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BIBLICAL THEOLOGY OF PAUL’S LETTER TO THE ROMANS
by Ray Shelton
The Protestant Reformation actually began, not when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses upon the door of the Wittenburg church on 31st of October, 1517, but when Martin Luther rediscovered the meaning of the righteousness of God in Paul’s letter to the Romans. [1] This discovery was made at the end of a long and troubled search which began when at the age of 21, on July 17, 1505, Luther applied for admission to the monastery of the Augustinian Friars known as the Black Cloister because of their black habit. They were also known as the Augustinian Hermits. Having recently been made a Master of Arts at the University of Erfurt, Martin had gone home to Mansfeld on a vacation during the month of June, 1505. On July 2, when returning to Erfurt from Mansfeld, at a distance of about five miles from his university, close to the village of Stotternheim, he was overtaken by a thunderstorm. When one of the lightning bolts nearly struck him, he cried out in terror, “Help, St. Anne, and I’ll become a monk.” Later, in his DeVotis Monasticis (“Concerning Monastic Vows,” 1521) Luther explains his state of mind at that time.
“I was called to this vocation by the terrors of heaven, for neither willingly nor by my own desire did I become a monk; but, surrounded by the terror and agony of a sudden death, I vowed a forced and unvoidable vow.” [2]
Accordingly, he sold his books, bade farewell to his friends, and entered the monastery. Luther observed the canonical regulations as prescribed in the constitution of the Observatine section of the Augustinian Order of Mendicant Monks. He says:
“I was an earnest monk, lived strictly and chastely, would not have taken a penny without the knowledge of the prior, prayed diligently day and night.” [3] “I kept vigil night by night, fasted, prayed, chastised and mortified my body, was obedient, and lived chastely.” [4]
The purpose of it all was justification, being righteous with God.
“When I was a monk, I exhausted myself by fasting, watching, praying, and other fatiguing labors. I seriously believed that I could secure justification through my works …” [5] “It is true that I have been a pious monk, and followed my rules so strictly that I may say, if ever a monk could have gained heaven through monkery, I should certainly have got there. This all my fellow-monks who have known me will attest.” [6]
But all these observances did not bring peace to his troubled conscience. He says:
“I was often frightened by the name of Jesus, and when I looked at him hanging on the cross, I fancied that he seemed to me like lightning. When I heard his name mentioned, I would rather have heard the name of the devil, for I thought that I had to perform good works until at last through them Jesus would become merciful to me. In the monastery I did not think about money, worldly possessions, nor women, but my heart shuddered when I wondered when God should become merciful to me.” [7]
Later in 1545 in the famous autobiographical fragment with which he prefaced the Latin edition of his complete works, Luther thus described his feelings:
“For however irreproachably I lived as a monk, I felt myself in the presence of God to be a sinner with a most unquiet conscience, nor could I believe that I pleased him with my satisfactions. I did not love, indeed I hated this just God, if not with open blasphemy, at least with huge murmurings, for I was indignant against him, saying, ‘as if it were really not enough for God
that miserable sinners should be eternally lost through original sin, and oppressed with all kind of calamities through the law of the ten commandments, but God must add sorrow on sorrow, and even by the gospel bring his wrath to bear.’ Thus I raged with a fierce and most agitated conscience …” [8]
These inward, spiritual difficulties were intensified by a theological problem. This was the concept of the “righteousness of God” (justitia Dei). His religious background made him intensely aware of the justice of God, and he had learned the Greek concept of justice as found in book 5 of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Thus encouraged by the use of justitia in Gabriel Biel and other nominalists, he thought of God’s justice as being primarily the active, punishing severity of God against sinners as he explains in his exposition of Psalm 51:14 in 1532:
“This term ‘righteousness’ really caused me much trouble. They generally explained that righteousness is the truth by which God deservedly condemns or judges those who have merited evil. In opposition to righteousness they set mercy, by which believers are saved. This explanation is most dangerous, besides being vain, because it arouses a secret hate against God and His righteousness. Who can love Him if He wants to deal with sinners according to righteousness?” [9]
This conception blocked his understanding of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans.
