(For previous installments in this series, see here, here, here, and here.)
We come at last, as it were, to Rome (Acts 28:16). As we have seen, Romans 4:4-5 expresses, in succinct fashion, the indescribable and well nigh unimaginable glory of St. Paul's gospel insofar as it relates to the individual's standing before God: God justifies the ungodly as a gift. The expression says it all. This is a gift given without consideration of any human determinants of value. Symbolic capital of every kind, be it moral attainment or ethnic privilege, is thereby excluded. This favor―"grace," in Christian theological parlance―is entirely unconditioned or, in the terms recently made famous by Professor John Barclay, "incongruous."
The fact that, for those of us raised in evangelical or confessionalist Protestant circles, this notion is so unshocking shouldn't blind us to how truly shocking this affirmation would have been to Paul and his Jewish contemporaries in the first century CE. Indeed, as I have been at pains to emphasize, Paul's project in Romans 4 is one of redefinition, not least with regard to the identity of the "righteous." The Hebrew Bible is quite clear on the matter: the "righteous" (LXX dikaios) are contrasted with the "wicked" or "ungodly" (LXX asebēs) precisely in terms of their obedience to the Torah (e.g., Ezekiel 18:5-9). And it is precisely the "ungodly" who will not be acquitted at the bar of God's justice:
Therefore the wicked (asebeis) will not stand in the judgment,nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous (dikaioi);for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,but the way of the wicked will perish. (Psalm 1:5-6, NRSV)
Indeed, as Jimmy Dunn notes, the notion of "acquitting the ungodly" "offended against the whole basis of the covenant" [1] because Israel's entire system of justice encoded in the Torah was posited on God's fundamental declaration, "I will not acquit the guilty" (Exodus 23:7). [2] More than that―and Paul could not have been unaware of this―the LXX of Exodus 23:7 transforms this into an express prohibition:
Here, once again, is Paul's description of God in Romans 4:5: He is the one who "justifies the ungodly" (ton dikaiounta ton asebē). Charles Kingsley Barrett succinctly points to the surface difficulty, one which shocked me into attention when I first read his commentary in my days as a fledgling seminarian: these words "describe God as doing what the Old Testament forbids." [3] Barrett's Durham colleague, C. E. B. Cranfield, may have objected that his was a "misleading over-simplification," and that "the justification of the ungodly to which Paul's words refer differs toto caelo from the sort of thing against which the OT warns human judges is obvious enough." [4] But, I would ask, is it really such an over-simplification, any more than what I would deem to be Paul's own intentionally reversing echo of the Exodus text in his description of God here in Romans 4?
What lies behind this shocking reversal? As I have often argued, the key lies in the course of Israel's history and the progress of biblical salvation-history. In Romans 1-4, Paul is at pains to argue that God had, in this "now" time (Rom 3:21), at long last fulfilled his foundational promises to Abraham―the very promises that would together provide the twin solution to the primeval human problems portrayed in Genesis 11 and, behind that, in Genesis 3―in the Christ event. Paul's imaginary Jewish interlocutors may have boasted in their possession of the Torah and their presumption to be "guides" to the ungodly Gentiles who weren't so blessed to have the Law "by nature" (Rom 2:17-20). [5] But the Apostle reminds them that what matters for acquittal at the bar of God's justice ("justification") is not possession of the Law alone, but performance of it (Romans 2:13), and Jewish non-performance demonstrated they were still in the throes of the exile promised for their dereliction of covenantal responsibilities (Romans 2:24; Deuteronomy 30:1-6). Their own Law showed that they, no less than the Gentiles to whom they presumed to be superior, were unrighteous (Romans 3:10) and sinners (Romans 3:20); and, since God is a God who, by definition, shows no partiality (prosōpolēmpsia) (Romans 2:11), [6] they stood in the dock together with them, liable to divine judgment (Romans 3:19).
