The Righteousness of the Law and the Righteousness of Faith in Romans

The Righteousness of the Law and the Righteousness of Faith in Romans

Stephen Westerholm. Interpretation. Richmond: Jul 2004.Vol.58, Iss. 3; pg. 253, 12 pgs Copyright Interpretation Jul 2004

"Righteousness" is normally what one ought to do, and the "righteous" are those who do it. Paul sees the law of Moses as explicating "righteousness" required of all human beings and "justification by faith" as the extraordinary path to "righteousness" offered by God to the unrighteous of all nations.
Most readers of the New Testament would, I imagine, have little trouble identifying the following text as Pauline: "Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom 5:1). Not nearly so many, I suspect, would readily link Paul's name with a verse found earlier in the same epistle: "For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God's sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified" (2:13). Nor is the difficulty of associating the latter verse with Paul confined to casual readers of the Bible: Pauline scholars have commonly found much in Romans 2 "unPauline" and attributed parts or the whole of the chapter to an interpolator,1 to material borrowed but not assimilated by the apostle,2 or to Paul's assuming, for the sake of the argument, the perspective of his opponents.3 One way or another, Paul did not mean-he could not have meant-that "the doers of the law . . . will be justified."
Alas, the thesis of Rom 2:13 is not as isolated in the Pauline corpus as it seems to those who explain it away. The notion that doers of the law will be found righteous is presumably what Paul has in mind when he speaks elsewhere of the "righteousness that comes from the law" (Rom 10:5; Phil 3:9). To be sure, Paul contrasts the righteousness of the law with that of faith, and it is the path of faith that he advocates. The explanation lies near to hand, then, that the righteousness of the law is, for Paul, no more than the so-called "righteousness" pursued by others, as he himself had pursued it in the past. Such an understanding would fit well with the view that Paul attempts to refute opponents on their own grounds in Romans 2. Yet nowhere in the chapter does Paul hint that the premises of his argument are not his own. Indeed, Romans 2 is replete with biblical themes and echoes of biblical texts: would Paul have formulated in these terms a position with which he himself disagreed? And though elsewhere advocating the righteousness of faith rather than that of the law, when Paul articulates the operative principle of the latter, he quotes not opponents whom he can dismiss as misguided, but Moses himself-whose words are not readily dismissed (Rom 10:5; cf. Gal 3:12). In Paul's mind, a "righteousness" propounded by Moses in Scripture cannot be of the "so-called" variety.
No doubt some of the confusion that surrounds "justification by faith" in contemporary Pauline scholarship is related to the widespread failure to find a place in Paul's thought for the righteousness of the law with which he compares it. Before we turn to these topics, however, something must be said of "righteousness" language itself.
THE LANGUAGE OF "RIGHTEOUSNESS"
When the Matthean Jesus declares those "blessed" who "hunger and thirst for righteousness" (Matt 5:6), commentators are quick to point out that, in the Matthean text, "righteousness" (dikaiosyne) does not mean the divine gift of "justification,"4 but denotes right conduct on the part of human beings.5 The meaning assigned to "righteousness" in Matthew (in implicit or explicit contrast with Paul) is in fact the ordinary meaning of the term throughout the Scriptures: broadly speaking, "righteousness" is what one ought to do, and to "declare" people "righteous" (or "justify" them) is to find them to have done what they ought.
A few illustrations must suffice.6 According to LXX Ezek 18:5,7 the "righteous" person practices judgment and "righteousness"; what is entailed in the practice of "righteousness" is spelled out in a list of things to be done (vv. 6-9). The cases of a sinful child and a righteous grandchild of one who is righteous are then discussed, and it is insisted that the righteous will live because of the righteousness that they themselves have done, whereas the one who sins will die. According to LXX Ezek 33:13, 18, all the "righteousnesses" (dikaiosyne is here read in the plural) that the "righteous" have done will be forgotten if they turn from their "righteousness" and commit acts of lawlessness. That the "righteous" person is the one who does "righteousness" may seem tautological, but the author of 1 John thinks it a truth too easily overlooked: "Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right [literally, "does righteousness"] is righteous, just as he is righteous" (3:7).