“All the while I was aglow with the desire to understand Paul in his letter to the Romans. But… the one expression in chapter one (v.17) concerning the ‘righteousness of God’ blocked the way for me. For I hated the expression ‘righteousness of God’ since I had been instructed by the usage custom of all teachers to understand it according to scholastic philosophy as the ‘formal or active righteousness’ in which God proves Himself righteous by punishing sinners and the unjust …” [10]
But God used this passage to change his understanding of the righteousness of God and to solve his inward, spiritual difficulties.
“Finally, after days and nights of wrestling with the difficulty, God had mercy on me, and then I was able to note the connection of the words ‘righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel’ and ‘just shall live by faith.’ Then I began to understand the ‘righteousness of God’ is that through which the righteous lives by the gift (dono) of God, that is, through faith, and that the meaning is this: The Gospel reveals the righteousness of God in a passive sense, that righteousness through which ‘the just shall live by faith.’ Then I felt as if I had been completely reborn and had entered Paradise through widely opened doors. Instantly all Scripture looked different to me. I passed through the Holy Scriptures, so far as I was able to recall them from memory, and gathered a similar sense from other expressions. Thus the ‘work of God’ is that which God works in us; the ‘strength of God’ is that through which He makes us strong; the ‘wisdom of God’ is that through which He makes us wise; and the ‘power of God,’ and ‘blessing of God,” and ‘honor of God,’ are expressions used in the same way. As intensely as I had formerly hated the expression ‘righteousness of God’ I now loved and praised it as the sweetest of concepts; and so this passage of Paul was actually the portal of Paradise to me.” [11]
This discovery not only brought peace to Luther’s troubled conscience but it was the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Luther’s protest against the errors of the Roman church stems from this discovery. But his discovery was lost by those who came after him, the Protestant scholastics. Luther’s use of the scholastic distinction of 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 also gave the impression that the righteousness of God is the righteousness from God, that is, the righteousness which man receives from God through faith. Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians,
“3:8bFor his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, in order that I may gain Christ 3:9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith, the righteousness from [ek] God that depends upon [epi] faith ,…” (Phil. 3:8b-9).
The righteousness of God is not the righteousness from God. These are different though related concepts and must be carefully distinguished. The righteousness from God is the righteousness of faith (Phil. 3:9b; Rom. 4:11) which is that right personal relationship to God that results from faith in the true God (Rom. 4:3, 9b). To trust in God is to be righteous (Rom. 4:5).
“4:3For what does the scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ 4:4Now to one who works, his wages are not reckoned as a gift but as his due. 4:5And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness …. 4:13The 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. 4:3-5, 13)
The righteousness of God, on the other hand, is God acting to set man right with God Himself and, as we will see below, is synonymous with salvation. Luther’s apparent identification of the righteousness of God with righteousness from God lead eventually to the equating of the righteousness of God with Christ’s righteousness, that is, the merits of Christ earned by His active obedience, which merits are imputed to the believer when he believes.
In the Scriptures, the righteousness of God is not an attribute of God whereby He must render to each what is he has merited nor a quantity of merit which God gives, but is the act or activity of God whereby He puts or sets right that which is wrong. [12] 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)
“143:11For thy name’s sake, O Lord, preserve my life! In thy righteousness bring me out of trouble! 143:12And 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. [13] 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. Very often in the Old Testament the Hebrew nouns, tsedeq and tsedaqah, translated “righteousness,” is derived from the Hebrew verb, tsadaq. [14] Although the Hebrew verb is usually translated “to be righteous” or “to be justified,” the verb has the primary meaning “to be in the right” rather than “to be righteous.” (Gen. 38:26; Job 11:2; 34:5) [15] The causative form of the verb hitsdiq generally translated “to justify” means not “to make righteous” nor “to declare righteous” but rather “to put in the right” or “to set right.” (Ezekiel 16:51-55). Thus it very often has the meaning “to vindicate” or “to give redress to” to a person who has suffered wrong. Thus the Hebrew noun tsedeq usually translated “righteousness” means an act of vindication or of giving redress. When applied to God, the righteousness of God is God acting to put right the wrong, hence to vindicate and deliver the oppressed. Thus 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.
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; 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).
