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APPENDIX E
NOTE CONCERNING THE MISINTERPRETATION OF SALVATION
In the first part of Romans 1:18 to 5:11, Paul explains that the wrath of God is against man’s sin.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” (Rom. 1:18)
God’s attitude toward sin is expressed in the Scriptures by the concept of the wrath of God. In both the Old and New Testaments, God’s opposition to sin is expressed in terms also used in the description of human emotions of anger, indignation, and wrath. But the wrath of God should not be thought of as an unstable, capricious emotion. It is true that men’s anger is so often such an impulsive passion, usually involving a large element of fickleness together with a lack of self-control. But the wrath of God is not to be so conceived. Neither is it to be thought of as like the anger of the heathen anthropomorphic deities. The writers of the Bible have nothing to do with the pagan concepts of a “capricious and vindictive diety, inflicting arbitrary punishments on offending worshippers, who must then bribe him back to a good mood by the appropriate offerings.” [1]
The Biblical concept of the wrath of God should be thought of as the stern and settled personal reaction of God’s love against sin in man. That is, God’s wrath must be understood in terms of God’s love. Love is that decision of a person loving to act for the good of the person loved. It is not just an emotion, an easy-going, good-natured sentimentalism or good feeling of attraction or fondness for someone. But rather it is a decision of the will. But since the will involves the emotions as well as the intellect, that is, the total person, love is a strong and intensive concern for the well being of the person loved. And it is because of this concern that love may be pictured as a purifying fire, blazing out in fiery wrath against everything evil that hinders the loved one from being the best (Psa. 119:74; Prov. 3:11-12; Heb, 12:5-10; Rev. 3:19). Because of this intense love which is jealous for the good of the loved one, God hates everything that is evil in man (Psa. 5:5; 11:5; Prov. 6:16-19; Jer. 44:4; Heb. 1:13; Zech. 8:16-17). Hence the wrath of God is not opposed to His love. But rather it is the reverse side of His love. God’s wrath is the direct personal opposition of His love to the sin that would destroy man whom He loves.
The wrath of God is directed against sin in any form (Jer. 21:12; Ezek. 8:17-18; 22:29,31; Rom. 1:18). But it is particularly directed against the sin of idolatry.
“14 You shall not go after other gods, the gods of peoples who are round about you; 15 for the Lord your God in the midst of you is a jealous God; lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you off the face of the earth.” (Deut. 6:14-15)
(See also Deut. 4:25-26; 29:25-28; Joshua 23:15-16; Isa. 66:15-17; Jer. 11:11-13; 19:3-4; 44:2-6; Ex. 32:10,35; Num. 25:3; Lam. 3:42-43; Judges 2:11-15; II Kings 17:9-12; 15-18.)
Idolatry is not just the worship of graven images made of wood, stone or metal (Col. 3:5; see also Eph. 5:5). The false gods whose worship is idolatry are not always so crude or absurd. Many things such as pleasure, wealth, power, education, the family, society, the state, democracy, experience, reason and science, which are good in their proper place, may become a person’s god. One of these sophisticated deities has recently been given the following public confession:
“Men bet their lives on it [science] as they do on other gods, and on the record, it functions no less divinely than any other ….
‘God’ is no less fitting an appellation for this [science] than for any that churchmem so name and require laymen to bet their lives on, worship and adjure.” [2]
Science, of course, is not the only god to which modern man looks for deliverance. Today’s pantheon is as full of gods as those of ancient Greece and Rome. The only difference is that these twentieth century gods are not so easily identified as such. They have become more sophisticated and civilized. But the absence of a label does not alter the content of the package. Although anonymous, they are none the less gods when they become the object of faith and trust in a man’s life. If anything, they are more dangerous and deceptive because they are not generally recognized as gods. What is a god? Martin Luther in his comments on the first commandment in his Large Catechism answers this question very clearly:
“A god is that to which we look for all good and in which we find refuge in every time of need. To have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe in him with our whole heart. As I have often said, the trust and faith of the heart alone make both God and the idol … For these two belong together, faith and God. That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself is, I say, really your God.” [3]
Faith is the commitment and devotion of a person to some object which is for that person of ultimate significance and supreme importance. That object to which a person is committed and devoted is that person’s “god.” The term “god” need not refer to the personal triune God of the Christian religion nor to the object of faith and trust of any historical or formal religion. It is a functional term, that is, a term which takes its meaning from the particular function or operation performed by the object to which the term applies. A god performs the function of the object of supreme importance and ultimate significance to which a person or group of persons may commit and devote themselves.
“Taken by itself this word [god] carries as little specific meaning as the word ‘good.’ Both are empty receptacles whose content varies from man to man and from religion to religion.” [4]
At the suggestion that he worships a god, the irreligious may be shocked and incredulous. But every man must have a god. By his very constitution, a man must necessarily have a god to which he can commit and devote himself, in which he can trust. This is apparent from an analysis of human freedom. There are three elements in every decision:
(1) an agent with the ability to choose,
(2) the alternatives to choose between, and
(3) the criterion by which the choice is to be made.