The verb "declare righteous" or "justify" is commonly used in judicial contexts, where it means "find innocent of wrongdoing," "acquit." Several Septuagintal texts underline the importance of "justifying" ("declaring righteous") the "righteous" and the wrongfulness of "justifying" ("declaring righteous") the "ungodly" (Exod 23:7; Deut 25:1; Isa 5:23; cf. Sir 9:12). Note that the judgment by which either the righteous (rightly) or the wicked (wrongly) are declared to be righteous affects neither the righteousness of the former nor the wickedness of the latter: righteous and wicked they remain, though in the latter instance justice has been subverted (so Deut 16:19; cf. Prov 17:15, 26). It is thus not the case that "the 'righteous' one is that one in a legal action ... who wins his case or is acquitted."8 The righteous are those who ought to prevail in court-because they are righteous-whether or not this happens.
It is sometimes suggested that "righteousness" language, when understood in a "Hebrew" rather than a "Greek" way, is "covenantal."9 The truth in the claim lies in the clear obligation of those who enter a covenant to keep the commitments they make when they enter it. Still, "righteousness" itself pertains to all that one ought to do, whether or not one is party to a covenant.10 The contrast between the "righteous" and the "wicked," together with that between the "wise" and "fools," is perhaps the central motif of the book of Proverbs. Yet the framework of Proverbs is not covenantal. Since God "by wisdom" created heaven and earth (Prov 3:19), it behooves human beings everywhere to gain "wisdom" and to govern their lives accordingly (so showing themselves "wise" and "righteous") if they would prosper. According to Genesis 18, Sodom's destruction would have been avoided had its citizens included ten who were "righteous" (18:23-32): though no party to a covenant, they were expected to be "righteous." Conversely, those who do belong to the covenant people of God are not thought to be "righteous" for that reason. Israel was set apart from the nations as "holy" (Deut 7:6), but Deuteronomy flatly denies that its people were "righteous" (9:4-6). Nor is covenant membership the issue when Israelite judges decide the "rightness" of particular complaints. Egregious wrongs excluded wrongdoers from the community. But not all cases involved egregious wrong in which judges (or God) were to "declare the righteous to be in the right, rewarding them according to their righteousness" (LXX 1 Kgs [= 3 Kgdms] 8:32).
Throughout the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, then, "righteous" and "wicked" are found side by side, in Israel and among other nations. The two are distinguished by their deeds. And whether one is "righteous" or "wicked" matters supremely when God judges the world and all its people in righteousness (LXX Ps 9:9; 95:13; 97:9).
If the ordinary sense of "righteousness" in the Scriptures is "what one ought to do," it would be extremely odd if Paul did not betray a similar usage; so odd the apostle was not. Note, for example, the contrast Paul frequently draws between "righteousness" (and its cognates) and "sin" (and its synonyms)-that is, between what one ought to do and what one ought not. The claim that all are "under the power of sin" (Rom 3:9) is confirmed by the scriptural declaration that not a single person is "righteous." The declaration is immediately expanded upon by various representations of human turpitude (3:10-18). If one would scarcely die for a person who is "righteous," how much more astounding is it that Christ died for "sinners" (Rom 5:7-8)? "Righteousness," moreover, has nothing in common with "lawlessness" (2 Cor 6:14). Readers in Romans 6 are urged to devote themselves to the service of "righteousness" rather than to that of "sin" (or "impurity," "iniquity"; 6:18, 19). Paul is not aware of wrongdoing on his part. But since the Lord, not he, is the only competent judge of such matters, Paul acknowledges that he cannot be "found righteous" (or "justified"; NRSV "acquitted") on the basis merely of what he knows about himself (1 Cor 4:4).11
Righteousness, then, for Paul as for the rest of Scripture, frequently means "what one ought to do." How does Paul conceive human obligation? His most telling discussion is in Rom 1:18-32, where he elaborates on a charge of unrighteousness (adikia) brought against all humanity (1:18).
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness [adikia, "unrighteousness"] of those who by their wickedness [adikia] suppress the truth.