A judge or ruler is “righteous” in the Hebrew meaning of the word not because he observes and upholds an abstract standard of Justice, but rather because he comes to the assistance of the injured person and vindicates him. For example, in Psalm 82:2-4:
“72:2How long will you judge unrighteously and show partiality to the wicked? 72:3Defend the weak and fatherless; do judgment to the afflicted and destitute. 72:4Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.” (Psalm 82:2-4 ERS)
(See also Psa. 72:4; 76:9; 103:6; 146:7; Isa. 1:17.)
For the judge to act this way is to show righteousness. (See Psa. 72:1-3.) A judge in the Old Testament is not one whose business it is to interpret the existing law or to give an impartial verdict in accordance with the established law of the land, but rather he is a deliverer and thus a leader and savior as in the book of Judges (Judges 1:16-17; 3:9-10). His duty and delight is to set things right, to right the wrong; his “judgments” are not words but acts, not legal verdicts but the very active use of God’s right arm. The two functions of a judge are given in Psalm 75:7:
“But God is the judge: he puts down one and exalts another.” (Psa. 75:7)
Since this is a statement concerning God as a judge, it could be taken as a general definition of a Biblical judge. In Psa. 72:1-4, these two functions of Biblical judge are given to the king of Israel.
“72:1Give the king thy judgment, O God, and thy righteousness to the royal son! 72:2May he judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment! 72:3Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness! 72:4May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, and give deiverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor!” (Psa. 72:1-4 ERS)
These same two functions are ascribed to the future ruler of Israel, the Messiah, according to Isaiah 11:3-5.
“11:3And His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what His eyes see, or decide by what His ears hear; 11:4but with righteousness He shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and He shall smite the earth with a rod of His mouth; and with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked. 11:5Righteousness shall be the girdle of His waist and faithfulness the girdle of His loins.” (Isa. 11:3-5)
His righteousness is shown in His judging the poor, that is, in the vindication of those who are the victims of evil, the poor and meek of the earth, and in the smiting of the wicked who oppress them. 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. It 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.
“2:4But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which He loved us, 2:5even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) ….” (Eph. 2:4-5; See also Eph. 2:8; Titus 2:11).
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 in Matt. 5:6; 6:33; Luke 18:7), but it is also a 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 (Rom. 1:17a).
This 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 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.
The righteousness of God is God acting in love for the salvation or deliverance of man. This righteousness of God has been manifested, that is, publicly displayed, in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
“3:21But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets;
3:22even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction;”
(Rom. 3:21-22 NAS).
The righteousness of God, as we have just seen, is God acting in love to set man right with God Himself and is synonymous with salvation (Ps. 98:2; 71:1-2, 15; 119:123; Isa. 45:8; 46:13; 51:5; 56:1; 61:10; 62:1). Now this righteousness of God has been manifested (phaneroo), that is, publicly displayed, in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God was active in Jesus Christ, particularly in His death and resurrection, for salvation (Acts 4:12; I Thess. 5:9; I Tim. 2:10; 3:15; Heb. 5:9). Because He is the act of God for our salvation, Jesus Christ is the righteousness of God (I Cor. 1:30). The gospel or good news is about this manifestation of the righteousness of God. The gospel tells us about Jesus Christ, who He is and what He did (Rom. 1:3-4; I Cor. 15:3-4); it is about God’s act of salvation in the person and work of Jesus Christ (I Cor. 15:3-4; Eph. 1:13).
But the gospel is not only about the righteousness of God manifested in the past on our behalf, but in it the righteousness of God is being continually revealed in the present.
“For in it [the gospel] the righteousness of God is being revealed from faith unto faith” (Rom. 1:17a ERS).
Revelation in this verse is not just a disclosure of truth to be understood by the mind, but it is a working that makes effective and actual that which is revealed. Hence, the revelation of the righteousness of God is that working of God that makes effective and actual that which is revealed, the righteousness of God. [16] In other words, the revelation of the righteousness of God is the actualization of God’s salvation. And the righteousness of God is revealed when the salvation of God is made actual and real, that is, when salvation or deliverance takes place. In the preaching of the gospel, there is taking place continually an actualization of the righteousness of God. That is, salvation or deliverance is taking place as the gospel is preached. This is the reason that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.