This last element is often overlooked or ignored in the analysis of freedom. The choice between the alternatives is made with reference to some criterion of choice, and the choice cannot be made without this reference. That is, it is impossible to make any decision as to how to act or think without appealing to some criterion of the good and the true. Every human decision necessarily involves a relationship to something in or beyond the self as a criterion of decision. In other words, behind every decision as to what a person should do or think there must be a reason. And the ultimate reason for any decision, practical or theoretical, must be given in terms of some particular criterion, an ultimate reference or orientation point in or beyond the self or person making the decision. This ultimate criterion is that person’s god. In this sense, every man must have god, that is, an ultimate criterion of decision. Thus in the very exercise of his freedom – decision – man shows he is a creature who must have a god.
From this point of view, no man is an atheist in the basic meaning of the word, that is, no god. Every man must have a god. Man is a religious animal who necessarily must have some object of ultimate allegiance and trust which functions as his guide of truth and his norm of conduct. Every man must choose a god. Though free to adopt the god of his choice, no man is free to advoid this decision. Every attempt to do so turns out to be not a denial of having a god but an exchange of gods. To ask whether one believes in the existence of God is to completely misunderstand the issue. The issue is not whether one should choose between theism or atheism, that is, to believe in the existence of God or not, but whether one should choose this god or that god as the true God. The atheist’s god is that there is no god, and he wants you to accept his god.
The wrath of God is directed particularly against the sin of idolatry because it is the basic sin. But more fundamentally it is directed against this sin because of the effect that a false god has upon the one who chooses it as his god. A false god destroys the freedom of its worshipper by putting him into bondage. The true God, on the other hand, not only sets the worshipper of a false god free from its bondage, but also preserves and fulfills the freedom of the one who chooses and worships Him. Since the true God is a living God (Jer. 10:5-15; I Thess. 1:9), that is, a being that has the power of self-determination, with unlimited freedom, He can preserve His worshipper’s freedom. When this Being who has such freedom is made the ultimate criterion of one’s decisions, one’s freedom of choice may be exercised without restriction or frustrating limitation. But more importantly, the true God not only preserves the freedom of the one who chooses and worships Him but also fulfills the freedom of the one who commits and devotes himself to Him. This He does by loving him, that is, by acting toward him for his highest good. Now man’s highest good is the true God; He alone can preserve the freedom of the one who chooses Him. For when a man chooses the true God as his God, he has found his highest good and obtained true happiness (Prov. 16:20; Psa. 40:4; 84:12; 144:15; Jer. 17:7, etc.). Because the true God is love (I John 4:8, 16), He acts toward man in such a way as to bring man to the choice of man’s highest good, that is, the true God, and hence the fulfillment of his freedom. One way He does this is by directly opposing (i.e., the wrath of God) man’s choice of a false god (the sin of idolatry). Since idolatry not only destroys man’s freedom but is an obstacle to God’s love which would fulfill man’s freedom, the wrath of God is directed against this particular sin. But wrath is not the only way that God in His love deals with man’s sin. The wrath of God is not the only nor the last word about what God has said or done concerning man’s sin. God’s wrath is His strange work.
“The Lord will rise up as on Mount Perazim, he will be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon; to do his deed – strange is his deed! and to work his work – alien is his work!” (Isa. 28:21)
It is that act of His love that is alien to the way God wishes to act. He desires to act toward man in mercy and grace (Psa. 103:9-12; Micah 7:18-19). In mercy, He desires to turn away His wrath and forgive man’s sin (Psa. 85:2-3). And in grace, He desires to remove the sin which causes His wrath. This is the other way that God in His love deals with man’s sin. Thus, God deals with man’s sin in two ways. In His wrath, He opposes the sin, and in His grace He removes it. The grace of God is the love of God in action to bring man salvation (Titus 2:11; Eph. 2:4-9). In this second way, God fulfills man’s freedom; He removes the idolatry which would destroy man’s freedom. And this He does by removing the cause of sin – death – through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Therefore, the wrath of God is not opposed to His love. But rather it is one of the two ways in which God in His love deals with man’s sin. God’s wrath as well as His grace is an expression of His love. There is no eternal principle of divine retribution (justice) in God which causes His wrath. Since God is love, the wrath of God must be understood in terms of His love as the direct personal opposition of His love to sin that would destroy the one whom He loves. Wrath is the reaction of His love to sin. The cause of God’s wrath is not in God; it is external to God and in the sin of man. And as long as man remains in sin, so long does the wrath of God remain upon him (John 3:36).
Man is under the wrath of God because of his sin of idolatry ( Rom. 1:18-25); that is, the wrath of God is caused by sin; it is a direct consequence of each man’s own sin. But since man is a sinner as a consequence of Adam’s sin (Rom. 5:19a), then the wrath of God is also a result of Adam’s sin (Rom. 5:18a; note that condemnation is the same as wrath). But it is only indirectly, not directly, a result of Adam’s sin. For all men are sinners only indirectly as a consequence of Adam’s sin. They are sinners directly because of the spiritual death ( Rom. 5:12d ERS; Gal.4:8), which they have received from Adam ( Rom. 5:12c; I Cor. 15:22). Sin is the direct consequence of spiritual death and hence only an indirect consequence of Adam’s sin (the spiritual and physical death only came directly from Adam). And since man is a sinner as an indirect consequence of Adam’s sin, then the wrath of God (condemnation) is also an indirect consequence of Adam’s sin. Condemnation is not the direct result of Adam’s sin; that is, man is not condemned because of Adam’s sin but because of his own personal sin, his own choice of a false god. The cause of the wrath of God is the sin of each individual man (Ezek. 18:1-4, 14-20).
