But
now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which
the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in
Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and
Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are
justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the
shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his
righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed
beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present
time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus (Romans 3:21-26, NIV).
In
our last post (here), we laid the
necessary foundation for an adequate interpretation of this text, which Martin
Luther called “the chief point, and the very central place of the Epistle, and
of the whole Bible.”[i] One might perhaps question the Reformer’s
understanding of the literary function of this paragraph, but there is no
denying its significance for Paul’s argument in Romans 1:18-4:25, the first
major thought “unit” of this letter. In
particular, it presents Jesus’ death as the decisive manifestation of God’s
“righteousness” and, hence, as the solution to the universal plight of sinful
humanity and the apparent conundrum of
how to reconcile God’s impartiality and his covenant promise to save the world
through the people of Abraham.
No
two words are more characteristic of Paul’s thought, or more significant for
understanding this paragraph, than the deceivingly unprepossessing “but now” (nyni de) with which he opens the
paragraph. If the previous context were
not enough, the inclusio found in
verse 26 (“in the ‘now’ time [en tōi nyn
kairōi]) indicates that the “now” must have a temporal force. Paul,
in other words, is contrasting eras, viz.,
the “present evil age,” in which sin, death, and condemnation reign under the
old covenant, and the “age to come” inaugurated by the Christ event, in which
the blessings of salvation associated with the new age have been inaugurated.[ii] It is now,
in the death of Messiah Jesus, that the promised and long hoped-for
“righteousness of God”—his “righteous” saving action in faithfulness to his
covenant promises—has been manifested. Paul’s
concern in verses 21-26 is to articulate how
the ignominious death of a putative Messiah can legitimately be understood as
the apocalyptic manifestation of God’s righteousness, and hence be the “good
news” announced by Isaiah centuries earlier.
A
full exegesis of these verses—a veritable minefield—would take us too far
afield. What I intend to do is trace the
contours of the apostle’s argument and reflect on their significance for the
current debate over the gospel. The
message of the paragraph as a whole may be summarized thus: God’s eschatological, saving righteousness
has now been manifested in his gracious justification, on the basis of Christ’s
atoning death, of all who exercise faith in Christ. Paul’s argument proceeds in three stages.
1. God’s
eschatological saving righteousness, promised in Israel’s Scriptures, has now
been definitively actualized apart from the old covenant and is experienced by
all who exercise faith in Christ (3:21-22a).
The
gospel, as Paul says in chapter 1, reveals God’s righteousness. “Eschatological”—even apocalyptic—it may be,
but it was also “preannounced” (proepēngeilato)
by Israel’s prophets in Scripture (cf. also Rom 15:7-13). The apostle makes the same point here: this
saving “righteousness” about which he is writing was “attested” (martyroumenē) by “the law and the
prophets.” What God had lately done in
Christ, in other words, was the definitive fulfillment
of what he had promised in Isaiah (46:13; 51:5, 6, 8) and elsewhere, not least
Psalm 143, which he loosely cited in verse 20.
This is not simply born of a desire to “prove” the gospel from
scripture. Rather, as we saw in 3:1-8,
at issue in Israel’s beleaguered, exilic condition was the moral integrity of
the God who had entered into a binding covenant with them. God, in other words, had shown himself to be
“faithful” and “true” despite the unfaithfulness and unreliability of his
people.
Equally
significant is the assertion that this righteousness was manifested “apart from
the law” (chōris nomou). This certainly implies that “works of the
law”—it matters not whether they are interpreted as “ethnic/covenantal boundary
markers” or “badges of moral achievement” at this point—play no role in either
the manifestation or experience of this righteousness (3:20).[iii] Paul’s point runs deeper, however. As suggested by the temporal adverb “now,”
what the apostle means to suggest is that God has revealed his righteousness entirely apart from the realm and influence
of the Torah in a comprehensive sense.