“1:16For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God for salvation to all those who believe, both to the Jew first and to the Greek. 1:17For in it [the gospel] the righteousness of God is being revealed from faith unto faith” (Rom. 1:16-17a. Compare Rom. 1:16-17a with Isa. 56:1 which is no doubt the source of Paul’s concepts and words in these verses.)
The gospel not only tells us about this manifestation of the righteousness of God, but also in the gospel the righteousness of God is being continually revealed or made effective and actual (Rom. 1:17a). When the gospel is preached, God is acting to set man right with Himself. The result of God’s activity of righteousness is the righteousness of faith, the righteousness from God, since it has been received from God by faith. God in His righteousness sets man right with Himself and through faith man is set right with God; faith rightly relates man to God. The righteousness of God is what God does and the righteousness of faith is what man does in response to God’s activity. The righteousness of faith is the righteousness from God because faith, which is man’s response to the word of God, comes from God (Rom. 10:6-8, 17); that is, in a sense, faith is “caused” by the word of God, even though it is man who does the believing and trusting.
Faith is the actualization of the salvation of God. Faith is not the means nor the condition of salvation but is the actualization of salvation. Salvation is not a thing which is received by faith but is God’s activity of deliverance which produces faith and is accomplished in that faith. This is expressed by Paul in Romans 1:17 in a twofold way: “from faith unto faith”. These prepositional phrases modify the verb “being revealed”, not the words “the righteousness of God.” The revelation is “from faith unto faith.”
1. Faith is the source of the revelation of the righteousness of God: “from faith”. The revelation of the righteousness of God arises out of or comes out of faith. That is, the actualization of the deliverance of God is the faith which the righteousness of God produces. The righteousness of God is revealed only when the one to whom the revelation comes has faith. Without faith there is no revelation, and only when there is faith is there a revelation of the righteousness of God. In this sense, faith is the source of the revelation of the righteousness of God. [16]
2. Faith is goal of the revelation of the righteousness of God: “unto faith”. The revelation of the righteousness of God moves toward and is accomplished in faith. When a man has faith, the deliverance of God has reached its goal. Faith then is the goal of the revelation of the righteousness of God.
In salvation, God does not give us something but gives us Himself, and faith is not receiving of something but is the receiving of Him. In salvation, God does not just reveal something about Himself but reveals Himself. Apart from this personal revelation. faith is impossible, but when this revelation take place, faith is possible. Since “faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17), faith is the result of God’s activity of the revelation of Himself. This revelation takes place in the preaching of the gospel. For the gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16). The gospel is not only about salvation (Eph. 1:13), but it is the power of God unto salvation. When the gospel is preached, God exerts His power and men are saved. This act of God’s power through the preaching of the gospel takes the form of the personal revelation of God Himself and His love. For He is love (I John 4:8, 16). Those who believe in response to this revelation are through this decision of faith realizing the power of God unto salvation, and in this decision of faith they are saved. To believe is to be saved, and to be saved is to believe.
In this decision of faith, those who believe are saved from death to life. To have faith in God is to believe in Jesus Christ, His Son (John 14:1; 6:29; 8:42; 5:38). And to believe in Jesus Christ is to receive spiritual life. For Jesus is the life (John 5:26; 6:33-35, 38-40, 57-58).
“5:11And this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 5:12He who has the Son has life; he who has not the Son of God has not life” (I John 5:11-12).
To have life is to have passed from death to life. Jesus said,
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life; he does not come into judgment,
but has passed from death to life.” (John 5:24)
The one who believes has passed from death to life because he has in the decision of faith also identified himself with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christ identified Himself with us in death; He entered into our spiritual death on the cross and died physically for us.
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaking me?” (Matt 27:46)
He was forsaken for us. His death was our death. In faith, we accept His death as our death. In faith, we identify ourselves with Him in His death. But since God has raised Jesus from the dead, so also are we made alive with Christ. His resurrection was our resurrection. In faith, we identify ourselves with Him and His resurrection. To receive life in Christ is to be raised from the dead with Him. To pass from death to life is to have died and been raised with Jesus from the dead. We are now spiritually alive in Him. We have entered into fellowship with God and are now reconciled to God. As the gospel is preached, God exerts His power and men are made alive, raised from the dead.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” (John 5:25)
When the good news of the death and resurrection of Jesus for us is proclaimed, God speaks to men, revealing Himself in Jesus Christ. Those who hear and believe in Jesus are made alive in Him, being raised from the dead. They are reconciled to God (II Cor. 5:20). They are saved from death to life. Reconcilation is salvation from death to life.
