Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Romans 3:21
But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
21 31. The Divine method of holy pardon, alike for all
21. But now ] i.e. “But as things are, as the fact is.”
Here the great argument of Pardon and Salvation begins, to close with the triumphant words of Rom 8:37-39.
the righteousness of God ] See note on Rom 1:17. In Rom 3:5 this phrase had a reference different from that of most other passages in this Epistle [35] . Its meaning in that verse is modified and determined by the words “our unrighteousness,” which, by contrast, fix it to mean there the Divine veracity and fidelity. Here, and through the rest of this argument, it means the divinely-granted, and righteous, acceptance of believers.
[35] See however the footnote there.
without the law ] “Apart from the code of precepts.” The best comment on this most important phrase is the rest of this chapter and Rom 4:4-8. The very essence of the argument here demands that the words should mean “to the total exclusion of any work of obedience of man’s from the matter of his justification.”
is manifested ] Lit. has been manifested; i.e. historically, “by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ.” 2Ti 1:10.
witnessed by the law and the prophets ] Its reality and virtue is by them attested, confirmed, to those who accept the O. T. as the Word of God. “ The Law ” is here, by the context, the Pentateuch, with its prophecies of redemption, and its Levitical ritual, priesthood, and tabernacle, all which was (see the Epistle to the Hebrews) a “prophecy in act” of the “better things to come.” “ The Prophets,” including the Psalter, are full not only of direct predictions of the Redeemer and His Work, but of language of love and pardon from the Holy One which only that Work can reconcile with the awful sanctions of the moral law.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
But now – The apostle, having shown the entire failure of all attempts to be justified by the Law, whether among Jews or Gentiles, proceeds to state fully the plan of justification by Jesus Christ in the gospel. To do this, was the main design of the Epistle, Rom 1:17. He makes, therefore, in the close of this chapter, an explicit statement of the nature of the doctrine; and in the following parts of the Epistle he fully proves it, and illustrates its effects.
The righteousness of God – Gods plan of justifying people; see the note at Rom 1:17.
Without the law – In a way different from personal obedience to the Law. It does not mean that God abandoned his Law; or that Jesus Christ did not regard the Law, for he came to magnify it Isa 42:21; or that sinners after they are justified have no regard to the Law; but it means simply what the apostle had been endeavoring to show, that justification could not be accomplished by personal obedience to any law of Jew or Gentile, and that it must be accomplished in some other way.
Being witnessed – Being borne witness to. It was not a new doctrine; it was found in the Old Testament. The apostle makes this observation with special reference to the Jews. He does not declare any new thing, but that which was rally declared in their own sacred writings.
By the law – This expression here evidently denotes, as it did commonly among the Jews, the five books of Moses. And the apostle means to say that this doctrine was found in those books; not that it was in the Ten Commandments, or in the Law, strictly so called. It is not a part of law to declare justification except by strict and perfect obedience. That it was found in those books; the apostle shows by the case of Abraham; Rom. 4; see also his reasoning on Lev 18:5; Deu 30:12-14, in Rom 10:5-11; compare Exo 34:6-7.
And the prophets – Generally, the remainder of the Old Testament. The phrase the Law and the prophets comprehended the whole of the Old Testament; Mat 5:17; Mat 11:13; Mat 22:40; Act 13:15; Act 28:23. That this doctrine was contained in the prophets, the apostle showed by the passage quoted from Hab 2:4, in Rom 1:17, The just shall live by faith. The same thing he showed in Rom 10:11, from Isa 28:16; Isa 49:23; Rom 4:6-8, from Psa 32:1-11. The same thing is fully taught in Isa 53:11; Dan 9:24. Indeed, the general tenor of the Old Testament – the appointment of sacrifices, etc. taught that man was a sinner, and that he could not be justified by obedience to the moral law.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Rom 3:21-26
But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested.
The righteousness of God is
I. Prepared by God. Devised; approved; conferred by Him.
II. Attested by the law and the prophets.
III. Secured by Christ. Free grace; redemption; propitiation.
IV. Designed for all. All need it; all are creatures of God.
V. Received by faith. Without merit; without works.
VI. Does not make void, but establish the law. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
The righteousness of God
The apostle shows–
I. That it is a divine righteousness, not a human. That righteousness which we had lost in Adam was but a human thing, finite like him who lost it; but that which we gain is Divine and forms an infinite compensation. It is called the righteousness of God, because it is–
1. Provided by Him.
2. Founded on the doings and sufferings of the Son of God.
3. Provides such a compensation for human unrighteousness, that it not only takes it all away, but brings in a new and far higher and surer footing for the sinner to rest on.
II. That it is a righteousness without the law. Not an unlawful righteousness–one not based on law, or one in providing which law has been set aside, but one which, in so far as we are concerned, has nothing to do with law at all. It is not a righteousness which asks any doing or obeying on our part to complete it, for then it would cease to be the righteousness of God, and would become the righteousness of man. In so far as God and Christ are concerned, it has everything to do with law, but in so far as we are concerned it has nothing to do with it.
III. That it has been manifested. It is not a thing hidden from view. God has been at infinite pains to bring it forward both on our account and on His.
IV. That it is a righteousness witnessed by the law and the prophets. It is not something now come to light for the first time; it is something which has been proclaimed from the beginning. To this the eye of every saint, from Abel downward, has been directed–on this the feet of every saint have stood, this every type and prophecy and sacrifice has set forth.
V. That it is a righteousness which is by the faith of Jesus Christ. It is not our faith that is our righteousness. If it were so, then faith would be a work, and then should we be justified by our own acts. It is by believing that we are identified with Christ, so that His doing becomes ours; His suffering ours; His fulfilling of the law and obedience ours.
VI. That it is a righteousness for the unrighteous. For there is no difference: for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It is our unrighteousness that fits us for this. How foolish, then, to say, I am too great a sinner to be forgiven. It is like the sun. It is one sun, yet it is enough for and free to everyone. (H. Bonar, D. D.)
The righteousness of God
In various places this phrase signifies either that holiness and rectitude of character which is the attribute of God, or that distributive justice by which He maintains the authority of His law; but where it refers to mans salvation it signifies, as in Rom 3:21, that fulfilment of the law or perfect conformity to it in all its demands, which, consistently with His justice, God has appointed and provided for the salvation of sinners. This implies that the infinite justice of His character requires what is provided, and also that it is approved and accepted; for if it be Gods righteousness it must be required and accepted by the justice of God. The righteousness of God, which is received by faith, denotes something that becomes the property of the believer. It cannot, then, be here the Divine attribute of justice, but the Divine work which God has wrought through His Son. This is, indeed, the righteousness of God, for it has been provided by God, and from first to last has been effected by His Son Jesus Christ, who is the mighty God and the Father of eternity. To that righteousness is the eye of the believer ever to be directed; on that righteousness must he rest; on that righteousness must he live; on that righteousness must he die; in that righteousness must he appear before the judgment seat; in that righteousness must he stand forever in the presence of a righteous God (Isa 61:10). This righteousness differs essentially from all other righteousness–
I. In its author, for it is the righteousness not of creatures, but of the Creator (Isa 45:8).
1. It is the righteousness of God in the sense in which the world is the work of God. The Father created it by the Son in the same way as by the Son He created the world; and if the Father effected this righteousness because His Son effected it, then His Son must be one with Himself (2Pe 1:1).
2. It was during His incarnation that the Son of God wrought out this righteousness. Before He acted as the Creator and Sovereign of the world–but afterwards as a servant. Before that period He was perfectly holy, but that holiness could not be called obedience, for it was exercised in making the law, and by it governing the world. But in His latter condition He became subject to the law, and in our nature conferred more honour on the law than the obedience of all intelligent creatures, and more honour than it had received of dishonour from all its transgressors (Isa 42:21).
3. The obedience of Jesus Christ magnified the law because it was rendered by Divine appointment (Zec 2:10-11). It is impossible therefore to entertain too exalted an idea of the regard which God has for the character of His holy law.
II. In its nature this righteousness is two fold, fulfilling both the precept and its penalty. This, by any creature the most exalted, is impossible. The fulfilment of the precepts is all that could be required of creatures in their sinless condition. But the state of the Second Man was essentially different. Christ was made under the law, but it was a broken law; and, consequently, He was made under its curse (Gal 3:13). Justice, therefore, required that He should fulfil also the penalty. A mere creature may obey the precept of the law, or suffer the penalty it denounces, but he cannot do both. But Jesus was capable at the same moment of suffering at the hand of God, and of obeying the precept to love God. This was made manifest during the whole period of His incarnation as well as at His death. By the sufferings of Christ the execution of the law was complete; while no punishment which creatures could suffer can be thus designated. It is He only who could put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. By enduring the threatened punishment He fully satisfied justice. In token of having received a full discharge He came forth from the grave; and when He shall appear the second time it shall be without sin–the sin which He had taken upon Him and all its effects being forever done away. But if nothing beyond the suffering of the penalty had taken place men would only have been released from the punishment due to sin: It they were to obtain the reward of obedience its precepts must also be obeyed; and this was accomplished to the utmost by Jesus Christ.
III. In its extent. Every creature is bound for himself to all that obedience to his Creator of which he is capable. He is under the obligation to love God with all his heart, etc., and beyond this he cannot advance. It is evident, therefore, that he can have no superabounding righteousness to be placed in the way of merit to the account of another. And, besides this, if he has sinned, he is bound to suffer for himself the whole penalty. But the obedience of Jesus Christ, who is Himself infinite, as well as the punishment He suffered, being in themselves of infinite value, are capable of being transferred in their effects without any diminution in their respective values.
IV. In its duration. The righteousness of Adam or of angels could only be available while it continued to be performed. The moment, therefore, in which they transgressed, the advantages derived from all their previous obedience ceased. But the righteousness of God, brought in by His Son, is an everlasting righteousness (Dan 9:24). It was performed within a limited period of time, but in its effects it can never terminate (Isa 51:6; Isa 51:8; Psa 119:142; Heb 10:14; Heb 9:12).
V. In its influence. It is the sole ground of reconciliation of sinners with God, and of their justification, and also of their intercession (1Jn 2:1). It is the price paid for those new heavens and that new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Man was made lower than the angels, but this righteousness exalts him above them. The redeemed people of God stand nearest to the throne, while the angels stand round about them. They enter heaven clothed with a righteousness infinitely better than that which angels possess, or in which Adam was created. (J. Haldane.)
Gods righteousness mans fear and mans hope
A poor man who had spent a life of ignorance and sin was found by a London clergyman apparently dying in a miserable garret. He was in great anxiety of mind from an apparently accidental cause. A stray leaf torn from a Testament met his eye. It was part of this chapter. He had read the vivid description of a sinner and had applied it to his own ease. But where was the remedy? where the gospel? Alas! the paper ended, But now the righteousness of God without the law is Is what? said the anxious man. Do the next words give any hope for such a sinner as I am? The remainder of the chapter was read and explained to him, and the good news was as cold water to his thirsty soul. (W. Baxendale.)
Gods method of righteousness
There is not a more interesting episode in English history than the story of the siege of Calais by Edward III. The king had beleaguered the town for a year, when the garrison surrendered, and the incensed monarch demanded that six of the principal citizens should be sent to him with the keys of the town, having halters about their necks. Six brave men volunteered to go on this cruel embassy, and were instantly ordered to execution. Queen Philippa, however, strenuously interceded for them, obtained their release, entertained them, and dismissed them in safety. Now compare this much vaunted instance of human clemency with that of God and then you will confess how unlike His ways are to our ways, and His thoughts to our thoughts. Those burgesses deserved not to suffer, and the king only granted them their lives in sullen submission to the importunity of his queen. And she did not make them her friends, but only dismissed them in a manner honourable to herself. With how much greater love has our offended God dealt with us! We appeared before Him as culprits condemned, and if He had ordered our instant execution we could not have impugned His justice. Not waiting to be moved, He was the first to ask us to be reconciled; and then forgiving us our sins He receives us as children. Note–
I. The relation which subsists between God and man.
1. God is a great King; and we all are His natural subjects. This is quite independent of our choice or suffrages. A person born in England finds himself hedged about with laws which were neither of his devising nor of his adopting, yet to which he is bound under penalty to conform. By a like anterior necessity he is born under a system of physical laws. From that which is human and political we can escape; but from that which is Divine and natural there is no escape. Now just as you are of necessity born into the midst of these two systems of laws, so are you also born under subjection to a third, possessing a higher and more awful character. You are amenable to Gods moral laws, which are more searching in their application, more stringent in their requisitions, more tremendous in their sanctions, more enduring in their operation than the other two. You may get away from the coils of national law by journeying to another country; and you will be released from physical laws when death shall transfer you to another world; but you will not even then escape from the control of Gods moral law.
2. The whole world is proven guilty in Gods sight.
(1) We resorts His authority and feel submission a hardship, simply because we are conscious rebels before Him. Ours are the feelings of culprits who hate the laws which they have broken, and the breach of which has brought them into trouble. This is true of all mankind, without limitation or exception. This is the truth which St. Paul demonstrates in chaps, 1 and 2.
(2) But another mode of reasoning is adopted in chap. 5. There Paul boldly announces, as a fundamental principle of Gods dealings with mankind, the organic unity of our race. Therefore, if any part be naturally foul and vile, all is so too; if one be guilty before God, all must be the same. We are a sinful race as inheriting the sin of Adam.
II. Such being the case, let us ask, How can a man be just with God? The answer constitutes the very marrow and pith of the gospel. And what we learn is–
1. That God can save us from our sins and recover us to His favour.
2. That He can do this by freely and generously forgiving us all our sins, and absolutely remitting their penalty.
3. That this forgiveness of mans sins is not a wanton and arbitrary act of the Divine clemency which might outrage His own holiness and dishonour His law.
4. Nor is it the reward, merited or unmerited, of works of righteousness and legal obedience, which we can render in the future as a counterbalance and set-off against our transgressions in the past.
5. But it is rendered possible by the sacrificial sufferings and death of His Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave Himself as a ransom for our souls.
6. That this benefit accrues to us simply and solely on the condition of faith or trust in the blood of Christ, assuming only that we have a true knowledge of sin which leads us heartily to repent of it, and to seek deliverance from the curse of a broken law.
7. That thin is a mode of making us righteous in Gods sight in complete harmony with His own perfect righteousness of character and law.
8. That this method of justification appertains alike to all mankind, for as there is no essential difference in their sinfulness, so there is none in the way of their recovery to holiness and life.
9. That this plan of mercy leaves no ground of boasting to man, but ensures all the glory to God.
10. That it is the same which has existed from the beginning, being spoken of, however dimly, by both Moses and the prophets. The inference is plain that none need despair; that all may he saved; that the blame of any mans being lost, to whom the word of this salvation is sent, must rest with himself and not with God; and that it is the duty of those who are entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation to proclaim a free and full and present salvation to everyone that believeth. (T. G. Horton.)
How to attain righteousness
This passage contains the pith and kernel of the whole Epistle. All that precedes just clears the ground for it. All that follows is related to it as explanation, illustration, confirmation, or application.
I. Righteousness is the great end of the gospel. This is taken for granted throughout the Epistle.
1. With inspired insight Paul surveyed the condition of mankind, and put his finger at once on its great root evil. This was not poverty, pain, death, but moral corruption. He saw that that was the greatest gospel which could lift men out of the mire of wickedness and set their feet on the rock of righteousness.
2. Their righteousness is real righteousness–not the covering of the leper with a fair robe, but the curing of the leprosy. The righteousness of the gospel is indwelling goodness out of which all virtues flow. Nothing short of this will satisfy–
(1) The requirements of God. He will not endure sham goodness. The God of truth, hating all lies, cannot see a man to be righteous who is not righteous.
(2) The ends of redemption. That would be a most immoral gospel which promised remission of the penalty leaving the disposition of wickedness uncorrected. The true purpose of the gospel is (Tit 2:14).
(3) The needs of our own souls. Ever since the war between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent began, mankind has felt that sin was misery, and righteousness blessedness. The hunger and thirst for righteousness may be stifled with morbid cravings for evil things. But in our better moments it wakes up, and then we feel that it is not enough for the skin to be safe if the heart is diseased. We do not want merely not to be hurt. We want to be good.
3. Paul sometimes uses righteousness in the forensic sense, i.e., to treat as righteous rather than to make righteous (Rom 4:1-3; Rom 5:1). But he knew that to justify meant both to make righteous and to forgive; and so he passes from one to the other with little apparent discrimination, because he sees that they are only two faces of the same fact. On the one hand, the act of forgiveness is the most powerful inducement to a change of character. They who are forgiven most love most. Thus justification produces righteousness. On the other hand, since God is aware of this influence of forgiveness He must confer the pardon with a reference to it. He must see that in forgiving the sinner He is taking the best step towards destroying the sin.
II. Righteousness is a gift of God. St. Paul has demonstrated the impossibility of mans acquiring righteousness by himself. Night cannot produce day. Water will not rise above its level. Marah will never sweeten itself. We cannot grow righteous by natural development, since you can only evolve what has been previously involved, and we have all lost the goodness of original innocence. History has proved that the best of laws could not secure this end. Law is good for detecting wickedness. It is the standard by which we are measured, but it has no power for lifting us up to that standard. Now we can see the value of the great promise of the new dispensation, of a righteousness of God–made by God, given by God. This is the essential idea of the religion of grace. Therefore the great requisite is to be in such relations with God that we may receive the gift. If we are far from or at enmity with Him, we are shut out from it. We therefore need to be reconciled to God. Consequently–
III. Righteousness is received through faith in Christ. This faith is not the mere belief in a doctrine, but active trust in Christ, practical reliance on His grace, obedient loyalty to His will (Joh 15:10).
1. By faith in Christ as the sacrifice for sin we are reconciled with God. Christ having offered Himself to God on our behalf we are called to look to Him as the Way to the Father. If through pride or unbelief we think that we can dispense with a Saviour, we must not be surprised if God rejects our overtures towards reconciliation (Act 13:38-39). The offering of Christ not only secures forgiveness, but through this cleanses our conscience from dead works to serve the living God (Heb 9:14).
2. By faith in Christ as the revelation of God we grow into the Divine image. Christ is the pattern man because He is the Son of God. To be righteous is to be like God, like Christ. When we trust to Him faithfully, we shall walk in His footsteps in the irresistible desire to be near Him, and thus we shall unconsciously grow up into the likeness of Him and share His righteousness.
3. By faith in Christ as our Lord and Master we are led into obedient loyalty to His will. He who trusts Christ must trust Him in all His relations. Thus the faith which is reliance on a Saviour becomes loyalty when it turns to a King. Then the righteousness which refused to come at the cold, stern bidding of law springs forth as a very passion of devotion. (W. J. Adeney, M. A.)
The announcement of righteousness by faith
I. That none can be justified in the sight of the Lawgiver by the law is evident; for–
1. No man has done the deeds of the law.
2. The law, when brought into contact with the deeds of men, always discovers sin and pronounces condemnation.
3. The law is law only; a rule of life merely, and in no sense or manner a means of restoration to a blameless state.
II. The righteousness or freedom from condemnation which the gospel dispensation reveals, is a righteousness which–
1. God designs; the plan is of His devising.
2. God provides; the preparation of it is of His working.
3. God confers; the bestowal is of His grace and sovereignty.
4. God approves; He accepts it as complete in His sight, and will accept it in the last day. It is a blamelessness, righteously–
(1) Procured.
(2) Bestowed.
(3) Regarded as perfect blamelessness.
III. This righteousness is without the law; entirely distinct from it and its purposes, belonging to another province altogether.
1. It is not provided for by the law.
2. It derives no aid, direction, efficiency of any kind from the law.
3. It has no reference to, or connection with the law, except as the law shows the necessity which is to be met.
III. It is witnessed or testified to as a Divine provision, both by the law which reveals the sin, and by the prophecy which denounces it.
1. As being needed. The law, in the book or in the heart, gives silent assent to its necessity, by being dumb with regard to any other means of justification.
2. As being possible. In all the voice of the law, as God has spoken it, there is mingled an intimation of a possible pardon, not from the law, but from the mercy of God.
3. As being provided. In all the written law and prophecy of the Old Testament free pardon, as righteousness of God, is formally announced. The righteousness of the gospel pardon–
(a) Is no new thing. Obtained by Abel, Enoch, Abraham, without the law.
(b) Is manifested now in the means of its provision, the fulness of love that provides it, the signs and seals of its Divine approval, and the completeness of its restoration to favour and privilege.
(c) Is in perfect harmony with the law, though belonging to another sphere; since it recognises, respects, and meets the claims of the law, and provides for its maintenance as a righteous rule of life; so the law readily witnesses it.
IV. This righteousness has always been obtained by faith (see chap. 4). Now by faith which rests not only in God as the pardoner, but also in Christ as the procurer of pardon. Faith–
1. Assents to the necessity and sufficiency of this righteousness.
2. Consents to its bestowal.
3. Relies on the work of Christ and the word of promise.
4. Claims, seeks, grasps, and holds this righteousness.
V. It is brought unto all in the gospel manifestation, and conferred upon all that believe, without distinction.
1. The need is universal; so the remedy.
2. No distinction in the condemnation (see Rom 2:6-11); none in the justifying.
3. Faith a condition of which all are capable; and the only thing of which any are capable (verse 23).
(1) All have actually transgressed.
(2) All have thus fallen behind in the race for the Divine approval, or giving of glory (Rom 1:10).
(3) All have made it impossible that they should be justified by law.
(4) God, therefore, since the provision is as large as the need, puts it within the reach of all. (W. Griffiths.)
Justifying righteousness
Of all the subjects there is none so important as–How can man be just with God? and yet there is none as to which men are so easily deluded. Conscience tells the man that he has sinned, and yet, when asked, How do you expect to obtain future happiness?–he either evades the question, or shelters himself in some refuge of lies. And the reason is that the man is utterly blind to his true condition, he knows not the malignity of the disease, and cannot, therefore, apprehend the remedy. Ere a sinner can even understand the gospel, he must see and realise his own true position under the government of God. His position is plainly this: he has transgressed the law, and lies under sentence of death. How, then, can he be restored to the favour of God? How can the government of God remain unchangeable whilst this creature is saved? To this question you have the answer, that the sinner is justified and saved by means of a righteousness. This appears from the text, and from the nature of the case. It was righteousness that God required of man at first, it was failing to yield it that he lost his title to life; and as the character of God is unchangeable, it is only when he can plead a righteousness ample as the demands of the law that he can be restored to favour.
I. This righteousness is not the sinners own, but that of another (see also Rom 1:17-18; Rom 3:20). And yet, in the face of this, multitudes seek to enter heaven by a door which their own sins have closed against them. Ask that man of the world what is the foundation of his hope for eternity, and his answer is, that he has never yet been guilty of open, flagrant transgression. Ask that sensualist, and his answer is that he trusts his charitable deeds will atone for these infirmities. The professor of religion answers that he does his best, that he is sincere, and that he trusts God will take the will for the deed. But ye who would be justified by your obedience to the law, have ye really considered what the law requires? It demands perfect obedience, and condemns the least transgression. Have you such a righteousness as this? Is it not, therefore, clear, that if ever the law relaxes its hold of you, the reason must be not your righteousness, but the righteousness of another?
II. This righteousness can only be known by revelation. Being a righteousness provided by God, none but God can discover it. It was revealed at first in Eden as the ground of the sinners hope–the Jewish ritual was a continued revelation of it–the prophets bore testimony to it, speaking of Him who should magnify the law, and make it honourable, and the whole New Testament is a bright revelation that God has provided a righteousness, through which He can be just when He justifies the ungodly. An awakened conscience tells the sinner that he has no resources of his own wherewith to meet the demands of a violated law; and, if he looks around and puts the question to all creation, How can God be righteous, and I be saved? Creation remains silent, and is covered with darkness. But a voice comes from the Bible which saves him from despair (Rom 10:6-9).
III. This righteousness was wrought out in human nature. The circumstances rendered this necessary. It was on earth that God was dishonoured, and on earth therefore must He be glorified. The children were partakers of flesh and blood, and their Redeemer therefore must take part of the same. The first revelation of this righteousness, accordingly, was made in the promise, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpents head; and, in due time, this promise was fulfilled in the Second Adam, standing in the room of His people as their representative and head (Rom 5:19). He who was thus born of a woman, was made under the law; that is to say, He met the law as His peoples surety, and fulfilled to the uttermost all its demands against them.
IV. This righteousness is the righteousness of God. True, the Redeemer was a man; but under that veil of humanity, faith beholds Jehovah. Without this were the case, the salvation of His people was impossible. He had to make atonement for their sin, but the righteousness of a mere creature would have been utterly insufficient, for a creature owes to God already all the obedience he can yield. The righteousness, therefore, through which the sinner is justified is the righteousness of a Divine person. You accordingly read that this is the name wherewith He shall be called, Jehovah our Righteousness. It is the righteousness of the Mediator, of God manifest in the flesh, of Him who is God and man in two distinct natures and one person; and as such it answers, yea, more than answers, all the demands of a violated law. For what higher honour can the law receive than that God Himself became its servant, and obeyed all its commands?
V. This righteousness is unto all. It is so completely put within the sinners reach, that if he once hears of it he cannot perish, without putting it from him and rejecting it. The brazen serpent was Gods free gift to all–all were commanded to look to it; and just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so has the Son of Man been lifted up, etc. The cities of refuge were open to every manslayer. And so it is with the righteousness of Christ; every sinner who hears of it is invited and commanded to flee for refuge.
VI. This righteousness is upon all that believe. The believer is clothed and covered with it. Being one with Christ by faith, Christs righteousness is his own; he is dealt with as one who obeyed when Christ obeyed, as one who suffered when Christ suffered, as one who is, therefore, as righteous as Christ is. (A. M. McGillivray.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 21. But now the righteousness of God] God’s method of saving sinners is now shown, by the Gospel, to be through his own mere mercy, by Christ Jesus; without the law-without any right or claim which might result from obedience to the law; and is evidently that which was intended by God from the beginning; for it is witnessed by the law and the prophets-the rites and ceremonies of the one, and the preachings and predictions of the others, all bearing testimony to the great design of God, and to the absolute necessity there was for the sacrifice and salvation which God has provided.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
But now: q.d. Though justification be not by the law, yet it is to be obtained in another way, as follows.
The righteousness of God: see Rom 1:17.
Without the law; inasmuch as the law, pressing obedience to be performed by us in our own persons, seems plainly ignorant of the righteousness of another imputed to us.
Is manifested; this righteousness nevertheless is revealed plainly, now since the coming of Christ, and in the gospel, as in Rom 1:17.
Being witnessed by the law and the prophets; that there may be no suspicion of novelty: see Joh 5:46,47. The testimonies be refers to are very numerous: see Gen 3:15; 15:6; 22:17,18; Isa 53; Jer 31:31,33; Da 9:24,25. See the same argument used, Act 24:14; 26:22; 28:23.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
21-23. But now the righteousness ofGod(See on Ro 1:17).
without the lawthatis, a righteousness to which our obedience to the law contributesnothing whatever (Rom 3:28;Gal 2:16).
is manifested, beingwitnessedattested.
by the law and theprophetsthe Old Testament Scriptures. Thus this justifyingrighteousness, though new, as only now fully disclosed, is anold righteousness, predicted and foreshadowed in the OldTestament.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
But now the righteousness of God,…. The apostle having proved that all men are unrighteous, and that no man can be justified in the sight of God by his obedience, either to the law of nature or of Moses, proceeds to give an account of that righteousness, which does justify before God; and so returns to his former subject, Ro 1:17, concerning “the righteousness of God”, the revelation of which he makes to be peculiar to the Gospel, as he does here; since he says, that it
without the law is manifested: meaning, either that this righteousness is without the law, and the deeds of it, as performed by sinful men; or that the manifestation of it is without the law, either of nature or of Moses; for the law discovers sin, but not a righteousness which justifies from sin; it shows what righteousness is, but does not direct the sinner where there is one to be had, that will make him righteous in the sight of God: this is made known without the law, and only in the Gospel:
being witnessed by the law and the prophets; a testimony is borne to the justifying righteousness of Christ both “by the law”, particularly in the five books of Moses; which testify of Christ, of his obedience, sufferings, and death, by which he brought in life and righteousness; see Ge 3:15, compared with Da 9:24; and
Ge 15:6 with Ro 4:9; and Ge 22:18 with Ga 3:8; and De 30:11 with Ro 10:5. And the prophets; Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and others; see Isa 42:21.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
But now apart from the law ( ). He now ( emphatic logical transition) proceeds carefully in verses 21-31 the
nature of the God-kind of righteousness which stands manifested ( , perfect passive indicative of , to make manifest), the
necessity of which he has shown in 1:18-3:20. This God kind of righteousness is “apart from law” of any kind and all of grace () as he will show in verse 24. But it is not a new discovery on the part of Paul, but “witnessed by the law and the prophets” (, present passive participle, ), made plain continuously by God himself.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Now [] Logical, not temporal. In this state of the case. Expressing the contrast between two relations – dependence on the law and non – dependence on the law.
Without the law. In a sphere different from that in which the law says “Do this and live.”