The means by which God’s wrath may be turned aside involves the purging of the sin. This may be done, for example, by completely destroying the offending city (Deut. 13:15-17), slaying those who had sinned as at Baal-Peor (Num. 25:4), releasing captives (II Chron. 28:11-13), putting away heathen wives (Ezra 10:14). The putting away of sin involves a change of heart attitude, repentance (Jonah 3:7,10), humbling oneself (II Chron. 12:7), circumcising the heart (Jer. 4:4) and doing judgment (Jer. 21:12). It is the absence of this inward change of heart and attitude and the corresponding outward change in actions that brought about the rejection and condemnation by the psalmists and prophets of the divinely appointed system of offerings and sacrifices.
“And Samuel said, ‘Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.'” (I Sam. 15:22)
“16 For Thou dost not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; Thou art not pleased with burnt offerings. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.” (Psa. 51:16-17)
“For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hosea 6:6; See also Psa. 4:5; 40:6-8; 50:7-23; 69:30-31; Prov. 15:8; 21:3; Isa. 1:11-17; Jer. 7:21-26; Amos 5:21-24; Micah 6:6-8.)
These divinely appointed offerings and sacrifices were intended to be a means of turning away God’s wrath, but the absence of a correct inward heart attitude and the corresponding correct outward actions made them into an empty ritual and an abomination to God. Without repentance and faith they ceased to be an atonement or means of propitiation.
The Old Testament sacrifices could never take away sin (Heb. 10:4, 11). On the contrary, there is in those sacrifices a continual remembrance of sin year by year (Heb. 10:3). That is, the worshippers, not having been cleansed of their sins, still have a consciousness of sin (Heb. 10:2). Therefore, those that draw near could never be made perfect by those sacrifices (Heb. 10:1). But Christ has put away sin once for all by the sacrifice of Himself (Heb. 9:26; 10:12), and has made perfect them that are being sanctified or set apart to God (Heb. 10:14). Now there is no more remembrance of sins (Heb. 10:17), since those drawing near having been cleansed from their sins have no more consciousness of sins (Heb. 10:22). It was to accomplish our cleansing from sin that Christ “gave Himself for our sins” (Gal. 1:4) and “died for our sins” (I Cor. 15:3). God acted in Jesus Christ to redeem us from sin.
Because God has redeemed us from sin, we also are delivered from the wrath of God. Salvation is not only deliverance from sin but also deliverance from the wrath of God ( Rom. 5:9). God put forth Jesus Christ as a propitiation through faith in His blood (Rom. 3:25). The death of Jesus Christ is a propitiation because it is the means that God has appointed for turning away His wrath from man. While God in His love could have mercy on man and turn away His wrath from man (Psa. 78:38; Exodus 34:6; Numbers 14:19-20), He has appointed the means whereby His wrath will be turned away. In the Old Testament, God’s appointed means for turning away His wrath were the sacrifices and offerings. When these sacrifices were offered in true repentance and faith, they were an atonement or propitiation. But these sacrifices could never take away sin (Heb. 10:4, 11), that is, they could not bring about repentance and faith, because they could not make alive ( Gal. 3:21). The Old Testament sacrifices could not reconcile man to God. But through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, man is reconciled to God and his sins are taken away. And since there are no sins to cause wrath, the wrath of God is turned away. No sin, no wrath. Thus Christ’s death is the perfect sacrifice for turning away God’s wrath because by it man is redeemed from sin. Christ’s death is a propitiation because it is a redemption; it is both a propitiation and a redemption. Propitiation is the sacrifical aspect of Christ’s work of salvation, and redemption is the liberation aspect of Christ’s work of salvation. Christ’s death is a propitiation, turning away God’s wrath, because it is also redemption, the setting free from sin, taking away sin. And Christ’s death is a propitiation and a redemption because Christ’s death and resurrection is a reconciliation to God. Being made alive to God, death, the cause of sin ( Rom. 5:12d ERS), has been removed, and being liberated from sin, wrath has been removed.
Because God loves us, He has acted in the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ for the salvation of man from death, sin and wrath. Since wrath is caused by sin ( Rom. 1:18) and sin by death ( Rom. 5:12d ERS), salvation is basically from death to life and then from sin to righteousness and then from wrath to peace with God. Thus there are three aspects of salvation.
(1) propitiation is salvation from wrath to peace;
(2) redemption, is salvation from sin to righteousness; and
(3) Reconciliation is salvation from death to life.
These three aspects of salvation are accomplished in and through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christ’s death is a propitiation because it is a redemption; and it is a propitiation and a redemption because it is a reconciliation to God.
“24 Being set right by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood …. (Rom. 3:24-25; ERS);
“For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” (Rom. 5:10 (NAS);
“18 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation,
19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg us on the behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” (II Cor. 5:18-20 NAS); see also I Cor. 1:9; I John 1:2-3).