Just as Paul takes pains to assert the salvation-historical continuity of his gospel, so he also emphasizes
this corresponding note of discontinuity. The old, Sinaitic covenant has now been superseded by virtue of the
Christ event, which marked a decisive shift to a new, indeed climactic, stage
of salvation-historical fulfillment; hence, those Jews who still sought to
relate to God on that basis were, by definition, looking in the wrong place. The law was not a necessary, let alone a
sufficient, condition of mediating or maintaining a right relation with God.
Instead,
this righteousness is experienced savingly only “through the faith of Jesus
Christ” (dia pisteōs Iēsou Christou). For once, I have quoted the text as
translated by the KJV, not because of its accuracy so much as because of its literalistic
ambiguity. At this point we come to one
of the most heated and intractable exegetical debates in current New Testament
scholarship.[iv] Simply put, should Paul’s expression be
understood as referring to “faith in Jesus Christ” (i.e., Iēsou Christou is an “objective genitive”)[v]
or to “the faith(fulness) of Jesus Christ,” his “faithful” death on the cross
(i.e., Iēsou Christou is a
“subjective genitive”)?[vi] I myself lean ever-so-slightly to the
traditional view[vii],
though—fortunately, in case I’m wrong!—for our present purposes a definitive
decision need not be made. It is indeed
true, as Paul will detail in verses 24-26, that God’s righteousness was
manifested definitively in Christ’s faithful death. It is also true, as Paul immediately goes on
to say, that this righteousness benefits all
(pantas)—contextually, Gentile
and Jew alike—who believe (sc. in
Christ). Just as “no flesh”—Jew as well
as Gentile—is “justified” by works of the law (3:20), so “faith” in Christ (by
virtue both of what he accomplished on the cross and his risen status as
Messianic Lord) is the only means of benefitting from God’s saving
righteousness. Paul tells us why this is
the case in verses 22b-23.
2. God’s
saving righteousness is manifested for all who believe because all—Jews and
Gentiles alike—have sinned and fall short of God’s glory (3:22b-23).
Sin
is the great equalizer. God had chosen
Israel and given them the Torah as a covenant charter to aid them in their
priestly role vis-à-vis the nations. But
God, at the same time, is no respecter of persons (2:11). Hence, he could not simply turn a blind eye
to the Jews’ sinful failure to live up to their covenant obligations. Indeed, the “righteousness” of God’s judgment
of the Jews for their sin is Paul’s major point in 3:1-20. Israel, despite their privileged position,
demonstrated by their sinful disobedience to the law that there was really no
“distinction” (diastolē) between them
and the Gentiles: they were both, as Paul will argue in chapter 5, ín Adam,
subject to the same death and condemnation.
All people—and here this must mean “all without exception”—“have sinned”
(hēmarton)[viii]
and thus “lack” (hysterountai)[ix]
the “glory” (doxa) of God that was
portrayed as being the eschatological condition of the people of God (cf. Isa
35:2).[x]
God,
as the righteous, covenant keeping God, remained committed to his plan to bring
universal blessing (i.e., the reversal of the Adamic curse) to the whole world
through the physical seed of Abraham.
The experience of Israel under the law, however, simply managed to place
the Jews in the dock along with the Gentile world they were called to rescue.[xi] If God was to retain his moral integrity, he
had both to judge sin and display his
saving righteousness for the benefit of both Israel and the nations. How God chose to do so is Paul’s concern in
verses 24-26. The “solution” lay in the
atoning death of Israel’s Messiah, which simultaneously displayed the twin
poles of God’s righteous character and vindicated his moral integrity.
3. God
graciously justifies Jewish and Gentile believers through the redeeming and
atoning death of Messiah Jesus, which simultaneously displayed both God’s
saving and judging righteousness (3:24-26).