In the argument that follows, those who would flaunt their imagined freedom from obligations that they choose not to embrace are tersely dismissed. We are born into a world not of our making, and incur thereby, and in the course of living, obligations that we may shirk or defy but are in no position to set aside. God, as God, is to be worshiped by God's creatures (1:19-21, 25). As the creator and benefactor of human beings, God is due their honor and thanks (1:21). Moreover, what is appropriate to human sexuality was determined when humans were created as sexual beings and is to be respected in human behavior (1:26-27). Human beings are further bound to respect the lives of their fellows, to devise no ill against them, to speak the truth about them, to keep faith in their commitments, to show compassion where compassion is called for-and so on (1:28-32). These basic obligations of "righteousness" are seen as inherent in the lot of all human beings-and all at some level know both what they ought to do and that God rightly condemns those who refuse to do it (1:32).
Two observations about Paul's argument are worth making here. First, Paul speaks (implicitly) of the requirement of "righteousness" and (explicitly) of the condemnation of "unrighteousness" without referring to the Mosaic law. The law was given to Israel, but the obligation to practice righteousness is universal.
Second, although divine expectations of righteous behavior on the part of all human beings and, accordingly, divine judgment of all are spelled out most fully in Romans, they are implicit in all Paul's letters wherever he considers human behavior sinful or anticipates divine judgment. The Thessalonians had responded to the gospel in order to be delivered from the outpouring of divine wrath that awaits sinful humanity (1:10; 5:3-10). In Corinth, too, Paul's efforts were directed toward "saving" all he could (1 Cor 9:22; 10:33) in view of the condemnation that awaits the "world" "outside" the church (1 Cor 1:18; 5:13; 11:32)-because its people fail to live as they ought (cf. 1 Cor 6:1, 9-10; 2 Cor 6:14). The Philippians, by believing the gospel, had themselves escaped the perdition that awaits a "crooked and perverse generation" (2:15; cf. 1:28).
None of this should surprise us: no religious Jew doubted that God expected people, all people, to do what is right (admittedly, Jews differed in their understanding of the extent and nature of those obligations) and would judge those who did not. Paul's notions of what we may call "ordinary righteousness" were quite at home in contemporary Jewish circles.
THE (ORDINARY) RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE LAW
According to Romans 2, God will one day "repay" all according to their "deeds": those-Jews and non-Jews alike-who have done what is "good" will be granted eternal life; those-Jews and non-Jews alike-who have done evil will face "anguish and distress" (2:5-11). Clearly the demand for what is "good" in these verses parallels the expectation of (ordinary) "righteousness" outlined above, just as the "evil" of 2:8-9 corresponds to the "unrighteousness" condemned in 1:18. To this point, the divine requirements made of all human beings continue to be discussed without mention of the Jewish law.
The law is introduced in 2:12. Those who possess it will be judged by it; those without the law will be judged without reference to its provisions. But what the law requires of its adherents, in this passage, is simply the "good" expected of all human beings, as spelled out in the immediately preceding verses. If 2:6-11 declares that those who do the good will be granted eternal life, 2:13 restates the same principle in its claim that "the doers of the law" will be "justified" (or "declared righteous").12 One might suppose that only Jews (who "hear" the law) could be its "doers"; but Paul, bent on showing that Jews and Gentiles are judged by the same criterion, insists that this is not the case. Gentiles too, he notes, do things that the law commands, and whenever they do so, they show that they too are aware of "what the law requires." It has been "written on their hearts" (2:14-15; cf. 1:32). Hence, Gentiles no less than Jews are required to be "doers of the law" if they are to be found "righteous" on the day of judgment (2:13).
Paul's point has often been missed because of the confusion provoked by his reference to Gentiles who do "what the law requires" (2:14). Did he (readers have often wondered) envisage the possibility of Gentiles being deemed "righteous" because their deeds are acceptable to God? The answer to that question is that such a question cannot be answered, at least on the basis of this verse: it is simply not discussed.13 Paul wants to show that Gentiles and Jews are subject to the same criterion of judgment (they must do what is "good"; 2:7, 10), even though Jews, but not Gentiles, possess the law. Assuming that what the law requires is the goodness expected of every human being, Paul insists that Gentiles, too, are aware of their obligations: witness the times they do what the law commands, as well as the activity of their own consciences and thoughts in approving or disapproving what they do.