God, however, is a faithful God, and the story of the gospel is the story of God's initiative, in the face of his people's unfaithfulness (Romans 3:1-8), to bring his saving promises to fruition ("the righteousness of God") by, first, setting forth Messiah Jesus publicly as an atoning sacrifice (hilastērion), as a result of which his present justification of Jewish and Gentile believers in Jesus is demonstrated to be both gracious and just (Romans 3:21-26), [7] and, second, by raising the crucified Jesus from the dead "for our justification" (Romans 4:25). [8]
Thus the difference between Paul and the Mosaic ordinance, and hence the apostle's intended rhetorical contrast, is easily seen. In the Torah, "justification" or "acquittal" is an analytical judgment, a judicial decision based on the facts of a given case. In Paul, the "justification" of an ungodly sinner is nothing of the sort; it is rather, as Moo puts it, "a creative act," a declaration of God the just judge whereby the believer is freely granted a new status as a forgiven sinner and member of God's new covenant people―a status conferred solely in union with Christ on the basis of what he has done, once for all, on his or her behalf. [9] For Paul, justification by faith is not the cheap forgiveness of a lenient judge who dispenses with justice in the interests of mercy. On the contrary, it came at a cost (cf. "redemption," Romans 3:24), the very life of God's own Son.
Yet niggling questions remain. Foundational to Paul's theology is the axiomatic belief that God is an impartial adjudicator who will render a just verdict (dikaiokrisia) at the last judgment (Romans 2:5). How this works itself out has caused no little consternation among many of his readers. In Paul's words:
For he will repay according to each one’s deeds: to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality. (Romans 2:6-11, NRSV)
Many, of course, simply choose to skip over this pothole on the "Romans Road," but such is hardly responsible, let alone wise; the rains will come, filling up the holes and inevitably tripping up the unwary or irresponsible. Others argue, based on Paul's catena of scriptural citations in 3:9-20, that these words are merely hypothetical: if Christ had not come (but he has) and the Law could be fulfilled (but it can't), this is how judgment would take place. [10] Still others, mostly writing from a Reformed vantage point, argue somewhat similarly that Paul is simply laying out the conditions for eternal life apart from Christ, which remain valid if one wants to "merit" salvation on one's own. [11] Still others, despairing of any solution that make it cohere with Paul's own (assumed Lutheranesque) theology, attribute it to others, such as non-Christian Jews in the form of a hypothetical synagogue sermon. [12]
These are, however, counsels of despair. More importantly, they ignore indications in the immediate context itself that Paul intends what he says to be taken seriously. First, immediately after stating that "the doers of the Law will be justified" (i.e., eschatologically, at the Final Judgment; Romans 2:13), Paul provides examples of such "doers" in verses 14-15 when he speaks of Gentiles who, though not by nature having the Law, "do the things the Law requires" (ta tou nomou poiōsin), thereby demonstrating that "the work required by the Law is written on their hearts (to ergon tou nomou grapton en tais kardiais autōn), a transparent allusion to the New Covenant promise of the Law written on the hearts of the people in Jeremiah 31 (LXX 38):33. [13]
Second, even more clear is Romans 2:25-29, where Paul brazenly redefines Jewish identity in terms of the circumcised heart (cf. Deuteronomy 30:6), "by the Spirit, not the letter" (en pneumatu ou grammati, v. 29); according to the Apostle, it is those who, regardless of whether or not they bear the marks of circumcision on their foreskin, "keep the righteous requirements of the Law" (ta dikaiōmata tou nomou phylassēi; cf. Rom 8:4!) who will be "reckoned as circumcised" (ouch hē akrobystia autou eis peritomēn logisthēsetai) (v. 26; cf. Rom 4:4-5!). As if this were not clear enough, the parallels between Paul's Spirit/letter contrast here and in both Romans 7:6 and the classic New Covenant text of 2 Corinthians 3:6 make a Christian identification all but certain, as is almost universally recognized by New Testament scholars today. [14]
What this means is that the old "problem" of the seemingly uneasy relationship between "justification by faith" and "judgment according to works" has an elegant solution within Paul's thought on grace. To put it simply: The incongruous grace that justifies also transforms. The grace that justifies is unconditioned but not unconditional … if by the latter one means "no strings attached." John Barclay, a re-reading of whose recent work on Paul's teaching on grace provided the impetus for this series, writes:
Romans 2, with its affirmation of the ultimate [dikaiokrisia] of God (2:5), indicates that Paul is concerned to maintain the justice of the cosmos: when it comes to the final judgment, God will neither condone sin nor ignore its effects. Like 4 Ezra, he insists that there will be a distinction between good and evil, a fit between the praise of God and the "good work" that it acknowledges (2:6-11). But ― and this is the crucial Pauline point ― the basis for that fit, the foundation and frame of the patient good work that leads to eternal life, is an act of divine power, an incongruous gift to sinful humanity whose transformative effects will be evident at the judgment. This incongruity (God's faithfulness to the faithless) is the ground for Paul's hope, in a world he considers corrupted by the universal effects of sin; it is also what gives him confidence, backed by experience, that God pays no regard to ethnic background, moral upbringing, or access to the Law. But the purpose of the unfitting gift is to create a fit, to turn lawless Gentiles into those who do the Law (2:12-15), and trespassing Jews into Spirit-circumcised servants who bear fruit for God (2:29; 7:6). God's dramatic act of righteousness in the face of human unrighteousness is designed to create not moral chaos but justified and purified creatures. As the letter proceeds, it will become clear that these persons are not old selves morally improved, but new creatures forged ex nihilo from the resurrection life of Christ, by an act of "calling into being" basic to the story of Abraham and of Israel as a whole. But it is clear already that this creation is an incongruous gift given without regard to prior worth, that founds an existence whose lived practice is congruous with the righteous judgment of God. [15]
Such a radical understanding of grace was unknown to Saul the Pharisee who, as E. P. Sanders was right to remind us, knew a lot about grace. It was forged by Paul the Apostle's experience of its power in his incongruous call on the road to Damascus and in his long and deep reflections on Israel's Scriptures. And it remains unimaginably glorious to all who experience it today through the Spirit-empowered word of Paul's gospel. Soli Deo Gloria!