After
the quasi-parenthetical 3:22b-23, Paul returns to the thought he had begun in
verse 21-22. The one way for both Jews
and Gentiles to benefit from God’s saving righteousness is through faith in
Christ. The status all receive when they
exercise such faith is that of being “justified” (dikaioumenoi). As all
theological students know well, “justification” has been a controversial topic
since the time of the Reformation. Somewhat surprisingly, it remains so,
particularly within certain strands of Evangelicalism.[xii]
Nevertheless,
justification remains a rather straightforward soteriological metaphor.[xiii] It is a forensic or legal term that speaks of
the verdict pronounced on a defendant.
As in human law courts, so it is in the cosmic assize: the judge
pronounces the verdict. If found
“guilty,” the defendant is condemned. If found “not guilty” or “innocent,” the
defendant, having been vindicated, is
acquitted or justified. To “justify,” in
other words, means to pronounce a
person to be legally in the right. The “righteousness” of the acquitted person
thus refers, not necessarily to some measurable “moral” quality (a la the Latin iustitia), but rather to the
right status of the acquitted individual in the eyes of the court. Indeed, fuzzy thinking based on English
connotations of terms such as “righteousness” and “relationship” has muddied
the theological waters quite a bit.
Paul’s point, however, is a simple one: All people who exercise faith in Christ have a “righteous status”
pronounced on them by God in advance of the final judgment. Such people, by implication, have had their
sins dealt with in some as yet unexplained manner. Moreover, now that Christ has come, it is
this Jew plus Gentile family who believe in Christ that serves as the new,
eschatological covenant people of God.
God’s covenant with Abraham, of course, was ultimately intended to be
the vehicle for the salvation of “all nations.”
In Christ, what was promised has come about, entirely by God’s free (dōrean) grace (charis). Indeed, how could
it be otherwise in view of the universal charge, supported by both experience
and Scripture, that both Jews and Gentiles are “under sin” (3:9)?
In
the remainder of verse 24 Paul explains how
this justification came about: through the “redemption” (apolytrōsis) that is experienced via union with “Messiah Jesus.”
Redemption is a second metaphor used to good effect by Paul in these
verses. As Leon Morris demonstrated long
ago, “redemption” refers to a release or
liberation of a slave through the
payment of a ransom (lytron).[xiv] In the present context, which speaks of the
“justification” of people formerly “accountable to God” (3:19) for being “under
sin” (3:9), it would appear that believers, by being “in Christ,” are thereby
released from the slavery to sin that led to their “guilty” status before God
and that would have resulted in final condemnation apart from God’s free grace
in Christ.[xv]
There
may be another reason for Paul’s use of the “redemption” metaphor: the Exodus
was portrayed in the Old Testament as a “redemption” (e.g., Deut 7:8; 9:26;
15:15; 24:18; Ps 78:35), and as such served as the pattern of the promised return from exile in the very section of
Scripture from which the terms “gospel” and “righteousness” derive their
significance (e.g., Isa 41:14; 43:1, 14; 44:22-24; 51:11; 52:3; 62:12;
63:9). The point is clear: the eschatological deliverance anticipated
by Israel had been secured by their Messiah, Jesus, and those “in Christ”—both
Jews and Gentiles!—were now
experiencing and enjoying it.
But
how was this “redemption”
secured? To put the matter differently,
how is it that God could maintain his righteous integrity while displaying his
righteous covenant faithfulness in “delivering” condemned sinners from the just
consequences of their sin? Paul answers
these questions in verses 25-26, two of the most important and inspiring verses
in all of Holy Writ.
In
these verses, Paul makes two points. First,
God publicly displayed the crucified Christ as the one whose death turned away
God’s wrath against sin (3:25a).[xvi] The term Paul uses in verse 25 to denote the
significance of Christ’s death is hilastērion. Both this term and the related verb hilaskomai consistently refer, in
non-biblical Greek, to the notion of propitiation
or appeasement of the wrath of the gods.[xvii] Hence, the prima facie meaning here is that Christ’s death (“in his blood”) is
the event in which God’s wrath was turned away from sinners.