Propitiation is the sacrificial aspect of His work, redemption is the liberation aspect of His work, and reconciliation is the representative aspect of His work of salvation. This threefold act of God for the salvation of man is the righteousness of God. The Gospel tells us about this act of God for our salvation in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (I Cor. 15:3-4). And in the preaching of the Gospel, God exerts His power for the salvation of men by bringing them to faith in Jesus Christ ( Rom. 1:16). That is, in the preaching of the Gospel, God reveals Himself to us making us spiritually alive to Himself when we receive Jesus Christ who is the life (John 14:6; I John 5:12) as our Lord (Rom. 10:9-10). To be spiritually alive to God is to know God personally, and to know God personally is to trust Him. For God is love (I John 4:8, 16) and love begets trust. The trust that God’s love invokes in us is righteousness ( Rom. 4:5, 9); it relates us rightly to God. Thus by making us alive to Himself, God sets us right with Himself through faith. Life produces righteousness just as death produces sin. This is what the law cannot do; it cannot make men alive. As Paul says in Gal. 3:21,
“…for if there had been a law given which could make alive, verily righteousness would have been by the law.” (Gal. 3:21)
And since the law cannot make alive, salvation cannot be by the law. The righteousness of the law, the merits earned by keeping the law, is a false righteousness, dirty filthy rags (Isa. 64:6; Phil. 3:7-9; Rom. 10:3-4). Just as trust in a false god is sin, so trust in the true God is righteousness ( Rom. 4:3-5). And just as sin flows from death, so righteousness flows from life. The law cannot give life. And because the law cannot remove death, it also cannot remove sin. And since it cannot make alive, the law cannot produce real righteousness, the righteousness of faith.
The Biblical concept of the righteousness of God is the act or activity of God whereby He puts or sets right that which is wrong. Very often in the Old Testament, it is the action of God for the vindication and deliverance of His people; it is the activity in which God saves His people by rescuing them from their oppressors.
“In thee, O Lord, do I seek refuge; let me never be put to shame; in thy righteousness deliver me!” (Psa. 31:1)
“In thy righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline thy ear to me, and save me!” (Psa. 71:2)
“11 For thy name’s sake, O Lord, preserve my life! In thy righteousness bring me out of trouble! 12 And in thy steadfast love cut off my enemies. and destroy all my adversaries, for I am thy servant.” (Psa. 143:11-12)
Thus the righteousness of God is often a synonym for the salvation or deliverance of God. In the Old Testament, this is clearly shown by the literary device of parallelism which is a characteristic of Hebrew poetry. Parallelism is that Hebrew literary device in which the thought and idea in one clause is repeated and amplified in a second and following clause. This parallelism of Hebrew poetry clearly shows that Hebrew poets and prophets made the righteousness of God synonymous with divine salvation:
“The Lord hath made known His salvation: He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations.” (Psa. 98:2 NAS)
“I bring near my righteousness, it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry; and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory.” (Isa. 46:13 KJV)
“My righteousness is near, my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust.” (Isa. 51:5 KJV)
“Thus saith the Lord, ‘Do judgment and righteousness: for my salvation is about to come, and my righteousness to be revealed.'” (Isa. 56:1 ERS) (See also Psa. 71:1-2, 15; 119:123; Isa. 45:8; 61:10; 62:1)
From these verses it is clear that righteousness of God is a synonym for the salvation or deliverance of God. The righteous acts of the Lord, or more literally, the righteousnesses of the Lord, referred to in Judges 5:11; I Sam. 12:7-11; Micah 6:3-5; Psa. 103:6-8; and Dan. 9:15-16, means the acts of vindication or deliverance which the Lord has done for His people, giving them victory over their enemies. It is in this sense that God is called “a righteous God and a Savior” (Isa. 45:21 RSV, NAS, NIV) and “the Lord our righteousness” (Jer. 23:5-6; 33:15-16).
The righteousness of God is not opposed to the love of God nor does it condition it. On the contrary, it is a part of and the proper expression of God’s love. The righteousness of God is the activity of God’s love to set right the wrong. In the Old Testament, this is shown by the parallelism between love and righteousness.
“But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear him, and His righteousness to children’s children.” (Psa. 103:17). (See also Psa. 33:5; 36:5-6; 40:10; 89:14.)
God expresses His love as righteousness in the activity by which He saves His people from their sins. In His wrath, God opposes the sin that would destroy man whom He loves. In His grace, He removes the sin. The grace of God is the love of God in action to bring salvation ( Eph. 2:4-5; Titus 2:4-7). Thus the grace of God may properly be called the righteousness of God. For in His righteousness, God acts to deliver His people from their sins, setting them right with Himself.
There is a difference between the righteousness of God in the Old Testament and that in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, the righteousness of God is the vindication of the righteous who are suffering wrong (Ex. 23:7). God vindicates the righteous who are wrongfully oppressed. In the Old Testament, the righteousness of God requires a real righteousness of the people on whose part it is done. In Isa. 51:7, the promise of deliverance is addressed to those “who know righteousness, the people in whose hearts is my law.” Similarly, in order to share in the promised vindication, the wicked must forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and return unto the Lord (Isa. 55:7). In the New Testament, the righteousness of God is not only a vindication of a righteous people who are being wrongfully oppressed (this view is in Jesus’ teaching recorded in Matt. 5:6; 6:33; and Luke 18:7), but it is also the deliverance of the people from their own sins; it is also the salvation of the ungodly who are delivered from their ungodliness (trust in a false god) and unrighteousness. The righteousness of God saves the unrighteous by setting them right with God Himself through faith.