But in the decision of faith, those who believe are not only saved from death to life but also from sin to righteousness. To have faith in God is to acknowledge Jesus as Lord. In general, faith is not just belief that certain statements are true but is the commitment of oneself and allegiance to something or someone as one’s own personal ultimate criterion of all decisions, intellectual and moral. Saving faith in Jesus Christ is the commitment of oneself to Jesus Christ as one’s own personal ultimate criterion (“My Lord and my God,” John 20:28). The living person, the resurrected Jesus Christ, not just what He taught, becomes in the decision of faith our ultimate criterion. This decision of faith is a turning from false gods (idols) to the living and true God (I Thess. 1:10). Faith in the true God is righteousness.
“Abraham believed God, and it [his faith] was reckoned to him as righteousness” (Rom. 4:3).
To believe God is to be righteous.
“And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness.” (Rom. 4:5).
“4:23But the words, ‘it was reckoned to him as righteousness,’ were written not for his [Abraham’s] sake, 4:24but for ours also. It [righteousness] will be reckoned to us who believe in him that raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 4:25who was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” (Rom. 4:23-25).
And to confess Jesus as Lord is to believe God that He raised Him from the dead.
“10:9That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10:10for with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses unto salvation.”
(Rom. 10:9-10 ERS)
To believe God that He raised from the dead Jesus, who in faith we confess as Lord, is to be righteous. Thus, this decision of faith is salvation from sin to righteousness. Now all men have sinned because they are spiritually dead. This is what the Apostle Paul says in the last clause of Romans 5:12, which clause is incorrectly translated in our English translations ( NAS, NIV) as “because all sinned”. In the Greek of this verse, there is a relative pronoun which has not been translated. If it were translated, the whole clause in English would read, “because of which all sinned.” In the Greek, it is clear that the antecedent of the relative pronoun “which” is the word “death” in the preceding clause. (The antecedent of a relative pronoun is the word to which the pronoun refers.) The last clause would then be equivalent to “because of death all sinned” and would mean that all men sinned because of death. But how is this possible? How can men sin because of death? Let me explain how this is possible by referring to another passage in the writings of the Apostle Paul, Galatians 4:8;
“Formerly, when you did not know God, you were in bondage to beings that by nature are no gods.” (Gal. 4:8)
In this passage, Paul is reminding the Galatian Christians of their condition before they became Christians. Not to “know God” personally as a living reality is to be spiritually dead. And a man is “in bondage to beings that are no gods” when he chooses them as his gods. He is in bondage to them because he does not personally know the only true God, that is, because he is spiritually dead.
Let me put it another way. Every man must have a god. Man, by the very structure of his freedom, must choose something to be the ultimate criterion of all his decisions. This is because every choice a man makes is made with reference to some criterion. That is, behind every decision as to what a man will 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. In this sense, every man must have a god. Every man, if he hasn’t already, must choose something as his god. Now if he doesn’t know the true God personally as a living reality, that is, if he is spiritually dead, and since he must have a god, 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).
Now we can understand how death leads to sin. If one is spiritually dead, separated from God, and since he must choose a god, he will usually choose a false god. If one does not know personally the true God, the true God will not be a living reality to him. And lacking this personal knowledge of the true God as a living reality, one does not have the adequate reason for choosing the true God as his ultimate criterion of decision. God Himself is the only adequate reason for choosing Him. He cannot be chosen for any other reason than Himself. For then He would not be God but rather that reason for which He is chosen would be god. Only a living encounter with the true and living God can produce the situation in which God Himself may be chosen. If God Himself is the only adequate condition for the choice of Himself, then apart from a personal revelation of God Himself, man will usually choose as his god that which seems like god to him from among the creation around him or from the creations of his own hands or mind. Man does not necessarily have to sin but he usually will. Spiritual death is not the necessary cause but the basis or condition for his choice of a false god. (The Greek word translated “because” in the last clause of Romans 5:12 means “on the basis of” or “on the condition of”.)