This
notion is too harsh for the sensitive hearts of some New Testament scholars,
however. Famously, C. H. Dodd argued
that the term was better understood in terms of expiation, i.e., the means by which sin is removed or wiped away.[xviii] More recently, Judith Gundry-Volf objects
because, supposedly, what is needed is not a transformation of God’s heart
toward sinners but a transformation of their sinful existence before God.[xix]
I
would be the first to acknowledge that expiation is involved here (cf. also Gal
1:4; 1 Cor 15:3), but by no means does that fact necessarily exclude the notion
of propitiation. In fact, eliminating
the notion of propitiation would be precarious in that God’s wrath is the
centerpiece of Paul’s argument in 1:18-3:20, and is mentioned at key points in
his argument (2:5; 3:5-6).[xx] Better would be to acknowledge that the twin
notions of expiation and propitiation imply each other in the death of Christ: the guilt and stain of sin were removed in
the very act in which God’s wrath against sin and the sinner is turned away. To put it differently, the execution of the just penalty against sin in the death of Christ[xxi]
was the occasion and means of appeasing God’s wrath that had previously hung
over the perpetrators of that sin. And
this was all accomplished on God’s own initiative.
The
significance of Paul’s use of the term hilastērion
is enhanced by the realization that, in 20 of its 27 occurrences in the LXX, it
is used in reference to the so-called “mercy seat” (Heb. kappōret)[xxii],
the golden lid of the Ark of the Covenant located in the Most Holy Place.[xxiii] The mercy seat was the place of YHWH’s
localized presence in Israel (1Sam 4:4), from which he revealed himself in a
cloud and met with Israel (Exod 25:17-22; Lev 16:2). More importantly, the mercy seat was the
place where, on the Day of Atonement, Aaron and subsequent High Priests would
sprinkle the blood of a bullock and goat as a sin-offering so as to “make
atonement” (Heb. kipper; LXX hilaskomai) for the nation (Lev
16:11-19).
The
conceptual parallels are too significant to be unintended. Paul is
transparently portraying Christ’s death on a Roman cross as the eschatological antitype of the mercy seat, the very place where atonement is made. But whereas the Day of Atonement ritual was
performed in the secrecy of the Temple, was repeated yearly, and had relevance
only for God’s old covenant people, Christ’s sacrificial death was “displayed
publicly” by God as a once-for-all atonement applicable to all, both Jews and Gentiles, who believe in him.[xxiv]
We are here at
the heart of Paul’s solution to the question of theodicy raised in 3:1-8. The righteous God must both punish sin and
remain faithful to his covenantal—indeed, creational—commitments. The solution is found in the sacrificial
death of the Jewish Messiah, Jesus, who vicariously bore the penal consequences
of human sin and thereby turned God’s wrath away from all who rest and trust in
him. Paul makes this immediately clear,
as he proceeds to make the second of his two points in verses 25-26: God displayed Christ as a hilastērion in order to demonstrate his judicial
righteousness both in his former “passing over” of sins and in his present
justification of sinners (3:25-26).
As
Paul had argued, God’s “righteousness” entailed the justice of his display of “wrath”
toward his unfaithful covenant people (3:6).
Consequently, he is entirely just to have placed them in the dock along
with the godless Gentile world.
Nevertheless, before Christ God had not dealt thoroughly with Israel’s
sins. Rather than exacting full
retributive punishment, he had “passed over” (paresis)[xxv]
the former[xxvi]
sins of his people, designing such “leniency” to be a goad to repentance (cf.
Rom 2:4). Christ’s death, however, “proved”
or “demonstrated” (endeixis) that God
was indeed a God of righteous moral integrity.