“16For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17For in it [the gospel] the righteousness of God is being revealed from faith unto faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous from faith shall live’.” (Rom. 1:16-17 ERS).
Legalism misinterprets the righteousness of God as justice, that is, as that principle of God’s being that requires and demands the reward of good works (by conformity to the Law) because of their intrinsic merit (by remunerative justice) and the punishment of every transgression of the law with a proportionate punishment because of its own intrinsic demerit (by retributive justice). According to this view, for God to do otherwise He would be unrighteous and unjust. Absolute justice, which according to this legalistic point of view is the eternal being of God, is said to require and demand, of necessity, the reward of meritorious good works and the punishment of sin.
It was this legalistic concept of justice that gave Martin Luther so much trouble. Martin Luther rediscovered the meaning of the righteousness of God in Paul’s letter to the Romans. After a long and troubled search, Martin Luther recovered the Biblical concept of the righteousness of God and of the justification by faith. But his followers obscured this understanding of these concepts by the legalism of their theology and legalistic understanding of righteousness and justification. But Luther’s use of the scholastic distinction between active and passive righteousness tended to obscure the Biblical concept of the righteousness of God. Luther obviously rejected the active sense; but the Lutheran Protestant scholastics interpreted Luther as accepting both senses. Because their explanation of the death of Christ was still grounded in the legalistic concept of justice, that is, that Christ died to pay the penalty for man’s sin which the justice of God requires to be paid before God can save man, they had to retain the active sense also. Thus Luther’s discovery of the Biblical understanding of the righteousness of God was obscured and eventually lost.
By identifying the righteousness of God with the passive sense, Luther gave the impression that the righeousness of God is the righteousness from God, that is, the righteousness man receives from God through faith. But the righteousness from God is not the righteousness of God. These are different though related ideas and must be carefully distinguished. The righteousness from God is the righteousness of faith ( Phil. 3:9), because God reckons faith as righteousness ( Rom. 4:3-5). That is, the righteousness of faith is not merit placed to the account of the believer, but the right relationship of the believer to God by faith. And this righteousness of faith is the righteousness from God. The righteousness of faith is the act or choice of a man to trust God but the righteousness of God is the act or activity of God to set a man right with God Himself by faith. Since this act of faith by a man is possible only when God acts to set a man right with God Himself, the righteousness of faith is the righteousness from God. Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians,
“7But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss because of the sake of Christ. 8Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, in order that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ,
the righteousness from [ek] God that depends upon [epi] faith, …” (Phil. 3:7-9).
This righteousness from God is the righteousness of faith ( Rom. 4:13) which is that right personal relationship to God that results from faith in the true God (Rom. 4:3). To trust in God is to be righteous (Rom. 4:5). Paul writes in his letter to the Romans,
“3 For what does the scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ 4Now to one who works, his wages are not reckoned as a gift but as his due. 5And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness …. (Rom. 4:3-5)
“9bWe say that faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.” (Rom. 4:9b)
“13The promise to Abraham and his descendants, that they should inherit the world, did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.” (Rom. 4:13)
“20No distrust made him [Abraham] waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22That is why his faith was ‘reckoned to him as righteousness.’ 23But the words, ‘it was reckoned to him,’ were written not for his sake alone, 24but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him that raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25who was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” (Rom. 4:20-25)
Luther’s apparent identification of the righteousness of God with the righteousness from God led eventually lead to the equating of the righteousness from God with Christ’s righteousness, that is, the merits earned by Christ’s active obedience under law and is imputed to the believer’s account when he believes. And the righteousness of God was then equated with the justice of God, that is, that attribute of God which requires that God punish all sin and reward all meritorious works. But righteousness of God is not justice. The righteousness of God is God acting in love for the salvation or deliverance of man. This righteousness of God (salvation) has been manifested (publicily displayed) in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
“21But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,
22even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe ….” (Rom. 3:21-22 NAS).
The gospel tells us about this act of God, about this manifestation of the righteousness of God. And in the preaching of the gospel, the righteousness of God is being continually revealed or actualized ( Rom. 1:17a). That is, God is exerting His power for the salvation of man in the preaching of the gospel ( Rom. 1:16); in this activity, man is being delivered from something bad, from wrath, sin and death, to something good, to peace, righteousness and life.
This revelation of the righteousness of God ( Rom. 1:17a) is also called in our English translations justification ( Rom. 3:24). As we have seen, the righteousness of God is the act or activity of God whereby God sets man right with God Himself. Hence, the revelation of the righteousness of God is this act of setting right, and this act of setting right is called justification. Justification is not just a pronouncement about something but it is an act that brings about something; it is not just a declaration that a man is righteous before God but it is a setting of a man right with God: a bringing him into a right personal relationship with God. Justification is then essentially salvation: to justify is to save (Isa. 45:25; 53:11; see Rom. 6:7 where dikaioo is translated “freed” in RSV). This close relationship between these two concepts is more obvious in the Greek because the words translated “righteousness” and “justification” have the same roots, not two different roots as do the two English words.