In this passage, then, the law of Moses is not thought to provide Jews with a path to "righteousness" that is peculiar to themselves; it merely gives them unique guidance about the goodness required of all. Still, it is doubtless of benefit to have one's obligations enunciated clearly: possession of the law enables Jews to instruct Gentiles in their mutual responsibilities. But the ability to communicate a command docs not exempt the communicators from their own obligation to observe it.
You, then, that [as a Jew; see v. 17] teach others, will you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You that forbid adultery, do you commit adultery? You that abhor idols, do you rob temples? (2:21-22)
Circumcision is introduced into the discussion in vv. 25-29; the same point is being made. The only "circumcision" that matters in the end is the spiritual "circumcision" shown by those-whether or not they are physically circumcised-who actually do what the law commands. Paul posits the various possibilities: a circumcised Jew who keeps the law (his circumcision has value; v. 25a); a circumcised Jew who transgresses the law (his circumcision has no value; v. 25b); and an uncircumcised non-Jew who keeps it (his uncircumcision amounts to the circumcision that has value; w. 26-27). (The case of the uncircumcised non-Jew who does not keep the law is omitted since it is of no use to the argument.) In no case is it part of Paul's argument to affirm that there are individuals who fill each category.14 His point is that keeping the (moral requirements of the) law is what matters-for Jews and Gentiles, circumcised and (physically) uncircumcised, alike.
In Romans 2, then, Paul finds in the law a statement of the requirements of goodness incumbent on all human beings. The same understanding is implicit elsewhere in Romans. To support his claim that the law itself is "good," Paul notes in ch. 7 that what the law commands is "holy and just [dikaia] and good" (7:12). He means not that conduct otherwise neutral becomes "just" ("righteous") and "good" when (and because) the law commands it, but that behavior that is righteous and good is spelled out in the law. In 7:16, the law is again recognized as "good" because (as the context makes clear) what it commands is recognized as "the good I want." According to 4:15 and 5:13, sin exists in the world even apart from law (e.g., murder was wrong even before the law was given). However, when the law's demands were made (e.g., "You shall not murder"), deeds (such as murder) that were sinful in any case became also transgressions of the law.
Such an understanding of the Mosaic law is not peculiar to Paul. Beginning at least with Sir 24:23 (but see already Deut 4:6-8!), Jewish thought had identified the "wisdom" by which all human beings should live with the Mosaic Torah.15 Those familiar with GrecoRoman thought stressed Torah's agreement with "nature."16 In principle, those who presented the Mosaic law in these terms either had to focus exclusively on its moral demands or insist that its "ceremonial" commands, too, were binding on all humankind. Paul takes the former approach. Not only are the commands he cites exclusively moral (2:21-22); physical circumcision is discussed as though its presence, while potentially "of value," is quite a separate matter from the fulfillment of the law (2:25-27). The law of which all are expected to be "doers" (2:13) amounts to the moral demands of the Mosaic Torah.
But no human being, according to Rom 3:9-20, is "righteous" in this way. Summing up the whole argument, Paul writes, "'No human being [literally, "no flesh"] will be justified in [God's] sight' by deeds prescribed by the law" (3:20, echoing LXX Ps 142:2); that is, no one who does not do the good required of human beings can be declared righteous on the basis of a law that articulates the requirement.17 Far from contradicting Rom 2:13, the judgment of 3:20 presupposes its truth: the fundamental principle of the righteousness of the law is that the "doers of the law [and only the "doers," not mere "hearers"] will be justified." That no one meets the requirement is, in effect, an accident of human history. The requirement itself stands firm.
The same principle is expressed in Gal 3:12, here in a quotation from Lev 18:5: "Whoever does the works of the law [literally, "does them," i.e., the requirements spelled out in the law] will live by them." To be a "doer of the law" (Rom 2:13) is to be one who "does" what it requires (Gal 3:12). Such a person is promised life in Gal 3:12; he or she is deemed "righteous" and granted eternal life in Romans 2. Romans 10:5 provides the missing link between the verses: the basic principle of the law is repeated in the terms of Gal 3:12 (the same quotation from Lev 18:5 is given), but the principle itself is labeled the "righteousness that comes from the law," showing (as does Rom 2:13) that "doing" what the law commands is the path to being recognized as "righteous" in God's eyes.