Christ’s
death also serves to vindicate God’s righteousness in the present time (en tōi nyn kairōi), in which—as Paul
will go on to say—he justifies the “ungodly” through faith (Rom 4:5). For, the ultimate purpose (eis to einai) of God’s presenting Christ
as a hilastērion was that God might
be both “just and the justifier” (dikaion
kai dikaiounta)[xxvii]
of the one who has faith in Jesus (ton ek
pisteōs Iēsou)[xxviii]. In Christ’s penal, substitutionary sacrifice,
the demands of God’s judicial righteousness have been satisfied, thus allowing God’s
saving righteousness to shine forth in faithful fulfillment of his covenant
promises to Israel and, hence, the nations.
Soli Deo Gloria!
In
conclusion, what does this have to say about the gospel? Quite a lot indeed. I would maintain that this passage, more than
any in Paul’s letters, puts the needed flesh on the bones of the ancient tradition
that confessed that “Christ died for our sins” (1 Cor 15:3). It demonstrates, as clearly as one could
desire, that the sacrificial, substitutionary, expiatory, and even propitiatory
death of Christ is an essential element of the gospel message that Paul could
even designate “the word of the cross” 1 Cor 1:18). To this extent the “soterians” are correct:
the Pauline gospel speaks to the issue of the individual’s relationship to
God. Nevertheless, as I hope to have
demonstrated, this gospel, though applicable to the issue of the salvation of
the individual, is rooted in even more basic salvation-historical concerns,
presenting as it does the death of Christ as the great apocalyptic act by which
God proved faithful to his inscripturated covenant promises to Israel.
More
tricky—and controversial—is the relation of the gospel to the doctrine of
justification by faith. Traditional,
confessional Protestants are wont to identify the two, or at the very least, to
see justification as a constituent element of the gospel. Nonetheless, there have been dissenters. Foremost among these has been N. T.
Wright. Fifteen years ago he wrote:
I must stress again that the
doctrine of justification by faith is not what Paul means by ‘the gospel’. It
is implied by the gospel; when the gospel is proclaimed, people come to faith
and so are regarded by God as members of his people. But ‘the gospel’ is not an
account of how people get saved.[xxix]
As
has been the case with just about everything he has said about justification,
Wright has been skewered for this remark by theologians in the Reformed,
confessional mold. For instance, the
Scottish theologian Sinclair Ferguson writes:
This is falsely to abstract
justification from Christ, the benefit (the implication of what Jesus did) from
the Benefactor (the person of Jesus who has accomplished His work). But as Paul
notes, Christ Himself is made righteousness for us (1 Cor 1:30). Justification
cannot be abstracted from Christ as if it were a “thing” apart from or added to
Him. Christ Himself is our justification. We cannot have justification without
Christ! Nor can we have Christ without justification! Insofar as this is true,
we cannot say that Christ, not justification by faith, is the gospel.[xxx]
This
argument has superficial plausibility, but on further analysis it is flawed in
many respects. Christ is “our
righteousness” in that we have a righteous status (i.e., we have been “justified”)
before God by virtue of our faith-union with him, because of which we are
reckoned to have shared in his resurrection-vindication. He is not our “justification” per se.
Nor does Wright “divide” the gospel of Christ, thereby imagining we can
have “justification without Christ” or “Christ without justification.” To think so is simply to mischaracterize what
Wright actually says. To criticize Wright
for making a notional distinction between matters that cannot be separated is
similar to criticizing a theologian for distinguishing the divine and human
natures of Christ, as if making the distinction meant one thereby “separated”
them or “abstracted” one away from the other.
The
fact remains that Paul’s exposition here in Romans 3 is of a piece with what we
have seen earlier in 1 Corinthians 15 and in Romans 1. The gospel refers to the events of Christ’s sacrificial
death and vindicating resurrection, interpreted as the climactic fulfillment of
God’s scriptural, covenant promises made to Abraham. The gospel reveals the righteousness of God, understood as his faithfulness to
those promises. The proclaimed gospel
also is God’s power leading to salvation
because it engenders, through the work of the Spirit who inspired it, the faith
that leads to justification. It is Paul, not N. T. Wright, who apparently
distinguishes the gospel notionally from the legal status pronounced on people
who respond in faith to its proclamation.