Now justification is a deliverance of the ungodly from their own sins. Thus, Paul says that God is He “that justifies the ungodly” ( Rom. 4:5). Justification is the salvation of the ungodly who are delivered from their ungodliness and unrighteousness. But justification not only saves the ungodly from their sins (trust in false gods), it also brings them into the righteousness of faith (trust in true God). To be set right with God, that is, to be justified, is to have faith in God. And this faith in God is reckoned as righteousness, the righteousness of faith.
“Abraham believed God, and it [his faith] was reckoned unto him for righteousness” (Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:3, 9b; cf. Rom. 10:9; Phil. 3:9).
Justification as God’s act of setting man right with Himself brings man into faith, which is to be set right with God. Thus justification is through faith (dia pisteos, Rom. 3:30; Gal. 2:16) and out of or from faith (ek pisteos, Rom. 3:26, 30; Gal. 2:16; 3:8, 24). But justification as salvation is not only the deliverance from sin to righteousness but it is also the deliverance from wrath to peace and from death to life. That justification as deliverance from wrath to peace is set forth by the Apostle Paul in Romans 3:24-25:
“24 Being justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in His blood ….” (Rom. 3:24-25 ERS; see also Isa. 32:17)
Here, Paul connects justification with redemption, the liberation aspect of salvation, and with propitiation, the sacrificial aspect of salvation. Redemption is the deliverance from sin by the payment of a price called a ransom which is the death of Jesus Christ. And propitiation is the deliverance from the wrath by the sacrificial death of Jesus (“His blood”) which turns away or averts the wrath of God through faith in that sacrifice (“through faith in His blood”). That is, Christ’s death as a propitiation turns away God’s wrath from the one who has faith in that sacrifice. The wrath is turned away because the sin has been taken away (“forgiveness”) by the death of Christ as a ransom, by which a man is redeemed or set free, delivered from sin. When sin has been removed, there is no cause for God’s wrath. No sin, no wrath. Man is saved from wrath because he is saved from sin.
“Being justified freely by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom. 5:1)
“Much more then, being justified by His blood, we shall be saved through Him from the wrath of God.” (Rom. 5:9)
Justification is also deliverance from death to life. Man is delivered from sin to the righteousness of faith because he is delivered from death to life. As sinners, we were enemies of God, but through the death of God’s Son we have been reconciled to God and are now no longer enemies. To be reconciled to God means we have passed from death to life and we are saved in His resurrected life (“having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Rom. 5:10; see also II Cor. 5:17-21). We are delivered from death by being “made alive together with Him” in His resurrection ( Eph. 2:5). He was “raised for our justification” ( Rom. 4:25).
Thus justification is “justification of life” (Rom. 5:18 KJV). To be set right with God is to enter into fellowship with God. And this right relationship to God is life. Justification puts us into right relationship to God and hence it is a justification of life. Fellowship with God is established when God reveals Himself to man and man responds to that revelation in faith. Life is a personal relationship between God and man that results from this revelation and the faith-response to it. Apart from this revelation, the response of faith is not possible, but this revelation is the offer of life and the possibility of faith. But life is not actual unless man responds in faith to the revelation of God Himself. Life is received in the act of faith. Since God’s act of revelation is first, and man’s response in faith is second and depends upon God’s revelation, life results in the righteousness of faith and man becomes righteous because of life. Justification as the revelation of the righteousness of God brings about life and the righteousness of faith.
CONCLUSION
Why do men need to be saved? An examination of Scripture (John 10:10; Eph. 2:4-5; Heb. 2:14-15; I John 4:9; etc.) clearly shows that the answer to this question is that man needs to be saved because he is dead spiritually. Man is separated and alienated from God (Eph. 4:8). He is dead spiritually. He does not know God personally, and because he does not know the true God, he turns to false gods – to those things which are not God – and makes those into his gods ( Gal. 4:8). The basic sin is idolatry ( Ex. 20:3; Rom. 1:25), and man sins (chooses these false gods) because he is spiritually dead – separated from the true God.
What is sin? The analysis of human freedom shows that every man must have a god. By the very constitution of his freedom, man must have an ultimate criterion of decision. That is, behind every decision as to which thing a man should do or think, there is a reason, a criterion of decision. And the ultimate reason for any decision, practical or theoretical, must be given in terms of some particular criterion, an ultimate reference or orientation point in or beyond the self or person making the decision. This ultimate criterion is that person’s god. Thus every man must then choose something as his god. If he doesn’t choose the true God as his ultimate criterion of decision, he will choose a false god. He will choose some part or aspect of reality as his god, deifying it.
“They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” (Rom. 1:25)
The choice of a false god and the consequent personal allegiance and devotion to it is what the Bible calls idolatry. An idol does not have to be an image of wood, stone, or metal. It may be money, wealth, power, pleasure, education, the family, mankind, the state, democracy, experience, reason, science, the moral law, etc. An idol is a false god, and a false god may be anything, which may be good in its proper place, that takes the place of the true God, anything a person chooses as his or her ultimate criterion of decision, exalting it as God. It is any substitute or replacement for the true God in a person’s life.