Is manifested [] . Rev., hath been manifested, rendering the perfect tense more strictly. Hath been manifested and now lies open to view. See on Joh 21:1, and on revelation, Rev 1:1 The word implies a previous hiding. See Mr 4:22; Col 1:26, 27.
Being witnessed [] . Borne witness to; attested. The present participle indicates that this testimony is now being borne by the Old Testament to the new dispensation.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
JUSTIFICATION DEFINED
1) “But now,” (nuni de) “But now and hereafter,” without end or cessation, with continuity forever; The Gk. term “nuni” translated “now” means with continuing continuity.
2) “The righteousness of God,” (dikaiosune theou) “A righteousness of God,” of God source, kind, quality, or standard; Rom 4:6; Rom 4:11; Rom 4:13; Rom 4:22-25; 2Co 5:21.
3) “Without the law,” (choris nomou) “Without or apart from (the) law,” apart from deeds of the law “law righteousness,” where those who do or conform to the deeds standards shall live by them, physically, Rom 10:5; Gal 3:12.
4) “Is manifested,” (pephanerotai) “has been manifested,” or “made to appear, or shine out clearly; This righteousness is said to be of God, “by faith,” not by baptism, Church membership, or observing the Lord’s Supper, Php_3:9; Rom 9:20-21; 1Ti 3:16.
5) “Being witnessed by the law and the prophets,” (marturoumeme hupo tou nomou kaiton propheton) “Being (existing) already witnessed or certified by the law and the prophets;” Luk 24:44-45; Act 10:43; even Moses prophesied of it, Deu 18:15; Deu 18:18-19; Isa 53:1-6.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
21. But now without the law, etc. It is not certain for what distinct reason he calls that the righteousness of God, which we obtain by faith; whether it be, because it can alone stand before God, or because the Lord in his mercy confers it on us. As both interpretations are suitable, we contend for neither. This righteousness then, which God communicates to man, and accepts alone, and owns as righteousness, has been revealed, he says, without the law, that is without the aid of the law; and the law is to be understood as meaning works; for it is not proper to refer this to its teaching, which he immediately adduces as bearing witness to the gratuitous righteousness of faith. Some confine it to ceremonies; but this view I shall presently show to be unsound and frigid. We ought then to know, that the merits of works are excluded. We also see that he blends not works with the mercy of God; but having taken away and wholly removed all confidence in works, he sets up mercy alone.
It is not unknown to me, that [ Augustine ] gives a different explanation; for he thinks that the righteousness of God is the grace of regeneration; and this grace he allows to be free, because God renews us, when unworthy, by his Spirit; and from this he excludes the works of the law, that is, those works, by which men of themselves endeavor, without renovation, to render God indebted to them. ( Deum promereri — to oblige God.) I also well know, that some new speculators proudly adduce this sentiment, as though it were at this day revealed to them. But that the Apostle includes all works without exception, even those which the Lord produces in his own people, is evident from the context.
For no doubt Abraham was regenerated and led by the Spirit of God at the time when he denied that he was justified by works. Hence he excluded from man’s justification not only works morally good, as they commonly call them, and such as are done by the impulse of nature, but also all those which even the faithful can perform. (110) Again, since this is a definition of the righteousness of faith, “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven,” there is no question to be made about this or that kind of work; but the merit of works being abolished, the remission of sins alone is set down as the cause of righteousness.
They think that these two things well agree, — that man is justified by faith through the grace of Christ, — and that he is yet justified by the works, which proceed from spiritual regeneration; for God gratuitously renews us, and we also receive his gift by faith. But Paul takes up a very different principle, — that the consciences of men will never be tranquillized until they recumb on the mercy of God alone. (111) Hence, in another place, after having taught us that God is in Christ justifying men, he expresses the manner, — “by not imputing to them their sins.” In like manner, in his Epistle to the Galatians, he puts the law in opposition to faith with regard to justification; for the law promises life to those who do what it commands, (Gal 3:12😉 and it requires not only the outward performance of works, but also sincere love to God. It hence follows, that in the righteousness of faith, no merit of works is allowed. It then appears evident, that it is but a frivolous sophistry to say, that we are justified in Christ, because we are renewed by the Spirit, inasmuch as we are the members of Christ, — that we are justified by faith, because we are united by faith to the body of Christ, — that we are justified freely, because God finds nothing in us but sin.
But we are in Christ because we are out of ourselves; and justified by faith, because we must recumb on the mercy of God alone, and on his gratuitous promises; and freely, because God reconciles us to himself by burying our sins. Nor can this indeed be confined to the commencement of justification, as they dream; for this definition — “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven” — was applicable to David, after he had long exercised himself in the service of God; and Abraham, thirty years after his call, though a remarkable example of holiness, had yet no works for which he could glory before God, and hence his faith in the promise was imputed to him for righteousness; and when Paul teaches us that God justifies men by not imputing their sins, he quotes a passage, which is daily repeated in the Church. Still more, the conscience, by which we are disturbed on the score of works, performs its office, not for one day only, but continues to do so through life. It hence follows that we cannot remain, even to death, in a justified state, except we look to Christ only, in whom God has adopted us, and regards us now as accepted. Hence also is their sophistry confuted, who falsely accuse us of asserting, that according to Scripture we are justified by faith only, while the exclusive word only, is nowhere to be found in Scripture. But if justification depends not either on the law, or on ourselves, why should it not be ascribed to mercy alone? and if it be from mercy only, it is then by faith only.
The particle now may be taken adversatively, and not with reference to time; as we often use now for but. (112) But if you prefer to regard it as an adverb of time, I willingly admit it, so that there may be no room to suspect an evasion; yet the abrogation of ceremonies alone is not to be understood; for it was only the design of the Apostle to illustrate by a comparison the grace by which we excel the fathers. Then the meaning is, that by the preaching of the gospel, after the appearance of Christ in the flesh, the righteousness of faith was revealed. It does not, however, hence follow, that it was hid before the coming of Christ; for a twofold manifestation is to be here noticed: the first in the Old Testament, which was by the word and sacraments; the other in the New, which contains the completion of ceremonies and promises, as exhibited in Christ himself: and we may add, that by the gospel it has received a fuller brightness.
Being proved [ or approved ] by the testimony, (113) etc. He adds this, lest in the conferring of free righteousness the gospel should seem to militate against the law. As then he has denied that the righteousness of faith needs the aid of the law, so now he asserts that it is confirmed by its testimony. If then the law affords its testimony to gratuitous righteousness, it is evident that the law was not given for this end, to teach men how to obtain righteousness by works. Hence they pervert it, who turn it to answer any purpose of this kind. And further, if you desire a proof of this truth, examine in order the chief things taught by Moses, and you will find that man, being cast from the kingdom of God, had no other restoration from the beginning than that contained in the evangelical promises through the blessed seed, by whom, as it had been foretold, the serpent’s head was to be bruised, and through whom a blessing to the nations had been promised: you will find in the commandments a demonstration of your iniquity, and from the sacrifices and oblations you may learn that satisfaction and cleansing are to be obtained in Christ alone. (114) When you come to the Prophets you will find the clearest promises of gratuitous mercy. On this subject see my Institutes.
(110) Professor [ Hodge ] very justly observes, “It never was the doctrine of the Reformation, or of the Lutheran and Calvinistic divines, that the imputation of righteousness affected the moral character of those concerned. It is true,” he adds, “whom God justifies he also sanctifies; but justification is not sanctification, and the imputation of righteousness is not the infusion of righteousness.” — Ed.
(111) “The foundation of your trust before God, must be either your own righteousness out and out, or the righteousness of Christ out and out…. If you are to lean upon your own merit, lean upon it wholly — if you are to lean upon Christ, lean upon him wholly. The two will not amalgamate together, and it is the attempt to do so, which keeps many a weary and heavy-laden inquirer at a distance from rest, and at a distance from the truth of the gospel. Maintain a clear and consistent posture. Stand not before God with one foot upon a rock and the other upon a treacherous quicksand…We call upon you not to lean so much as the weight of one grain or scruple of your confidence upon your own doings — to leave this ground entirely, and to come over entirely to the ground of a Redeemer’s blood and a Redeemer’s righteousness.” — Dr. [ Chalmers ]
(112) “The words but now may be regarded merely as marking the transition from one paragraph to another, or as a designation of tense; now, i.e., under the gospel dispensation. In favor of this view is the phrase, “to declare at this time his righteousness, Rom 3:26.” — [ Hodge ]
(113) “ Testimonio comprobata,” etc., so [ Beza ] and [ Pareus ] render μαρτυρουμένη; “Being attested,” [ Doddridge ] ; “Being testified,” [ Macknight ] [ Schleusner ] gives a paraphrase, “Being predicted and promised;” and this no doubt is the full meaning. — Ed.
(114) Concurrent with what is said here is this striking and condensed passage from [ Scott ] , — “It has been witnessed by the law and the Prophets; the ceremonies typified it; the very strictness of the moral law and its awful curses, being compared with the promises of mercy to sinners, implied it; the promises and predictions of the Messiah bore witness to it; the faith and hope of ancient believers recognized it; and the whole Old Testament, rightly understood, taught men to expect and depend on it.” — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL NOTES
Rom. 3:22. By faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe.Faith apprehends and appropriates a personal mediator. The righteousness of God.Our participation by faith in Christ as being the only righteousness that God approves, and thus is here called the righteousness of God through faith.
Rom. 3:23. The glory of Godviz., the divine approbation.
Rom. 3:24.The English, or rather Latin, word redemption is not a perfect synonym of the term employed by the apostle (). It means a ransoming offdeliverance on the ground of ransom.
Rom. 3:25.God has openly exhibited Christ to the world as a propitiatory offering for sin, unto all who believe in Him, in order that He might fully exhibit His pardoning mercy (His ) in respect to the forgiveness of sins under the past and present dispensations (Stuart).
Rom. 3:26.Righteousness as distinguished from truthfulness and goodness on the one hand, and from mere justice on the other. Because of the pretermission of the former sins.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Rom. 3:21-26
Divine justice vindicated.Some say Christianity is played out. Perhaps the wish is father to the saying. We may seem to have taken a pessimistic view of Christianised society. Not quite. St. Pauls collection of Old Testament texts cannot be applied to England, and to that we are indebted to Christianity. Our point is that some of the essential failings of Judaism are reproduced in Christianity, and we must be on our guard. We do not admit that Christianity is played out, but we allow that modern Pauls are needed to proclaim the old gospel with new power. The sinfulness of man must be declared, the righteousness of God proclaimed, and the way of salvation opened out by faith, as the result of grace, and through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. The opponents of the mediatorial scheme give grotesque representations of a supposed conflict between justice and mercy. Nevertheless, justice is not to be eliminated from the attributes of a perfect God. He is Himself just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. All the dispensations of God make for righteousness. What we know not now we shall know hereafter. The climactic and indisputable proof of Gods justice is the setting forth of Jesus to be a propitiation.
I. God justifies Himself.Of course not in the way of making Himself just, for that He always and essentially is; but in the way of showing His justice, and condescending to show to men that all His ways are right. Paul does not bring before us a one-sided Deitya Being stripped of that attribute which must be the basis of an equitable moral government. Paul vindicates the righteousness of God in His former dealings with the race; and now he brings us to see in the atonement of Christ a crowning proof of justice, as well as a manifestation of love. God is just because He freely forgives men by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
1. God declares His justice. The ancient prophet speaks of a just God and a Saviour. The apostle adopts the utterance. Gods justice declared by the different economies. The history of Israel a testimony. The form of divine justice has never been absent from the march of human events. All tend to the vindication of the eternal rectitude. A twofold love of the Father and the Son speaks to us from Calvary. The voice of justice also heard. The fatherhood of God must not destroy His kingship. Eli was a mild father, the type of the modern God of some, and his sons were ruined. God speaks and rules as a father-king. God is not a great, grim, and relentless justice, neither is He a pliant amiability. The Atonement declares Gods justice, and sets forth the truth that men cannot be saved merely on the ground that God is love.
2. God honours justice. The monarch as the representative of civil government, as the person to whom is delegated the central power around which the commonwealth is to move in circles of social order, must rule in justice tempered by mercy. God is surely more perfect. Around Him must be glorious circles of moral order. The Atonement has not wrested the sceptre from His grasp. He still sits on a throne which has justice and judgment for its foundation. A tyrant may arbitrarily pardon a rebel. A just God must devise means whereby rebels may be pardoned and justice honoured. God honoured justice when He gave His Son, for the Son was willing to be offered. In His case the sweet compulsive power of love was the only constraining force. If a life on earth of pleasure, of greatness, and of renown ending in a triumphant translation to a brighter sphere had been sufficient, Gods love would have demanded no more. If there was any violence in the moral transaction, it was Deity that did violence to His own loving nature in the interests of eternal justice.
3. God harmonises justice. The opponents make justice and mercy two abstractions. These ideal creations are seen wrestling for victory. One determines to punish; the other is equally determined to forgive. Being equally powerful, how is the contest to end? Now justice and mercy are not distinct personalities. They are attributes of the one great personality termed God. And there can be no fierce conflict, speaking after the manner of men. God in the eternal councils deliberates. God the Father and God the Son devise the wondrous method. Behold the result. Mercy and truth meet together. Righteousness and peace kiss each other when they hear the sad triumphant refrain, It is finished. Truth springs out of the earth which has been replenished by the stream flowing from the Rock of Ages. Righteousness looks down from heaven in glad approval. All nations must finally rejoice, for the Lord has given that which is good.
II. God justifies believers.When God justifies Himself, He shows His justice. When God justifies the believer, He receives him as justified. God has made men moral agents, and does not justify them, the volition refusing the benefit. All are not justified because all are not willingi.e., all who have heard. There is a condition. It is the simple one of faith, loving acceptance, the doctors prescription, the brazen serpent. Believe and live. Look and be saved. Take and be healed.
1. Believing involves a confession of guilt and of helplessness. Guilt is the awakened sense of moral sickness. The extent of feeling no matter. This is the worlds wantthe power to feel as well as to understand.
2. Believing implies Gods right to punish. So that the man who believes in Christ does not make void the law and the authority of God. The believer suffers in himself the pangs of remorse, feels the pains of condemnation; but what would the judge say to or think of the criminal who should plead his pangs and his feelings as an atonement for his crimes?
3. Believing in Jesus Christ carries in it the declaration of human inability. Good works cannot save. High resolves cannot redeem. Noble endeavours cannot lift out of the pit. All the tears of a Niobe, should the race be concentrated in one image, and should the tears flow from the dawn of time to its close, cannot wash away sin. There is a fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. There is a propitiatory offering. Faith in Jesus Christ is the grand starting-point for noble endeavour, for moral enterprise, and for all holy living. Here are healing for the sick, bright raiment for the naked, precious gold for the poor, satisfying bread for the hungry, peace for the troubled, joy for the sorrowful, and laughter for the weepers.
4. Believing in Jesus Christ supposes loving consecration. The imperfection of many professing Christians must be admitted; but the candid soul must confess that the worlds noblest heroes have been produced by Christianity. A religion which could produce a Paul has in that one fact a good deal to say in its defence. And what should be said of a religion which has produced thousands who have followed in his train, though they have failed to reach his high measure of nobility?
The righteousness of God.But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. It is of sin and righteousness that the apostle speaks so fully and so minutely throughout this whole epistle.
I. It is the righteousness of God.It is a divine, not a human, righteousness. That righteousness which we had lost in Adam was, after all, but a human thing, finite like him who lost it; but that which we gain is a divine righteousness, and by being divine forms an infinite compensation for that which Adam lost for us; and we in receiving it are made partakers of a most glorious exchange. It is called the righteousness of God, because it is a righteousness provided by Hima righteousness which was conceived by Him and carried out in every part by Him. Again, it is called the righteousness of God, because it is a righteousness made up of the doings of the Son of God. It is not merely with His sufferings that this righteousness has to do, but it is with His doings as well. These two things enter into its composition, so that without both of them it would be imperfect. Further, it is called the righteousness of God, because it provides such a compensation for human unrighteousness, that it not only takes it all away, but brings in a new and far higher and surer footing for the sinner to rest on.
II. It is a righteousness without the law.He does not mean that it is in any sense an unlawful righteousnessa righteousness not based on law; but it means a righteousness which, in so far as we are concerned, has nothing to do with law at all. It is not a righteousness which asks any doing or working to make it what it isthe righteousness of God; for did it require anything of this kind on our part, it would cease to be what it is here represented to be, the righteousness of God, and would become, to a large extent at least, the righteousness of man. This righteousness does not send us to the law in order to be justified. Let us hold fast then this truth of the gospel, this foundation truthrighteousness without law, righteousness founded in no sense upon our keeping of the law; but wholly and absolutely upon this fact, that another has kept the law for us, and that other no less than the Son of God Himself.
III. This righteousness has been manifested.Now, he says, the righteousness of God is manifested; it has been clearly brought to light, so that there can be no mistake concerning it and no mystery in it. It is not a thing hidden, wrapped up, reserved, held back, veiled from our view. It has been clearly manifested. In every way God has sought to guard it against the possibility of being mistaken by man. In every way has He taken precautions against this being hidden from view or darkened by the words of mans wisdom.
IV. This righteousness is a righteousness to which the law and the prophets bear witness.By this expression we understand the whole of the Old Testament. It is not something (he means to tell us) now come to light for the first time, not understood in the ages gone by; it is something which has been proclaimed from the beginning hitherto. Righteousness shone down upon the pilgrimage of Old Testament worthies, and in the light of which they walked. On this righteousness they rested, in it they rejoiced. It is no new righteousness which we preach. It is no new foundation of which we tell. It is the old one, the well-proved one. It has been abundantly sufficient in past ages, and it has lost none of its efficiency now in these last days.
V. This righteousness is a righteousness which is by the faith of Jesus Christ.Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference. He means to say by this expression that it is a righteousness which comes to us by believing in Jesus Christ. It is not our faith that is our righteousness; it is not our act of believing that justifies. If your faith were your righteousness, then faith would be just reduced to the level of all other works, and would be itself a work. If it were our faith, our act of faith, that justified, then should we be justified by our own acts, by our own deeds. The expression, then, the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, means simply that it is a righteousness which passes over to us, and becomes available for us, by believing in Him whose righteousness it isthat is, by believing the Fathers testimony concerning Jesus Christ. Or it is just as if we were saying, I have no righteousness, seeing I am wholly a sinner; but I take this righteousness of the Son of God, and I draw near, expecting to be treated by God just as if I and not He were the righteous person. I cannot present any suffering to Him in payment of penalty; but I take this suffering of the Son of God, and I claim to have it reckoned to me as payment of my penalty. Thus it is Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.
VI. This righteousness is a righteousness for the unrighteous.It is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. It is not righteousness for the good, but for the evil. It is not righteousness for the worthy, but for the unworthy. How foolish, then, to say as men, when convinced of sin, or when going back into former iniquity, are sometimes found saying, I am too great a sinner to be forgiven. Why, if you were not such a sinner, you would not need such a righteousness. This righteousness for the unrighteous is said by the apostle to be unto all. It is a righteousness which is like the sun in the heavens. It is one sun; yet it is enough for every one, it is free to every one. You open your eye and enjoy its beams without asking any questions. Again, it is a righteousness which is upon all them that believe. It is unto all; but it is only upon them that believe. The moment that we believe through grace we are accepted in the Beloved, redeemed from condemnation and from wrath. Again, the apostle affirms, regarding this righteousness for the unrighteous, that there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. There is no difference as to its fitness for the sinner, whatever his sin may be; and there is no difference as to the fitness of the sinner for the righteousness. There is this twofold fitness: the fitness of the righteousness for the sinner, and the fitness of the sinner for the righteousness. There is no question as to the kind of your unrighteousness, the length of time, the amount or degreethere is no question about that: the simple question is, Are you an unrighteous man? Then it suits your case. And it is a righteousness near to each one of you; it is not afar off; it is not in heaven above, so that you have to climb to the seat of God to obtain it; and it is not down so low that you must dig to earths centre to find it: it is near, it is at your very side; and if you reject it, it cannot be because of its distance. God has brought it near.H. Bonar.
Rom. 3:24. Justification an act of Gods free grace.Justified by gracei.e., Gods part; not by bloodi.e., Christs part (Rom. 5:9); not even by faithi.e., mans part (Rom. 5:1); still less by worksi.e., the proof and manifestation of all the rest (Jas. 2:24). Justification is contemplated from the side of God.
I. Justification itself.Being justified. Rome versus Genevathe former tending to the view that justification includes the removal of sin, not simply the removal of condemnation, as held by the latter. The structure of this epistle seems to favour the latter. The apostle begins with chaps. 15, discussing that awful liability to punishment which rests on Jew and Gentile alike; and only when this is disposed of does he come in chaps. 68 to treat of the removal of sin and the gift of eternal life. God comes first as a judge to pardon or absolve, and His second act is that of the Spirit imparting the regenerating seed of spiritual life. Justification is a change of relations, not of nature.
II. Modifications of the principal idea.
1. The sourcein the grace of God: being justified freely by His grace. Grace is love stooping, love in actionlove manifesting itself to man; but love is eternal, therefore the revealed righteousness will endure. This is the key to the apostles confidence.
2. The modefreely. Justification not of works, therefore not of wages; but of grace, therefore a free gift. This fathoms at once the sinners helplessness, and exhibits the divine munificence. The helplessness is spiritualnot necessarily mental, or even moral. Man may learn, know, hate, love; but he cannot justify himself in the sight of God. The divine munificence is twofold. The free gift is not dependent on any human return, and in itself is the pledge of all other spiritual blessings.
3. The meansthrough the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Redemption is another word that looks at justification from the divine side. It contains two ideasransom paid in vindication of justice and righteousness, and liberation effected for the guilty party. The two combined give the principle of substitution. The price was His blood, therefore not without price, not freely to Him. And it is in Christ Jesusin Him in that historical sense in which in His own body on the tree the propitiation for sin was offered; and in Him in this legal and substitutionary sense in which justification is ours, only as we are treated in the Saviours place and accepted as righteous in Him. We are justified by gracei.e., the source; by bloodi.e., the channel; by faithi.e., the reception; by worksi.e., the fruit. By their fruits ye shall know them.John Adams, B.D.
Law cannot justify.Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight, etc. How shall man be just before God? Wherewith shall I come before the Lord? Such questions have presented themselves to men ever since sin found an entrance into this world. Such questions demand an answer now. Let us not shrink from considering them.
I. The very essence of Gods nature is holiness.The outcome of holiness in effect and action is righteousness; hence God, perfectly righteous Himself, requires righteousness in His rational creatures. To come before God with acceptance we must have righteousness; and righteousness is obeying Gods lawand obeying it perfectlyfor God admits of no imperfection.
II. What then is our condition as regards the law of God.
1. The law condemns us, for we have not perfectly obeyed it. Nay, our very best actions are so mixed with imperfections that they come short of what Gods holiness requires. Every one who thinks with any seriousness of God and of himselfGod in His holiness, I in my sinsmust necessarily ask, What must I do? how can I escape condemnation? how can I be righteous?
2. Shall we then turn again to Gods lawtry to keep it more perfectly, leave off sinning, seek righteousness by our own doings? Vain efforts! The more we try, the more plainly we shall see our failures. By the law is the knowledge of sin, but no righteousness for man. Man, left to deal with Gods law with his own efforts alone, either falls into spiritual blindness and deadness of heart, or betakes him to some vain superstition to bring peace to his conscience before God, which they never can bestow.
III. The gospel of Jesus Christ proclaims the way in which man can be justified.Accounted righteous before God.
1. This is not by the law. God cannot forgo the claims of His law, cannot clear the guilty.
2. But the gospel does for us what the law cannot do.
3. The Lord Jesus, made man for us, standing in our place, bearing our sins, rendering a perfect obedience to the law as man, has redeemed us from the just condemnation of the law.
4. He is declared in the language of prophecy to be Jehovah our righteousness (Jer. 23:6). All that believe in Him are justifiedthey have a righteousness given to them by God. They are even said to be made the righteousness of God in Christ (2Co. 5:21).
IV. By this marvellous work of God, wrought out for us in and by the Lord Jesus, the most blessed results ensue.
1. All Gods glorious attributes shine forth. His holiness is vindicateu, His justice satisfied, His law honoured, His love triumphant. The glorious contradiction of Exo. 34:6 finds its blessed solution: Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty. Christ taking the place of the guiltythe believers sins forgiven.
2. Hence God can be just, and yet justify the ungodly. Hence He is not only merciful, but faithful and just to forgive us our sins (1Jn. 1:9).
V. This great gospel truth of justification by faith in Christ, almost lost in the visible Church in the times of medival darkness, but recovered and proclaimed anew in the Reformation, is now in the opened Scriptures set full in view for us. Let us receive it, hold it fast, rejoice in it, and let us prove in our own life that it is a doctrine according to godliness.Dr. Jacob.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Rom. 3:21-26
Salvation undeserved.Here we have an answer to the most important of all inquiries, How shall man be just with God? To be justified is to be acquitted from the charge brought against us, and absolved from the condemnation with which we were threatened. With regard to us the condemnation was deserved and the charge was true. This renders the case so difficult and peculiar, and calls for the apostles development. But, in exposing the source of the privilege, he seems to use a tautology: Being justified freely by His grace. If it be done freely, it must be of grace; and if it be gracious, it must be free. Yet this is not saying too much. Paul knew that men were proud and vain, and that as Simon Magus thought of purchasing the Holy Ghost with money, so they, in dealing with God about their souls, wish to be merchants rather than suppliants, and would seem to buy while they are compelled to beg. But surely, if it be saying too much, it is saying enough. Surely, after this, the freeness and graciousness of the thing cannot be questioned; it is not only free and gracious as opposed to constraint, but as opposed to worthiness. Merit in a sinner is impossiblehis desert lies all on the other side. There he is worthy of death. A man who asks a favour may have no claim upon you; but you may also have no demand upon him, and therefore, though you may justly refuse him, yet you have no right to apprehend and punish him. But God had a right to punish us, and it is of His mercies that we are not consumed. It is also free and gracious as opposed to desire. This is undeniable with regard to the constitution and accomplishment of the plan itself, for these long preceded even our being; but is it true with regard to the application of it? The publican prayed, God be merciful to me a sinner, and went down to his house justified. And you sought and found. But what induced you to seek? A sense of your want of the blessing. But how came you to feel this after being so long insensible of it? Hearing such a preacher. But who made this preacher, and sent him, and placed him in your way, and applied what he said to your heart? And the same may be asked with regard to any other instrumentality. Go as far back as you please, when you arrive you will find Him there before you, with all His preparations and excitements, and will hear Him say as you approach, Come, for all things are now ready.W. Jay.
Mistaken view of cause.A commentator on this chapter gives six causes of justification.
I. The principal cause.The love of God the Father.
II. The meritorious cause.The active and passive obedience of the Son.
III. The efficient cause.The operation of the Holy Ghost.
IV. The instrumental cause.The ministry of the word and the sacraments.
V. The instrumental cause for the reception on our part.Faith in Christs blood.
VI.The final cause.-Eternal life by virtue and holiness.
Now with all due deference this appears to be a strange jumbling of causes, and even the schoolmen could not have gone any further. John Stuart Mill was not a theologian, perhaps a sceptic, but he was an able logician, and he teaches us to distinguish between the cause and the antecedent; and in the case of these six causes we should say that a distinction should be observed between the cause and both the antecedent and the consequent. Some of these so-called causes are no causes. They are not even antecedents, but consequents. How can the final cause be an antecedent of justification? Virtue and holiness come after justification. They are its blessed results, the effects of that sanctifying process which is being carried on in the justified. If the ministry of the word and the sacraments be the instrumental cause of justification, then the Saviours mediatorial work is not complete. The Twenty-fifth Article of the Church of England does not make the sacraments into a cause of justification: Sacraments ordained of Christ be not only badges or tokens of Christian mens profession, but rather they be certain sure witnesses, and effectual signs of grace, and Gods good will toward us, by the which He doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken but also strengthen and confirm our faith in Him. The Christian man is surely a justified man, and the sacraments are tokens of his profession. If the sacraments are a cause of justification, then the article on justification by faith must be altered, for it says, We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works or deservings.