More
stridently, the American Presbyterian, J. Ligon Duncan, claims:
So, the minute you accept that the
Gospel is not about justification, as Wright does, and that righteousness is about
“covenant membership,” as Wright does, then at the very least you have a huge
hole in the historic Protestant consensus on and articulation of the Gospel in
relation to human sin and divine justice …[xxxi]
One
wonders if Duncan has ever bothered to read Wright’s commentary on Romans,
where he repeatedly emphasizes that Israel’s problem (i.e., why they couldn’t
be justified by works of the law) was sin, that the point of the Abrahamic covenant
was to deal with human sin, that hilastērion
refers to the propitiation of God’s wrath, that Romans 3:25 reflects the
thought of the Isaianic suffering servant—including
the notion of penal substitution—and that the death of Christ was necessary
in order to demonstrate God’s judging
as well as saving righteousness.
Sadly,
such caricatures are common today. A
former colleague once claimed in my presence that Wright—and, by implication, I—“soft-pedaled
sin.” Hopefully, anyone who reads this
post will know that such an accusation is rubbish. Hopefully also, more will come to the
realization that the context in which Paul’s discussion of both the gospel and
justification by faith must be understood is that of salvation-history (i.e., as
entailments of the fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant) rather than the salvation
of the individual sinner. As important
as the latter is to each of us at an existential level, it must be subsumed
under the rubric of the former.
[i] Margin of the
Luther Bible (1545), on Romans 3:23ff. (cited by Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [NICNT; Grand
Rapids: Cambridge, 1996] 218).
[ii] Thus the old
antithesis between salvation-history (Stendahl) and apocalyptic (Käsemann) is
shown to be a false, unnecessary one.
[iii] So, inter alia, Calvin, Cranfield, Murray,
Schreiner.
[iv] The latest stage
in the discussion has been marked by the appearance of The Faith of Jesus Christ: Exegetical, Biblical, and Theological
Studies (ed. Michael F. Bird and Preston M. Sprinkle; Milton Keynes:
Paternoster, 2009). As becomes obvious
while reading this volume, no consensus is likely to be reached in my lifetime.
[v] This is the
traditional view, reflected in almost all translations (e.g., NIV; NRSV; REB;
ESV) and most commentators, including such recent ones as Dunn, Fitzmyer,
Stuhlmacher, Byrne, Moo, and Schreiner. For
full bibliography up to 1995, cf. James R. McGahey, “‘No One Is Justified by
Works of the Law’ (Gal 2:16a” (Ph.D. diss, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1996) 162
n. 106. Of the older works, cf.
especially James D. G. Dunn, “Once More, PISTIS CRISTOU,” in SBL 1991 Seminar Papers (ed. E. H.
Lovering, Jr.; Atlanta: Scholars, 1991) 730-44; Roy A. Harrisville, Jr., “PISTIS
CRISTOU:
Witness of the Fathers,” NovT 36
(1994) 233-41. More recent defenses
include R. Barry Matlock, “Detheologizing the PISTIS
CRISTOU
Debate: Cautionary Remarks from a Lexical Semantic Perspective,” NovT 42 (2000) 1-23; idem, “Even the Demons Believe: Paul and
pίstiς
Cristoῦ,”
CBQ 64 (2002) 300-18; Moises Silva,
“Faith versus Works of Law in Galatians,” in Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol. 2: The Paradoxes of Paul
(ed. D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark Seifrid; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2004) 227-34; and the articles by Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts (pp.
33-56), Matlock (73-90), and Francis Watson (147-63) in Bird and Sprinkle.