In Galatians, the topic is addressed because Paul's Gentile converts had been told that they needed to be circumcised and to submit to the (distinctively Jewish) requirements of the Mosaic law if they wanted to belong to God's people. Paul responds, however, not by arguing against the importance of particular demands of the law, but by insisting that the law itself, inasmuch as it requires obedience to its demands, can hardly serve as a path to righteousness for "sinners" who have broken its requirements (cf. 2:15-17). Rather, it encounters them as a curse (3:10), confining them under the power of "sin" until God's redemption in Christ is revealed (3:21-26).
The "righteousness that comes from the law" is introduced in Romans 10 only after the point has repeatedly been made that human beings do not-they cannot-submit to God's law (3:10-18; 7:7-25; 8:7-8); that the law, though itself "good" (7:12, 14, 16), is too "weak" to secure obedience to its demands (8:3; cf. 7:14); that its practical effect is to bring "knowledge" of sin (3:20; 7:7), define sin as transgression (4:15; 5:13), and serve as the instrument of divine wrath (4:15). Yet Jews, Paul notes, continue to pursue its path to "righteousness"18 rather than submit to the path God has opened up through faith. Still, for all their efforts at achieving the "righteousness that is based on the law," Paul claims that they have not attained their goal-nor will they do so until they abandon the notion that humans can achieve righteousness through their "works" (9:31-32)."
In short, the Paul of Romans thinks that the righteousness of the law is of no use to sinners (and such are all human beings) and should not be pursued now that God has (for the benefit of sinners) revealed the "righteousness of faith." But the path itself he finds articulated in Scripture, and he equates its underlying principle with the divine demand for righteous behavior on the part of all human beings: a requirement presupposed in the gospel (Christ died "for our sins"! [1 Cor 15:3]) that he in no way calls in question.
Before we turn to what Paul says about the righteousness of faith, something should be said about his portrayal of the Jewish path to righteousness. Did Jews not see their place in the covenant, rather than their observance of the law, as securing their salvation? Has Paul not distorted Judaism by detaching the Mosaic law from its covenantal framework? And has he not overlooked the law's own provisions for atonement of transgressions?
This is not the place for a full-scale discussion.20 Nevertheless, the following points may be noted.
1. As mentioned above, entrance into the covenant was not thought to make Jews "righteous." "Righteousness," and enjoyment of life in God's favor, required submission to its commands (Deut 6:24-25). If Deuteronomy thinks those who are already God's people nonetheless face the choice of life or death depending on their willingness to obey God's commands (30:15-20; cf. 11:26-28), Second Temple Jewish sources repeatedly distinguish the "righteous" from the "wicked" among Jews themselves on the same basis, and it is the "righteous" who will enter life. This, as we have seen, was Paul's position too.
2. Paul could not have believed that the Mosaic provisions for atonement remained in effect once Christ had died for the sins of humankind. Presumably, he thought (as did the author of the letter to the Hebrews) that such rites were symbolic from the start, mere adumbrations of the sacrifice of Christ, which alone was effective in atoning for sins. Romans 3:24-26 suggests such an understanding; 1 Cor 5:7 might also be cited in support (cf. Col 2:16-17).
3. But there is more to be said. The Mosaic sacrifices for atonement were not thought to be effective unless accompanied by repentance on the part of the transgressor. But a Paul who thought that the mindset of the "flesh" is at enmity with God could hardly have thought unredeemed humanity capable of true repentance (Rom 8:5-8). Put differently: the law in Jewish thought served to distinguish the "wicked" (or "sinners") from the "righteous." The latter were not thought to be sinless, but (it was understood) they intended submission to God's law, and they repented of what wrongs they did. For Paul, however, the law served not to distinguish the incorrigibly "wicked" from the basically "righteous," but to show that all are "sinners," the "ungodly," God's "enemies" (Rom 3:23; 4:5; 5:6-8, etc.).21 For "sinners" who are not inclined to repent, neither Paul nor other Jews thought that the Mosaic law provided atonement (cf. Num 15:27-31).