Man is not responsible for being spiritually dead because he did not choose this state. He inherited spiritual death from Adam just as he inherited physical death. But he is responsible for the god he chooses. The true God has not left man without a knowledge about Himself (Rom. 1:19-20). This knowledge about God leaves man without excuse for his idolatry. But it does not save him because it is a knowledge about the true God and not a personal knowledge of the true God. But even though a man is not responsible for being spiritually dead, he is responsible for remaining in the state of spiritual death when deliverance is offered to him in the person of Jesus Christ. If he refuses the gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus, he must reap the harvest and receive the results of his decision, eternal death.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23).
If a man refuses the gift of spiritual and eternal life in Christ Jesus and continues to put his trust in a false god, remaining in spiritual death, then after he dies physically, at the last judgment he will receive the result of his decision, eternal death, separation from God for eternity.
Now we can understand why man needs to be saved. As we have seen, man is not responsible for the spiritual death nor for the physical death that he has received from Adam; they are not the result of a man’s own personal sins. On the contrary, a man’s personal sins are a result of spiritual death. That is why he needs to be saved. Man is dead spiritually and dying physically. He needs life; he needs to be made alive — he needs to be raised from the dead. And if he receives life, if he is made alive to God, death which leads to sin will be removed and man can be saved from sin. No death, no sin. Thus salvation must be understood to be primarily from death to life and secondarily from sin to righteousness.
Now this salvation (primarily from death to life and secondarily from sin to righteousness) is exactly what God accomplished through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, His Son. Jesus entered into our spiritual death in order that as He was raised from the dead, we might be made alive together with and in Him ( Eph. 2:5). And by saving us from spiritual death, Christ saves us from sin. It is by taking away the spiritual death which leads to our sin that God takes away our sin. Jesus died for our sins — literally — to take them away (John 1:29). What the Old Testament sacrifices could not do (Heb. 10:1-4), the death of Christ has done. The blood of Jesus (His death) cleanses us from our sins (I John 1:7). We are delivered from sin itself, not just from its consequences. We were saved from our trust in false gods when we put our trust in Jesus Christ and the true God who sent him. Did we not “turn from idols to serve the living and true God” (I Thess. 1:9)? When we were spiritually dead, we trusted in and served those things that were not God — money, power, sex, pleasure, popularity, education, science, etc. But when we turned to the risen Christ, we entered into life, leaving behind those false gods. The risen and living Jesus Christ is now our Lord and our God (John 20:28).
The death and resurrection of Jesus was the means by which God removed death — the barrier to knowing the true God personally and knowing His love. Now God can reveal Himself to us in the preaching of the gospel, making us spiritually alive to Himself when we receive Jesus Christ who is life (John 14:6; I John 5:12). To be spiritually alive 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 in God that God’s love invokes in us is righteousness (Rom. 4:5, 9); faith in God relates us rightly to God. 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 (Gal. 3:21). Thus by taking away death, God takes away sin. By saving us from death, God saves us from sin. By making us alive to Himself, God sets us right with Himself through faith. Life produces righteousness just as death produced sin. By making us alive together with Christ, we are saved from sin and are put into right relationship to God through faith. When you receive Christ, you are made alive to God and in that choice of faith you are set right with God. We are saved from sin to righteousness; we are redeemed from sin.
But in this decision of faith, men are not only saved from death to life and from sin to righteousness but also from wrath to peace. Since the wrath of God – God’s “no” or opposition to sin – is caused by sin (trust in a false god) (Rom.1:18), the removal of this sin brings with it also the removal of the wrath of God – no sin, no wrath. Now faith in Christ is also faith in the death of Christ for us; his death is our death. Since Christ’s death was the means that God has provided for turning away His wrath, His death is a propitiation for our sins; faith in Christ’s death turns away God’s wrath.
“3:24Being set right freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 3:25whom God set forth as a propitiation
through faith in his blood …. (Rom. 3:24-25; ERS).