[vi] This view has
been increasingly supported in recent decades, though still less commonly
represented in the translations (NET Bible) and major commentaries
(Wright). For bibliography prior to
1995, cf. McGahey, “No One is Justified,” 160-61 n.100. Most significant of the
older works is that of Richard Hays (The
Faith of Jesus Christ: An Investigation of the Narrative Substructure of
Galatians 3:1-4:11 [SBLDS 56; Chico, Cal.: Scholars, 1983]; “PISTIS in Pauline
Christology: What Is at Stake?” in SBL
1991 Seminar Papers, 714-29) and Douglas A. Campbell (The Rhetoric of Righteousness in Romans 3:21-26 [JSNTSup 65:
Sheffield: JSOT, 1992] 58-69. More
recently, cf. Ian G. Wallis, The Faith of
Jesus Christ in Early Christian Traditions (SNTSMS 84; Cambridge: CUP, 1995),
as well as the articles by Campbell (57-71) and Ardel Caneday (185-205) in Bird
and Sprinkle.
[vii] Especially
pertinent are the linguistic arguments offered by Porter and Silva, the
arguments from the Greek Fathers made by Matlock, and the arguments based on
the derivation of the expression from Habakkuk 2:4 (Watson).
[viii]
This is a
global, comprehensive aorist, summing up all the sins of all people into a
single “moment.” Stanley Porter
helpfully describes the aorist as “omnitemporal” here (Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek [SBG 1; New York: Peter Lang,
1989] 222).
[ix] The present
tense is gnomic here, characterizing the human condition rather than
emphasizing progressive or repeated action.
[x] Second Temple
Judaism characteristically understood Adam to have been stripped of God’s glory
in the garden by virtue of his primal sin (cf., e.g., 3 Baruch 4:16; CD 3.20).
[xi] This eventuality
was, as Paul argues in Galatians 3, part of God’s design in giving the law.
[xii] Witness the
“debate” between N. T. Wright and Tom Schreiner at the 2010 ETS annual
conference in Atlanta, which itself piggy-backed on the published
back-and-forth between John Piper and Wright.
[xiii]Cf. McGahey, “No
One Is Justified,” 138-50 for a full lexical discussion of the verb dikaiόw.
[xiv] Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965) 16-55. Cf. also the earlier work of B. B.
Warfield, “The New Testament Terminology of Redemeption,” in Biblical Doctrines (Edinburgh: Banner of
Truth, 1929 [1917]) 327-74.
[xv] Cf. G. K. Beale,
A New Testament Biblical Theology: The
Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011)
484-86.
[xvi] The verb proέqeto
(<
protίqhmi), in the middle
voice, as here, can be understood in two ways: (1) “set forth or display
publicly,” “put forward” (BDAG; NASB; NIV; NRSV; Bruce, Fitzmyer, Moo,
Schreiner); or (2) “to plan, purpose, intend” (REB; Cranfield). A reference to God’s eternal purpose would
not be out of place, but two factors suggest that the former is to be
preferred: (1) in context Paul speaks of the display or manifestation of God’s
righteousness in the crucifixion of Christ (3:21); and (2) the imagery is
probably derived from the term’s use in the LXX of the display of the showbread
(Exod 29:23; 40:23; Lev 24:8; Ps 54:3; 86:14; 101:3).
[xvii]
Morris, Apostolic Preaching, 144-213.
[xviii]
C. H.
Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks
(London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1935) 82-95.
[xix] Judith
Gundry-Volf, Dictionary of Jesus and the
Gospels (ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne and Ralph P. Martin; Downers Grove, Ill.:
IVP, 1993), s.v. “Expiation, Propitiation, Mercy Seat,” 282. Similarly, James D. G. Dunn defends the
rendering “expiation” because, in contrast to secular usage, in Hebrew usage God is the subject of the action and the
object of the atoning act is the removal of sin (The Theology of Paul the Apostle [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997]
214-15). His point is taken, but he
gives back most of the ground he has taken when he admits, “Of course, the
atoning act thus removes the sin which provoked God’s wrath …” (214). Exactly!