4. Paul differs from much Jewish thinking of his day, then, not so much in his understanding of the law itself as in his assessment of human ability (and will) to obey it. Yet the evidence for Paul's "robust conscience" assembled by Krister Stendahl22 does not suggest a mind schooled to doubt humanity's capacity to please God. Here we must speak of a post-Damascus reevaluation. If the crucifixion of God's Son was required to redeem humankind, then the sinfulness of humankind must be both radical in itself and beyond the powers of existing measures to overcome.
THE (EXTRAORDINARY) RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH
What Paul says about the righteousness of faith in Romans follows naturally from his understanding of the righteousness of the law. Here we can only note five of its aspects.
1. In the ordinary use of the terms, "righteousness" is what one ought to do and the "righteous" are those who do it. That Paul was not so obtuse as to have missed the point is apparent not only from his frequent usage of "righteousness" terminology in its ordinary sense, but also from his insistence on the extraordinary and paradoxical nature of the "righteousness" that God now offers the unrighteous. Those "justified [= declared righteous] by [God's] grace as a gift" in Rom 3:24 are precisely those who have "sinned" and "fall[en] short of the glory of God" in 3:23. Those declared righteous in 4:5 are the "ungodly"-the very term used in Septuagintal texts to designate those who, in contrast to the "righteous," should not be "justified." In Rom 5:9, those who have now been "declared righteous" are the "ungodly" of v. 6, the "sinners" of v. 8, the "enemies" of God of v. 10. The "many" who are "made righteous" by Christ's obedience in 5:19 are the same "many" who were "made sinners" by Adam's disobedience. They are the recipients of an "abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness" (5:17): Paul could scarcely signal more strongly the extraordinary nature of this righteousness!
Fittingly, then, Paul repeatedly speaks of the righteousness of faith as an emergency measure introduced by God to offset human unrighteousness and offer life to those otherwise condemned. The (ordinary) "righteousness" that is spelled out in the law is, for Paul, the more basic righteousness, from which the "righteousness" of faith paradoxically borrows its name. "Righteousness ... through faith" has "now" been "disclosed" (Rom 3:2122)-"now" that it is clear no "flesh" can be found righteous through obeying the law (3:20). "Faith" has "come" into the world with Christ for the benefit of those confined by the law to the rule of sin (Gal 3:21-26). That one may be "righteous" on the basis of faith is the message now being proclaimed in the gospel of which Paul is unashamed (Rom 1:1617). In that the gospel brings "salvation" (1:16), it represents the divine response to a crisis (portrayed in 1:18-3:20).
If we are properly to understand what Paul means by "justification by faith," we must grasp correctly the dilemma he sees it as solving: "righteousness," for Paul, is what sinners, as sinners, lack and need. Neither in Paul's thought nor in the understanding of contemporaneous Jews does "righteousness" mean the covenant membership that Jews enjoy but from which Gentiles have hitherto been excluded.
2. The Septuagint insists that it is wrong to declare the "ungodly" "righteous." Yet God does precisely what the Septuagintal texts forbid-and is righteous in so doing because the death of Christ is linked to the declaration. Romans 3:25-26 notes that God has not overlooked human sinfulness-that would violate his righteousness-but directed its bane not on the heads of the sinners themselves but on Jesus Christ, who exhausted it when he died as an atoning sacrifice. The same picture is evoked by the reference to Christ's "blood" in 5:9 (perhaps echoing 3:25). Other pictures are used elsewhere: Christ's representative act of obedience offsets Adam's representative act of disobedience (5:15-19); those "freed [literally "justified"] from sin" have died with Christ to sin (Romans 6); God exchanged the sin of humans with the righteousness of Christ (2 Cor 5:21). It is clear in each case that God is "righteous" in declaring "sinners" "righteous" because "Christ died for our sins" (1 Cor 15:3). The demands of ordinary righteousness (as spelled out in the law), though not met in the ordinary way, are nonetheless presupposed by the Pauline gospel.
