Romans 1:16-17 - Righteousness - by Ken Clezy
Romans 1: 16-17
All students of Romans agree: these verses are a summary of the whole book. But if Romans is about God’s righteousness, what does that mean? In English righteousness means one thing: goodness. God’s righteousness must include that – he is perfectly good. But Paul understood it to mean more than that. In the OT we find righteousness, salvation and justice close together, with many examples in Psalms, in Isaiah, and elsewhere. A common association is righteousness and justice.
1 Kings 10:9 ‘. . . to maintain justice and righteousness . . .’
Ps 11:7 ‘For the Lord is righteous, he loves justice.’
Ps 36:6 ‘Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice is like the great deep.’
Ps 71:15 ‘My mouth will tell of your righteousness, of your salvation all day long.’
Ps 103:6 ‘The Lord works righteousness and justice.’
Is 33:5 ‘He will fill Zion with justice and righteousness.’
Is 46:13 ‘I am bringing my righteousness near, it is not far away, and my salvation will not be delayed.’
Jer 9:24 ‘. . . .justice and righteousness on earth . . . ’
Hos 2:19 ‘I will betroth you in justice and righteousness.’
See Is 51:4,5,6,8, where righteousness, justice and salvation all appear. So God’s righteousness doesn’t simply mean he is good in some general sense.
In Greek the words righteousness, justice, justify and justification are closely related, so it’s natural that when Paul speaks of God’s righteousness he often means his justice. If we take that meaning, what does righteousness by faith mean? It means we who repent and believe in Jesus Christ are the beneficiaries of God’s justice, when he declares us not guilty. But surely justice means you get what you deserve? We’ve all heard people crying out for justice. They don’t want the guilty to get off; they want them punished. So how can God’s forgiveness of the guilty be called justice?
If I owe you $10K but I can’t pay and you write it off as a bad debt, who pays? You do. The debt doesn’t simply evaporate. Heavenly bookkeeping is much the same. God may forgive us our debts, our sins, but he pays, in the sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf. Justice has been done; payment has been made. Paul explains how God does that in ch 3.
On the other hand, when Paul speaks of our righteousness, or of us being righteous, his meaning is simpler. He usually means our goodness, but not always. For example, take Ro 5:7. ‘Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.’ What are we to make of that? If we understand the righteous person to be someone who has been justified, who has been declared not guilty, but is still a babe in Christ with what we could call a virtue score of zero, it makes sense. So here righteous doesn’t mean good; it means acquitted, justified, saved. Good means virtuous.
In ch 4 there is another confusing application of the word righteousness to a man. ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.’ That sounds very much as if God called Abraham’s faith goodness. Well, let’s read the verse from Ps 32 that Paul uses to explain what he means. ‘Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sins the Lord will never hold against him.’ No mention of goodness there; forgiveness only.
Forgiveness doesn’t make us good; forgiveness is justification; it’s sanctification that makes us good. Sure, justification and sanctification are closely related, but they aren’t the same.
V17 in the NIV is even more confusing. ‘For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last.’ This is more than a translation; it’s an interpretation that seems to say God gives us righteousness, or makes us good people when we believe, but Paul isn’t saying that here; he has spoken so far of justification only. Whatever the defects of the old KJV, it is correct here. (The righteousness of God, not from God.)
The NIV words from first to last are one of a huge number of interpretations of the words from faith to faith. Fact is, nobody knows exactly what he means by them. When Peter said Paul writes some things that are hard to understand, perhaps he included this verse. Over to you.
Jesus said we must be born again. Paul uses different words, but it amounts to the same thing. When God in his righteousness declares us not guilty, that is, when he justifies us by faith, we are like newborn babies that have done neither right nor wrong. We may be clean, we are clean, but we aren’t good. Justification cleanses us; it is sanctification that makes us good, insofar as that is possible. Justification and sanctification arc closely related but distinct.
Interestingly, in the first edition of the NIV the Romans contents item 5 is Sanctification: righteousness imparted. In the latest edition the same section is 3b: Freedom from bondage to sin. The word sanctification doesn’t appear in Romans chapter section headings or footnotes either. This seems to be a tacit admission by the editors that in the past we have separated justification from sanctification improperly, possibly dating from the Scofield Reference Bible, or even the teachings of JN Darby, founder of the Brethren movement. Unquestionably, Paul taught that all Christians must be sanctified, but he doesn’t go into that until chapters 6 and 8. In the earlier chapters I believe he speaks of justification only – declared not guilty.
Finally, he backs up what he says by quoting Hab 2:4 He was a prophet who couldn’t understand why God would use very wicked Babylonians to punish the people he loved. God told Habakkuk that while some of Israel would die, faithful believers would live. Paul’s implication is that God hasn’t changed, so those who believe in Jesus will live. Later in the letter he says what this means.