Acknowledging the element of propitiation does not commit one to a
crude, caricatured interpretation of the metaphor, but it does emphasize the penal
element in the atonement, which is, one supposes, the real reason many
scholars, like Dunn, are hesitant to embrace it. Note his comment, in which he intentionally
drives a wedge between the concepts of expiation and propitiation: “The imagery
is more of the removal of a corrosive stain or the neutralization of a
life-threatening virus than of anger appeased by punishment” (214-15). One
wonders, why not both?
[xx] Cf. also Romans
5:9.
[xxii]
The
English expression is derived from Luther’s happy designation, “Gnadenstuhl.”
[xxiii]
Hence the
NET Bible’s appropriate translation of ἱlastήrion in Romans 3:25
as “mercy seat.” For a defense of the “mercy
seat” as the primary conceptual background of ἱlastήrion here, cf. esp.
Nico S. L. Fryer, “The Meaning and Translation of Hilastērion in Romans 3:25,” EvQ
59 (1987) 99-116; Peter Stuhlmacher, “Recent Exegesis on Romans 3:24-26,” in Reconciliation, Law, and Righteousness:
Essays in Biblical Theology (E.T.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986) 94-109;
Daniel P. Bailey, “Jesus as the Mercy Seat: The Semantics and Theology of Paul’s
Use of Hilastērion in Romans 3:25
(Ph.D. diss., University of Cambridge, 1999).
[xxiv]
Cf. Beale,
New Testament Biblical Theology,
489. Many scholars have looked elsewhere
for an alternate (or, better, additional) conceptual background for Paul’s use
of ἱlastήrion here, viz., to Hellenistic Jewish martyr
theology (so, e.g., Sam K. Williams, Jesus’
Death as Saving Event: The Background and Origin of a Concept [Missoula,
Mont.: Scholars, 1975]; J. S. Pobee, Persecution
and Martyrdom in the Theology of St. Paul [JSNTSup 6; Sheffield: JSOT,
1985] 47-73). The key text here is 4 Maccabees 17:21-22: “The tyrant was
punished, and the homeland purified - they having become, as it were, a ransom
for the sin of our nation. And through the blood of these devout ones and the hilastērion
of their death, Divine Providence preserved Israel that previously had been
mistreated” (NRSV, altered to reflect the text of א rather than A). This text is indeed helpful to understand how
a martyr’s death could be understood by Jews in explicitly sacrificial
terms. It is imperative to realize,
however, that this usage is likewise to be understood as dependent upon
Leviticus 16: the martyr’s death was interpreted metaphorically as the place
where substitutionary wrath was carried out in order to enact deliverance for
the masses (cf. Beale, New Testament
Biblical Theology, 487 n. 38). Most
importantly, behind both 4 Maccabees and Romans 3:25 almost certainly lies the
figure of the Isaianic Suffering Servant of Isaiah 52:13-53:12. Cf. Wright, “Romans,” 475-76.
[xxv] BDAG 776. Contra W.
G. Kümmel (Pάresiς
und
Ἔndeixiς,”
ZTK 49 [1952] 154-67), who had
suggested the term should be rendered “forgiveness,” the term speaks of a
deliberate disregard, hence “passing over, letting go unpunished.”
[xxvi]
The
participle progegonόtwn (“formerly
committed”) demonstrates that Paul has the sins of Israel, committed in the
days of the Old Covenant, in view.
[xxvii]
Assuming
the inclusion of kaὶ (omitted by F, G, the Old Latin, and
Ambrosiaster), the particle is probably concessive in force: “that he might be just
even if justifying …” (Cranfield).
[xxviii]
Understanding
Ἰhsoῦ
as an objective genitive (contra, inter alia, Wright).
[xxix]
N. T.
Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was
Saul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1997) 132-33.
