popular Jewish thought will be addressed more completely further on.

Sola Fide: Part 2

Literary Context:

Romans is a letter that contains a number of personal elements to it. But despite its status as an epistle, the body of the letter much resembles that of a treatise owing to its tight argumentative structure and heavy theological content.

In order to gain an understanding of any particular passage in Romans, one must first understand Romans as a literary whole. Paul begins Romans with a prologue in 1:1-17. Then, starting with 1:18 and running through 8:39 Paul shows how God’s righteousness is revealed in His universal plan for salvation. In chapter 9 extending through 11:36 Paul discusses at length Israel’s rejection and the Gentile inclusion into the New Covenant. Chapter 12-15:13 displays precepts for righteous living. The remainder of the book functions as an epilogue.

As we approach Romans 4:1-8 we must notice that Paul has been demonstrating God’s righteousness and man’s lack (and therefore need) of that righteousness. 3:23 says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Quite clearly Paul is making a statement as to mankind’s hopeless position before God. With this statement Paul begins to give the answer to man’s problem – faith in Jesus Christ.

Because of the theological issues going on at the time, namely how the law was interpreted and how that came into play with Christianity, Paul then takes the opportunity in 3:27 to introduce the idea of righteousness being obtained through faith instead of observance of the law. And it is here that we find ourselves looking at 4:1-8 and trying to determine how and by what exactly we are justified.

This would have been an important issue in Paul’s day as there were high tensions about whether continued law observance was a necessary part of the conversion experience. We see even among the apostles disagreements happening over this issue, and so Paul seeks to set the Romans straight that they might not fall into some of the same doctrinal traps as other branches of the early church had a tendency to do.

Sola Fide: A Discussion of Abraham's 'righteousness' in Romans 4.1-8 and its implicaitons for the believer.

Yes, this is another multi-part series. I know that some of my readers probably appreciate a single stand alone post, but if I were to attempt that with some of the recent topics I would have to post a short treatise all at one time. Consequently, it is much easier for me to post a page or two at a time and hopefully it allows you to more fully digest the content by taking it in smaller portions.

Part 1: Historical Context:

Unlike some of the other Pauline epistles, Romans is almost undisputedly agreed to have been written by the apostle Paul. Although this is the case, some still argue the integrity of the letter because of the role of a certain Tertius, who is supposed to have been Paul’s amanuensis for this letter. This debate comes into play to determine if we have Paul’s final work or Tertius’ re-mastery of Paul’s ideas. Most likely Paul dictated his letter word for word to Tertius who the copied it down. Structurally, Romans matches up with other Pauline texts that have been accepted as authentic.

Reconstructing Paul’s journeys and the history of the New Testament leads us to conclude quite conclusively that Romans was written sometime between A.D. 55 and 58 from the city of Corinth. If we look at the book of Acts we find numerous evidences that lead us to accept Corinth as the most plausible place of authorship, specifically during his three month visit in Acts 20:2-3. Less certain is the date of writing, but taking Paul’s experience before Gallio the proconsul of Corinth in Acts 18:12-17 to have happened in 51 (according to Cranfield) and adding two years for Paul’s stay in Ephesus (Acts 19:10) plus any significant travel time, the earliest conclusion we can come to seems to be 54 and even more likely sometime between 55 and 58 (Schriener 4).

Perhaps even more pertinent to a discussion of Romans is to observe the audience to which it was written. Due to internal evidence within Romans the conclusion can be made that it was at least written to gentile Christians in the city of Rome, and probably a number of Jewish Christians as well. Some would argue that it was written more for a Jewish audience, however the Jewish population was only just being allowed back into Rome upon the death of Emperor Claudius[1] and so a gentile population would clearly be dominant (Morris 4). Within this context it should be noted that even the gentile Christians would have had a strong grounding in the Old Testament and a familiarity with Jewish customs and ways of thinking. This is because of the influence of the synagogues and Jewish Christians who no doubt played an important part in forming the early Roman church.

As with any letter and especially in the case of one to which we are not privy to have the specific context of, we must ask of the authorial intent. The purpose of Romans seems to be twofold. First, Paul seems to be writing to introduce himself to the Roman church and telling them of his intended visit. In this way his letter is sent out ahead of him to preface his coming and allow for some preparations to be made on his account. Second, Paul writes to address the social-political atmosphere of the church in Rome. As can be seen in a number of other New Testament books, Jew-Gentile relations were high throughout the Christian communities, so Paul writes in order to stress the unity of the body. But in order to do so he first had to establish the credibility of his gospel, which as we notice in 1:11ff was already under substantial attack. This purpose would account for the systematic account of the gospel as well as the prominence of the topics of the Mosaic Law and Israel’s place in redemptive history.

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[1] Emperor Claudius expelled Jews from the city of Rome, but the decree ended with his death in A.D. 54 allowing Jews to return to the city.