The propitiation.Freely. The word excludes merit, says Hemmingnot Christs indeed, but ours. It excludes, says Aquinas, the merit of preceding works. It excludes more, says Berga; it excludes the works that come after faith, as well as the works that go before it. If the justification be gratuitous on the part of God, it must be to man without money and without price. It would no longer be a gift to believers if they purchased or deserved it by their merit. Luther translates the word without merit (ohne Verdienst). So does Sharpe. Bellarmin explains it admirably, so far as its theology is concerned, out of His mere liberality. Limborch explains it happily, so far as its philology is concerned, as meaning donatitie. So far, then, as we can learn anything from the New Testament usage of the compound term employed by the apostle, we have reason to come to the conclusion that, in the passage before us, it will not denote, barely and abstractly, simply deliverance. It will, indeed, denote deliverance, but the deliverance referred to will be deliverance on the ground of something that meets all rightful claims. It will be, in some legitimate sense, a purchased deliverance. It will be, in short, deliverance on the ground of a ransom. There is perhaps, says Dr. Chalmers, no single passage in the book of inspiration which reveals, in a way so formal and authoritative as the one before us, the path of transition by which a sinner passes from a state of wrath to a state of acceptance. There is no passageto which, if we would only bring the docility and the compliance of childhoodthat is more fitted to guide and to turn an inquiring sinner into the way of peace. These six verses, says C. P. Shepherd, which contain the first enunciation of the doctrine of justification in this epistlethe first overflow, so to speak, of that matter of which the apostles heart and mind were fullcontain also in a short compass the completest expression of the Christian doctrine. If Christ Jesus be set forth as propitiatory, then it must be true that He was set forth as a propitiator, and set forth as a propitiation, and set forth as a propitiatory sacrifice, and set forth too as the antitypical fulfilment of all the symbols of propitiation that were divinely instituted under preceding dispensations. It was Christ Himself, in His theanthropic personality, that was thus propitiatory. He was, in His intermingled satisfactio and satispassio, the meritorious cause of Gods relation of propitiousness to the human family. It is in consideration of His propitiation that God, as the moral governor of the universe, is willing and is ready to forgive and to justify all such of the ungodly as will be induced to take up, by means of faith in the propitiator, that one mental position that will insure their voluntary reception of such divine influences as are needed to renew the heart and assimilate the characters to the archetypal character of God.Dr. Morrison.
Justice and mercy.The following passage taken in connection with others of a similar character naturally excites a little surprise: High above all they imagine a great, grim, and relentless justice ever ready to sweep down and crush men out of existence. Long ago this would have happened, men would have been destroyed, the whole universe would have been consumed in wrath, were it not that this great and terrible Judge was pled with, restrained, forcibly held back by the struggling form of an equally powerful mercy. At last Christ appeared; He brings with Him a grand expedient, appeases justice, reconciles it to mercy, and mercy, freed from the conflict and no longer alarmed for men, goes forth and takes up its mission to save. It is not in the writings of the apostle, nor in the writings of any of the sacred penmen, that ideas like these are to be found. They are to be found, not there, but in the books and pictures of medival and modern theologians. We also affirm that such ideas as these are not to be found in the books of modern theologians. If they are, the books are not much read, and therefore it is scarcely worth while to quote them for the sake of refutation. The book would be regarded as a curiosity which contained such teaching. At first sight we are disposed to look with compassion upon the struggling form of pleading mercy; but our compassion is turned into wonder when we find that mercy is equally powerful with justice. Surely any person capable of writing a book on theology would see that there could be no end to the conflict between two infinitely powerful persons or attributes such as justice and mercythe one determined to punish and the other to pardon. Equally powerful, the contest would be equal; and on what principle Christ could appear with His grand expedient to the settlement of this awful struggle we cannot understand. The appropriateness of the adjectives grim and relentless when applied to justice may be fairly questioned. The breakers of law, the hardened and impenitent despisers of authority, may be expected to look upon justice as grim; but shall we expect law expounders and enforcers to take this view? It certainly does not seem to us fitting that justice and mercy should be represented as two beings in deadly conflict, as descriptive of the divine procedure; for there can be no violent opposition among the attributes of the Godhead. All work together in harmony. We cannot see anything grotesque in the proceeding when Gods mercy is inclined to save, and when God sees it proper to have regard to the interests of His moral government, and devises a method whereby He may be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 3
Rom. 3:23. Pharisaism.When the late Rev. George Burder, of London, was preaching at Warwick, he was called to attend the execution of three men, one a coiner, and the other two housebreakers. One circumstance, says Mr. B., affected me very deeply. All the men were on ladders, then the mode of execution, with the ropes about their necks, about to be turned off, when the coiner, endeavouring to fortify his mind in this awful situation, uttered words to this purpose, which I distinctly heard, being at a short distance, I never killed anybody; I never hurt anybody: I hope the Lord will have mercy upon me. This poor creature seemed nearly to die in the spirit of the Pharisee, I thank God I am not as other men are, or as this publican, for I thought he alluded to the two thieves suffering with him. I was so deeply affected that I could scarcely refrain from crying out to the man, Do not trust in your own righteousness: look to Christ. This has often occurred to me as one of the most glaring instances of a self-righteous spirit that I ever knew.
Rom. 3:25. Propitiation.Cowper, the poet, speaking of his religious experience, says, But the happy period which was to shake off my fetters and afford me a clear opening of the free mercy of God in Christ Jesus was now arrived. I flung myself into a chair near the window, and seeing a Bible there, ventured once more to apply to it for comfort and instruction. The first verse I saw was the twenty-fifth of the third of Romans: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God. Immediately I received strength to believe, and the full beams of the Sun of righteousness shone upon me. I saw the sufficiency of the atonement He had made, my pardon sealed in His blood, and all the fulness and completeness of His justification. In a moment I believed, and received the gospel. Whatever my friend Madan had said to me so long before revived in all its clearness, with demonstration of the Spirit, and with power.
Rom. 3:26. One man loses blood to save another.The other day a man allowed two ounces of blood to be extracted for the purpose of being infused into an invalid. The loss of blood was more than he could bear. The man died as a consequence of the sacrifice. The offering, if not the death, was voluntary. He was not compelled to the suffering. And so Jesus freely offered Himself. He could have paralysed the arm of the Roman soldier that was raised to pierce His sacred side. Even after the wound was made He could have spoken the word of healing; but then the stream would not have flowed for the healing of the nations. Yea, after He had freely undertaken the work of our redemption, He might have stopped short and secured to Himself a glorious body-guard of more than twelve legions of angels. But His love both to God and to man sustained Him in the mighty conflict.
Rom. 3:26. Eli believes the sad tidings.The power which resides in a word, or which operates through a word, requires one (and no more than one) condition for its operationit must be believed. Old Eli, bowed with the weight of years, sat in the city gate of Shiloh, when a message came to him which had in it a power of death. But if Eli had not believed the fatal tidings of that Benjamite who professed to report the disastrous issue of the days engagement, Eli would not have fallen dead in a fit by the side of the gate. The message which another Benjamite spoke at midnight to the Roman jailor had in it, on the contrary, a power of spiritual life. But if that jailor had not received Pauls record of God concerning His Son, no life could have visited his rude, dark, heathen soul. Faith is no exceptional demand on the gospels part. It is the condition of all power which comes by word, whether it be a word that teaches or a word that commands. Though the power of God, operating through His gospel, is an exceptional power, since it is the direct energy of the Holy Ghost which quickens dead souls, yet God has chosen this particular vehicle of speech for His life-giving, saving, spiritual energy, and having chosen it, He respects its ordinary laws. Salvation must come by faith, because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.Dykes.
Rom. 3:26. Zaleucus.Zaleucus, the ancient legislator, shared the punishment with his son, and submitted to lose one eye so that his son might not be rendered totally blind, which was the legal penalty for his transgression. Zaleucus, being both legislator and father, devised the method and endured the suffering, so that law might not be dishonoured and that fatherly love might be expressed. It would be an easy task to describe, after the manner of some writers, the contest between the grim, relentless king and the loving father. We might draw a picture that the heroic Zaleucus would not be able to recognise. He did not become three by the transaction. The ego did not stand by as a calm spectator, while the legislator and the father fought out the affair on the fertile plains of the Locri. The stern legislator and the loving father made up the one Zaleucus. The feeling of love and the sense of justice are not separate from but form a part of my personality. Justice, love, and mercy are not personalities standing away from, though still surrounding, the divine Being. They are the essential attributes of a perfect and full-orbed Deity, and are in subjection to the deliberative faculty. Above them is the great divine consciousness speaking after the manner of men. There can be no fierce conflict among the divine attributes. There never was the represented struggle. All work together in blessed harmony. A man may consult with himself; but he does not get into fierce conflict with himself, as he might if consulting with his fellows. And so even God may consult with Himself. We fail to see anything grotesque in the proceeding when Gods mercy is inclined to save, and God, deeming it proper to have regard to the interests of His moral government, devises a method whereby He may be just and yet the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Text
Rom. 3:21-26. But now apart from the law a righteousness of God hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Rom. 3:22 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe; for there is no distinction; Rom. 3:23 for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; Rom. 3:24 being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Rom. 3:25 whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, in his blood, to show his righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forebearance of God; Rom. 3:26 for the showing, I say, of his righteousness at this present season: that he might himself be just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus.
67.
What is the twofold task involved in establishing truth? How does this fit into justification by faith?
68
What twofold relationship does the righteousness have?
REALIZING ROMANS, Rom. 3:21-26
117.
Should we stumble over the word believe in Rom. 3:22? Be carefulwe can stumble over it through overemphasis as well as underemphasis. What is the safe course?
118.
Show the two ways in which there is no distinction.
119.
What is the glory of God as in Rom. 3:23?
120.
We are justified by and through something. Explain.
121.
Redemption is a wonderful wordit suggests a kidnaping. In what way is this true?
122.
Use a Bible dictionary if necessary to look up the word propitiation. This has an Old Testament backgroundwhat is it?
123.
How does the death of Christ show the righteousness of God?
124.
Gods righteousness was shown on the cross because of sins done afore time. In what way?
125.
Show how the following qualities of God were manifested on Calvary: mercy, justice, love, wisdom.
Paraphrase
Rom. 3:21-26. But now, under the gospel, a righteousness appointed by God as the means of the justification of sinners, without perfect obedience to law of any kind, is made known: And it is no new method of justification, being taught both by the law and the prophets;
Rom. 3:22 Even the righteousness which God hath appointed to be through faith of Jesus Christ, (the faith which Jesus Christ hath enjoined), graciously counted unto all, and rewarded upon all who believe: for there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile in the method of justification;
Rom. 3:23 Because all have sinned, and come short of praise from God: so that being all involved in guilt and misery, the same remedy must be applied to all:
Rom. 3:24 Being justified by faith, not meritoriously, but of free gift, by a great exercise of Gods grace, through the redemption which is procured for them by Christ Jesus:
Rom. 3:25 Whom God hath set forth a propitiatory, from which he will dispense pardon to sinners, through faith in his blood, for a proof of his own righteousness in not instantly punishing the sins which were before the coming of Christ committed through Gods forbearing to punish Adam with immediate death, in the view of the obedience of Christ.
Rom. 3:26 For a proof also of his righteousness in not punishing sins committed in the present time, and henceforward, in order that, at the judgment, he may appear just, when acquitting him who is a performer of the faith enjoined by Jesus: and that whether he be a Jew or a Gentile.
Summary
But although justification by law is impossible, still God has revealed another way of justifying men, a way, too, that is attested both by the law and the prophets. He has revealed a plan of justifying people by means of their belief in Jesus Christ, revealed it to all, both Jews and Gentiles. This justification takes its rise in Gods favor; it is procured by a ransom which has been accomplished by Christ. Christ effected this ransom by his blood, and we attain the benefit of it by believing in him and obeying him. This ransom enables God to be just while forgiving the sinner, provided he is a believer in his Son.
Comment
But now apart from the law a righteousness of God hath been manifested . . . This righteousness of God is twofold: relating to the fact that God is righteous, and that man is to be made righteous, or just. The procedure of declaring man just is apart from the law, and yet the law and prophets both spoke of it through type and prophecy. Rom. 3:21. This righteousness is that which comes through faith in Jesus Christ. It is given unto all that exercise this belief, for there is no distinction. There is no distinction as to who can thus receive this righteousness; neither is there a distinction as to who needs this righteousness, for all have sinned, and thus fall short of the glory of God. Rom. 3:22-23. This justification takes rise in the favor of God. It is bestowed freely on all because of the redemption price paid by Jesus Christ. Rom. 3:24. Jesus Christ was set forth by God to be a covering for our sins, through faith in his blood. This covering for sins is the answer to the problem of those in the Old Testament who had no provision for the washing away of sins. The sins done aforetime in the days of the old covenant were passed over with the thought that one day the provision for their covering would be found in the blood of Christ, Rom. 3:25. Behold now the wonderful righteousness of God at this present season. Through the substitutionary death of His Son, the justice of God in respect to punishment for sin and the mercy of God in respect to forgiving sin find a wondrous agreement and satisfaction, The wisdom of God searched the love of God for a way to reconcile the justice of God with the mercy of God and the result was the sending of his own son to die in the stead of man. Rom. 3:26.
69.
In what two respects is there no distinction?
70.
What is the meaning of the word propitiation?
71.
What do the sins done aforetime have to do with the death of Christ?
72.
What two qualities in the nature of God are reconciled in the death of Christ?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(21) But now.In these latter days. The Apostle conceives of the history of the world as divided into periods; the period of the Gospel succeeds that of the Law, and to it the Apostle and his readers belong. (Comp. for this conception of the gospel, as manifested at a particular epoch of time, Rom. 16:25-26; Act. 17:30; Gal. 3:23; Gal. 3:25; Gal. 4:3-4; Eph. 1:10; Eph. 2:12-13; Col. 1:21; Col. 1:26; 1Ti. 2:6; 2Ti. 1:10; Heb. 1:1; 1Pe. 1:20.)
The righteousness of God.Rather, a righteousness of Godi.e., bestowed by God, wrought out by Him, as in Rom. 1:17. The reference is again, here as there, to the root-conception of righteousness as at once the great object and condition of the Messianic kingdom.
Without the law.In complete independence of any law, though borne witness to by the Law of Moses. The new system is one into which the idea of law does not enter.
Is manifested.Hath been, and continues to be manifested. The initial moment is that of the appearance of Christ upon earth. The scheme which then began is still evolving itself.
Being witnessed.The Apostle does not lose sight of the preparatory function of the older dispensation, and of its radical affinity to the new. (Comp. Rom. 1:2; Rom. 16:26; Luk. 18:31; Luk. 24:27; Luk. 24:44; Luk. 24:46; Joh. 5:39; Joh. 5:46; Act. 2:25; Act. 2:31; Act. 3:22; Act. 3:24; Act. 17:2-3; Act. 26:22-23; 1Pe. 1:10-11.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
(21-22) Such was the condition of the world up to the coming of Christ. But now, in contrast with the previous state of things, a new system has appeared upon the scene. In this system law is entirely put on one side, though the system itself was anticipated in and is attested by those very writings in which the Law was embodied. Law is now superseded, the great end of the Law, the introduction of righteousness, being accomplished in another way, viz., through faith in Christ, by which a state of righteousness is superinduced upon all believers.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
(21-26) This then introduces the solemn enunciation, repeated more fully from Rom. 1:16-17, of the great subject of the Epistle, the declaration of that new scheme by which, through Christ, God had removed the guilt which the Law (whether Jewish or any other) could not remove.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
II. THE REMEDY . JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH THROUGH THE ATONEMENT BY CHRIST.
1. Comprehensive Statement of Gratuitous Salvation by Faith in Christ’s Atoning Death , Rom 3:21-31 .
This is the CENTRAL PARAGRAPH of the Epistle. In composing it our great apostle summons all his powers to the task of concentrating into one statement his doctrine of salvation “according to my gospel.” The paragraph is the solution of all that has preceded, and the theme of all that follows. It embraces the core and substance of positive and perfect Christianity, against which rationalizing yet irrational unbelief rebels, whether Judaistic, semi-Christian, or infidel, yet forever rebels in vain.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
21. But The small yet great hinging word on which the mighty argument turns the transition point of the scheme and of the epistle.
Now Under the new regimen of grace; after the old regimen of wrath depicted in the previous part of the epistle. The apostle springs into this blessed now with a joyous abruptness. He will range through it, leading us through rich and varied scenes of grace and glory.
Righteousness of God Not merely that righteousness with which God is invested, but that righteousness with which, through Christ, he invests us. The latter is the radiant reflection from the former. It would much simplify the expression of Paul’s theology if all the branchings from the one root, , right, righteous, or just, could be translated into English by similar branchings from one root. We should then have just, justify, (or just-make,) justification, (or just-making.) justice, (or just-being.) Or we should have right, (or righteous,) righteousness, (or rightness or right-being,) and rectification, (or righting, or right-making, or righteous-making.) This righteousness of God is God’s rectification or justification of man before the law, making him rectus in curia, or right in God’s court, or before his tribunal, being the opposite of condemnation by God’s law. Yet does it not include, though ever accompanied by, sanctification. For as justification is acquittal from past offences, so sanctification is the inward power, more or less, by grace conferred, to avoid commission of sin for the future. By the former the man comes right; by the latter man stays right. (See note on Mat 18:3.)
Without the law Righteousness, though required of man by the law, can never be acquired through the law. The law being once broken can only condemn; it can never justify. Justification, then, can be attained only by some method without the law.
Is manifested In the advent of Christ and the opening of the new revelation.
Law and the prophets Note on Mat 5:17. To the Old Testament Church, looking forward to the New, the law and the prophets were promise and encouragement; to the New Testament Church, looking back, they are testimony and support. The law testified to Christ and his atonement both by its demand for satisfaction for sin and by its whole piacular ritual; the prophets, by fortelling the person and history of the Messiah.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘But now apart from the law a righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets,’
This righteousness of God that God has provided is apart from the Law. It is not obtained as a result of observing the Law. It has no connection with the Law. And yet it has been made clear by both the Law and the prophets (the Old Testament Scriptures). And in the prophets this righteousness of God transcends the Law for it is on a par with God’s own righteousness. It is supplied by God, Who comes to His people with a righteousness which will make them fully acceptable to Him. It is that righteousness, which completely fulfils all God’s holy demands, the demands which God gives to us. And here in fact it is seen to be the consequence of Christ Jesus having redeemed us and having been put forth as a propitiation though faith in His blood (Rom 3:24-25).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
God Has Provided A Way By Which Men Can Be Accounted As In The Right Before God (3:21-4:25).
Paul has spent a considerable time, from Rom 1:18 onwards, in demonstrating that all are under sin (weighed down under it and condemned by it). And he has shown that this includes the common herd of idolaters (Rom 1:18-27); the generality of people (Rom 1:28-32); those who for one reason or another see themselves as above the norm (philosophers, judges, Rabbis, Jews – Rom 2:1-16); and especially the Jews with their wild claims (Rom 2:17 to Rom 3:8). He has demonstrated that all as they are in themselves come under the condemnation of God. None can claim to be in the right on the basis of their own lives (Rom 3:9-20). Now Paul seeks to demonstrate the difference that has been made by the coming of Christ, for in Christ God has provided a righteousness which is sufficient to ‘put in the right with God’ all who truly believe in Him. In Rom 1:17 Paul had told us about it, but in order for us to appreciate it fully it was necessary for us to recognise man’s condition. Now that he has achieved that he will expand on Rom 1:17, ‘therein is the righteousness of God (which makes men accounted as righteous) revealed from faith unto faith’.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Righteousness Is by Faith Alone In Rom 3:21-31 Paul explains that righteousness is by faith in God alone apart from works.
Rom 3:21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
Rom 3:21
John Lange discusses several views of interpreting the phrase . One view understands this phrase as an adverb of time (see BDAG on “ ”) so that it refers to this new era of the “gospel dispensation.” This view is supported by the phrase used in Rom 1:26. A second view eliminates the idea of time and interprets it simply as a change of circumstances, which phrase, according to BDAG, is used in this sense in Rom 7:17, “Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” This means that while God’s actions were previously dependent upon the Law ( ), He is now working independent of the Law ( ). [162]
[162] J. P. Lange and R. F. Fay, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, trans. J. F. Hurst, in Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, ed. Philip Schaff (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1869), 129.
Rom 3:21 “the righteousness of God without the law is manifested” Comments The righteousness of God is revealed “outside of the Law.” That is, there is a right standing with God that we can find outside the Mosaic Law. This right standing comes through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Rom 3:21 “being witnessed by the law and the prophets” Comments Paul’s mention in Rom 3:21 of the Law and the prophets essentially refers to the Old Testament Scriptures that show God’s way of justifying mankind through faith in Him. The Jews divided the Old Testament Scriptures into three parts, the Law, the Prophets and the Writings (Luk 24:44).
Luk 24:44, “And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.”
However, the entire Old Testament was sometimes referred to as the Law. For example, Jesus quotes Psa 82:6 by calling it the Law in Joh 10:34, “Jesus answered them, is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?”
The Old Testament was delivered through the office and ministry of the Prophet. [163] This is why Act 3:24 refers to “all the prophets from Samuel,” which includes the division of Old Testament Scriptures called the Writings.
[163] The prophets of the Old Testament were the inspiration for the Jews’ sacred books. They carefully collected these holy prophecies and taught them to their people. There came a time that the prophets ceased to prophesy, and at that point in Jewish history the Old Testament canon was closed. This is confirmed by Josephus, who says, “It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time.” ( Against Apion 1.8) In addition, the opening verse of the book of Hebrews states that the Old Testament was delivered to us by His prophets (Hebrews 1:1-2), thus revealing the fact that the Old Testament prophets were the ones who kept the canon open.
Act 3:24, “Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days.”
Therefore, Paul emphasizes the office of the prophet in Rom 3:21.
Paul had diligently studied the Old Testament Scriptures for years, and in light of his own conversion and revelation of God’s plan of redemption for mankind, he had found many Scriptures to support man’s justification through faith apart from works. Paul lists a few of these Scriptures in this section of Romans as he argues his point of righteousness through faith in Christ Jesus. However, he will focus his argument upon the greatest Old Testament witness of God’s justification by discussing the faith of Abraham (Rom 4:1-25).
The Law There are a number of passages in the Law, or the Pentateuch, that refers to God’s standard of righteous, which Paul alludes to in Rom 3:21.
Gen 15:6, “And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”
Exo 34:6-7, “And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.”
Deu 9:4-6, “Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the LORD thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the LORD hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD doth drive them out from before thee. Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Understand therefore, that the LORD thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiffnecked people.”
We can easily identify one passage out of the Pentateuch that refers to the coming of Christ.
Deu 18:15, “The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;”
Act 3:22-23, “For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.”
Act 7:37, “This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear.”
The Prophets – There are also a number of passages in the Prophets that refers to God’s standard of righteous, which Paul alludes to in Rom 3:21.
Isa 45:24-25, “Surely, shall one say, in the LORD have I righteousness and strength: even to him shall men come; and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed. In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.”
Isa 46:13, “I bring near my righteousness; it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry: and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory.”
Isa 53:11, “He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.”
Mic 7:18-20, “Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.”
Zec 13:1, “In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.”
Heb 2:4, “God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?”
Heb 11:1-40
Paul will later say in Rom 10:3-4 that those who are sinful go about to establish their own righteousness:
Rom 10:3-4, “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”
Rom 3:21 Comments In Rom 3:21 Paul uses the word “law” ( ) twice. The first time the word is used without an article, and refers to the particular laws and statues that Moses gave the children of Israel. The second use of the word “law” has the article “the” preceding it, and is best translated “the Law,” as it refers specifically to the Pentateuch as a body of writings. Thus, Rom 3:21 reads, “Apart from the Mosaic rules and statutes, God’s (rules that establish) righteousness has been revealed” We then ask the question of how God’s standard of righteousness has been revealed. Rom 3:21 continues by answering this question, “being revealed by the Law and the Prophets (and the Writings), that is, the Old Testament Scriptures.
Paul will develop his statement that “ the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets ” in the verses that follow. He will show from the Old Testament Pentateuch, which the Jews refer to as “the Law,” how these Scriptures testify of God’s way of justifying man. He will use primarily the example of Abraham, who met God’s standard of justification apart from the Law.
Rom 3:22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:
Rom 3:22
After demonstrating that all mankind are sinners (Rom 1:18 to Rom 3:20), this next passage of Scripture turns to the only hope, which is righteousness by faith in Jesus Christ alone. Rom 3:22 answers the question of how God has revealed His way of justifying mankind. This plan of redemption was revealed in the Old Testament Scriptures, especially in the Law and the Prophets (Rom 3:21), testified that righteousness will be through faith in the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Does not Jesus say in Joh 5:39 when referring to the testimony of the Old Testament, “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” Thus, Paul will take the time to mention some of these Old Testament passages that testify of God’s way of righteousness, especially relying upon the testimony of Abraham, the father of our faith in God.
Rom 3:22 “unto all and upon all them that believe” Comments This way of being made righteous before God through faith in Christ is available to anyone and everyone. The only requirement is that they believe.
Rom 3:22 “for there is no difference” Comments That is, within the context of this passage, God makes no distinction between the Jew and the Gentile regarding His way of justification for individuals. In fact, God makes no distinction in race, age, gender or any other difference between mankind when it comes to a means of being justified before Him. Paul learned this truth early in his ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles, perhaps coming to this understanding before the other apostles in Jerusalem fully understood the broad application of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
However, there is certainly a distinction between the Jews and Gentiles in respect to God’s election of Israel as a part of His overall plan of salvation for mankind. This redemptive distinction is discussed at length in Romans 9-11. Paul will later say in this same epistle, “Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.” (Rom 9:4-5) Paul will mention Israel’s redemptive distinctions to the Ephesians, “That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:” (Eph 2:12)
Rom 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Rom 3:23
1Ki 8:46, “If they sin against thee, ( for there is no man that sinneth not ,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy, far or near;”
2Ch 6:36, “If they sin against thee, ( for there is no man which sinneth not ,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them over before their enemies, and they carry them away captives unto a land far off or near;”
Pro 20:9, “Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?”
Rom 3:23 “and come short of the glory of God” Comments The phase “come short of the glory of God” follows the phrase “for all have sinned.” It is generally understood to mean that mankind has failed to obtain God’s approval, or praise, which in this context means failure to be justified in God’s eyes. The phase “glory of God” not only refers to God’s praise and approval, but often refers to God’s manifest presence, which sometimes comes upon those whom the Lord approves. For example, the Spirit of God descended upon Jesus Christ in the form of a dove at His water baptism as a testimony to others that He was approved before God. In addition, Jesus is the revelation of God’s holy arm, of His salvation and His glory (Isa 52:10; Isa 40:5, Joh 1:14, Heb 1:3).
Isa 52:10, “The LORD hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God .”
Isa 40:5, “And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed , and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.”
Joh 1:14, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory , the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”
Heb 1:3, “ Who being the brightness of his glory , and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;”
Rom 3:23 Comments – The Greek verb (sinned) is used in the aorist tense, which defines a completed event that took place in the past, while the Greek verb (have fallen short) is used in the present tense, which defines an event taking place in the present. This combination of verbs can be equivalent to the perfect tense, which defines an event that took place in the past, whose effects continue to linger into the present. Rom 3:23 can be interpreted to mean that because we have sinned in the past, we now continue in the condition of failure before God in meeting His standard of righteousness.
Rom 3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
Rom 3:24
Illustration – For example, in the early 1980’s Steve Everett, my brother, and I stopped to put gas in our car. We met Al Schukose, our friend from church, at the gas station. He finished fueling his car and went to the booth to pay ahead of us. When Steve and I came up to pay, Al had already paid the debt for us. We did not owe anything. Because of Al’s grace towards us, we freely partook of something that required a payment.
Rom 3:25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
Rom 3:25
Heb 9:12, “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.”
1Jn 2:2, “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”
Rom 3:25 “to declare his righteousness” Comments Rom 3:25 says that God set Christ forthas His way of declaring His way of righteousness. One sign, or proof, that God is a just God is the fact that the blood of Jesus paid for sins already committed. That is, sin has to be paid for. Men will either pay the penalty of sin themselves in eternal hell, or they will accept the payment offered by the blood of Jesus. Hence, even Noah proclaimed God’s righteousness and His judgment (2Pe 2:5).
2Pe 2:5, “And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness , bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;”
Rom 3:25 “for the remission of sins that are past” Word Study on “that are past” Strong says the Greek word (G4266) means, “to be ready, to have previously transpired.” The Enhanced Strong says this word is used one time in the KJV, being translated, “be past 1.” Note other modern translations of this word:
ASV, “because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime”
NIV, “becausehe had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished”
RSV, “because he had passed over former sins”
YLT, “because of the passing over of the bygone sins”
Rom 3:25 “through the forbearance of God” Word Study on “forbearance” Strong says the Greek word “forbearance” “ paresis ” ( ) (G3929) means, “toleration.” The Enhanced Strong says this word is used one time in the KJV, being translated, “remission 1.”
Comments – The idea of passing over reminds us of the passing over of Israelite’s houses that were marked with blood by the death angel the night of their Exodus.
Rom 3:25 Comments Although God in His longsuffering towards man had passed over the sins of mankind committed under the Law through the blood sacrifice of animals. He publically set forth His Son before men as He hung on the Cross, pouring forth His wrath upon Jesus before all so that men would understand that the penalty of sin was death and damnation. There was no other means of dealing with sin. These blood sacrifices in the Tabernacle and Temple only offered a temporary covering of man’s sins until the day Jesus Christ paid for these sins through His shed blood. The atonement of Jesus Christ paid for all the sins of mankind, past, present, and future.
Rom 3:26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Rom 3:26
Rom 3:26 “that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” – Comments – God executes the law He has established. The law of faith says if we confess our sins, we are forgiven through the atonement Jesus Christ (1Jn 1:9).