[1] James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1-8 (AB 38A; Dallas: Word, 1988) 204.
[2] The principle is also found in the prophets (Isaiah 5:23) and the writings (Proverbs 17:15; 24:24).
[3] C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (HNTC; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1957) 88).
[4] C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 2 vols. (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1975-79) 232.
[5] With Simon Gathercole, I take the en physei ("by nature") in Romans 2:14 with the previous participle echonta rather than with the following verb poiōsin ("A Law Unto Themselves: The Gentiles in Romans 2:14-15 Revisited," JSNT 85 [2002] 27-49. Cf. Wis. 13:1; Ignatius, Eph. 1:1.
[6] On this theme, cf. the classic work of Jouette M. Bassler, Divine Impartiality: Paul and a Theological Axiom (SBLDS 59; Chico, Cal: Scholars, 1982).
[7] For a full discussion of this passage, cf. my post, "What is the Gospel, Part 8 -- Romans 3:21-26 (Part 2)," @http://jamesmcgahey.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-is-gospel-part-8-romans-321-26.html. Later, in Romans 5:6-8, Paul points to Christ's substitutionary death "for the ungodly" (hyper asebōn) (on which, cf. Simon Gathercole, Defending Substitution: An Essay on Substitution in Paul [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2015] 85-107) as the supreme demonstration (synistēsin) of God's love for us as "sinners." The implicitly Christology here is hard to miss (though many do their best to do so).
[8] On Romans 4:25, cf. my post, "Christ's Resurrection and Our Justification: Romans 4:25," @http://jamesmcgahey.blogspot.com/2021/04/christs-resurrection-and-our.html.
[9] Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (NIGTC; Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1996) 264.
[10] R. H. Bell, No One Seeks for God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 1.18-3.20 (WUNT 106; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998) 253.
[11] I.e., similar to what I consider an erroneous interpretation of Galatians 3:10. Cf. the commentaries of old Presbyterian stalwarts such as Hodge and Murray; most recently Moo, 142.
[12] Cf. E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983) 123-35.
[13] Cf. Gathercole, "A Law Unto Themselves;" Cranfield, Romans, 155-59; N. T. Wright, "The Letter to the Romans," in The New Interpreter's Bible, vol. 10 (Nashville: Abingdon, 2000) 440-42; John M. G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift (Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2015) 467).
[14] Cf. also Romans 6:15-23; 8:1-17 (esp. 13).
[15] Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 473-74. One of the other potential "perfections" of grace discussed by Barclay is that of "efficacy," where the gift "fully achieves what it was designed to do" (p. 73). In light of his discussion of the transformative character of God's grace, which "creates a fit" such that it produces a positive verdict at the last assize, one wonders why he doesn't stress the efficaciousness of the gift as well. Indeed, he does recognize the presence of this idea in Paul (e.g., 1 Corinthians 15:9-10; Philippians 2:12-13) and understands it correctly, as did Calvin, in the sense of "the present, causative agency of God within the agency of believers," he plays it down, stating that efficacy "is given less attention than the Augustinian tradition might suggest," and "receives no special profile in Galatians and Romans" (p. 569). Perhaps not. But that begs the question, does it not, as to whether foundational ideas must always be brought to the surface when they are not the primary matters in dispute?
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