Since a false god usurps the place of the true God in a person’s life, idolatry is the basic sin. This sin is directly against the true God; it is a direct insult to Him and an affront to His divine majesty. No more serious sin could be imagined than this one. Since it is the most serious sin, it is therefore the most basic. This is the main reason that idolatry is the first sin prohibited by the Ten Commandments.
Thus idolatry is the basic sin, not pride; pride is not even mentioned in the Ten Commandments. Idolatry is also the basic sin because this sin leads to other sins. It leads to other sins since a person’s god, being his ultimate criterion of decision, will determine the choices he or she will make. The choice of a wrong god will lead to other wrong choices. That is, the idol that a person sets up in his heart (Ezek. 14:35) will affect the character and quality of his whole life. Idolatry is therefore the basic sin. And all men have sinned because they are spiritually dead. This is what the Apostle Paul says in the last clause of Romans 5:12 ERS: “because of which [death] all sinned.” [1]
“Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men, because of which all sinned: – ” (Rom. 5:12 ERS)
Spiritual death which “spread to all men” along with physical death is not the result of each man’s own personal sins. On the contrary, a man sins as a result of spiritual death. He received death from Adam, from his first parents. The historical origin of sin is the fall of Adam – the sin of the first man. [2] Adam’s sin brought death – spiritual and physical – on all his descendants (Rom. 5:12, 15, 17). [3] This spiritual death inherited from Adam is the personal, contemporary origin of each man’s sin. Because he is spiritually dead, not knowing God personally, he chooses something other than the true God as his god; he thus sins.
This is why a man needs to be saved. He is dead spiritually and dying physically. Man needs life – he needs to be made alive – to be raised from the dead. And if he receives life, if he is made alive to God, death which leads to sin is removed. And if death which leads to sin is removed, then man will be saved from sin. Thus salvation must be understood to be primarily from death to life and secondarily from sin to righteousness. And since God’s wrath – God’s “no” or opposition to sin – is caused by sin ( Rom. 1:18), the removal of sin brings with it also the removal of wrath. No sin, no wrath. Salvation is then thirdly from wrath to peace with God ( Rom. 5:1, 9). This is what the law cannot do; it cannot make men alive. As Paul says in Gal. 3:21;
“…for if there had been a law given which could make alive, verily righteousness would have been by the law.” (Gal. 3:21)
That is, since the law cannot make alive, righteousness cannot be by the law. And since the law cannot make alive, salvation therefore cannot be by the law. The righteousness of the law, the merits earned by keeping the law, is a false righteousness, dirty filthy rags (Isa. 64:6; cf. Phil. 3:7-9 and Rom. 10:3-4). Just as trust in a false god is sin, so trust in the true God is righteousness ( Rom. 4:3-5). And just as sin flows from death, so righteousness flows from life. The law cannot give life. And because the law cannot remove death, it also cannot remove sin. And since the law cannot make alive, it cannot produce a real righteousness. From the Biblical point of view the law has three serious weaknesses (Rom. 8:3).
1. The law cannot remove the wrath of God but causes wrath (Rom. 4:15; Gal. 3:10; the curse of the law = the wrath of God). And the law cannot remove the wrath of God because
2. it cannot take away sin (Heb. 10:1-4, 15-18). Not only is the law unable to take away sin, but the law causes sin (Rom. 7:5, 8, 11, 13). This is not because the law is evil (on the contrary, the law is holy, righteous and good, Rom. 7:12), but because
3. the law cannot make alive ( Gal. 3:21). The law cannot deliver man from the death that has been passed to him from Adam ( Rom. 5:12, 15, 17). On the contrary, the law brings death (Rom. 7:10-11, 13). The law makes death, primarily physical death, the result of personal sins (Ezek. 18:4, 20; Deut. 24:16; Isa. 59:2) and superimposes this relationship of death-because-of-sin upon the more basic relationship of sin-because-of-death ( Rom. 5:12d ERS; Gal. 4:8). But the law did not change this more basic relationship; man sins because of spiritual death. And the law cannot remove this death, and therefore cannot remove sin. Also, since the law cannot make alive, it cannot produce righteousness ( Gal. 3:21) and therefore peace with God ( Rom. 5:1). Christ is the end of the law for righteousness (Rom. 10:4) because He alone can and did remove death and does make alive and thereby righteous.