1Jn 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Rom 3:27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.
Rom 3:27
Rom 3:31 Comments – Paul will now use the example of Abraham to reveal how the Old Testament Scriptures prove that God has always justified men through their faith in His promises apart from the Mosaic Law.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
God’s Righteousness (or Justification) Revealed Through The Gospel of Jesus Christ: Justified by Faith in Christ – Having established the fact that all are under sin and subject to God’s eternal wrath (Rom 1:18 to Rom 3:20), Paul then presents the answer of how man finds a right standing with God, which has been revealed since the Old Testament patriarchs (Rom 3:21 to Rom 4:25). Righteousness has always come by faith in God apart from works, and today it comes by faith in Jesus Christ alone (Rom 3:21-31). Paul then supports this statement by looking at the example of Abraham’s faith (Rom 4:1-25). His justification with God did not come by works (Rom 4:1-8), nor by circumcision and the Law (Rom 4:9-12), but by faith in the promises of God (Rom 4:13-25).
1. Righteousness by Faith in Christ Alone Rom 3:21-31
2. Righteousness Imputed Under the Old Covenant Rom 4:1-25
Sections Breaks in the Greek Text – The section break at Roman Rom 3:21 was chosen against another popular section break of Rom 3:19 because of the differences in the Greek text. While Rom 3:19 begins with the weaker conjunction , the stronger conjunction begins Rom 3:21.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Justification by Faith.
The righteousness of God revealed:
v. 21. But now the righteousness of God without the Law is manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the prophets;
v. 22. even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference,
v. 23. for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God;
v. 24. being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus;
v. 25. whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
v. 26. to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that he might be just, and the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. “Having proved that justification, on the ground of legal obedience or personal merits, is for all men impossible, Paul proceeds to unfold the method of salvation presented in the Gospel. ” (Hodge.) In v. 20 the sentence of condemnation concerning them all has been declared. And only he that has this knowledge of sin will incidentally comprehend, understand, what is really meant with the righteousness which is valid before God. The apostle places his statements as an expression of logical consequence: “But now. ” Although, then, all men are under the sentence of condemnation, there is still hope for them, there is a way of justification, of salvation, open for all of them. Without the Law the righteousness of God is revealed, manifested. The Law has nothing to do with this revelation; the righteousness which is here spoken of is not that of the Law. It is God’s method of justification which is here presented, as in chap. 1:17. It is the righteousness of which God is the Source and Author, which comes from Him alone, which He alone can give, and which therefore is acceptable in His sight. It is the righteousness which is imputed to us by God for the sake of Jesus Christ, of which Luther confesses: “Therefore this is a majestic preaching and heavenly wisdom that we believe: our righteousness, salvation, and consolation are outside of us, that we should be righteous, acceptable, holy, and wise before God, and still there is in us only sin, unrighteousness, and foolishness. In my conscience there is nothing but the feeling and the memory of sin and of the terrors of death, and yet I should look elsewhere and believe that sin and death is not there. ” Justification does not designate a moral change in man, but signifies a forensic act on the part of God, by which He imputes to us, makes us possessors of, a righteousness which was not ours, which we did not merit: But whom God justifies, declares to be righteous, he is righteous, although all the world and all devils unite in condemning him, though even his own conscience blames and condemns him. This righteousness has been manifested, it has been made plain, placed in the light. The sentence of God according to which the sinner is declared righteous was spoken and existed in Christ before the foundation of the world. And this is now made known to sinners through the Gospel, by the witness of the Law and the prophets, the two principal parts of the Old Testament Scriptures, in both of which parts the Gospel-message was plainly contained; for the prophecies of Christ proclaimed the salvation in and through Christ.
This thought is again taken up in the next verse for further explanation: The righteousness; namely, before God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and upon all that believe. That is the righteousness to which the apostle refers, the righteousness which is valid before, acceptable to. God, and which becomes the possession of all those that believe in Jesus Christ, the God-man, the Messiah, and thus accept the salvation which has made justification possible. The Gospel-message works faith in the hearts of men, and this faith does not earn or merit righteousness before God, but accepts, receives, and appropriates the imputed righteousness. Faith is the trustful acceptance of the mercy of salvation. By believing the Gospel, the believer accepts and appropriates his Savior, Jesus Christ, and therefore also the righteousness which Jesus has prepared. The righteousness of God is intended for all those that believe, and therefore it also is poured forth like a stream upon all those that believe. Whoever believes, no matter what his antecedents and his history, by his faith receives what God offers, and thus becomes the possessor of this great blessing of the New Testament.
That there can be neither the merit of a natural excellency nor even that of the act of believing in the believers, is evident from the nest words of the apostle: For there is no difference, no distinction among men as to their relation toward God, for they all, also the believers, have sinned and are lacking the glory of God; they have no standing before God by nature, they have nothing that they can boast of before Him. It is because they are conscious of their own sinfulness and of their moral destitution before the omniscient and holy God that they cling to their Savior in faith and accept His righteousness, which makes them acceptable and just before God.
Justification is thus, as the apostle states, transmitted freely, as a gift, through the grace of God, which alone can be the source of mercy. And it is made possible through the redemption, literally, through the deliverance by the paying of ransom, of Jesus Christ. Jesus had redeemed us from all our sins and from the wrath of God by staking a price, a ransom, for our souls, Mat 20:28; Mar 10:45; 1Ti 2:6; Tit 2:14. And this price of ransom was none other than His own precious blood. Eph 1:7; Col 1:14; 1Pe 1:18-19. And the manner in which He paid this wonderful price is fully described. God has set Him forth as a mercy seat through faith in His blood; that was the purpose, the intention! of God as put into practice in the sacrifice of Calvary, Joh 3:14. Jesus is the true Mercy-seat, of whom the cover of the ark in the Most Holy Place was but a feeble type. Just as the high priest of the Old Testament, on the great Day of Atonement, sprinkled the blood of the sacrifice against the lid of the ark, thereby making reconciliation for the sins of the entire people. Lev 16:30, thus Jesus is the perfect Mercy seat in His own blood. High Priest, Sacrifice, and Mercy-seat in one person, Jesus has fulfilled all types of Old Testament sacrifices by the shedding of His holy blood as a ransom for the sins of the world. Thus He became the true Mediator between God and men, covering all our sin, guilt, shame, and nakedness before the eyes of God, and obtaining a perfect redemption for all men. And the reconciliation thus obtained becomes our possession and property by faith in His blood: God looks upon the precious blood of His Son, through which the sins of the whole world are expiated, through which all sinners are delivered from sin, guilt, wrath and damnation: and for the sake of this bloody sacrifice and perfect merit of Christ He pronounces the sinners just and holy.
Having set forth the nature and ground of the Gospel method of justification. Paul now states its object: For the declaration of His righteousness. God has set forth Jesus, His Son, the Redeemer, as the true Mercy-seat, is still setting Him forth before the eyes of the entire world of sinners, Gal 3:1, in order to show forth His righteousness. It was an act of the righteousness of God that He condemned His Son, the Substitute for all sinners, to the violent death of the cross; by setting forth Christ in His wounds and blood before the eyes of all men, He declared His righteousness before the whole world. The avenging righteousness and holiness of God could not be satisfied with less, it must demand the supreme sacrifice. And such an open declaration and demonstration of the essential righteousness of God was all the more necessary because of the passing over of the sins committed before in the forbearance of God. On account of the great patience and forbearance of God in the period before Christ the sins of men had remained unpunished, apart from a few extraordinary manifestations of God’s avenging justice, Act 14:16; Act 17:30. Even though death, the wages of sin, reigned from Adam to Christ, yet it was a time of comparative impunity, and it was a demonstration of the forbearance of God that sinful people could live years and generations in their sins before they were called away by death. But now, at the present time, in the new dispensation. God demonstrated His righteousness. The very act of overlooking the sins in the time before the advent of Christ had been done in view of this demonstration of His righteousness in the present time. During all the centuries before the coming of Christ, the divine justice, on account of the righteousness of God, had demanded the punishment of sinners. And the full punishment had been meted out to Christ, the Substitute for all sinners of all times. “The death of Christ vindicated the justice of God in forgiving sin in all ages of the world, since those sins were by the righteous God punished in Christ. ” The punishment of the sinners which was taken over by Christ is full expiation for all sins; by His suffering and death He has paid the debt in full, He has exhausted wrath and judgment. And the setting forth of Christ as the true Mercy-seat was done finally for the purpose, in order to be Himself just and to justify him who is of the faith of Jesus, in demanding from Christ, the Substitute of sinners, the full payment of the guilt of sin, God proved Himself to be the Just One. And in sending forth Christ to make this vicarious sacrifice, and in being in Christ for the reconciliation of the world, God justified the sinners, pronounced them pure and righteous, the justification actually becoming the possession of him that accepts it by faith in Jesus, in whom this faith is characteristic, whose entire religious and moral nature has its source in his faith in Jesus.
Justification
The doctrine of the justification of a poor sinner before God is the central doctrine of Christian faith, the doctrine with which the Church stands and falls. “If this article of justification is lost, then there is lost at the same time the entire Christian doctrine… For in it are contained all the other articles of our faith, and if this one is considered in the right light, then all the others will be judged properly… If this article is put aside, then nothing remains but error, hypocrisy, godlessness, idolatry, no matter how much it may appear as the highest truth. ” “From this article we can yield or recede nothing, no matter if heaven and earth fall and everything that will not remain. For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved, says Peter, Act 4:12. And by His stripes we are healed, Isa 53:3. And upon this article everything rests that we teach and live against the Pope, devil, and the world. Therefore we must be altogether sure of it and not doubt, else everything is lost, and Pope and devil and everything will have and keep the victory and right against us.”
Every effort has been made by the sectarians and false teachers to weaken the force of the glorious passage, 3:21-28. Some have maintained that the righteousness of God here referred to is merely the divine attribute, the justice, mercy, and general rectitude of God. If this were true, however, then this quality of God would be revealed outside of the Law, v. 22, and would become the actual property and attribute of the believer by faith, v. 23. Others have declared that the righteousness of God is the quality of being good, as demanded by the Law and wrought through the power of God in the hearts of men. But the righteousness spoken of in the text is revealed without the cooperation of the Law, and a perfect moral and civic righteousness is not possible without the Law as given by God. The righteousness which the apostle speaks of is one without the Law, with which the Law has nothing to do. It is God’s method of justification. “The method of justification by works being impossible, God has revealed another, already taught indeed, both in the Law and prophets, a method which is not legal (without Law), i. e. , not on the condition of obedience to the Law, but on the condition of faith, which is applicable to all men, and perfectly gratuitous. ” Justification, therefore, is the act of God by which He declares a man to be righteous, pronounces him righteous, states that he is free from the sentence of condemnation, openly asserts that the accused is no longer guilty or worthy of punishment.
This justification, this merciful declaration of God, is imputed to the sinner by faith, Act 13:38-39, without the deeds of the Law. All merit on the part of man, both as to righteous deeds and a proper attitude toward God and His mercy, are excluded, and even faith itself as the fountain or root or germinating power of good works. Even when faith exercises its own peculiar office and quality, and in this way takes hold of, accepts, the grace of God and the righteousness of Christ, faith comes into consideration only inasmuch as it is the creation of God in the heart of man for the purpose of receiving the judgment of mercy. It is not the act of apprehending that justifies the believer, but only the thing which is apprehended. The factor that induces God to declare a man righteous and just is altogether and alone the object of faith. Truly, “by grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast,” Eph 2:8-9. “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the Law; for by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified,” Gal 2:16.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Rom 3:21. But now, &c. But now a righteousness of God without law is discovered, being testified by the law and the prophets, (Rom 3:22.) even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, &c. See the note on chap. Rom 1:17. The question with the Apostle is, “Upon what footing do either Jews or Gentiles obtain this instance of justification or salvation,namely, to have a place among God’s people, in his family and kingdom, and to be made meet to be partakers of the promises, and of the heavenly calling?” Now in a court of judicature there are two ways of righteousness, or justification. First, when a person stands upon his obedience to law, or a rule of action; then righteousness, justification, or a right to the blessing, whatever it be, is his due; and the lawgiver is bound by his own constitution to give it: this is the righteousness or justification which is of law or works. The other way of justification is, by the mere grace or favour of the lawgiver. When the law is transgressed, the sinner has no dependence but upon the mercy and goodness of the lawgiver or judge, and can be justified only by his grace, remitting sin, and conferring the undeserved blessings. Now this is the righteousness or justification of God without law, because it is provided and granted by him, setting aside law, or in a way different from that in which law justifies; or, it is the righteousness or justification of faith, as it is answered on our part, only by belief and trust in the mercy and favour of God. Law and works give us a right which the lawgiver cannot deny, unless he will reverse and break his own constitution, granting life and happiness to the obedient; which constitution the Apostle here supposes: but grace and faith suppose that we are transgressors, obnoxious to wrath; and that if we escape destruction, and obtain any blessings, it is purely because the judge is merciful, and of his own sovereign goodness chooses to spare us, and to bestow farther favours upon us. Of works, as antecedent to justification, and inconsistent with grace and faith, the Apostle speaks, in chapters 3: Rom 4:5 : Rom 9:10 : Of works, as consequent to justification, and consistent with grace and faith, he discourses, chapters Rom 6:7 : Rom 8:12 : Rom 13:14 : Or thus,Of grace and faith, as excluding works, he discourses in chapters 3: Rom 4:5 : Rom 9:10 : Of grace and faith, as obliging to good works, and producing them, he speaks in chapters Rom 6:7 : Rom 8:12 : Rom 13:14 : Or it may otherwise be expressed thus:Of the terms of our present admittance into the kingdom and covenant of God, he discourses in chapters 3: Rom 4:5 : Rom 9:10 : and of our obligations to obedience, after we are taken into them, he discourses in chapters vi, vii, &c. But it is proper to observe, that by what is here offered, it is not meant that no works or obedience but what are sinless will be accepted; or as if there were no allowance for repentance, or no benefit of pardon, now that we are taken into the kingdom and covenant of God. For pardon, upon repentance, is one of the privileges of that kingdom, and a blessing freely given us in Christ, and not to us only, but to the truly penitent in all ages and nations, who will be pardoned at last, though they have not in this life such clear knowledge of it as we enjoy.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Rom 3:21 . [810] is usually interpreted here as a pure adverb of time (“nostris temporibus hac in parte felicissimis,” Grotius). So also Tholuck, Reiche, Rckert, Olshausen, Baumgarten-Crusius, Winzer, Reithmayr, Philippi, van Hengel, Mehring, Th. Schott, and others. But since what precedes was not given as a delineation of the past , there appears here not the contrast between two periods , but that between two relations , the relation of dependence on the law and the relation of independence on the law ( . ). Hence with Beza, Pareus, Piscator, Estius, Koppe, Fritzsche, de Wette, Matthias, and Hofmann, we render: but in this state of the case . See regarding this dialectic use of the Hartung, Partikell . II. p. 25; Baeuml. Part . p. 95; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. II. p. 181. Comp Rom 7:17 ; 1Co 5:11 ; 1Co 12:18 ; 1Co 13:13 , al [812] ; 4Ma 6:33 ; 4Ma 13:3 . By Greek authors is not thus used, only .
] placed with full emphasis at the beginning as the opposite of , belongs to . Aptly rendered by Luther: “ without the accessory aid of the law,” i.e. so that in this revelation of the righteousness of God the law is left out of account. Reiche (following Augustine, de grat. Chr. 1, 8, and de spir. et. Lev 9Lev 9 , Wolf, and others) joins it with .: “the righteousness of God as being imparted to the believer without the law, without the Mosaic law helping him thereto.” Compare also Winzer, Klee, Mehring. But apart from the coactior constructio , with which Estius already found fault, we may urge against this view the parallel of , Rom 3:20 , which words also do not belong to . but to the verb to be supplied.
] is made manifest and lies open to view , so that it presents itself to the knowledge of every one; the present of the completed action, Heb 9:26 . The expression itself presupposes the previous (Col 3:3 f.; Mar 4:22 ), the having been hidden , in accordance with which the righteousness of God has not yet been the object of experimental perception. To men it was an unknown treasure . The mode of the however consists in the . having become actual , having passed into historical reality, and having been made apparent, which has been accomplished without mixing up the law as a co-operative factor in the matter.
. . . . . .] An accompanying characteristic definition of , so far as the latter is made manifest: being witnessed , etc. If it is thus the case with regard to it, that in its it is attested by the witness of the law and the prophets, then this precludes the misconception that the revealed is opposed or foreign to the O. T., and consequently an innovation without a background in sacred history. Comp Rom 16:26 ; Joh 5:39 . “Novum testamentum in vetere latet, vetus in novo patet,” Augustine. In this case we are not to think of the moral requirements (Th. Schott), but of the collective Messianic types, promises and prophecies in the law and the prophets, in which is also necessarily comprised the as that which is necessary to participation in the Messianic salvation. Comp Rom 1:2 , Rom 3:2 ; Act 10:43 ; Act 28:23 ; Luk 24:27 ; from the law, the testimony of Abraham, Rom 4:3 ff. and the testimonies quoted in Rom 10:6 ff.
Observe further that . has the emphasis, in contrast to , not (Bengel, Fritzsche and others). We may add Bengel’s apt remark: “Lex stricte (namely, in ) et late (in ) dicitur.”
[810] See Winzer, Comm. in Rom. iii. 21 28, Partic. I. and II. 1829.
[812] l. and others; and other passages; and other editions.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
Rom 3:21-30 . Paul has hitherto been proving that all men are under sin, and guilty before God. This was the preparatory portion of the detailed illustration of the theme set forth in ch. Rom 1:17 ; for before anything else there had to be recognised the general necessity of a not founded on the law as indeed such a legal righteousness has shown itself to be impossible. Now however he exhibits this provided from another source the righteousness of God which comes from faith to all without distinction, to believing Jews and Gentiles. Hofmann rejects this division, in consequence of his having erroneously taken in Rom 3:9 as the utterance of the Christians . He thinks that the Apostle only now comes to the conclusion, at which he has been aiming ever since the fifth verse: as to what makes Christians, as distinguished from others, assured of salvation.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
Sixth Section.The revelation of Gods righteousness without the law by faith in Christ for all sinners without distinction, by the representation of Christ as the Propitiator (mercy-seat). The righteousness of God in Christ as justifying righteousness.
Rom 3:21-26
Seventh SectionThe annulling of mans vain-glory (self-praise) by the law of faith. Justification by faith without the deeds of the law. First proof: from experience: God is the God of the Gentiles as well as of the Jewsproved by the actual faith of the Gentiles. True renewal of the law by faith.
Rom 3:27-31
21But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested [But now, apart from the law,46 the righteousness of God hath been made manifest47], being 22witnessed [testified to, attested] by the law and the prophets; Even48 the righteousness of God which is by [by means of, through] faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all49 them that believe; for there is no difference: 23For all have sinned [all sinned, i.e., they are all sinners],50 and come [fall] short [, in the present tense] of the glory of God; 24Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25Whom God hath [omit hath] set forth [] to be a propitiation [mercy-seat]51 through [the52] faith [,] in his blood, to declare [for a manifestation (exhibition) of, .] his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past [because of the prtermission (non-visitation, passing by) of the former sins, (not ) (not ) ]53 through [in, ] the forbearance 26of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness; that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus [with a view to the manifestation (exhibition, 54 ) of his righteousness at this present time, in order that he may be (shown and seen to be) just and (yet at the same time) be justifying him who is of the faith of (in) Jesus, ].55
27Where is [the] boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? [By the law] 8of works? Nay; but by the law of faith. Therefore [For]56 we conclude [judge] that a man is justified by faith57 without the deeds [without 29works] of the law.58 [Or, ] Is he the God of the Jews only?59 is he not also 30of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: Seeing60 it is one God, which shall [who will] justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith. 31Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: [Far be it!] yea, we establish61 the law.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
First Paragraph, Rom 3:21-26
Contrast between the saving time of justification and the old time of sin and death.
Rom 3:21. But now, .Explanations of : 1. Contrast of times [at this time, under the gospel dispensation, = , Rom 3:26]; (Grotius, Tholuck, Philippi [Olshausen, Wordsworth, Hodge], and others); 2. contrast of circumstances [as things are]: earlier dependence on the law, now independence of the law [ ], (Pareus, Piscat., Meyer, De Wette [Fritzsche, Alford. In this sense the classics use only , not , but the latter is so used repeatedly in Hellenistic Greek]); 3. in soteriology the two contrasts of time and condition coincide.Apart from the law [of Moses, ]: 1. It is referred to (Luther, Tholuck, Meyer, and others); 2. to (Augustine, Wolf [Reiche, Hodge], and others): the righteousness of God which the believer shares without the law [or rather, without works of the law, , Gal 2:16]. The latter view is not correct. [Comp. in Rom 3:20, which likewise belongs not to the noun , but to the verb to be supplied. Also Text. Note1.P. S.]
[The righteousness of God. Comp. the Exeg. Notes on Rom 1:17. It is the righteousness which proceeds from God (gen. auctoris), which personally appeared in Christ, who is our Righteousness, and which is communicated to the believer for Christs sake in the act of justification by faith. It is both objective, or inherent in God and realized in Christ, and subjective, or imparted to man. It is here characterized by a series of antitheses: independent of the law, yet authenticated by the law and the prophets (Rom 3:21); freely () bestowed on the believer, yet fully paid for by the redemption price ( ) of Christ (24); intrinsically holy, yet justifying the sinner (26); thus uniting the character of the moral governor of the universe, and the merciful Father who provided a free salvation.P. S.]
Has been made manifest, . This is now the complete revelation of righteousness; as Joh 1:17 represents the complete revelation of grace and truth; and as Eph 1:19 represents the complete revelation of omnipotence. All are single definitions of the completed New Testament revelation itself. The expression does not absolutely presuppose the previous concealment in Gods council (Meyer).62 For the Old Testament was the increasing revelation of God, also in reference to righteousness. But compared with this completeness, the growing revelation was still as a veil.Being testified to [, put first with reference to , which it qualifies] by the law and the prophets [i.e., the Old Testament Scriptures; Mat 5:17; Mat 7:12; Mat 22:40, &c.; just as we now say the Bible. has here, as Bengel remarks, a wider sense than in the preceding .P. S.] There is therefore no contradiction between the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament is in substance a prophetic witness of the New, and therefore also of the righteousness of faith (see chap. 4., and Rom 10:6; Act 10:43; chap. 15). And not only do the prophets (Isa 28:16; Hab 2:4) testify to this righteousness, but so does the law also in its stricter sense (the patriarchs, &c.); yea, even its strictest sense; for example, the law of the sin-offering (Leviticus 16). [Augustine: Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet; Vetus T. in Novo patet. See the proof in chap. 4 from the case of Abraham and the declarations of David.P. S.]
Rom 3:22. Through faith of Jesus Christ.63 The usual explanation is, through faith in Jesus Christ [genitive of the object].64 Meyer produces in its favor the usage of language (Mar 11:22; Act 3:16; Gal 2:20; Gal 3:22; Eph 3:12, &c.), as well as the essential relation of the ; to the . [These parallel passages, to which may be added Gal 2:16; Eph 4:13; Php 3:9; Jam 2:1; Rev 14:12, seem to me conclusive in favor of the usual interpretation that our faith in Christ is meant here; comp. also , Rom 3:26. But Dr. Lange strongly fortifies his new interpretation: Christs faithfulness, to us, taking as the genitive of the subject.P. S.] The explanation of Benecke, the faithfulness of Christ, is overlooked even by Tholuck. We make it, Christs believing faithfulness [Glaubenstreue]. Reasons: 1. The (Rom 3:3), and the coherency of the ideas, , , and , in opposition to the ideas: , , and corresponding with the ideas: righteousness of God, righteousness of Christ, righteousness by faith. 2. The addition in this passage of ; with which we must compare Rom 1:17, . 3. The passages, Gal 3:22; Eph 3:12; comp. Heb 12:2. As to His knowledge, Christ of course did not walk by faith, but by sight; but as regards the moral principle of faithconfidence and faithfulnessHe is the Prince of faith. 4. We cannot say of the righteousness of God, that it was first revealed by faith in Christ. The revelation of Gods righteousness in the faithfulness of Christ is the ground of justifying faith, but faith is not the ground of this Revelation 5. So also the , Rom 3:25, cannot be regarded as substantiating the .
Unto all and upon all.. The denotes the direction, the ideal dynamic determination of the ; the , the fulfilment, the appropriation. [This must, of course, not be understood in a Universalistic sense. See Textual Note4.P. S.] Both prepositions have been combined in various ways as identical, and explained as strengthening the thought for all (thus Rckert, and others); on the contrary, Theodoret, cumenius, and others, have arbitrarily referred to the Jews, and to the Gentiles; according to Morus, and others, , &c., is construed as a further explanation of the .
For there is no difference. On account of , this clause refers to the former. There is neither a difference between Jews and Gentiles, nor, in reference to the necessity of justification, is there a difference between those who have shown themselves, according to Rom 2:7 ff., doers or transgressors of the law.
Rom 3:23. For all sinned [they are all sinners; Luther: sie sind allzumal Snder]. They sinned, in the sense that they have become sinners. Therefore aor. (II.), and not perfect. They sinned in such a way that they are still sinning.65 But their righteousness was altogether lost when their transgression began.And fall short of the glory [, in the present tense. All sinned, and consequently they come short]. . Explanations: 1. Glorying before God, gloriatio66 (Erasmus, Luther, Rosenmller and others). 2. The as the image of God (Flacius, Chemnitz, Rckert, Olshausen; see 1Co 11:7). 3. The glory of eternal life [as in Rom 3:2], (cumenius, Glckler, &c., Beza, Bengel, as sharing in the glory of God). 4. Honor before God, i.e., in the estimation of God (Calvin [gloria qu coram Deo locum habet], Kllner). 5. The honor which God gives, i.e., the approbation of God (the genit. auct.); Piscat., Grotius, Philippi, Meyer [Fritzsche, De Wette, Alford, Hodge]. Tholuck: The declaration of honor, like the declaration of righteousness.67 This would give the strange sense: because they lack the declaration of righteousness on the part of God, they are to be declared righteous. It must not be overlooked that men belong here who, as inward Jews, according to Rom 2:29, have already . Certainly, the question is concerning righteousness before God, because the question concerns Gods judicial tribunal. But what men were wanting since Adams fall, is not the righteousness of justificationfor it is by this that that want is to be suppliedbut the righteousness of life (not to be confounded with the righteousness by the works of the law), as the true glory or radiance of life [ in the sense of splendor, majesty, perfection, Lange translates it: Gerechtigkeitsglanz, Lebensruhm.P. S.]. But as the of man must come from the of God in order to avail before Him, so also the . Therefore the alternative, from God or before God, is a wrong alternative.68 But the supply is equal to the want: the of Christ becomes the of the believer, and therefore Christs his (Romans 8).69
Rom 3:24. Being justified freely.70. The participle , in connection with what follows, specifies both the mode by which their want of Divine becomes perfectly manifest, and the opposite which comes to supply this want. The does not merely come to supply the want of glory (according to Luthers translation: and are justified [Peshito, Fritzsche, = ]), but by the , the fact of that becomes perfectly apparent. The individual judgment and the individual deliverance are, in fact, joined into one: repentance and faith; hunger and thirst after righteousness, and fulness.
[Note on the Scripture meaning of . depends grammatically on , but contains in fact the main idea: ut qui justificentur (Beza, Tholuck, Meyer). This is the locus classicus of the doctrine of justification by free grace through faith in Christ, in its inseparable connection with the atonement, as its objective basis. The verb occurs forty times in the New Testament (twice in Matthew, five times in Luke, twice in Acts, twenty-seven times in Pauls Epistles, three times in James, once in the Apocalypse. In the Gospel and Epistles of John, as also in Peter and James, the verb never occurs, although they repeatedly use the noun and the adjective ). It must be taken here, as nearly always in the Bible, in the declaratory, forensic or judicial sense, as distinct from, though by no means opposed to, or abstractly separated from, a mere executive act of pardoning, and an efficient act of making just inwardly or sanctifying. It denotes an act of jurisdiction, the pronouncing of a sentence, not the infusion of a quality. This is the prevailing Hellenistic usage, corresponding to the Hebrew . Comp., for the Old Testament, the Septuagint in Gen 38:26; Gen 44:16; Exo 23:7 (); Deu 25:1; 2Sa 15:4; 1Ki 8:32; Psa 82:3; Pro 17:15; Isa 5:23; for the New Testament, Mat 12:37; Luk 10:29; Luk 16:15; Luk 18:14 (where evidently refers to the publicans prayer for forgiveness of sin); Act 13:39; Rom 2:13; Rom 3:4; Rom 3:20; Rom 3:24; Rom 3:26; Rom 3:28; Rom 3:30; Rom 4:2; Rom 4:5; v. 1, 9; Rom 8:30; Rom 8:33; 1Co 4:4; 1Co 6:11; Gal 2:16-17; Gal 3:8; Gal 3:11; Gal 3:24; Gal 5:4; Tit 3:7; Jam 2:21-25; Rev 22:11. There is, to my knowledge, no passage in the New Testament, and only two or three in the Septuagint (Psa 73:13 : ; Isa 53:11 : ; comp. Dan 12:3 : ), where means to make just, or, to lead to righteousness. The declarative sense is especially apparent in those passages where man is said to justify God, who is just, and cannot be made just, but only accounted and acknowledged as just; Luk 7:29; Luk 7:35; Mat 11:19; Rom 3:4 (from Psa 51:5); comp. also 1Ti 3:16, where Christ is said to be justified in spirit.