3. "Sinners" can only receive "righteousness" as a "free gift" (Rom 5:17; cf. 3:23-24). If the "ungodly" are to be "declared righteous," it must be "without" the "[righteous] works" on which such a declaration would normally be based (Rom 4:5). The "righteousness" of those whose sins are forgiven is one with which they have been credited "apart from [righteous] works" (4:6).23 The righteousness of faith operates apart from any consideration of the deeds of its recipients in part because they-sinners, the ungodly, those needing forgiveness-have no righteous deeds to offer. But it also represents an offer made by divine grace that (according to Paul's definition) itself excludes any role for human works (4:4-5; 11:6). And where human deeds play no role, human "boasting" has no place (3:27; 4:2).
4. In Abraham's case and in that of believers in the gospel, God's extraordinary "righteousness" is received "by faith." In both instances, faith is a response to the word (or promise) of God (cf. Rom 10:17). In both cases it involves trusting God to transform an otherwise hopeless situation. Where such faith is found, the God "who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist" proves able to do what he has promised (4:17-25).
5. Those declared "righteous" in an extraordinary way are now to do what is "righteous" (in the ordinary sense; Romans 6). Paul is no less insistent than Matthew that his converts must actively serve "righteousness." Distinctively Pauline, however, is the conviction that such a life is possible as one is "led by the Spirit" (8:13-14; cf. v. 4), which has been given to all who belong to Christ (v. 9). The hostility toward God that is inherent in the "flesh" is no longer the mindset of those who "live according to the Spirit" (vv. 5-8).
Pauline scholars today understand Judaism far better than did their predecessors who, if they read Jewish sources at all, consulted them merely to corroborate what (they thought) Paul said about his past or his opponents. Modern scholars of Paul have also been made abundantly aware that what provoked Paul's discussion of justification by faith was the issue of whether Gentile believers needed to submit to (the "boundary-marking" aspects of) the Jewish law. And contemporary scholarship has rightly reminded us that the resolution ofthat issue had wide-ranging implications for the missionary outreach of the church and the day-to-day life of its adherents.
In the end, however, it remains the case that Paul's response to the first-century crisis focused not on the "ethnocentrism" (or the "narrow nationalism," or the "racism") of those who advocated adherence to particular statutes of the law, but on the inability of the law itself to secure from sinners the obedience it required. The message of "justification by faith" pertains in the first place not to how Gentiles may be included in the Jewish covenant but to how sinners-Jews and Gentiles alike-who are threatened by God's wrath may enjoy God's approval. That-apparently without reference to issues raised by the Jewish law-was the essence of Paul's missionary message to the Thessalonians and the Corinthians. In propounding for the Galatians, Philippians, and Romans a "justification" that is "by faith" rather than by the "works of the law," Paul merely worked out the implications of a gospel that offered "salvation" to "sinners."
[Footnote] 1 J. C. O'Neill, Paul's Letter to the Romans (Baltimore: Penguin, 1975) 46-49. 2 E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983) 123-35. 3 J. A. Fitzmyer, "The Letter to the Romans," in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, ed. R. E. Brown, J. A. Fitzmyer, and R. E. Murphy (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1990) 837. 4 So dikaiosyne is frequently rendered, especially in Pauline texts. The cognate verb in Greek, dikaioo, is commonly rendered "justify." 5 E.g., U. Luz, Matthew 1-7: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989) 237. 6 I have treated the matter in greater detail in my Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The "Lutheran" Paul and His Critics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004) 263-73. 7 Septuagintal texts are cited because they share with Paul the same Greek vocabulary. In the Hebrew parent text, the terms rendered in Greek by dikaios and its cognates are regularly saddîq and its related terms. 8 R. Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, 1 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1951) 1:272. 9 E.g., J. D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Ecrdmans, 1998) 341-42. 10 For a fuller treatment, see M. A. Seifrid, "Righteousness Language in the Hebrew Scriptures and Early Judaism," in Justification and Variegated Nomism. Volume 1: The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism, ed. D. A. Carson, P. T. O'Brien, and M. A. Seifrid, WUNT 2/140 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001) 415-42. 11 Note that, as commonly in the Septuagintal texts, the verb dikaioo¯ here means "declare righteous," "find innocent," "acquit." Whether or not Paul is "righteous" in the matter under discussion depends on whether or not he has himself done wrong. But when God assesses what Paul has done, he will declare (not make) Paul "righteous" (or guilty). 