The law has therefore a threefold weakness: the law cannot remove wrath, sin or death because the law cannot produce peace, righteousness or life. There is no salvation by the law. What the law could not do, God has done through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, His Son. God has made us alive to Himself in the resurrection of Jesus and set us free from the slavery of sin. Since the basic sin is idolatry (trust in a false god) and sin is a slavery to a slave master (John 8:34), the false god is the slave master. We were all slaves of sin, serving our false gods when we were spiritually dead, alienated and separated from the true God, not knowing him personally. But we have been set free from this slavery of sin through the death of Christ. Jesus entered into our spiritual death and died our death. His death is our death. Now when a slave dies, he is no longer in slavery; death frees him from slavery. So we likewise have been set free from the slavery of sin having died with Christ. We have died to sin with Christ (Rom. 6:1-7). But now Christ is alive, having been raised from the dead, and we have been made alive to God together with Him in His resurrection. His resurrection is our resurrection. We are no longer slaves of sin but have become slaves of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Now that we are alive to God in Him, we have become slaves of righteousness (Rom. 6:17-18). For just as death produces sin, so life produces righteousness. Since we have passed from death to life, we have been saved from sin to righteousness (I Peter 2:24). Thus justification is also deliverance from death to life. Justification is the free act of God’s grace ( Rom. 3:24; Titus 3:7). The source of justification is the love of God. And the love of God in action to bring man salvation is the grace of God.
“4 But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).” (Eph. 2:4-5)
“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.” (Titus 2:11 NIV).
“4 But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, 5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit; 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 that being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” (Titus 3:4-7 NAS)
Hence justification is the true expression of the grace of God and is the act of the love of God. Because justification is a gift ( Rom. 3:24; 5:15-17), justification is free and is not something that can be earned ( Rom. 4:4; 11:6). Being a free act of God’s grace, justification has nothing to do with the works of the law (Rom. 3:20, 28; 4:6; Gal. 2:16; 3:11; see also Eph. 2:8-9; Phil. 3:9; II Tim. 1:9; Titus 3:5).
The whole legalistic theology is a misunderstanding of the righteousness of God and justification by faith, and is therefore unbiblical and false. The Scripture nowhere speaks of the righteousness or merits of Christ and of justification as an imputation of the merits of Christ to our account. The introduction of such a legalistic righteousness, even if it means the merits of Christ, into the discussion of the righteousness of God and of justification by faith, obscures the grace of God and misunderstands the law as well as the gospel of the grace of God. In principle, the grace of God has nothing to do with legal righteousness and meritorious works.
“But if it is by grace, it is no more on basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.” (Rom. 11:6)
In Eph. 2:8-9, Paul contrasts this salvation by grace with salvation by works.
“8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, 9 not as a result of works, that no one should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9 NAS)
Salvation is by grace through faith and not by works. God does not give man His grace so that he can earn merits by works to gain eternal life nor to declare that he is legally righteous before God. Eternal life is the gift of His grace and it is received by faith. Neither was eternal life earned by the active obedience of Jesus Christ nor did Jesus Christ satisfy the demands of the law, either in precept or penalty, in our place. Christ fulfilled the law (Matt. 5:17), but not for us. Nowhere in the Scripture does it say that Christ fulfilled the law for us. Neither did he fulfill it legalistically. Not because Christ was not able to do it but because God does not in His love and grace operate on the basis of law or legal righteousness. Christ fulfilled it by love, for “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:8, 10).
The Biblical concept of the righteousness of God must be carefully distinguished from the Greek-Roman concept of justice. The righteousness of God in the Scriptures is not an attribute of God whereby He must render to each what he has merited nor a quantity of merit which God gives, but it is God acting to set right man with God Himself. Luther’s apparent identification of the righteousness of God with the righteousness from God lead eventually to the equating of the righteousness from God with Christ’s righteousness, that is, the merits of Christ, which Christ earned by His active obedience before He died on the cross and is imputed to the believer’s account. Righteousness is misunderstood as merits and the righteousness of God as the justice of God. The idea that the righteousness of God is the justice of God, that is, that attribute of God which requires that God punish all sin and reward all meritorious works, is a legalistic misunderstanding of the Biblical concept of the righteousness of God. This legalistic misunderstanding reduces and equates the righteousness of God to justice, that is, the giving to each that which is his due to them with a strict and impartial regard to merit (as in Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics). It is this concept of righteousness that gave Luther so much trouble.
Martin Luther recovered the Biblical concept of the righteousness of God and of the justification by faith. But his followers obscured this understanding of these concepts by the legalism of their theology and legalistic understanding of righteousness and justification. And this legalism not only affected theology but the whole life of the church. The result of this legalism was dead orthodoxy and a cold, unloving Christianity. To correct these effects there arose in the church various movements such as pietism, the evangelical awakening, revivalism, etc. None of these movements went to the source of the deadness, coldness and unlovableness but just reinforced the cause — legalism.
The great outpouring of the Spirit starting at the beginning of the twentieth century has been hindered and limited by the constant relapses into the same legalism. And the source of this legalism in practice is the legalism of the theology. The theological legalism produces the practical legalism. The answer to the legalism of the theology is not no theology, but a non-legaistic theology, a Biblical theology. With the present move of the Spirit, the time has come to clear the legalism out of our theology and again recover the Biblical understanding of the righteousness of God and justification by faith. This paper is an attempt to make a beginning at this theological renewal.
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ENDNOTES
[1] Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1956), p. 181.
[2] Horace M. Kallen, Democracy’s True Religion
(Boston: The Beacon Press, 1951), p. 10; quoted in E. LaB. Cherbonnier,
Hardness of Heart (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1955), p. 153.
[3] Martin Luther, The Large Catechism of Martin Luther,
trans. Robert H. Fischer (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), p. 9.
[4] Cherbonnier, Hardness of Heart, p. 40.