The declarative and forensic meaning of the phrase, , may be proven (1) from the opposite phrase, , which is equivalent to , Gal 3:11 (or , Gal 3:10), or , Rom 3:20; i.e., to be justified in the sight or in the judgment of God; (2) from the term , to account for righteous, which is used in the same sense as , Rom 4:3; Rom 4:5; Rom 4:9; Rom 4:23-24; Gal 3:6; Jam 2:23, and is almost equivalent with , to save (comp. Rom 5:9-10; Rom 10:9-10; Rom 10:13; Eph 2:5 ff.); (3) from the use of the opposite word to condemn, e.g., Pro 17:15 : He that justifieth (, LXX.: ) the wicked, and he that condemneth () the just, even they both are abomination to the Lord, in the translation of the Vulgate: Qui justificat impium et qui condemnat justum, abominabilis est uterque apud Deum. He who would implant righteousness in a wicked man, or lead him into the way of righteousness, would doubtless be acceptable to God. So also Mat 12:37 : By thy words shalt thou be justified (), and by thy words thou shalt be condemned ().
The corresponding noun, (which occurs only twice in the New Testament, viz., Rom 4:25; Rom 5:18), justification (Rechtfertigung), is the opposite of , condemnation; comp. Mat 12:37; Rom 8:1; Rom 8:33-34; hence the antithesis of and , Rom 5:16; Rom 5:18. Justification implies, negatively, the remission of sins ( ), and, positively, the imputation of Christs righteousness, or the adoption (, Gal 4:5; Eph 1:5).
No human being can so keep the law of God, which demands perfect love to Him and to our neighbor, that on the ground of his own works he could ever be declared righteous before the tribunal of a holy God. He can only be so justified freely, without any merit of his own, on the objective ground of the perfect righteousness of Christ, as apprehended, and thus made subjective by a living faith, or life-union with Him. This justifying grace precedes every truly good work on our part, but is at the same time the actual beginning of all good works. There is no true holiness except on the ground of the atonement and the remission of sin, and the holiness of the Christian is but a manifestation of love and gratitude for the boundless mercy of God already received and constantly experienced.
This I take to be the true evangelical or Pauline view of justification, in opposition to the interpretation of Roman Catholics and Rationalists, who, from opposite standpoints, agree in taking in the sense of making just, or sanctifying, and in regarding good works as a joint condition, with faith, of progressive justification. The objection that God cannot pronounce a man just if he is not so in fact, has force only against that mechanical and exclusively forensic view which resolves justification into a sort of legal fiction, or a cold, lifeless imputation, and separates it from the broader and deeper doctrine of a life-union of the believer with Christ. Certainly God, unlike any human judge, is absolutely true and infallible; He speaks, and it is done; His declaratory acts are creative, efficient acts. But mark, the sinner is not justified outside of Christ, but only in Christ, on the ground of His perfect sacrifice, and on condition of true faith, by which he actually becomes one with Christ, and a partaker of His holy life. So, when God declares him righteous, he is righteous potentially, a new creature in Christ; old things having passed away, and all things having become new (1Co 5:7). And God, who sees the end from the beginning, sees also the full-grown fruit in the germ, and by His gracious promise assures its growth. Justifying faith is itself a work of Divine grace in us, and the fruitful source of all our good works. On the part of God, then, and in point of fact, the actus declaratorius can indeed not be abstractly separated from the actus efficiens: the same grace which justifies, does also renew, regenerate, and sanctify; faith and love, justification and sanctification, are as inseparable in the life of the Christian, as light and heat in the rays of the sun. When God doth justify the ungodly, says Owen (on Justification, vol. v. p. 127, Goolds ed.), on account of the righteousness imputed unto him, He doth at the same instant, by the power of His grace, make him inherently and subjectively righteous, or holy. Nevertheless, we must distinguish in the order of logic. Justification, like regeneration (which is the corresponding and simultaneous or preceding inner operation of the Holy Spirit), is a single act, sanctification a continuous process; they are related to each other like birth and growth; justification, moreover, depends not at all on what man is or has done, but on what Christ has done for us in our nature; and, finally, good works are no cause or condition, but a consequence and manifestation of justification. Comp. Doctrinal and Ethical, No. 5, below; also the Exeg. Notes on Rom 1:17; Rom 2:13; Rom 3:20.P. S.]
Freely. , as a gift, gratis, not by merit (Rom 4:4; comp. 2Th 3:8). [Comp. also , Rom 5:17, and , Eph 2:3.P. S.]By his grace. The idea of grace denotes the union of Gods love and righteousness, the highest manifestation of His favor, which, by its voluntary operation, as love, destroys the sinners guilt freely, and which, as righteousness, destroys the guilt on conditions of justice. [Gracei.e., Gods love to the sinner, saving love, is the efficient cause, redemption by the blood of Christ the objective means, faith the subjective condition, of justification is emphatically put before . Justification on the part of God is an act of pure grace (Eph 2:8-10; Gal 2:21), and is the very opposite of or (Rom 4:4; Rom 11:6). Faith, on our part, is not a meritorious act, but simply the acceptance and appropriation of Gods free gift, and is itself wrought in us by Gods Spirit, without whom no one can call Jesus Lord (1Co 12:3).P. S.]
Through the redemption, . The grace of God is marked as the causality of this . This is therefore to be regarded here as the most general view of the fact of redemption, as is also plain from the addition, . . [in Christ, not through Christ; comp. Eph 1:7; ]. The , or redemption,71 in the wider sense, and viewed as a fundamental and accomplished fact, comprehends: 1. [change from enmity to friendship, reconciliation], Rom 5:10; 2Co 5:18 : freedom from the enmity and rancor of sin. 2. [propitiation, expiation], 2Co 5:14; Rom 3:21; Gal 3:13 [ ]; Eph 1:7 [ … ]; Col 1:14; Heb 2:17 : freedom from the guilt of sin. 3. in the narrower sense, Rom 5:17; Rom 6:2; Rom 6:18; Rom 6:22; Rom 8:2; Rom 8:21; Gal 5:1; Tit 2:14; Heb 2:15; Rom 3:18 : freedom from the dominion of sin. The same , viewed in its ultimate aim and effect, means the transposition from the condition of the militant to the triumphant Church: Luk 21:28 [the day of redemption draweth nigh]; Rom 8:23; Eph 1:7; Eph 1:14; Eph 4:30. The is justly represented here as the central saving agency of the whole . [Hodge: Redemption from the wrath of God by the blood of Christ. Philippi, Alford, and others: deliverance from the guilt and punishment of sin by the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ. The one of course implies the other.P. S.]
Rom 3:25.72 Whom God set forth. Explanations of : 1. Previously purposed, designed, decreed (Chrysostom, cumenius, Fritzsche [Forbes], and others, with reference to Eph 1:9);73 2. Kypke: substituit, nostro loco dedit. Against the meaning of .74 3. Publicly set forth (Vulgate, Luther, Beza, Bengel, De Wette, Philippi, Meyer, Tholuck [E. V., Alford, Hodge; also Delitzsch, Comm. on Heb., 9:5]). Meyer: This signification of , well known from the Greek usage (Herod., 3:148; Rom 6:21; Platos Phdr., p. 115, E., &c.), must be decidedly accepted, because of the correlation to .75 The peculiar interest of God is indicated by the middle voice. It was manifested through the crucifixion; compare the discourse of Jesus, in John, where He compares Himself with the serpent of Moses; John 376
This explanation acquires its full weight by the following , a substantive of neuter form, made from the adjective , which relates to expiatory acts; see the Lexicons. In the Septuagint especially it is the designation of the mercy-seat, or the lid or cover of the ark, , which was sprinkled by the high-priest with the blood of the sin-offering once a year, on the great day of atonement [and over which appeared the shekinah, or ; Lev 16:13-16; Exo 25:17-22. Comp Bhr: Symbolik des mosaischen Cultus, 1837, vol. i., p. 379 ff., 387 ff., and Lundius, Jd. Heiligthmer, Hamb. 1711, p. 33 ff.P. S.]. Besides, the settle, or lower platform [] of the altar of burnt-offering [Eze 43:14; Eze 43:17; Eze 43:20] was so named [because the Asarah, like the Capporeth, was to be sprinkled with the blood of atonement, or because it was the platform from which the sin-offering was offered.P. S.]. See also Exo 25:22, and other places. Explanations: 1. Expiatory sacrifice, sin-offering (Shnopfer).77 Some supply [which, however, is unnecessary, being used as a noun]. (So Clericus, Reiche, De Wette, Kllner, Fritzsche [Meyer, Alford, Conybeare and Howson, Jowett, Wordsworth, Hodge, Ewald]). 2. Means of propitiation [Shnmittel] (Vulgate: propitiatio; Castellio: placamentum; Morus, Usteri, Rckert).78 3. The mercy-seat, or covering of the ark of the covenant [Origen, Theodoret, Theophylact, Augustine], (Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Grotius, Calov., Olshausen, Philippi [Tholuck, Forbes]). Against the first exposition it may be urged: (a.) The expiatory offering is not brought to man on Gods part, but man brings it to God by the high-priest (see Philippi)79 (b). The offering is not publicly set forth. (c). The permanence of the operation of the offering requires another expression, and this is Christ crucified as the permanent atonement itself. This sets aside also the second explanation, which, moreover, is too abstract (Meyer). Arguments in favor of the third explanation: (a.) The Septuagint [uniformly] has translated (Exo 25:18-21, &c. [twenty-six passages according to Frsts Hebrew Concordance]).80 (b.) In Heb 9:5, means the mercy-seat. (c.) This view is sustained by the idea pervading the whole Epistle, of the contrast between the old worship, which was partly heathen and partly only symbolical, and the real New Testament worship. The verb [ad spectandum proponere] likewise favors it.81 As, according to Joh 1:14, the , or Shekinah, openly appeared in the person of Christ from the secrecy of the Holy of holies, and has dwelt among men, so, according to the present passage, is the set forth from the Holy of holies into the publicity of the whole world for believers. See Zec 13:1; the open fountain. (d.) The unites as symbol the different elements of the atonement. As the covering of the ark of the covenant itself, it is the throne of the divine government of the cherubim above, and the preservation of the law, with its requirements, below. But with the sprinkled blood of expiation, it is a sacrifice offered to God, and therefore the satisfaction for the demands of the divine law below. Also Philo called the covering of the ark of the covenant the symbol of the gracious majesty [] of God [Vit. Mos., p. 668; comp. Josephus, Antiq. iii. 6, 5.P. S.].
Meyer [admits that this interpretation agrees with the usage of the word, especially in the LXX., and gives good sense by representing Christ as the anti-typical Capporeth, or mercy-seat; but, nevertheless, he] urges against it the following objections:82 (a.) That is without the article. But this would exclude the antitype, the Old Testament . The requisite articulation is here in . [With more reason we might miss . Christ may be called our pascha, or the true pascha, or the true mercy-seat, rather than simply pascha or mercy-seat. Yet this is by no means conclusive.P. S.] (b.) The name, in its application to Christ, is too abrupt. Answer: Since there must be a place of expiation for every expiatory offering, the conceptions of places and offerings of expiation must have been quite familiar to the readers, not merely to the Jews, but also to the Gentiles, although here the idea is connected with the Old Testament symbol. (c.) If Christ should be conceived as Capporeth, then the would be improper, since the Capporeth must much rather appear as of divine grace. This objection rests simply on a defective understanding of the Pauline idea of righteousness (see above). According to Paul, righteousness is not merely condemnatory and putting to death, but, in its perfect revelation, also delivering and quickening. Grace itself is called, on one side, righteousness, on the other, love. (d.) The conception of Christ as the antitype of the mercy-seat nowhere returns in the whole New Testament. Answer: Likewise the types of Christ as the antitype of the brazen serpent (Joh 3:14), and Christ as the curse-offering (Gal 3:13), and others, only occur once. (e.) It has also been objected [but not by Meyer], that the image does not suit, because the covering of the ark and the sprinkling of the blood were two different things. [Hodge: It is common to speak of the blood of a sacrifice, but not of the blood of the mercy-seat.] In reply to this, even Meyer observes: Christ is both sacrifice and high-priest.On the ignorantly contemptuous manner in which Rckert and Fritzsche criticise the proper explanation, see Tholuck. [Fritzsche dismisses this interpretation with a frivolous valeat absurda explicatio.P. S.]
Through faith in his blood [ , ]. Different interpretations: 1. By faith on His blood ( instead of ; Luther, Calvin, Beza, Olshausen [Tholuck, Hodge], and others). Although the language will permit this view, the thought is not only obscure, but incorrect, that God, by faith on the blood of Christ, should have made Christ himself the throne of grace for humanity. Faith, in this sense, is a consequens, but not an antecedent, of the established propitiation. 2. The same objection holds good against the construction of Meyer, and others, by which both clauses, . and , should refer cordinately to ; namely, so that faith would be the subjective condition, and the blood of Christ the objective means of the setting forth of Christ as the expiatory offering.83 An objective condition should precede the subjective one, and the propitiation exists before faith, in the sense of the New Testament idea of salvation. Faith is therefore the completed faithfulness of Christ (see Rom 3:22), which, in the blood of His sacrificial death, has become the eternal spiritual manifestation and power for the world. [As in Rom 3:22, I beg leave here to differ from this unusual interpretation of , and understand this, with other commentators, more naturally of our faith in Christ; comp. at the close of Rom 3:26. If it meant the faithfulness of Christ, the Apostle would probably have added , as he did before . It is better to separate the two classes by a comma after faith.The blood of Christ means His holy life offered to God as an expiatory sacrifice for the sins of the world. It is like a healing fountain sending forth streams through the channel of faith to wash away the guilty stains of sin.P. S.]
For the demonstration of his righteousness [ ]. In order to perfectly reveal and establish it. The divergent interpretations of the word indicate how difficult it has been for theology to regard Gods righteousness as grace which produces righteousness. Truthfulness [contrary to the meaning of ], (Ambrose, Beza [Turretin, Hammond], and others); goodness (Theodoret, Grotius [Koppe, Reiche, Tittmann], and others); holiness (Neander, Fritzsche [Lipsius]); judicial righteousness (Meyer84 [De Wette, Tholuck, Philippi, Alford, Wordsworth, Hodge]); justifying, or sin-forgiving righteousness (Chrysostom, Augustine, and others); the righteousness which God gives [which would be a superfluous repetition of Rom 3:21, and inconsistent with Rom 3:26,] (Luther, and others); [Stuart, and others: Gods method of justification, which never means.P. S.]. It is rather the righteousness of God in the fulness of its revelation, as it proceeds from God, requires and accomplishes through Christ the expiation of the law, and institutes the righteousness of faith by justification as the principle of the righteousness of the new life.85 For the righteousness of God, like His truth, omnipotence, and love, forms an unbroken and direct beam from His heart, until it appears in renewed humanity.
Because of (or, on account of) the prtermission (passing over), [i. e., because He had allowed the sins of the race which were committed before Christs death to pass by unpunished, whereby His righteousness was obscured, and hence the need of a demonstration or manifestation in the atoning sacrifice, that fully justified the demands of righteousness, and at the same time effected a complete remission of sins, and justification of the sinner.P. S.]. The must not be confounded with the , as Cocceius has proved in a special treatise, De utilitate distinctions inter et (Opp. t. vii.). [Comp. Textual Note8.] The judicial government of God was not administered in the ante-Christian period, either by the sacrificial fire of the Israelitish theocracy, or by the manifestations of wrath to the old world, both Jews and Gentiles, as a perfect and general judgment. Notwithstanding all the relative punishments and propitiations, God allowed sin, in its full measure, especially in its inward character, to pass unpunished in the preliminary stages of expiation and judgment, until the day of the completed revelation of His righteousness. For this reason, the time of the is denoted as the time of the . God permitted the Gentiles to walk in their own ways (Psa 81:12; Psa 147:20; Act 14:16); He overlooked, or winked at, the times of this ignorance (Act 17:30). But among the Jews, one of the two goats which was let loose in the wilderness on the great day of atonement, represented symbolically the (Lev 16:10). This is not only a transcendent fact, but one that is also immanent in the world. The fact that the administrators of the theocracy, in connection with the Gentile world, have crucified Christ, proves the inability of the theocracy to afford a fundamental relief of the world from guilt.86Of sins previously committed. The sins of the whole world are meant, but as an aggregate of individual sins; because righteousness does not punish sin until it has become manifest and mature in actual individual sins. [Comp. the similar expression, Heb 9:15 : . This parallel passage, as well as tile words , in Rom 3:26, plainly show that the are not the sins of each man which precede his conversion (Calov., Mehring, and others), but the sins of all men before the advent, or, more correctly speaking, before the atoning death of Christ. Comp. also Act 15:30 : . Philippi confines the expression to the sins of the Jewish people, in strict conformity to Heb 9:15; but here the Apostle had just proven the universal sinfulness and guilt, and now speaks of the universal redemption of Christ.P. S.]
Rom 3:25-26. Under the forbearance of God for the demonstration [Unter der Geduld Gottes zu der Erweisung, , &c.]. Construction: 1. cumenius, Luther [Rckert, Ewald, Hodge], and others, refer the to [i.e., committed during the forbearance of God; comp. Act 17:20. This gives good sense, but would require, as Meyer says, a different position of the words, viz., . . . .P. S.]. 2. Meyer refers the forbearance to , in consequence of indulgence or toleration, as the ground of the passing over. [So also Philippi]. 3. Reiche: ; the . having been manifested partly in the forgiveness of sins, and partly in the delay of punishment. [This implies a wrong view of and .; Meyer.P. S.] 4. We connect the with the following (Rom 3:26) into one idea,87 and suppose here a brief form of expression, by which must be again supplied before . The must by all means be connected with the ; but it is not operative by virtue of this alone. The denotes the old time as the period of Gods prevailing forbearance, to the end that He may reveal His perfect righteousness in the future decisive time. The , on the contrary, appeared at that time as the supplement of the propitiatory and retributive judgments which had already commenced as preliminaries. For this reason, the (Rom 3:25) is not the same as (Rom 3:26). The first , as the judicial righteousness revealing itself in the blood of Christ, has supplemented the . The second is the purpose of the , the fully accomplished , which branches off in penal righteousness, and in justifying righteousness to him who is of the faith of Jesus, and draws faith from His fountain of faith. The should therefore not be confounded with the (Meyer).88
Rom 3:26. [At this present time, , not opposed to (Bengel, Hodge), but rather to in , and added emphatically. The time of Christ is a time of critical decision, when the is at an end, and man must either accept the full remission () of sin, or expose himself to the judgment of a righteous God.P. S.]That He may be just and the justifier, &c. [ . The expresses not merely the result, but the design of God in exhibiting Christ to the world as the mercy-seat.P. S.] We emphasize , one and the same (ein und derselbe).89 That He may bethat is, that He may plainly appear [and be recognized by men in this twofold character as the Just One and the Justifier of the sinner]. The righteousness of God in the death of Christ has fully revealed that which the human view of the early and later times found so difficult to grasp; namely, righteousness and forbearance or love in one spirit, condemnation and deliverance in one act, killing and giving new life in one operation.
[Bengel: Summum hic habetur paradoxon evangelicum; nam in lege conspicitur Deus justus et condemnans, in evangelio justus, ipse et justificans peccatorem. This apparent contradiction is solved, objectively, in the love of God, which is the beginning and the end of his ways; and, subjectively, in faith ( ), by which the sinner becomes one with Christ. In the death of Christ, God punished sin and saved the sinner, and Divine justice was vindicated in the fullest display and triumph of redeeming love. Not that the Father poured the vials of His wrath upon His innocent and beloved Son (as the doctrine is sometimes caricatured), but the Son voluntarily, in infinite love, and by the eternal counsel and with the consent of the holy and merciful Father, assumed the whole curse of sin, and, as the representative head of the human family, in its stead and for its benefit, He fully satisfied the demands of Divine justice by His perfect, active and passive obedience. His sacrifice, as the sacrifice of the eternal Son of God in union with human nature, without sin, is of infinite value both as to extent and duration; while the Old Testament sacrifices were merely anticipatory, preparatory, and temporary. Justification is here represented as the immediate effect of Christs atoning death. On , comp. the Exeg. Notes on Rom 3:24, and also Doctrinal, below, No. 5. Wordsworth has a long note here on the doctrine of justification. He likewise maintains that (and ) in the LXX. and in the New Testament means, not to make righteous, but to account and declare righteous, and to regard and treat as such, in opposition to condemning and pronouncing guilty. But he insists also, that we are actually made righteous by our union with Christ, and that Gods righteousness is not only imputed, but also imparted to us in Him who is the Lord our Righteousness. This work of infusion of grace, however, is not properly called justification, but sanctification. Comp. Rom 6:22 : Being freed from sin, and made servants unto Godi.e., being justifiedye have your fruit unto holinessthis is sanctification.P. S.]
Second Paragraph; (Rom 3:27-31)
Rom 3:27. Where, then, is the boasting? This announces the great conclusion from the foregoing. The lively expression of the paragraph arises from the triumphant confidence of the Apostle. [Bengel: , particula victoriosa.] The [gloriatio] is certainly not the same as [gloriandi materia], subject of boasting (Reiche); but yet it is not exactly bragging (Meyer), since in many persons boasting of the law arose from dogmatic error. Jewish boasting is especially meant here,90 but not exclusively, for the general conclusion is here drawn in reference to the righteousness of the Jews and Gentiles (see Rom 3:19). With the negation of the , the is also denied at the same time.It is excluded. Perhaps the expression is here chosen with reference to the limits of the court of justice. The law excludes unqualified plaintiffs and defendants.By what law? (By the law) of works? Since the Mosaic law was a law of works in form only, and not in spirit (see Rom 7:7), the question presupposes that there is no such law of works; the spirit of the law is the law of faith. But the meaning of the question itself is: the law, as such, erroneously made a mere law of works, is too imperfectly developed in its operation to exclude boasting (see Mat 19:20.By the law of faith. According to Meyer, the Apostle speaks of the law of faith because the gospel prescribes faith as the condition of salvation. According to Tholuck and De Wette, the word has here the idea of a religious rule (norma).91 But, according to Rom 3:31, the Apostle will completely establish the same law, for the making void of which the Jew charged him. The same revealed law which, in its analytical characterthat is, in its single commandmentsbears the appearance of a law of single works, is, in its synthetical character, recognized as one, a law of faith (Deu 6:4-5; Mar 12:29; Jam 2:10); because, as our schoolmaster to lead us to Christ, it leads to faith, and in Him first comes to man as the objective principle of faith, and then, as the subjective principle of faith, it becomes the law of the new life. [With , comp. , Rom 1:5; , Rom 8:2; , 1Co 9:21; , Jam 1:25; Jam 2:12all going to show that the liberty of the gospel has nothing to do with license and antinomianism.P. S.]
Rom 3:28. Therefore [For] we judge. [censemus, comp. Rom 2:3; Rom 8:18; 2Co 11:5], is not, we infer, nor merely, we think, reckon (Tholuck [Alford, Hodge]), which, with the reading , would not even make good sense. The expression, For we think, would be an odd method of demonstration. It is not the subjective fact of justification which establishes the objective economy of salvation already described; but it is this objective economy which, on the one hand, excludes false justification namely, that which is by works; and, on the other hand, establishes real justification, that which is by faith. We must consider also that the Apostle lays down the statement of Rom 3:28 as the principal proposition to the entire following argument, but will not apply it as proof for the negative statement, that man is not justified by works.By faith [ = , instrumental cause]. Luthers addition of alone [durch den Glauben allein] is defended by Tholuck (the Nuremberg edition of the Bible of 1483 also reads, only by faith). Meyer properly remarks: It does not belong to the translation, but it is justified by the context as an explanation.92Without works of the law. This naturally refers to , but not to faith. In the process of justification, the works of the law do not come into coperation. [Hodge: To be justified without works, is to be justified without any thing in ourselves to merit justification. The works of the law must be the works of the moral law, because the proposition is general, embracing Gentiles as well as Jews. The Apostle excludes every thing subjective. He places the ground of justification out of ourselves. Yet faith is something subjective, by which the objective ground of justification is personally appropriated, and made available for our benefit.P. S.]
Rom 3:29. Or is he the God of the Jews only? [Or, in case that what was said in Rom 3:28 should be called in doubt. Rom 3:29-30 furnish an additional striking proof for Rom 3:28; Meyer.P. S.] , to belong to some one. The Rabbinical, and subsequently the Talmudic Jews, certainly assumed that God was merely the God of the Jews (see Tholuck, p. 162. Meyer refers to Eisenmengers Entdecktes Judenthum, i. p. 587).Paul can declare, without further proof: Yes, of the Gentiles also. The Apostle does not have here in mind chiefly the utterances of the prophets, as Tholuck supposes, but the same fact of Christian experience to which Peter refers, Act 10:46 ff; Act 15:9; and to which he himself refers in Gal 3:5. The Old Testament witnesses were explained and confirmed by the fact of the salvation of the Gentiles by faith, by which fact also his apostleship to the Gentiles was first completely sealed (see 1Co 9:2). [God is not a national, but a universal God, and offers salvation to Gentiles and Jews on precisely the same terms. Hodge: These sublime truths are so familiar to our minds, that they have, in a measure, lost their power; but as to the Jew, enthralled all his life in his narrow national and religious prejudices, they must have expanded his whole soul with unwonted emotions of wonder, gratitude, and joy.P. S.]
Rom 3:30. Seeing it is one God. The , since [alldieweil, introducing something that cannot be doubted]. According to Meyer, the weight of the proof rests on the unity of God, Monotheism; but the context puts the weight upon the fact that the justification of the Jews and Gentiles as one divine factwhich therefore appears to be divided into two partsmust be traced to one and the same God.The future is certainly not used for the present (Grotius [more Hebrorum], and others), still less does it refer to the universal judgment (Beza, Fritzsche); but it assumes the experience that Jews and Gentiles are already justified, in order to give prominence to the future established by it; namely, that Jews and Gentiles will be justified. [The future (= prsens futurabile) expresses the permanent purpose and continued power of justification in every case that may occur; comp. the future in Rom 3:20; Rom 5:19. Erasmus: Respexit ad eos qui adhuc essent in Judaismo seu paganismo.P. S.]Circumcision by faith. It is remarkable that there is not only a change of the prepositions and , but also that the article stands with the latter, but not with the former. Meyer regards the change of prepositions, as well as the disappearance of the article from , as a matter of indifference.93 Calvin observes in the change of the prepositions and a certain irony: Si quis vult habere differentiam gentilis a Judo, hanc habeat, quod ille per fidem, hic vero ex fide justitiam consequitur (from Tholuck, p. 162). Meyer properly regards
this explanation as strange. But indifference as to the form of expression would be equally strange. There seems in reality to be a double form of breviloquence here: He will justify the circumcision (which is a circumcision by faith) by faith; for the real Jew has already a germinating faith; and He will justify the uncircumcision (that which through faith has become circumcision) through the faith. Or, more briefly: To the genuine Jew, saving faith, as to its germ, is something already at hand, and justification arises from the completion of the same, just as the fruit from the tree. But to the Gentile, faith is offered as a foreign means of salvation.94
Rom 3:31. Do we then make void the law? The question here arises, whether Rom 3:31 constitutes the conclusion of the preceding train of thought, or whether it opens the new train of thought which begins with Rom 4:1, and extends throughout the chapter. The former acceptation has prevailed since Augustine as the preferable one (Beza, Melanchthon, Tholuck, Philippi [Hodge]); the latter (conformably to Theodoret, Pelagius) has been maintained by Semler, and others, and by De Wette and Meyer. According to Meyer, the Apostle, from Rom 3:31 to Rom 4:25, proves the harmony of the doctrine of justification by faith with the law, by what has been said in the law about Abrahams justification. Meyer urges against the former view, that then this very important sentence appears merely as an abrupt categorical assertion; and Philippis reply, that Rom 8:1 continues it further, certainly does not relieve the matter. But Tholuck justly remarks against the second view, that then a , instead of , would be naturally expected in Rom 4:1. [Besides, the main object of Paul here is to show the true method of justification, and not the agreement of the law and the gospel.P. S.] This much is clear: that Rom 3:31 constitutes the transition to chap. 4. But, in itself, it serves as the conclusion of the paragraph from Rom 3:27-30, in that it brings out the relation of the experimental fact that there are believing Gentilesto the law. Paul had shown that the justification of the Gentiles, with the justification of the Jews, is to be traced back to one and the same God. By this means, he says, the law is not made void, but established. How far established? The answer is furnished by the preceding verses: As far as the unity of God, which underlies the law, is glorified by the harmony of His saving operations among Jews and Gentiles. Particularism weakens the law, because it makes the law the statute of a national God. The universal Monotheism of Christianity, proved by the universal justification of believers, first properly establishes the law in its true character, by making plain the universal character of the lawgiver.The sentiment, Do we then make void the law? is sufficiently repelled by the emotional expression, , Far be it! by no means! But the opposite sentiment, We establish the law, has been already proved by the fact that the law is defined as the law of faith, and has been traced back to the God of the Jews and Gentiles. This is indeed extended further in what follows, yet not in the form of a continued proof, but in the form of a new scriptural argument. The question, How far does Paul, or Christianity establish the law? has been variously answered; see Tholuck, p. 163. Chrysostom, and others, say, that the salvation in Christ is the end of the law. Most expositors hold that the law is fulfilled by the new obedience, chap. 6. and Rom 8:4 [by love, which is called the fulfilment of the law; Rom 13:10. Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Beza, Calov., Philippi.P. S.]. Tholuck thinks that the testimony of the and the is meant. But this is not a new ; nor would the continuation in chap. 4. be a new from this point of view; it is only a new proof for the righteousness by faith: the proof from Scripture. The Apostle glorifies and establishes the law on a new and broader foundation, by representing it as a unit, by tracing it to its principle of life, and enlarging its contents from the Jewish particularism to the universality of the revelation of the living God of all men. Thus the Mosaic law, as the type of the Mosaic religion, is glorified so far as it is the representative of all the legal elements of religion in general.95
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
First Paragraph (Rom 3:21-26)
1. As the Old Testament, according to Rom 3:21, has testified of the righteousness of faith contained in the New Testament, so does the New Testamentas the perfect revelation of Gods righteousnessbear witness to the holiness of the law in the Old Testament.