Faith in Christ’s death (His blood) turns away God’s wrath, since God has appointed his sacrificial death as the means to turn away His wrath. The result is peace with God; God is no longer opposed to man’s sin, since the sin has been removed by Christ’s death and resurrection. By faith in His death and resurrection we are set right with God.
“Being therefore set right by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom. 5:1 ERS)
“Much more then, being set right by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.” (Rom. 5:9 ERS)
Thus, this decision of faith is also salvation from wrath to peace with God.
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) Reconciliation is salvation from death to life;
(2) redemption, is salvation from sin to righteousness; and
(3) propitiation is salvation from wrath to peace.
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.
These three aspects of salvation are accomplished through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This threefold act of God for the salvation of man is the righteousness of God. The righteousness of God (=salvation) has been manifested (publicily displayed) in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:21-26). The gospel tells us about this act of God, about this manifestation of the righteousness of God. In the preaching of the gospel, the righteousness of God is being continually revealed or actualized (Rom. 1:17). That is, God is exerting His power for the salvation of man in the preaching of the gospel (Rom. 1:16).
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ENDNOTES
[1] All quotations from the Scripture are taken from the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Holy Bible (NT-1946, OT-1952) unless otherwise noted. The following symbols will be used to designate other translations.
KJV King James Version, 1611 RV English Revised Version, 1881-1885 ARV American Revised Version, 1901 GNB Good News Bible, 1976 NAS New American Standard, 1971 NEB New English Bible, 1961-1970 NIV New International Version, 1978 ERS My own translation from the Greek or Hebrew
[2] Quoted in Albert Hyma, New Light on Martin Luther
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1958), p.16.
[3] Luther, Commentary on the Gospel of John
Weimer ed., XXXIII, 561. Dated October 21, 1531,
quoted in Hyma, p. 28.
[4] Luther, op. cit., dated October 28, 1531, p. 574,
quoted in Hyma, p. 28.
[5] Luther, Exposition on Psa. XLV, p. 29.
[6] Luther, Answer to Duke George’s Latest Book
quoted in Hyma, pp. 28-29.
[7] Luther, Sermon on Matthew XVIII-XXIV, pp. 29-30.
[8] Library of Christian Classics, Vol. XV,
Luther: Lectures on Romans
(Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1961), pp. xxxvi-xxxvii.
[9] What Luther Says, Vol. III,
Complied by Ewald M. Plass
(St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959), p. 1225.
[10] What Luther Says, Vol. III, p. 1225-1225.
[12] Alan Richardson,
An Introduction to the Theology of the New Testament,
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), pp. 79-83, 232-233.
[13] Edward J. Young, An Introduction to the Old Testament
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1950), pp. 281-282.
See also Gleason L. Archer, Jr.,
A Survey of Old Testament Introduction,
(Chicago: Moody Press, 1964), pp. 418-420.
[14] C. H. Dodd, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans
(London and Glasgow: Fontana Books, 1959), p. 38.
[15] C. H. Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks
(London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1964), p. 46.
[16] Burton on Galations in the ICC in contrasting phaneroo and apokalupto points out that
“for some reason apokalupto has evidently come to be used especially of a subjective revelation,
which either takes place wholly within the mind of the individual receiving it,
or is subjective in the sense that it is accompanied by actual perception
and results in knowledge on his part: Rom. 8:18; I Cor. 2:10; 14:30; Eph. 3:5.”
Ernest deWitt Burton,
A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galations, in
The International Critical Commentary
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1896), p. 433.
He goes on to say that
“phaneroo throws emphasis on the fact that that
which is manifested is objectively clear, open to perception.
It is thus suitably used of an open and public announcement,
disclosure or exhibition:
I Cor. 4:5; II Cor. 2:14; 4:10-11; Eph. 5:13.” Ibid.
The use of the word apokalupto by Paul in Rom. 1:17 thus seems to place an emphasis on something happening to the individual receiving the revelation. The word “subjective” is probably not the right word to use to describe this event because it suggests that the source of revelation is from within the individual, the subject. Clearly the revelation that Paul is speaking of is from without the individual, and from God. But it does make a difference, a change; a response does take place in the person receiving the revelation. It does bring about that which is revealed, salvation.