12 Note again that the verb means "find righteous," "declare to be righteous." In the parallel expression in the first part of the verse, the mere "hearers" of the law are not for that reason found "[to be] righteous in God's sight." Divine judgment here leads not to being made righteous but to being recognized as the "righteous" (or guilty) person one is on the basis of one's deeds. 13 Note that Paul goes on to invoke the conscience of the same Gentiles (the subject of 2:15 is the same as that of v. 14) who do "what the law requires" and to speak of their self-accusatory "or perhaps" self-excusatory thoughts: his formulation suggests that the incidence of excusatory thoughts is less likely or less frequent than that of accusatory ones. Clearly, Paul does not mean to designate these Gentiles "righteous." 14 Romans 2:27 is often thought to posit the existence of uncircumcised Gentiles who keep the law, and the question is then raised whether Paul is thinking of non-Christian or Christian Gentiles. But the conditional force of v. 26 is continued in v. 27 (the subject of v. 27, "those who are physically uncircumcised but keep the law," parallels "those who are uncircumcised" but "keep the requirements of the law" in the conditional sentence of v. 26). Pressing the point that keeping the law, not physical circumcision, is what matters, Paul insists that an uncircumcised keeper of the law would be better off than a circumcised transgressor. All the relevant possibilities have thus been covered to illustrate the principle. But it is the principle, not the existence of people under each category, that Paul is bent on establishing. 15 K. Finsterbusch, Die Thora als Lebensweisung für Heidenchristen: Studien zur Bedeutung der Thora für die paulinischen Ethik, SUNT 20 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996) 31-38; E. J. Schnabel, law and Wisdom from Ben Sira to Paul: A Tradition Historical Enquiry into the Relation of Law, Wisdom, and Ethics, WUNT 2/16 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1985) 89, 162. 16 E.g., 4 Mace 5:25-26; Philo, Creation 3; Moses 2.52. 17 In the context of this argument, the "deeds prescribed by the law" that do not justify must be the moral requirements of the law that people do not meet: Paul's point is both clarified and confirmed by the Scripture that insists that "flesh" cannot be "righteous" in God's sight. Paul is not saying here that particular (non-moral) requirements of the law (the "boundary-markers" of circumcision and Jewish food and festival laws) are not necessary for justification. See my Perspectives Old and New on Paul, 300-21. 18 Though (according to Romans 2) the law spells out the goodness required of all human beings, it is natural to link the pursuit of "righteousness" through the "law" with the Jewish people, to whom the law was given; Paul does so here and in Philippians 3. 19 In Philippians 3, Paul speaks of his own former pursuit of the righteousness of the law only to note that he has now abandoned it for the righteousness of faith (3:4-10). As in Romans, the former righteousness pertains to human moral behavior: one is, or is not, "blameless" by its standards (v. 6). Paul's claim to have been "blameless" is relative (he wants to assure the Philippians that if he, whose fidelity to the law exceeded that of any of its proponents whom they are likely to meet, has nonetheless turned away from it, then they need not listen to such proponents) and is a reflection of his pre-Christian assessment (he could not now have thought persecuting the church [v. 6] a good thing, nor does he now place any stock in the "confidence in the flesh" shown by those who measure their righteousness by their law-observance [3:3-4]). 20 See my Perspectives Old and New on Paul, 380-83. 21 Cf. M. Winninge, Sinners and the Righteous: A Comparative Study of the Psalms of Solomon and Paul's Letters (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1995) 306-7. 12 Paul Among Jews and Gentiles (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976) 78-96. 23 Again, note that the "works" that Paul excludes from a role when one is "declared righteous by faith" are the moral works by which one's "righteousness" is ordinarily assessed; they are not the "boundary-marking" works (circumcision, observance of food and festival laws) that distinguished Jews as members of the covenant. Paul is indeed concerned in Romans 4 to show that the latter are not required of believers. But he raises the issue of circumcision in 4:9-12 only after he has already shown that God declares the ungodly to be righteous "without works" (4:1-8). If the question can be raised whether "this blessedness" (that is enjoyed "apart from works") can be experienced by the uncircumcised as well as the circumcised, then Paul was not dealing with the issue of circumcision when he excluded "works."
[Author Affiliation] STEPHEN WESTERHOLM Associate Professor of New Testament McMaster University