2. It is a defective and inorganic view to believe that, as far as the single attributes of God are concerned, in the New Testament His justice is less prominent than in the Old, in order that His love may appear more prominent. On the contrary, the revelation of His justice is first completed in the New Testament. It is here completed so grandly, that, in proportion to this completion, the Old Testament revelation of justice may be regarded as still veiled. The same may be said of all the Divine attributes. In the New Testament they have a killing and a vivifyingi.e., creative effect. The justice in union with love is grace. In the Old Testament, however, justice appears mainly in its punitive aspect.
3. On the double form and kind of faith, see the Exeg. Notes on Rom 3:22.
4. Also on the , , see Exeg. Notes on Rom 3:23. As the is the internal part of the Divine , so is the want of on mans part the evidence of his want of . The same connection is likewise exhibited in the life of faith. The arises from the (Rom 8:30).
5. The doctrine of justification. On the , see Rom 2:13, and the section relating thereto. On the fact that it is under the that mans utter want of personal righteousness first becomes prominent, see the Exeg. Notes on Rom 3:21. The evangelical definition per fidem is opposed to the Roman Catholic definition propter fidem. The form propter fidem has a double sense. If faith is understood as merit, the order of the work of salvation is reversed, and its causality is transferred to man. It is very clear from the present tense (Rom 3:28), that the Apostle distinguishes here, and throughout, between redemption and justification. Christ is, indeed, effectively the righteousness of believers, and virtually the righteousness of humanity, and so far could the redemption be once loosely denominated justification. Yet the Apostles usage of language is far above this indefiniteness, and Rom 8:30 proves conclusively (comp. Rom 5:18) that he regards justification as a part of the plan of salvation. The connection between the which grace effects in every believer after the and the , consists in this: that Christ, as the perfect , is, by the gospel, offered to men, that He is set forth as . (Lipsius, in a monograph entitled The Pauline Doctrine of Justification, 1853, holds that the is the condition of righteousness, and that every one is who is just what his destination requires he should be. The authors conclusion is, that Paul, in no single passage, compels us to divide the divine operationthe result of which is the (preliminary) human into two distinct and separate acts, the actus efficiens and the actus declaratorius, in such a manner that the latter only may be called .)The way for the Protestant doctrine of justification was prepared by the sound productions of the mysticism of the Middle Ages; for example, in German Theology.96 This book contrasts selfdom, or egoism, with entire self-surrender to God and His will, and thereby indicates the deepest ground for the sinners justification by faith. Justification, as the appropriation of Christs , makes the gospel, through the power of the Holy Ghost, an individual and special absolution from the guilt of sin, which the believer experiences in peace of conscience and freedom. It makes the objective in Christ his subjective . Justification is essentially a pronouncing righteous, but by the creative declaration of God; therefore it is also a making righteous, in the sense that it is the communication of a new principle of life, yet in such a way that this new principle of life must ever be regarded as the pure effect of Christ, and not in any way as the cause of justification. The one gracious act of justification is divided into two acts: 1. The offer of the for faith until faith is awaked by free grace; 2. Accounting faith as righteousness. The effects of justification are, negatively, liberation from the guilt, the curse, and punishment of sin; and, positively, adoption or sonship, by which the believers filial relationthat is, the decision of his individual regeneration, and his translation into the state of peaceis pronounced. In the old Protestant theology, justification has been variously confounded too much with the redemption itself; while in our day, as was already the case with Osiander [died 1552], it has often been far too much identified with sanctification.
[Additional remarks on the doctrine of justification by faith, or rather by free grace through faith in Christ.
(a.) Its importance and position in the theological system. It belongs to soteriology, the appropriation of the salvation of Christ to the sinner. It presupposes the fundamental truths of the Trinity, the incarnation, total depravity, the atonement, all of which were revealed before, as the Gospels and Acts precede the Epistles. It is therefore not, strictly speaking, the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesi (Luther), but subordinate to the article of Christ, who alone can be called the one foundation and rock of the whole Christian system (1Co 3:11). The doctrine that Christ is the Son of God, and came into the fleshi.e., was born, died, and rose again, to save sinnersis emphatically the mystery of godliness (1Ti 3:16); and forms the burden of the first Christian confession (Mat 16:16-19); its assertion or denial is the criterion of true Christianity and of antichrist (1Jn 4:2-3). But justification by faith is undoubtedly a fundamental article of subjective Christianity and of evangelical Protestantism, as distinct from cumenical Catholicism, and as opposed to Greek and Roman sectional Catholicism. It constitutes the material or life-principle of Protestantism (principium essendi), as the doctrine of the supreme authority of the Holy Scriptures in matters of faith and practice constitutes its formal principle (principium cognoscendi). It was never properly understood in the Christian Church, not even by Augustine, until Luther, and the other Reformers brought it out into clear light from the Epistles of Paul, especially those to the Romans and Galatians. The unbiassed philological exegesis of modern times has fully justified the scripturalness of this doctrine of the Reformation. Yet the best men in the Church of all ages, and the profoundest divines before the Reformation, such as Augustine, Anselm, Bernard, have, in fact, always come to the same practical conclusion in the end, and, disclaiming all merit of their own, they have taken refuge in the free grace of God, as the only and sufficient cause of salvation. Our righteousness, says St. Bernard (Sermo V. de verbis Esai Proph., vi. 1, 2), our righteousness, if we have any, is of little value; it is sincere, perhaps, but not pure, unless we believe ourselves to be better than our fathers, who no less truly than humbly said: All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.
(b.) Definition of justification. It is a judicial act of God by which He freely acquits the penitent sinner, and adopts him as His child on the ground of Christs perfect righteousness, and on condition of a living faith. Paul has in his mind a judicial process: The righteous and holy God is the Judge; man is the guilty culprit; the law, or the expressed will of God, is the accuser; Christ, with His perfect sacrifice, steps in as a substitute; the sinner accepts Him in hearty faith, or enters into Christs position, as Christ did into his; God, on the ground of this relation, acquits the sinner, and treats him as His own child; the sinner, being one with Christ, no more lives unto himself, but, the grace of God enabling him, unto Christ, who died for him, and rose again. This is justification.
(c.) Relation to the atonement, regeneration, and sanctification. Justification differs:
(aa.) From the atonement (, , expiation, propitiation, Vershnung) and the consequent reconciliation (, at-one-ment in the old sense of the term, as used in the E. V., Rom 5:11, in German Vershnung), i.e., the reconciliation of God and the sinner by the self-sacrifice of Christ, which fully satisfies the claims of Divine justice, and draws men to God by the attraction of superhuman love. The atonement is the objective ground of justification; it was accomplished once for all time, but justification is repeated in the case of every sinner.
(bb.) From regeneration, or the new birth. This is a creative act of the Holy Spirit in man preceding or accompanying the objective act of justification by God the Father, and resulting in a subjective change of heart, which corresponds to the new relation of the believer as justified in Christ.
(cc.) From sanctification. This is a gradual growth, beginning with regeneration and justification, and culminating in the resurrection of the body. Justification is Gods gracious act toward us; sanctification is Gods gracious work within us: the former is a single act of God, the latter a continuous growth in man.
(d.) The evangelical Protestant (Pauline) doctrine of justification must be maintained:
(aa.) Against Pharisism, Pelagianism, and Rationalism, or the doctrine of justification by works, which, in various forms and degrees, glorifies human ability and represents justification as a reward for mans own merit (legalism, self-righteousness, work-righteousness).
(bb.) Against the semi-Pelagian and the Romish or Tridentine, as well as the modern Anglo-Romanizing or Tractarian theory of justification by faith and works, which confounds justification with sanctification (justitia infusa; ex in juso justus. redditur), makes it depend on the degree of personal holiness, teaches the meritoriousness of good works (opera meritoria proportionata vit tern; meritum de congruo and meritum de condigno; opera supererogationis), and divides the glory of our salvation between God and man.
(cc.) Against ultra- and pseudo-Protestant Solifidianism and Antinomianism, which destroy the law, as a rule of conduct, tear justification from its proper antecedents and consequents, and deny the necessity of good works. (Amsdorf, a Lutheran divine of the sixteenth century, went so far as to assert that good works were pernicious or dangerous to salvation; while Major maintained the opposite thesis: bona opera necessaria ad salutem. The result of this controversy was the distinction that good works were necessary, not as a condition of salvation, but as the evidence of saving faith; and that not good works, but only such reliance on them as interfered with trust in the merits of Christ, was dangerous to salvation.)
(dd.) Against subjective Spiritualism and un-churchly Fanaticism, which resolve justification by faith into a justification by feeling, and despise or ignore the Church and the sacraments, as the regular, divinely appointed means of grace.
On the doctrinal aspect of justification by faith, comp. Chemnitz, Concil. Trident., tom. 1, lib. 8; Gerhard, Loci Theologici, tom. 7; John Davenant (Bishop of Salisbury), Disputatio de justitia habituali et actuali, 1631, English translation by Josiah All-port, London, 184446, 2 vols (a standard work of the Anglican Church against the Romish doctrine); my Principle of Protestantism, 1845, p. 54 ff.; Bishop Ch. P. MIlvaine, Righteousness by Faith; or the Nature and Means of Justification before God (against the Romanizing doctrine of the Oxford Tracts), Phila., 2d ed., 1864; Dr. James Buchanan, The Doctrine on Justification: an Outline of its History in the Church, and of its Exposition from Scripture, Edinburgh, 1867; the respective sections in the works on Symbolics; several recent dogmatic essays on the subject, by Dorner, 1867, translated by C. A. Briggs for the Am. Presb. Theol. Rev.., New York, April, 1868, pp. 186214; Riggenbach, in the Studien und Kritiken for April, 1868, pp. 201243; an article in the British and Foreign Evang. Review for January, 1862, which is fully criticised by Forbes, on Rom. p. 125 ff. The exegetical essays have been mentioned in comments on Rom 1:17, pp. 75, 76.P. S.]
6. On , , and , see the Exeg. Notes on Rom 3:25. For more detailed information, see my Positive Dogmatics, p. 813 ff. As recent efforts have been made to set aside the true doctrine of atonement itself by refuting the view of Anselm,[97] it should be remembered that the defects in Anselms theory were acknowledged even in the Middle Ages, but that they cannot destroy its relative truth and value. The real idea of the atonement cannot be clearly apprehended without understanding the meaning of compassion, of sympathy, of reconciliation in Christ, of the divine judgment-seat in the sinners conscience, and of the connection of judgment and deliverance in the sufferings of Christ as well as in the sinners conversion.
7. God is the righteous Judge and the justifying God: (1) In the same grace; (2) In the objective work of redemption, or in justification by faith.
8. When the Apostle, in Rom 3:27, contrasts a law of works and a law of faith as excluding each other, and then says in Rom 3:31 : We establish the law, it follows that he only recognizes that antithesis in Rom 3:27 as one which the external legalism of the Jews had made; or as the appearance of the antithesis between the economy of the Old and New Testaments, but that his own view was based upon a deeper unity.
9. It is well known that very much has been written about Luthers sola, Rom 3:28. This word is perfectly true so far as it is contrasted with , for the reading is , without works of the law. Therefore the sola is even positively exclusive. But does it also exclude works of faith? Answer: As soon as a work of faith is added to faith, it is made an , a work of the law. If the work remains a mere phenomenon or manifestation of faith, it has no separate significance in itself.
[Dr. Donne, a standard divine of the Church of England, originally a convert from Romanism (died 1631), in Serm. ii. on Joh 16:8-11, makes the following apt remarks on this sola fide: Faith is but one of those things which in several senses are said to justify us. It is truly said of God, Deus solus justificat; God only justifies usefficienter; nothing can effect it, nothing can work towards it, but only the mere goodness of God. And it is truly said of Christ, Christus solus justificat; Christ only justifies usmaterialiter; nothing enters into the substance and body of the ransom of our sins but the obedience of Christ. It is also truly said, sola fides justificat; only faith justifies usinstrumentaliter; nothing apprehends, nothing applies the merit of Christ to thee, but thy faith. And lastly, it is as truly said, sola opera justificant ; only our works justify usdeclaratori; only thy good life can assure thy conscience, and the world, that thou art justified. As the efficient justification, the gracious purpose of God, had done us no good without the material satisfaction, the death of Christ, that followed; and as that material satisfaction, the death of Christ, would do me no good without the instrumental justification, the apprehension by faith; so neither would this profit without the declaratory justification, by which all is pleaded and established. God enters not into our material justification: that is only Christs. Christ enters not into our instrumental justification: that is only faiths. Faith enters not into our declaratory justification (for faith is secret), and declaration belongs to works. Neither of these can be said to justify us alone, so as that we may take the chain in pieces, and think to be justified by any one link thereofby God without Christ, by Christ without faith, or by faith without works. And yet every one of these justifies us alone, so as that none of the rest enter into that way and that means by which any of these are said to justify us. Comp. my foot-note on Rom 3:28, p. 136.P. S.]
10. Rom 3:29. Paul did not need any longer to prove from the Scriptures that God was also the God of the Gentiles. The first phenomenon of the New Covenant: Blessedness of faith, speaking with tongues, and a new life, was, with the Apostles, equivalent everywhere to scriptural proofs, and served for the exposition of the Old Testament. It was, indeed, the specific New Testament evidence which precedes with Paul the argument from the Old Testament in chap. 4.
11. On the means by which Christianity chiefly establishes the law, see the Exeg. Notes on Rom 3:31. The Judaism of the Old Testament first attained its universal historical glory by Christianity, and its thanks are due especially to Paul, who was so hated by the Jews. [Bishop Sanderson (Sermon on 1Pe 2:16, as quoted by Ford): The law may be considered as a rule; or, as a covenant. Christ has freed all believers from the rigor and curse of the law, considered as a covenant; but He has not freed them from obedience to the law, considered as a rule. The law, as a rule, can no more be abolished or changed, than can the nature of good or evil be abolished or changed.P. S.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Rom 3:21-26
The revelation of the righteousness of faith through Jesus Christ which is efficacious in Gods sight. It comes to pass: 1. Without the assistance of the law, although testified by the law and the prophets; 2. For all sinners, without distinction, who believe; 3. By the redemption effected by Jesus Christ the Mediator, who proffers the righteousness which is acceptable to God (Rom 3:21-26).The testimony of the law and the prophets concerning the righteousness which is acceptable to God: 1. Of the law by its typical reference to the atonement; 2. Of the prophets by the Messianic prophecies (Rom 3:21).The Apostle takes from the law what does not belong to it, and concedes what does belong to it. He denies: 1. Its alleged coperation in the righteousness which is acceptable to God. But he concedes to it: 2. The testimony of the future atonement (Rom 3:21).The universality of grace corresponding to the universality of sin (Rom 3:22-24).What sort of confession should we make to God daily as evangelical Christians? Two kinds: 1. We are altogether sinners, and come short of the glory we should have before God; 2. We are justified freely by His grace, &c. (Rom 3:23-24).Christ set forth by God to be a propitiation (mercy-seat) through faith in His blood: 1. To what end? To offer His righteousness at this (present) time; 2. Why? Because in time past He could pass over sin by His Divine forbearance, and thereby shake faith in His justice (Rom 3:25-26).Divine forbearance (Rom 3:25).God the only just One, and therefore the only Justifier (Rom 3:21).
Luther: All have sinned, &c. This is the chief portion and central part of this Epistle, and of the whole Scripture. Therefore understand this text well, for the merit and glory of all works,as he himself says,are done away with, and Gods grace and glory alone remain (Rom 3:23).Sin could be removed neither by laws nor by any good works; that must be done by Christ and His forgiveness (Rom 3:25).Faith fulfils all laws, but works cannot fulfil a single tittle of the law (Rom 3:31).
Starke: There is only one kind of justification in the Old and New Testaments; namely, that which is by faith in Christ (Rom 3:21).To have a believing heart, is to hunger and thirst after the grace of God in Christ, and to appropriate the righteousness of Christ for our spiritual satisfaction and refreshment (Rom 3:22).Do not make a wrong use of this passage against active Christianity, for Gods image must be restored in us in the order of the new birth and daily renewal (Rom 3:23).Grace and righteousness are the two principal attributes of God which are proved in the work of our salvation. Therefore one cannot be separated from the other, either in the cause or order of our salvation (Rom 3:24).The faith which appropriates the blood of Jesus Christ and His expiatory death, and presents them to God the Lord, is the only means by which Christ becomes also our mercy-seat (Rom 3:25).If you are ever so distinguished and wealthy, and are deficient in true and living faith, you can neither be justified nor saved (Rom 3:26).
Osiander: No doctrine must be accepted in the Church of God to which Gods word does not bear witness (Rom 3:21).Lange: The merit of the blood of Christ is not only the object which faith grasps, but also the foundation on which it firmly rests (Rom 3:25).Hedinger: Christ our righteousness! Oh, the glorious consolation, which screens us from the wrath of God, the curse of the law, and eternal death! No work, no perfection out of Christ; but faith alone makes us dear children of Godrighteous, holy, and blessed (Rom 3:25).
Bengel: Under the law, God appears just and condemning; under the gospel, just, and yet justifying the guilty sinner.
Lisco: The nature of evangelical righteousness is, that it is obtained by faith in Jesus Christ; and it comes to all and upon all who believe in Him. Like a flood of grace it flows to all, and even so overflows as to reach even the heathen. It is therefore a righteousness by faith, and not a righteousness by works.In the work of redemption, Gods holiness and grace, justice and forbearance, are revealed (Rom 3:25-26).
Heubner: The difficult question is now solved: How can the sinner find redemption from his sins? Christianity replies: Believe in Christ (Rom 3:22).How is the righteousness which God accepts testified by the law and the prophets? 1. By this means: all forgiveness, all redemption, is everywhere described in the Scriptures as the free work of Gods grace; neither the offering, nor mans own merit, was sufficient for this end; 2. In the emphatic prophecies of a future Redeemer (Rom 3:21).Unworthiness before God is universal. This is the first prostrating word of revelation: Know that thou art a sinner, a poor sinner; that is, who hast nothing, and must get something from God (Rom 3:23).Christs redemption is: 1. A ransom (Mat 20:28) from the guilt of sin (Eph 1:7); 2. A ransom from the punishment of sin (Rom 5:9); 3. A ransom from the dominion of sin (1Pe 1:18; Rom 3:23).The subjective condition of redemption is faith as a faith of the heart, which reposes its confidence on Christs sacrificial deatha faith that Christ died for me. This for me is the great thing! (Rom 3:26.)On Rom 3:23-25, Reinhard preached his celebrated Reformation Sermon (2:270) in the year Rom 1800: The great reason why our Church should never forget that it owes its existence to the renewal of the doctrine of Gods free grace in Christ.
Besser: The law impels toward righteousness, but it does not confer it.There are not two orders of salvation, one for Jews and honorable people, and the other for heathen and publicans; but there is only one for all.We are justified: 1. Without merit; 2. By Gods grace; 3. Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Rom 3:24).The highest declaration of Gods grace is at the same time the highest declaration of His justice.
J. P. Lange: The fact of salvation is also a miraculous work of God (Rom 3:21).Redemption as the second and higher world of miracle in relation to the natural world of miracle.Golgotha is more exalted than Sinai in respect also to Gods justice.The lightning-flash of New Testament justice: 1. Killing; 2. Making alive.
[Burkitt: Rom 3:24-26. We see here: 1. A glorious privilege for believers, justification; 2. Its efficient cause, God; 3. The moving or impulsive cause, free grace; 4. The meritorious cause, the blood-shedding and death of Christ; 5. The final cause, the declaration of His righteousness; 6. The instrumental cause, faith.Oh, glorious and all-wise contrivance, whereby God made sufficient provision for the reparation of His honor, for the vindication of His holiness, for the manifestation of His truth and faithfulness, and for the present consolation and eternal salvation of all repenting and believing sinners to the end of the world!Matthew Henry: Rom 3:25. Christ is the propitiationthere is the healing plaster provided. Faith is the applying of this plaster to the wounded soul.Faith is the bunch of hyssop, and the blood of Christ is the blood of sprinkling.Dwight devotes six sermons to the subject of Justification, in which he treats of its nature, source, and means; duty of believing; nature of faith; influence of faith on justification; reconciliation of Paul and James on justification; influence of works on justification; and justification by faith no diminution of motives to obedience (Theology, vol. ii., pp. 515605).Clarke: Rom 3:23-24. As God is no respecter of persons, all human creatures being equally His offspring, and there being no reason why one should be preferred before another, therefore His mercy has embraced all.The redemption of Christ comprehends whatsoever He taught, did, or suffered, in order to free men from evil.Hodge: As the cardinal doctrine of the Bible is justification by faith, so the turning-point in the souls history, the saving act, is the reception of Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins.All modes of preaching must be erroneous, which do not lead sinners to feel that the great thing to be done, and done first, is to receive the Lord Jesus Christ, and to turn unto God through Him. And all religious experience must be defective, which does not embrace distinctly a sense of the justice of our condemnation, and a conviction of the sufficiency of the work of Christ, and an exclusive reliance upon it as such.J. F. H.]
On Rom 3:27-31
The exclusion of mans self-glorification. Its results: 1. Not by the law of works; but, 2. By the law of faith (Rom 3:27).How are we justified? 1. Not by the works of the law; but, 2. By faith alone (Rom 3:28).Only by faithLuthers watchword, and also the watchword of the evangelical church of the present day (Rom 3:28).The righteousness of the law and the righteousness of faith (Rom 3:28).God, a God of all people, because He is only one God (Rom 3:29-30).Faith in the one God considered as the source of the true kind of universalism (Rom 3:29-30).The popular saying of religious indifferentism: We all believe in one God, is only true when we also believe that this God also justifies those who believe (Rom 3:29-30).The proof that the law is not made void through faith, but established, is supplied by both the deeds and doctrine: 1. Of the Lord; 2. Of His apostles, and especially of Paul (Rom 3:31).
Luther: Faith keeps all the laws, while works keep no point of the law (Jam 2:10).[A passage in the preface to the Epistle to the Romans is also in place here: Faith is not that human folly and dream which some take for faith. But faith is a divine work in us, which changes us and creates us anew in God, &c.]
Starke: Faith alone justifies and saves; but you must not take away works from faith in order to beautify your sinful life, or it will become unbelief.There are many forms of arbitrary will on earth, and yet but one way to salvation. God would save all men, and yet by only one way.
Hedinger: Christianity, with its doctrine of faith, opens no door for sin, but shows how we can be obedient to the law with a filial spirit for Gods sake (Rom 3:31).Quesnel: The more faith in a soul the less pride there is in it.
Gerlach, from Chrysostom: What is the law of faith? Salvation by grace. Herein Gods power is declared, not only in delivering men, but also in justifying them and raising them to glory; for God did not stand in need of works, but sought faith alone.True, the word alone is not in the text literally, but yet it is there in sense, as it is expressly declared in Gal 2:16-17; without faith, nothing can justify.
Heubner: Christianity unites humanity by one God, by one Father, who is the Saviour of all.The unity of faith in grace should also establish the unity of hearts.
Spener: Looking at the subject in its true light, faith is not that which itself justifies manfor its strength would be far too small for this workbut faith only accepts the most powerful grace of God as a proffered gift, and thus permits man to be saved by it, instead of its really justifying and saving him. This is the great doctrine of this Epistle, on which every thing rests, and from which every thing must be derived.
Lange: Therefore we judge, &c., and thus it stands (Rom 3:28). True salvation of the inner life a witness: 1. Of the true faith; 2. Of the true gospel; 3. Of the true God.
[Burkitt: Rom 3:31. The moral, not the ceremonial law. The moral law is established by the gospel; Christ has relaxed the law in point of danger, but not in point of duty.Henry: Rom 3:27. If we were saved by our own works, we might put the crown upon our own heads. But the law of faith, the way of justification by faith, doth forever exclude boasting; for faith is a depending, self-emptying, self-denying grace, and casts every crown before the throne: therefore it is most for Gods glory, that thus we should be justified.Macknight: Rom 3:28. Faith in God and Christ necessarily leads those who possess it to believe every thing made known to them by God and by Christ, and to do every thing which they have enjoined; so that it terminates in the sincere belief of the doctrines of religion, and in the constant practice of its duties, as far as they are made known to the believer.Clarke: Why did not God make known this grand method of salvation sooner? 1. To make it the more valued; 2. To show His fidelity in the performance of His promises; 3. To make known the virtue and efficacy of the blood of Christ; which sanctifies the present, extends its influence to the past, and continues the availing sacrifice and way of salvation to all future ages.Hodge: The doctrine of atonement produces in us its proper effect, when it leads us to see and feel that God is just; that He is infinitely gracious; that we are deprived of all ground of boasting; that the way of salvation, which is open for us, is open for all men; and that the motives to all duty, instead of being weakened, are enforced and multiplied.In the gospel, all is harmonious: justice and mercy, as it regards God; freedom from the law, and the strongest obligations to obedience, as it regards men.Barnes: One of the chief glories of the plan of salvation is, that while it justifies the sinner, it brings a new set of influences from heaven, more tender and mighty than can be drawn from any other source, to produce obedience to the law of God.J. F. H.]
[Homiletical Literature on Justification (in the order of the text).Cocceius, De Justificatione, op. 7, 180, T. W. Allies, Serm. Romans 1 : B. Hill, Serm, 95; E. Cooper, Lead. Doct., 1. 20; M. Harrison, several sermons on Justification (1691); E. Bather, Serm. 2, 248; T. Boston, Works, 1, 581; S. Knight, Serm. 2, 15; A. Fuller, Three Sermons on Justification, Serm. 176; W. B. Collyer, On Script. Doct., 329; Bishop Hobart, Serm. 2, 32; W. Bridge, Works, 5, 364; C. Simeon, Works, 15, 79; A. Burgess, On Justification (Two Parts); J. Hoole, Serm. 2, 217; W. Stevens, Serm. 1, 268; Bishop Halifax, St. Pauls Doctrine of Justification by Faith Explained, 2d. ed., Camb. 1762; T. Randolph, Doctrine of Justification by Faith; H. Worthington, Disc. 315; S. Disney, Disc. 125; P. Hutcheson, Serm.; T. Young, Justification, &c.; E. Parsons, Justification by Faith, Halifax, 1821; J. C. Miller, Serm. 359; J. Johnston, Way of Life, 85; T. T. Smith, Serm. 289; W. Shirley, Serm. 151; J. Whitty, Serm. 1:413; J. Wesley, Works (Amer. ed.), vol. 1:47, 385; vol. 2:40, 236; vol. 3:153, 172, 259; vol. 5:37442; vol. 6:6-23; vol. 7:47.The Periodical Homiletical Literature on the same subject is very abundant. We give the principal articles: Justification by Faith (R. W. Landis), Amer. Bibl. Repository, 11:453; (D. Curry) Meth. Quart. Rev., 4:5; 5:5; (C. D. Pidgeon) Lit. and Theol. Rev., 6:521; Princeton Rev., 12:268, 561; Justification by Works.J. F. H.]
Footnotes:
[46]Rom 3:21.[Or: independently of the law. Luther: ohne Zuthun des Gesetzes. , opposed to , Rom 3:20, is emphatically put first and belongs to the verb. The transposition in the E. V. obscures this connection and destroys the parallelism.P. S.]
[47]Rom 3:21.[. The perfect has its appropriate force and sets forth this revelation of righteousness as an accomplished and still continued fact. Comp. the , Rom 1:17. Meyer: ist offenbar gemacht, zu Tape geleg, so das sie jedem zur Erkenntniss sich darstellt; das Praesens der vollendeten Handlung, Heb 9:26. Bernbardy, p. 378.P. S.]
[48]Rom 3:22.[Even (or, I say, inquam, und zwar) is the best rendering of here, since it is not strictly adversative, but explanatory and reassumptive (if I may coin this term for epanaleptic), as in Rom 9:30; Php 2:8. The contrast is not between the righteousness of God and the righteousness of man (Wordsworth), but between the general idea of the righteousness of God and the specific idea of righteousness through faith now introduced.P. S.]
[49]Rom 3:22.[ , text. rec., D. F. K. L. 3., Syr., Vulg.; omitted by 1. A. B. C., Griesbach, Lachmann. Alford brackets, and says: Possibly from homotel.; on the other hand, the longer text may be the junction of two reading. Lange retains the received text without remark. It is redundant, but not superfluous. Righteousness is represented as a flood extending unto all ( ). Ewald: bestimmt fr alle und kommend ber alle.P. S.]
[50]Rom 3:23.[The aorist , not the perfect . Luther: Sie sind allzumal Snder. Rckert, in his ridiculously presumptuous proclivity to criticise the Apostles grammar and logic, calls the use of the aorist here an inaccuracy. Bengel, Olshausen, and Wordsworth refer it to the original fall of the race in Adam. Meyer in loc.: The sinning of each man is presented as a historical fact of the past, whereby the sinful status is brought about. So also Tholuck, Philippi, Lange. See Exeg. Notes.P. S.]
[51]Rom 3:25.[, expiatorium (a neuter noun from the adjective , propitiatory, expiatory, from the verb , to appease, to conciliate), may mean Shnopfer (. ), expiatory sacrifice; or Shnmittel (= ), expiation, propitiation; or Shndeckel (. , or ) mercy-seat (cover of the ark). Dr. Lange adopts the last, and translates Shnungsstift (capporeth; Luther: Gnadenstuhl). The word occurs but twice in the N. T., here and Heb 9:5. In the latter passage it certainly signifies the mercy-seat, or golden cover of the ark of the covenant, called in Hebrew (from , to propitiate, to atone). This is also the technical meaning of the word in the LXX., Exo 25:18-20; Exo 31:7, &c., and in Philo (Vita Mos. 3:68, p. 668; De Profug. 19, p. 465: , , ). A fourth interpretation by Pelagius, Ambrose, Semler, and Wahl takes in the masculine gender = , propitiator; but this is contrary to the use of the word and inconsistent with the context. There are , but no . The choice lies between propitiatory sacrifice, and mercy-seat. See Exeg. Notes.P. S.]
[52]Rom 3:25.The article before is supported by Codd. B. and A., Chrysostom and Theodoret. [The text, rec. also reads ; but Codd. . C*. D*. F. G, Orig., Eus., Bas., &c., Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, omit it. Meyer thinks it may have been omitted in view of , Rom 3:22.P. S.]
[53]Rom 3:25.[Or as Alford translates: on account of the overlooking of the sins which had passed, in the forbearance of God. Conybeare and Howson: because in His forbearance God had passed over the former sins of men. Lange: von wegen der Vorbeilassung (Nich heimsuchung) der vorher geschehenen Snden. The Authorized Version here, following Beza (per remissionem), is a mistranslation. (from ), which occurs but once in the N. T., differs from (from ), which occurs seventeen times, in this, that it Isaiah , 1. a temporary prtermission or overlooking, not a total remission or pardon; 2. a work of the Divine , forbearance (Rom 2:4), not of the Divine , grace (Eph 1:7); 3. it leaves the question of future punishment or pardon undecided, while the removes the guilt and remits the punishment. The same idea Paul expresses, Act 17:30 : (having overlooked) , &c. with the accusative cannot mean through, by means of, or for, but on account of; for Paul clearly distinguishes (even Rom 8:11; Gal 4:13) with the accusative and with the genitive. The Vulgate correctly renders propter, but mistakes for , remissio. So also Luther: in dem dass er Snde vergiebt.P. S.]
[54]Rom 3:26. [before ] in Codd. A. B. C. D. [D*. . Lachmann, Tischendorf, Meyer, Alford. The article was omitted to conform to , Rom 3:25. But the article distinguishes the of Rom 3:26 from the former as the fuller and ultimate object. Dr. Lange ingeniously distinguishes between and . See Exeg. Notes.P. S.]
[55]Rom 3:26.The addition is found in Codd. A. B. C. K. [and Sin.], Lachmann [Alford. Omitted by F. G. 52, It., Fritzsche, Meyer, Tischendorf; while other authorities read ., or I. X. A usual insertion. The force of is weakened by the E. V. The indicates that , or Christ rather as apprehended by , is the root or fountain of his spiritual life; comp. the in Rom 1:17; Rom 2:18. Conybeare and Howson: It means him whose essential characteristic is faith, the child of faith; comp. Gal 3:7; Gal 3:9. would perhaps be better rendered by righteous, but we have no verb from the same root equivalent to .P. S.]
[56]Rom 3:28.The reading is supported by Codd. A. and Sin.; but B. C., &c, and especially the context, are in favor of the recepta . [The external authorities are decidedly in favor of . Alford regards as a correction from misunderstanding of as conveying a conclusion. See Exeg. Notes.P. S.]
[57]Rom 3:28.The reading . . [The recep a reads before , to throw emphasis on faith. But 1. B. C. D. read . .P. S.]
[58]Rom 3:28.[ , without or apart from law (legal) works Genetzeswerke) or works of the law.P. S.]
[59]Rom 3:29.Lachmann, with Codd. A. C. F. [Sin.], and many others, declare for . Tischendorf, with B. and ancient fathers, favor . [This is too poorly supported and can easily be accounted for by the preceding .P. S.]
[60]Rom 3:30. [recepta], instead of , which probably arose because the former occurs only here in the N. T. (see Meyer). [But is better supported by A. B. C. D2. Sin1., &c, and preferred by Alford.P. S.]
[61]
Rom 3:31.[ (indicative from , a less usual form for , from ) is the reading of 3. D3. E. I. K. and Elz., and is defended by Fritzsche, for the reason that it closes the sentence with more gravity and power, and corresponds more harmoniously to the preceding . But (a late form of the same verb) is better supported by 1. A. B. C. D2. F. Orig, &c., and is recommended by Griesbach and adopted by Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Alford. The sense is the same: to make stand fast, to establish, to confirm, = , stabilire.P. S.]
[Forbes arranges the important section, Rom 3:21-26, in this way, which may assist somewhat in the exegesis:
21.
,
,
22. ,
.
23. .
, .
24. a
25.b ,
a ,
b ,
,
26. b
,
.P. S.]
[62][So also Hodge: This righteousness which, so to speak, had long been buried under the types and indistinct utterances of the old dispensation, has now in the gospel been made clear and apparent.P. S.]
[63][ , by means of; through; not , on account of. Faith is the appropriating organ and subjective condition, not the ground and cause of our justification.P. S.]
[64][Berlage, Scholten, V. Hengel, take as gen. of the author: fides qu auctore Jesu Christo Deo habetur. See against this Meyer in loc., footnote.P. S.]
[65][Meyer: . Das Sndigen eines Jeden ist als historisches Factum der Vergangenheit, wodurch der sndige Zustand bewirkt ist, dargestellt. Das Perfect, wrde es als vollendet dastehende Thatsache bezeichnen. See Text. Note5, and Exeg. Notes on in Rom 3:12.P. S.]
[66][This would be expressed rather by , or ; Rom 3:27; Rom 4:2; 1Co 5:6, &c.P. S.]
[67][Tholuck (p. 144) explains: Die von Gott ausgehende Ehrenretlung, dem Sinne nach die Gerechterkt lrung, and quotes from Schlichting: hoc loco significant eam gloriam, quum Deus hominem pronunciat justum.P. S.]
[68][Only the honor which proceeds from God can stand before God. So far the explanations, No. 4 coram Deo, and No. 5 a Deo, amount to the same thing, as Meyer remarks.P. S.]
[69][Still another exposition is that of Hofmann of Erlangen (Schrifibeweis, vol. i. p. 632, 2d ed.): the which belongs to God, as His own attribute, like the . Ewald: the which man had through creation, Psa 8:8, but which he lost through sin.P. S.]
[70][Wordsworth lays stress on the present tense, as indicating that the work of justification is ever going on by the application of the cleansing efficacy of Christs blood to all who lay hold on Him by faith.P. S.]
[71][Literally, release or deliverance of prisoners of war or others from () a state of misery or danger by the payment of a ransom. (, or ) as an equivalent; the ransom in our case is the life or blood of Christ, Mat 20:28; Eph 1:7; 1Ti 2:6; Tit 2:14; 1Pe 1:18; 1Pe 2:24. The synonymous verbs, , 1Co 6:20; 1Co 7:23; , Gal 3:13; , Act 20:28; , Tit 2:14, all imply the payment of a price.P. S.]
[72][Olshausen calls this verse the Acropolis of the Christian faith. Among English commentators Wordsworth and Hodge are very full on this verse, especially the former, whoso commentary is very unequal, passing by many important passages without a word of explanation, and dwelling upon others with disproportionate length. Hodge is much more symmetrical, but equally dogmatical. Of German commentators, comp. Olshausen, Tholuck, Philippi, Meyer.P. S.]
[73][Where is used of Gods eternal purpose. In the third passage where Paul employs this verb, Rom 1:13, he means his own purpose. The E. V. translates correctly, (hath) set forth, but suggests in the margin, foreordained. This interpretation would not necessarily require, as Meyer asserts, the infinitive (quem esse voluit Deus), comp. , , and Rom 8:29 : Jam 2:5. But it is inconsistent with the context; for Paul refers to a fact rather than a purpose, and emphasizes the publicity of the fact; comp. , Rom 3:21, and , Rom 3:25.P. S.]
[74][Kypke quotes Euripides, Iphig. Aul., 1592; but in this passage means either simply: Diana set forth (the sacrificial animal), or she preferred. See Meyer.P. S.]
[75][Meyer adds examples from Euripides, Thucydides, Demosthenes, and also from the LXX., and remarks, in a note, that the Greeks use especially of the exposure of corpses to public view, and that the Apostle may nave had this in mind.P. S.]
[76][ means to set forth something as his own to others. Comp. J. Chr. K. v. Hofmann: Der Schrifibeweis, ii. 1, p. 337 (2d ed.): Nicht blos ein Interesse hat Gott dabei (Meyer, Schmid), sondern sein ist und von ihm kommt er, den er hinstellt, und er machtihn zu dom, als was er ihn hinstellt.P. S.]
[77][This meaning of does not occur in the LXX., but often in the later Greek writers. See the examples quoted by Meyer in loco, who himself adopts this explanation. Comp. also the analogous terms and , thank-offering, , offering for purification, , sacrificium pro salute (Heilopfer). The sense then is this: God set forth Jesus Christ, in the sight of the intelligent universe, as a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the world. The choice lies between this and the third view; the second having no support in the use of language, besides being too abstract. Dr. Lange has made the third interpretation (mercy-seat) more plausible than any other commentator. See below. Comp. also Philippi, p. 105 f., and Forbes, p. 166, for the same view.P. S.]
[78][So also Hofmann, l. c., i. 1, p. 340. He takes to be essentially the same as in 1Jn 4:10 : . The E. V. translates both words propitiation. Dr. Morrison, in a monograph on Romans 3, as I learn from Forbes (p. 166), maintains that is never used substantively in the meaning of propitiatory sacrifice, and concludes for the adjective meaning of set forth as propitiatory, which as applied to Christ, would designate Him as the antitypical fulfilment of all the symbols of propitiation.P. S.]
[79][Philippi, p. 108, remarks: The Scripture says, that Christ offered Himself to God as a propitiatory sin-offering, Heb 9:14; Heb 9:28; Eph 5:2; Joh 17:19, but not, that God offered and exhibited Him to mankind as a sacrifice. The sacrifice is not offered by God, but to God. But there is a difference between God offering His Son, and God setting forth His Son as a sacrifice to the contemplation of the world.P. S.]
[80][The LXX. uses in no other sense, except in the isolated passage, Eze 43:14; Eze 43:17; Eze 43:20, so that every Jewish Christian reader of the Romans must at once have been reminded of the Capporeth in the Holy of holies. Dr. Hodge, p. 143, asserts that this use of in the LXX., arose from a mistake of the Hebrew term, which, means a cover, and never the mercy-seat. (So also Gesenius, Fritzsche, De Wette, and Bleek, Comm. on Heb 9:5, vol. iii., p. 499, note b.) But is not derived from the unusual Kal of the verb (to cover, Gen 6:14), but from the Piel , which always means, to forgive, to propitiate, to atone (Lev 16:33; Deu 32:43; Eze 43:20; Eze 43:26, &c.), and is the technical term, in the Mosaic ritual, for the object and intent of sacrifice. If the word were formed from the Kal, it would be . The golden lid was called , not because it covered the open ark, but because it subserved the act of expiation which was here performed (Bhr, Symbolik des Mos. Cultus, i., p. 381). The Capporeth was the centre of the presence and revelation of God, and His glory dwelt over it between the two cherubim which overshadowed the ark, and represented the creation. Hence the Holy of holies was called (1Ch 28:11). The Peshito and Vulgate (propiliatorium) have followed the LXX. Comp. also Tholuck, Romans , 5 th ed., p. 157, note; and Ewald, Alterth., p. 165. But Ewald and Meyer derive from in the sense of scabere, to rub off, to forgive; against which Tholuck protests in favor of the usual derivation from . Ewald (l. c., p. 165, 3d ed. of 1866) maintains that Capporeth cannot mean the plain cover, as if the ark had no other, but a second cover or a separate settle (the footstool of Jehovah), which was even more important than the ark itself, and is so described, Eze 25:17-17; Ezek. 26:34, &c. He derives it from , as scamnum, or scabellum from scabere, and refers to , 2Ch 9:18, and to an Ethiopic verb.P. S.]
[81][Wordsworth, on the contrary, urges as an argument against this interpretation, since the mercy-seat was not set forth, but concealed from the people and even from the priests. But this has no force.P. S.]
[82][Repeated by Jowett in loc.P. S.]
[83][Meyer, in the third and fourth editions, connects with , and only with : God set forth Christ in His blood (i.e., by causing Him to shed His blood, in which lies the power of the atonement) as a sin-offering, which is effective through faith. De Wette connects both . and . . alike with , the former expressing the means of the subjective appropriation (das subjective Aneignungsmittel), the latter the means of the objective exhibition (das objective Darstellungsmittel) of Christ as a propitiatory sacrifice. So also Alford, who seems to follow De Wette (at least in the Romans) more than any other commentator.P. S.]
[84][Meyer, p. 146 (4th ed.): In the strict sense, the judicial (more particularly the punitive) righteousness, which demanded a holy satisfaction, and secured it in the atoning sacrifice of Christ. De Wette (and, after him, Alford): This idea alone suits the , which is likewise judicial. A sin-offering excites, on the one hand, the feeling of guilt, and is expiation; on the other, it produces pardon and peace; and thus Christs death is not only a proof of Gods grace, but also of His judicial righteousness, which requires punishment and expiation (2Co 5:21). Here is a foundation for the Anselmic theory of satisfaction, but not for its grossly anthropopathic execution.P. S.]
[85][Forbes, p. Rom 168: Gods judicial righteousness in both its aspects, of sin-condemning and sin-forgiving righteousness.P. S.]
[86][Dr. Hodge, from fear of Romanizing inferences, takes in the sense of , and adopts the false translation of the Vulgate propter remissionem, because God had overlooked or pardoned sin from the beginning. ? To say God did not punish sins under the Old Dispensation, is only a different way of saying that He pardoned them. So, not to impute iniquity, is the negative statement of justification. Comp. against this, Textual Note8. Hodge goes on to say (p. 150): This passage is one of the few which the Romanists quote in support of their doctrine that there was no real pardon, justification, or salvation before the advent of Christ. The ancient believers, at death, according to their doctrine, did not pass into heaven, but into the limbus patrum, where they continued in a semi-conscious state until Christs descensus ad inferos for their deliverance. The modern transcendental theologians of Germany, who approach Romanism in so many other points [?], agree with the Papists also here. Thus Olshausen says, Under the Old Testament there was no real, but only a symbolical forgiveness of sins. Our Lord, however, speaks of Abraham as in heaven; and the Psalms are filled with petitions and thanksgiving for Gods pardoning mercy. But how will Dr. Hodge on his theory explain the Old Testament doctrine of Sheol or Hades before Christs resurrection, and such passages as Heb 9:15; Heb 11:39-40; Act 13:39, which likewise plainly teach the incompleteness of the Old Testament salvation before the advent of Christ? There certainly can be no remission of sin without the sacrifice of Christ; and whatever remission there was under the Old Dispensation, was granted and enjoyed only by reason of the retrospective efficacy, and in trustful anticipation of that sacrifice. But anticipation falls far short of the actual reality. Tholuck calls the atonement of Christ not unaptly the Divine theodicy for the past history of the world.P. S.]
[87][Hence Dr. Lange, in his translation, makes a period after . I prefer the construction of Meyer and Philippi as being more natural. The must not be confounded with : the former suspends and puts off the judgment by , the latter abolishes the guilt of sin by .P. S.]
[88][Meyer: , Wiederaufnahme des , Rom 3:25, und zwar ohne , Rom 3:22, icobei mit dem gleichbedeutenden absichtslos vertauchst ist, der Artikel aber der Vorstellung der bestimmten, geschichtlich gegebenen dient, was dem Fortschritte der Darstellung entspricht. So also Tholuck and Philippi. The latter commentator explains the exchange of for from euphony, to avoid the threefold repetition of (., Rom 3:25; , Rom 3:26).P. S.]
[89][Meyer takes simply as the pronoun of the third person. It evidently belongs both to and .P. S.]
[90][Hence the article , which seems to refer to the already spoken of in Rom 2:17; Rom 3:19, comp. below, Rom 3:29. So Chrysostom, Theodoret ( ), Bengel, Rckert, Tholuck, Philippi, Meyer, Alford; while Fritzsche, Hodge, and others, take it in a general sense of the boasting of the sinner before God; which, of course, includes the boasting of the Jews over the Gentiles.P. S.]
[91][So also Alford and Hodge: is not used here in its ordinary sense. The general idea, however, of a rule of action is retained.P. S.]
[92][This is very true. Luthers allein is correct in substance, and appropriate as a gloss or in a paraphrase, but has no business in the text. It is a logical inference from the context, and is equivalent to the in the parallel passage, Gal 2:16. The Latin Vulgate had taken the same liberty, it is true, in other cases; and, in this very verse, Luthers insertion can be justified by Catholic versions, viz., the oldest German Catholic Bible of Nuremberg (published 1483, the year of Luthers birth), which reads: Nur durch den Gl., and two Italian versions (of Genoa, 1476, and Venice, 1538, per la sola fede). Even Erasmus defended Luther in this case, and said: Vox sola tot clamoribus lapidata hoc sculo in Luthero, reverenter in Patribus [?] auditur. Comp. Wolf, Koppe, Tholuck, and Philippi in loco. Nevertheless, the insertion of the sola in the translation was unnecessary and unwise, and, in the eyes of Romanists, it gave some plausibility to the unjust charge of falsifying the Scriptures. It brought Paul into direct verbal (though no real) conflict with James, when he says that by works man is justified, and not by faith only ( , Rom 2:24). The dogmatic formula, sola fide (hence the term solifidianism), has become a watchword of evangelical Protestantism, and, rightly understoodi.e., in the sense of gratia solait expresses a most precious truth, which can never be sacrificed. But it must not be confounded with fide solitaria, a faith that is and remains alone. The must be connected with the verb, not with . The Bible never says: faith justifies, but, we are justified by faith (), because faith comes into view here simply as a means, or as the which apprehends and appropriates Christ; and hence it is by faith, without the coperation of works, that we are justified. But faith is nevertheless the fruitful source of all good works. Fides sola justificat, at nec est, nec manet sola: intrinsecus operatur et extrinsecus. The more full and correct formula would be: Gratia sola justificamur per fidem qu christi justitiam apprehendit et per caritatem operatur ( ), or salvation by grace alone as apprehended by a living faith. Justifying faith purifies the heart, overcomes the world, and abounds in fruits of righteousness. It is impossible truly to believe in Christ, without partaking of the power of His holy life. Wordsworth in loc. hits the point, when he says: Though it is by faith we are justified, and by faith only, yet not by such a faith as has no works springing out of it. Every such faith is a dead faith. And yet it is not from the works that spring out of faith, but from the faith which is the root of works, that all are justified. In other words, it is not by faith as an active or working, but by faith as a receptive or appropriating principle, by which we are justified; yet that which faith receives is a power of life which must at once manifest itself in good works. It is but just to Luther to add, that he taught most clearly and forcibly this inseparable connection between faith and works. I shall quote but one passage from his admirable preface to the Epistle to the Romans: O es ist ein lebendig, geschftig, thtig, mchtig Ding um den Glauben, dass es unmglich ist, dass er nicht ohne Unterlass sollte Gutes wirken. Er fragt auch nicht, ob gute Werke zu thun sind, sondern ehe man fragt, hat er sie gethan, und ist immer im Thun. ? Also dass unmglich ist, Werk vom Glauben zu scheiden; ja, so unmglich, als brennen und leuchten vom Feuer mag geschieden werden. Comp. p. 140, No. 9.P. S.]
[93][So also Hodge, since Paul uses both forms indiscriminately; , in Rom 1:17; Rom 3:20; Rom 4:16; and , in Rom 3:22; Rom 3:25; Gal 2:16, and sometimes first the one and then the other, in the same connection. Comp. the English prepositions by and through. According to De Wette and Alford, , by faith, expresses the objective ground; , through his (their) faith, the subjective medium of justification. Jowett connects with , the circumcision which is by faith, and thereby destroys the correspondence to the other member. Green (Gr., p. 300, as quoted by Alford) refers to just mentioned, by the instrumentality of the identical faith which operates in the case of the circumcised. Bengel: Judi pridem in fide fuerant; gentiles fidem ab illis recens nacti erant.P. S.]
[94][Very similar is the interpretation of Wordsworth: The Jews, or children of Abraham, are justified out of or from () the faith which Abraham their father had, and which they are supposed to have in him, being already in the covenant with God in Christ. The Gentiles, , must enter that door of the faith of Abraham, and pass through it (), in order to be justified. There is but one Church from the beginning. Abraham and his seed are in the household of faith in Christ, but they must live and act from its spirit; the heathen must enter the house through the door of that faith in Him.P. S.]
[95][Comp. a long note of Wordsworth in loc., who assigns no less than twelve reasons for the assertion of Rom 3:21, viz., because the doctrine of justification is grounded on the testimony of the law that all are under sin; because the sacrifice of Christ was pre-announced by the passover, and other sacrifices of the law; because the law reveals God as a just Judge, who needs an adequate propitiation for sin; because the death of Christ is such a propitiation; because Christ has, by His perfect obedience to the law, established its dignity; because justification by faith obliges men to new degrees of love and gratitude to God, &c., &c. But these are all subordinate points.In one sense the law is abolished, as a type and shadow of things to come; as a hilling letter, with its curse; comp. Eph. 2:25; Gal 3:13; but as to its moral contents, as the expression of the holy will of God, as a rule of conduct, it was perfectly fulfilled by Christ, and is constantly fulfilled by every believer in love to God and love to our neighbor. The decalogue is a national code in form, a universal code in spirit and aim. This applies to all the Ten Commandments, from which we cannot take out one (say the second, or the fourth) without marring the beauty, harmony, and completeness of the whole. Christ has settled that question in His interpretation of the law, by the fundamental principle of the magna charta of the kingdom of heaven, as laid down Mat 5:17 ff.P. S.]
[96][The Deutsche Theologie, or Theologia Germanica, is the work of an unknown author of the fifteenth century, and was edited by Dr. Luther with a highly commendatory preface in 1516, one year before the commencement of the Reformation. Recent editions by Pfeiffer, 1855, and Reifenrath, 1863. There is also an English translation by Susanna Winkworth, with introductions by Bunsen and Kingsley, London, 1855, reprinted at Andover, 1856.P. S.]
[97] [As set forth in his celebrated tract, Cur Deus Homo. An able and vigorous, but unsuccessful attempt to set aside the orthodox view of the atonement has been made in America by Dr. Bushnell, The Vicarious Sacrifice, New York, 1866. Comp. also the English work of Young on Christ the Light and Life of the World, 1867, and Jowetts excursus on the Doctrine of the Atonement (Rom., p. 468 ff.P. S.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
DISCOURSE: 1832
THE BELIEVERS RIGHTEOUSNESS
Rom 3:21-22. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe.
IT is justly observed by our Lord, that they that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. Persons never value a remedy till they are aware of their disease: they must know their condemnation and misery by the Law, before they will receive with gratitude the glad tidings of the Gospel. On this account St. Paul labours through the whole preceding part of this epistle, and especially in the ten verses before the text, to prove all, both Jews and Gentiles, guilty before God; and to shew that they need a better righteousness than any which they themselves can work out. Then he introduces that righteousness which is exhibited in the Gospel, and is offered to every repenting and believing sinner.
To elucidate the subject before us, we propose to shew,
I.
What is that righteousness whereby we are to be saved
The Apostles description of it is as clear and comprehensive as we can possibly desire:
1.
It is the righteousness of God
[Twice is it called the righteousness of God; by which expression we are to understand that it is a righteousness provided by God for sinful man, wrought out by God himself in the midst of us, and accepted of God on our behalf.
When we were destitute of any righteousness of our own, and incapable of establishing one that should be sufficient for us, God, in his infinite mercy determined to provide one for us, that should be commensurate with the demands of law and justice, and fully adequate to our wants. For this end he sent his co-equal, co-eternal Son to fulfil the precepts of the law which we had broken, and to endure its penalties which we had incurred. The Lord Jesus came into the world and executed his high commission; and thus, as the Prophet Daniel expresses it, brought in an everlasting righteousness [Note: Dan 9:24.]. He being Emmanuel, God with us, his righteousness is truly and properly the righteousness of God. This righteousness God accepts for us as though it were our own. In consideration of what Jesus suffered, he remits our punishment; and in consideration of Christs meritorious obedience, he bestows on us the reward of eternal life. Hence, from beginning to end, this is distinguished from the righteousness of man; seeing that it was provided by God the Father, wrought out by God the Son, and shall be accepted both by the Father and the Son on our behalf.]
2.
It is a righteousness without the law
[By this expression the Apostle distinguishes it from any righteousness arising from our obedience to the law; and intimates, that it is totally independent of any works of ours, past, present, or future. No works of ours can add to it in the smallest degree, or render it either more satisfactory to God, or more sufficient for us. On the contrary, if we were to attempt to unite any thing of our own with it, instead of rendering it more firm, we should utterly make it void; and instead of securing to ourselves an interest in it, we should cut off ourselves from all hope of acceptance by it [Note: Gal 5:2; Gal 5:4.]. We must not be understood to say, that this righteousness supersedes the practice of good works, (for it lays us under tenfold obligation to perform them [Note: Tit 2:11-12.]) but that it excludes all reliance on our own works, and will on no account admit a creatures righteousness to participate the honour of justifying us before God.]
3.
It is a righteousness by faith of Jesus Christ
[As in the foregoing expressions this righteousness is declared to be Gods, exclusive of any works of man, so here we are told how it becomes ours. But this part of the subject will be more fully considered under the third head of our discourse; I will therefore only observe at present, that we must obtain an interest in this righteousness, not by working, but by believing in Christ. We must no more attempt to purchase it by our works, than to add to it by our works; or, if we will purchase it, we must buy it without money and without price [Note: Isa 55:1.].]
To confirm the Apostles description, we shall proceed to shew,
II.
What evidence we have that this is the only justifying righteousness
There will be no room left to doubt respecting it, if we consider, that,
1.
It was manifested to be so by the Gospel
[This truth had been obscurely intimated under the law; but now it was fully manifested by the Gospel. When Christ was just entering on his ministry, John Baptist pointed him out as the Lamb of God that should take away the sins of the world [Note: Joh 1:29.]. Christ himself declared that he was about to give his life a ransom for many [Note: Mat 20:28.], and that they were to receive the remission of sins as purchased by his blood [Note: Mat 26:28.]. St. Peter in his very first sermon exhorted the people to believe in Christ for the remission of their sins, and declared to them that there was no other name whereby they could be saved [Note: Act 2:38; Act 4:11-12.]. St. Paul in numberless places insists upon our seeking justification solely by faith in Christ, without the smallest mixture of dependence on our own works [Note: Rom 4:3-5; Rom 4:14; Rom 5:9; Rom 5:15-18.]: and when St. Peter, through fear of the Jews, had given some reason to think that an obedience to the Mosaic ritual ought to be, or at least might be, added to the righteousness of Christ in order to render it more effectual, St. Paul reproved him publicly before all the Church, and reminded him that all, not excepting the Apostles themselves, must be justified solely by the righteousness of Christ, without any works of the law [Note: Gal 2:14-16.]. Is not this a strong confirmation of the point before us?]
2.
It was witnessed by the law and the prophets
[The moral law may in some sense be considered as bearing testimony to the righteousness of Christ: for though it makes no express mention of it, yet, by condemning all without exception, it shuts men up to the faith of Christ, and serves as a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ [Note: Gal 3:22-24.]. The ceremonial law in all its ordinances pointed directly to Christ. It is not possible to contemplate the Paschal lamb, or the scape-goat, or indeed any of the sacrifices or ablutions, without seeing Christ prefigured by them, and confessing him to be the end of the law for righteousness to believing sinners [Note: Rom 10:4.].
If we consult the prophets, they are unanimous in directing us to Christ. The prophecies that preceded Moses, represent Christ as the one conqueror of the serpent [Note: Gen 3:15.], and the one source of blessedness to man [Note: Gen 12:3; Gen 15:6.]. Moses himself spake of him as the prophet, to whom all must look for instruction and salvation [Note: Act 3:22-23.]. Jeremiah calls him by name, The Lord our righteousness [Note: Jer 23:6.]: and Isaiah represents every child of God as saying with exultation, In the Lord have I righteousness and strength [Note: Isa 45:24-25.]. To adduce more proofs is unnecessary, since we are assured by St. Peter, that all the prophets unite their testimonies to the same effect [Note: Act 3:24; Act 10:43.]. What stronger evidence than this can any man desire?]
But we have further to inquire,
III.
How this righteousness becomes ours
Faith is the means whereby alone we obtain an interest in it
[This also is twice intimated in the text: nor can it be too often repeated, or too strongly insisted on. We must come to Christ as perishing sinners; and, without attempting to establish, in whole or in part, our own righteousness, we must submit to be saved by his alone [Note: Rom 10:3.]. We must be contented to have his righteousness imputed to us without works [Note: Rom 4:6.], and to make his obedience the one ground of our hope [Note: Rom 5:19.]. They alone who thus regard Christ, can properly be said to believe in him; and it is only when we thus believe, that he is made of God righteousness unto us [Note: 1Co 1:30.].]
On our believing, it is instantly put to our account
[This righteousness is bestowed upon us freely by God himself; it is not only given unto us as a portion, but is put upon us as a garment. In this light it is spoken of by our Lord himself, who counsels us to buy it of him that we may be clothed, and that the shame of our nakedness may not appear [Note: Rev 3:18.]. Without this, we are despoiled of our innocence, and exposed to shame, as our first parents were upon the introduction of sin: but as they were covered by the skins of their sacrifices according to the direction which God himself had given them [Note: Gen 3:7; Gen 3:21.], so are we by putting on the Lord Jesus [Note: Rom 13:14.]: nor, when clothed with his righteousness, can even God himself behold a spot or blemish in us [Note: Eph 5:27.]. Hence the Church rejoices with joy unspeakable [Note: Isa 61:10.], and is rendered meet for the presence of her heavenly bridegroom [Note: Rev 19:8.].]
Application
Must not the self-righteous moralist then stand confounded before God?
[Surely it is no light matter to pour contempt on the righteousness of God, as though it were insufficient for us without the filthy rags of our righteousness [Note: Isa 64:6.]. It is no light matter to reject the united testimony of the law and the prophets, of Christ and his Apostles. And as the guilt of such conduct is great, so is also the danger: and whosoever persists in it must irremediably perish [Note: Rom 9:30-32.].]
On the other hand, should not the self-condemning sinner receive encouragement from this subject?
[It is well to condemn ourselves, but not to despond. Twice is it declared in the text, that this righteousness is for all who will believe in Christ [Note: Compare Act 13:38-39. with Isa 1:18 and Rom 5:20-21.]. And is it not sufficient for all? Let all then set to their seal that God is true. Let them honour the righteousness of Christ by their affiance in it; and it shall be manifested to their consciences, no less than in the Scriptures themselves, that it is complete in itself, adequate to our necessities, and effectual for all who rely upon it.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; (22) Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: (23) For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (24) Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: (25) Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; (26) To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Here Paul arrives at the great object, which all along he had been preparing to bring in; and in the very mention of which, his whole soul seems to be on fire, Jer 20:9 . He had glanced at it before, Rom 1:17 . But here he dwells on it more particularly. And, what he marks as the distinguishing feature of it, is, that it is wholly unconnected with any other, and with every other, principle. But now, (saith he,) the righteousness of God without the law is manifested; yea, saith Paul, it is witnessed by the law and the prophets. Both, joyfully give in their testimony, to the complete, full, and all justifying righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ. They gladly minister to proclaim their own nothingness, and Christ’s all-sufficiency, in a way of justification. Reader! I beseech you, pause over this precious testimony, which God the Holy Ghost hath here given, by his servant Paul, to the righteousness of God our Savior. Look at the law in all its bearings. By the law, saith Paul, is the knowledge of sin. Yes! the law teacheth of sin, shews what sin is; but cannot shew a righteousness which may save from it. This the Gospel only proclaims. And the blessedness of it, and the fulness of it, and the compleatness of it, both the law and the Prophets witness to with joy! Dan 9:24 ; Rom 4:25 .
But , what I beg the Reader also not to overlook, in this precious statement, of the righteousness of God our Savior, is, that it is a righteousness so universally suited to the Lord’s people, in every department, whether babes in Christ, or old saints of God, that it is unto all, and upon all, that believe, for there is no difference. Reader! calculate, if you can, the immense blessedness of what is here said. First, of the righteousness itself, which is wholly of God. Not of man’s providing, but of God’s appointing. Not of man’s merit, but of God’s free grace. No predisposing cause but the everlasting love of God in Christ, having anything to do in the matter. Yea, faith itself, by which a child of God is made to possess it, and enjoy it, hath nothing of merit by way of recommendation. The Lord, who is the sole Author and Giver of this righteousness, is the sole Author and Giver of faith also to receive, believe, and enjoy it, So that faith, as an act of ours, is but the effect, and not the cause; the hand to receive, and not to promote, the vast mercy. The highly favored soul, who is made a rich partaker of the blessing; to him it is given, to feel his want of righteousness in himself, to behold Christ’s righteousness as every way suited to himself and his wants, to accept on his bended knees the proffered mercy, and to receive it to the divine glory, and his own happiness.
Secondly. This righteousness, is said to be, unto all, and upon all, that believe, for there is no difference. No difference in the thing itself, neither in the application of it. For the Lord, whose it is, gives it to all with an equal hand, and loves all with an equal love, and justifies all with an equal freeness of grace. For, it is not what they are in themselves, but what they are in Christ, which makes them the objects of the divine favor. It is blessed, yea, very blessed, to have a large hand of faith to receive the larger portions of the grace of belief, to enjoy the Lord’s blessings of every kind, with a greater fulness. But our enjoyment is one thing, and the Lord’s righteousness, which justifies, another. He that hath little faith, and is in Christ, is as compleatly justified by Christ, as he that hath the largest portions of faith to apprehend with greater delight his mercies. By him, (saith the Apostle, that is, by Christ,) all that believe, whether strong believers or weak ones, whether babes in Christ, or fathers in the strength of Christ; are justified from all things, Act 23:35 . And the reason is given. For the righteousness which justifies, is alike justifying, too all, and upon all. It is unto them, and upon them; not within them, nor from them. And therefore, being wholly out of themselves, and nothing within, no inherent holiness in the creature, which some men talk of, but none know; there can be no difference in the receiver, or in the act of justification by the Giver. For, as the Apostle adds in the following verses: All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. And, therefore, the justification of all, cannot but. be alike the free gift of God, and not the smallest difference in man. Being justified (saith the Apostle) freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
In the close of this paragraph, the Apostle dwells very blessedly on the greatness of Christ’s sacrifice; and on the grace of God, in the wonderful ordination of it: and, from the union of both he shews, how Jehovah, in his threefold character of Persons, may, and indeed doth, justify the believer in Jesus, while preserving his own glory, in the full perfection of all the rights of his justice. Whom God (saith he) hath set forth a propitiation through faith in his blood. The Reader will perceive, that I take no notice in this passage of those words, to be, which are in Italicks, and which have no business there; for Christ was not then to be set forth; for this had been done from everlasting. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, Pro 8:22-23 . And, Christ is said to have been, the lamb slain from the foundation of the world!, Rev 13:8 . And Christ hath been, and is, and will be, the same, in the perpetual, and unceasing efficacy of his blood, to all eternity.
We do not meet with this word propitiation, but three times in all the Bible, once in this place and twice in the First Epistle of John, 1Jn 2:2 and 1Jn 4:10 . Christ indeed is both the propitiation and the propitiatory. He is the propitiation, or sacrifice; the propitiatory, or mercy seat and altar, on which that sacrifice was offered; and he is the high priest, or sacrificer, to make the offering. The Jews were accustomed, on this account, to call the mercy-seat Ilasterion. For here, in allusion to all the great events connected with the Person of Christ, and his Offices, and Character; the Lord promised to come and meet his people, Exo 25:22 . And, in the Person of Christ only, can this meeting be, either in time, or eternity. Well might his Name be called Wonderful! For, while all the divine Attributes meet in his Person, and shine in one full constellation; all our sins meet on him, (so it is rendered in the margin of our old Bibles, Isa 53:6 ) as centering upon Christ, not in Christ; and the Lord Jesus washing them all away by his blood. So that Christ, in the fullest sense of the word, is the propitiation, and the only propitiation for sin; having by that one offering of himself once offered, perfected forever them that are sanctified, Heb 10:14 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
Ver. 21. But now ] Since Christ came.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
21 26. ] The Apostle resumes the declaration of ch. Rom 1:17 (having proved that man has no righteousness of his own resulting from the observance of God’s law): viz. that God’s righteousness is revealed by Christ, whose atoning Death is, consistently with God’s justice, sufficient for the pardon of sin to those who believe in Him .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
21. ] Is this of time, ‘now ,’ in contradistinction to ages past, = , Rom 3:26 , or is it merely = ‘as things are,’ ‘ now we find ?’ The former is held by Grot., Bengel, Tholuck, Reiche, Olsh., Rckert, al., the latter by Fritzsche, Meyer, and De Wette. The former is true in sense, and applicable to the circumstances of the gospel: but the meaning is too strong , where no contrast of time is expressly in view. I therefore prefer the latter, especially as Paul’s usage elsewhere justifies it; see ch. Rom 7:17 ; 1Co 15:20 .
] without the (help of the) law , ‘independently of the law:’ not ‘without the works of the law;’ for here it is not the way to the . which is spoken of (which is faith ), but that . itself .
. ] God’s righteousness : in what sense, see ch. Rom 1:17 , and note.
] viz. in the facts of the gospel. The perfect sets forth the manifestation of this righteousness in history as an accomplished and still enduring fact the of ch. Rom 1:17 denotes the continual unfolding of this righteousness in the hearts and lives of faithful believers.
. . .] being borne witness to (pres. because the law and prophets remain on record as a revelation of God’s will) by the law and the prophets (not merely the types and prophecies, but the whole body of the O. T., see Mat 22:40 ).
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
21 5:11. ] THE ENTRANCE INTO GOD’S RIGHTEOUSNESS (ch. Rom 1:17 ) IS SHEWN TO BE BY FAITH.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Rom 3:21-26 . The universal need of a Gospel has now been demonstrated, and the Apostle proceeds with his exposition of this Gospel itself. It brings what all men need, a righteousness of God (see on Rom 1:17 ); and it brings it in such a way as to make it accessible to all. Law contributes nothing to it, though it is attested by the law and the prophets; it is a righteousness which is all of grace. Grace, however, does not signify that moral distinctions are ignored in God’s procedure: the righteousness which is held out in the Gospel is held out on the basis of the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. It is put within the sinner’s reach at a great cost. It could never be offered to him it could never be manifested, or indeed have any real existence but for the propitiatory virtue of the blood of Christ. Christ a propitiation is the inmost soul of the Gospel for sinful men. If God had not set Him forth in this character, not only must we despair for ever of attaining to a Divine righteousness; all our attempts to read the story of the world in any consistency with the character of God must be baffled. Past sins God seemed simply to ignore: He treated them apparently as if they were not. But the Cross is “the Divine theodicy for the past history of the world” (Tholuck); we see in it how seriously God deals with the sins which for the time He seemed to pass by. It is a demonstration of His righteousness that is, in the widest sense, of His consistency with His own character, which would have been violated by indifference to sin. And that demonstration is, by God’s grace, given in such a way that it is possible for Him to be (as He intends to be) at once just Himself, and the justifier of those who believe in Jesus. The propitiatory death of Jesus, in other words, is at once the vindication of God and the salvation of man. That is why it is central and fundamental in the Apostolic Gospel. It meets the requirements, at the same time, of the righteousness of God and of the sin of man.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Rom 3:21 . : but now. All time is divided for Paul into “now” and “then”. Cf. Eph 2:12 f., ; 2Co 5:16 , : the reception of the Gospel means the coming of a new world. : legal obedience contributes nothing to evangelic righteousness. It is plain that in this expression does not signify the O.T. revelation or religion as such, but that religion, or any other, conceived as embodied in statutes. It is statutory obedience which (as Paul has learned by experience) cannot justify. Hence has not exactly the same sense here as in the next clause, . , where the whole expression is equal to the O.T., and the meaning is that the Gospel is not alien to the religion of Israel, but really finds attestation there. This is worth remarking, because there is a similar variation in the meaning of between Rom 3:21 ; Rom 3:25 , and in that of between Rom 3:23 and Rom 5:2 . To deny that words which mean so much, and are applied so variously, can convey different shades of meaning, even within the narrow limits of a few verses, is to deny that language shares in the life and subtlety of the mind. : once for all the righteousness of God has been revealed in the Gospel. Cf. Rom 16:26 , Col 1:26 , 2Ti 1:10 , 1Pe 1:20 , Heb 9:8 ; Heb 9:26 .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Rom 3:21-26
21But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; 25whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; 26for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Rom 3:21 “But now” Paul is contrasting the Old Covenant with the New Covenant, the old age of rebellion with the new age of righteousness. This would then parallel “at the present time” (cf. Rom 3:26; “but now” of Rom 6:22; Rom 7:6).
“now apart from the Law” It is often hard to be certain whether Paul is referring to the Mosaic Law (NASB) or law in general (NRSV, TEV, NJB, NIV) in these opening chapters. In this context the Jewish Law fits Paul’s argument best. All humans have violated every set of moral, societal guidelines whether internal or external. Our problems as fallen mankind is that we want no guidelines at all except our own selfish, self-centered desires (cf. Genesis 3) which so characterizes modern western individualism.
NASB”the righteousness of God”
NKJV, NRSV”the righteousness of God”
TEV”God’s way of putting people right with himself”
NJB”God’s saving justice”
There is no definite article with “righteousness.” This does not refer to God’s character, but God’s way of imparting forgiveness and acceptance to sinful people. This very phrase was used in the theological theme of Rom 1:16-17. The clearly revealed mechanism is faith in the crucified Jesus Christ (cf. Rom 3:22; Rom 3:24-26).
The fact that this term (dikaioson) and its derivatives (see note at Rom 2:13) are used so often in this context shows its significance (cf. Rom 1:17; Rom 3:5; Rom 3:21-22; Rom 3:25-26; Rom 4:3; Rom 4:5-6; Rom 4:9; Rom 4:11; Rom 4:13; Rom 4:22; Rom 5:17; Rom 5:21; Rom 6:13; Rom 6:16; Rom 6:18-20; Rom 8:10; Rom 9:28; Rom 9:30-31; Rom 10:3-6; Rom 10:10; Rom 10:17). This Greek term is from an OT construction metaphor (tsadak) of “a standard” or “a measuring reed” (see Special Topic at Rom 1:17). The standard is God Himself. This term reflects God’s character which is freely given to fallen mankind through Christ (cf. chap. 4; 2Co 5:21). Admitting their need and accepting God’s gift was, and is, so humiliating to prideful, self-centered mankind-especially legalistic, religious mankind.
“has been manifested” This phrase is very similar to Rom 1:17. However, the verb tense is different. The verb here can be translated, “has been and continues to be clearly revealed.” It is a perfect passive indicative, while the synonym in Rom 1:17 is present passive indicative. God has clearly revealed the gospel both in the OT (cf. Romans 4) and in Jesus.
“being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets” This referred to two of the three divisions of the Hebrew canon (Law, Prophets, and Writings). These first two were used to refer to the whole (see note at Rom 3:19; Mat 5:17). This clearly showed that the gospel was contained in preliminary form in the OT (cf. Luk 24:27; Luk 24:44; Act 10:43). It was not an afterthought, “Plan B,” or a last minute crash program (cf. Rom 1:2).
Rom 3:22 “through faith in Jesus Christ” This is literally “through faith of Jesus Christ.” This is a genitive construction. It is repeated in Gal 2:16 and Php 3:9 as well as a similar form in Rom 3:26; Gal 2:16; Gal 2:20; Gal 3:22. It could mean
1. the faith or faithfulness of Jesus (subjective genitive)
2. Jesus as the object of our faith (objective genitive)
The same grammatical construction in Gal 2:16 makes #2 the best choice.
This shows the main aspect of God’s justification. It is the righteousness of God made operative in one’s life by God’s free gift through Christ (cf. Rom 4:5; Rom 6:23), which must be accepted by faith/belief/trust (cf. Eph 2:8-9) and lived out in daily life (cf. Eph 1:4; Eph 2:10).
“for all” The gospel is for all humans (cf. Rom 3:24; Isa 53:6; Eze 18:23; Eze 18:32; Joh 3:16-17; Joh 4:42; 1Ti 2:4; 1Ti 4:10; Tit 2:11; 2Pe 3:9; 1Jn 2:1; 1Jn 4:14). What a great truth! This must balance the biblical truth of election. God’s election must not be understood in the Islamic sense of determinism nor in the ultra-Calvinistic sense of some vs. others, but in the covenantal sense. Old Testament election was for service, not privilege! God promised to redeem fallen mankind (cf. Gen 3:15). God called and chose all mankind through Israel (cf. Gen 12:3; Exo 19:5-6). God elects through faith in Christ. God always takes the initiative in salvation (cf. Joh 6:44; Joh 6:65). Ephesians 1 and Romans 9 are the strongest biblical passages on the doctrine of predestination which was theologically emphasized by Augustine and Calvin.
God chose believers not only to salvation (justification), but also to sanctification (cf. Eph 1:4; Col 1:12). This could relate to
1. our position in Christ (cf. 2Co 5:21)
2. God’s desire to reproduce His character in His children (cf. Rom 8:28-29; Gal 4:19; Eph 2:10)
God’s will for His children is both heaven one day and Christlikeness now!
The goal of predestination is holiness (cf. Eph 1:4), not privilege! God’s call was not to a selected few of Adam’s children, but all! It was a call to God’s own character (cf. 1Th 5:23; 2Th 2:13). To turn predestination into a theological tenant instead of a holy life is a tragedy of human theological systems. Often our theological grids distort biblical texts!
See SPECIAL TOPIC: ELECTION/PREDESTINATION AND THE NEED FOR A THEOLOGICAL BALANCE /Predestination and the Need for a Theological Balance at Rom 8:33.
“who believe” Jesus died for all humans. Potentially all can be saved. It is mankind’s personal reception (present participle, see Special Topic at Rom 10:4) that makes Jesus’ righteousness applicable to their lives (cf. Rom 1:16; Joh 1:12; Joh 3:16; Joh 20:31; Rom 10:9-13; 1Jn 5:13). The Bible presents two criteria for imputed righteousness: faith and repentance (cf. Mar 1:15; Act 3:16; Act 3:19; Act 20:31 and see note at Rom 1:5). This text clearly reveals the universal offer of salvation but the tragedy and mystery is that not all will be saved.
“for there is no distinction” There is only one way and one Person by which humans (Jews and Gentiles) can be saved (cf. Joh 10:1-2; Joh 10:7; Joh 11:25; Joh 14:6). Anyone and everyone can be saved by faith in Christ (cf. Rom 1:16; Rom 4:11; Rom 4:16; Rom 10:4; Rom 10:12; Gal 3:28; Col 3:11).
Rom 3:23-26 This is one sentence in Greek.
Rom 3:23
NASB, NKJV,
NRSV”for all have sinned and fall short of”
TEV”all men have sinned and are far away from”
NJB”sinned and forfeited”
This is a summary of Rom 1:18 to Rom 3:20. Everyone needs to be saved by Christ (cf. Rom 3:9; Rom 3:19; Rom 11:32; Gal 3:22; Isa 53:6). “Sinned” is an aorist active indicative, while “continues to come short” is a present middle indicative. Possibly this phrase referred to both (1) mankind’s collective fall in Adam (cf. Rom 5:12-21) and (2) his continual individual acts of rebellion. None of the modern English translations specifically reflect this distinction.
This verse relates theologically to Rom 3:21 and not directly to Rom 3:24.
“the glory of God” Humans were made in God’s image (cf. Gen 1:26-27), which was not true of any other created thing. Humans were to fellowship with the God of glory and reflect His character! Sin damaged the image, but God’s grace through Christ’s death and believers’s faith has restored the image (cf. Col 3:10).
In the OT the most common Hebrew word for “glory” (kbd) was originally a commercial term (which referred to a pair of scales) which meant “to be heavy.” See Special Topic below.
SPECIAL TOPIC: GLORY (DOXA)
Rom 3:24 “being justified as a gift by His grace” This is a present passive participle. This is where the gospel begins-the grace of God who gives righteousness (cf. Rom 5:15-17; Rom 6:23; Eph 2:8-9). The Greek term “justify” (dikaio) was from the same root as “righteousness” (dikaiosun, see Special Topic at Rom 1:17). God always takes the initiative (cf. Joh 6:44; Joh 6:65).
In Rom 3:24-25 there are three metaphors used to describe salvation.
1. “justified” which was a legal term that meant “no penalty given” or to pronounce one not guilty
2. “redemption” which was from the slave market that meant “bought back” or “to set free”
3. “propitiation” which was from the sacrificial system and meant the place of covering or atonement
It referred to the lid of the Ark of the Covenant where sacrificial blood was placed on the Day of Atonement (cf. Leviticus 16; Heb 9:5).
SPECIAL TOPIC: NEW TESTAMENT EVIDENCE FOR ONE’S SALVATION
“gift” Paul uses this concept several times using different terms.
1. drean, adverb, “freely”
2. drea, noun, “free gift”
3. dron, noun, “gift” (cf. Eph 2:8)
4. charisma, noun, “free debt” or “free favor” (cf. Rom 1:11; Rom 5:15-16; Rom 6:23; Rom 11:29; Rom 12:6)
5. charisomai, verb, “grant as a free favor” (cf. Rom 8:32)
6. charis, noun, “free favor” or “free gift” (cf. Rom 4:4; Rom 4:16; Rom 11:5-6; Eph 2:5; Eph 2:8)
“through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus” The mechanism for our salvation is Jesus’ substitutionary death and resurrection. The biblical focus is not on how much was paid or to whom the price was paid (Augustine), but on the fact that mankind has been delivered from sin’s guilt and punishment by means of an innocent substitute (cf. Joh 1:29; Joh 1:36; 2Co 5:21; 1Pe 1:19).
The verse also shows the costliness of Gen 3:15. Jesus bore the curse (cf. Gal 3:13) and died (cf. 2Co 5:21) as a substitute for fallen mankind. Salvation may be free, but it is surely not cheap.
SPECIAL TOPIC: RANSOM/REDEEM
Rom 3:25
NASB”whom God displayed publicly”
NKJV”whom God set forth”
NRSV”whom God put forward”
TEV”God offered”
NJB”who was appointed by God”
This is an aorist middle indicative of protithmi (in Rom 1:13 and Eph 1:9 it means “to purpose,” as does the noun in Rom 8:28), which meant that God Himself revealed His own heart and purpose by the death of Christ (cf. Eph 1:9; Gal 3:1). God’s eternal redemptive plan (cf. Act 2:23; Act 3:18; Act 4:28; Act 13:29; Act 26:22; and Special Topic at Rom 1:5) involved the sacrifice of Jesus (cf. Isa 53:10; Rev 13:8). See note at Rom 9:11.
“to demonstrate” This Greek term endeiknumai (endeixis, cf. Rom 3:25-26) is used several times in Romans (cf. Rom 2:15; Rom 9:17; Rom 9:23; LXX Exo 9:16). Its basic meaning is to manifest or display. God wanted humanity to clearly understand His redemptive purpose, plan, and righteousness. This context is setting out a biblical worldview
1. about God’s character
2. about Christ’s work
3. about humanity’s need
4. about redemption’s purpose.
God wants us to understand! This context is crucial for a proper understanding of Christianity. Some of the words and phrases are ambiguous or can be understood in several ways, but the thrust of the whole is very clear and plain. This context is the theological north star for the gospel.
NASB”as a propitiation in His blood”
NKJV”to be a propitiation by His blood”
NRSV”as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood”
TEV”so that by his blood he should become the means by which people’s sins are forgiven”
NJB”to sacrifice his life so as to win reconciliation”
In the Greco-Roman world this word carried the concept of a restoration of fellowship with an estranged deity by means of a price being paid. However, it is not used in this sense in the Septuagint. It was used in the Septuagint and in Heb 9:5 to translate “mercy seat” (cf. Exo 25:21-22; Lev 16:12-15), which was the lid of the Ark of the Covenant located in the Holy of Holies, the place where atonement was procured on behalf of the nation on the Day of Atonement (cf. Leviticus 16). Obviously Paul is using sacrificial metaphors from Israel’s sacrificial system (i.e., Leviticus 1-7). These metaphors (i.e., propitiation, ransom, sacrifice) are understood only in connection with the OT oracles of God. Paul then must explain their relevance to all mankind. YHWH revealed Himself to Abraham/Israel to reveal Himself to all; all are in His image; all have rebelled; all can be saved through faith in Christ (Jewish Messiah).
This term must be dealt with in a way that does not lessen God’s revulsion to sin, but affirms His positive redemptive attitude toward sinners. A good discussion is found in James Stewart’s A Man in Christ, pp. 214-224. One way to accomplish this is to translate the term so that it reflects God’s work in Christ; “a propitiatory sacrifice”; or “with propitiatory power.”
“In His blood” is an Hebraic way of referring to the substitutionary sacrifice of the innocent lamb of God (cf. Joh 1:29). To fully understand this concept Leviticus 1-7 is crucial as well as the Day of Atonement in Romans 16. Blood refers to a sinless life given on behalf of the guilty (cf. Isa 52:13 to Isa 53:12).
One died for all (cf. Rom 5:12-21)!
“through faith” Here again is the mechanism (cf. Rom 1:17; Rom 3:22; Rom 3:25-28; Rom 3:30) for anyone’s and everyone’s personal benefit available in Jesus’ substitutionary death.
This phrase is omitted in the ancient uncial manuscript A from the 5th century (also the Greek text used by Chrysostom) and a 12th century uncial MS (2127). It is included in all other ancient Greek manuscripts. Some have the definite article (cf. MSS P40, B, C3, D3) with “faith” and some do not (cf. MSS , C*, D*, F, G), however, this does not affect the meaning. The UBS3 rates its inclusion as B (almost certain).
“to demonstrate His righteousness” God must be true to His character and His word (cf. Mal 3:6). In the OT the soul that sins must die (cf. Gen 2:17; Eze 18:4; Eze 18:20). God said He would not acquit the guilty (cf. Exo 23:7). God’s love for fallen mankind is so great He was willing to become a man, fulfill the Law, and die in fallen humanity’s place (cf. Rom 5:12-21). God’s love and justice meet in Jesus (cf. Rom 3:26).
NASB, NKJV,
NRSV”He passed over the sins previously committed”
TEV”in the past he was patient and overlooked people’s sins”
NJB”for the past, when sins went unpunished”
The term “passed over” is paresis, which is used only here in the NT and never in the Septuagint. The Greek fathers and Jerome took it in its Greek literary meaning of “the forgiveness of a debt” (cf. Moulton and Milligan, p. 493). However, parimi, the verb from which it comes means “to let pass beside” or “to relax” (cf. Luk 11:42).
So the question is did God forgive sins in the past looking toward Christ’s future work or did He simply overlook them knowing Christ’s future death would deal with the sin problem? The result is the same. Human sin, past, present, and future, is dealt with by Christ’s sacrifice.
This was a past act of God’s grace looking forward to Christ’s work (cf. Act 17:30; Rom 4:15; Rom 5:13) as well as a present and future act (cf. Rom 3:26). God did not and does not take sin lightly, but He does accept Jesus’ sacrifice as a full and final remedy to human rebellion. It is no longer a barrier to intimate fellowship with Himself, which was the purpose of creation (cf. Gen 1:26-27).
Rom 3:26 The term “righteousness” in Rom 3:25 is etymologically related to the terms “just” and “justifier” of Rom 3:26. God desires His character to be manifested in believers’ lives through faith in Christ. Jesus becomes our righteousness (cf. 2Co 5:21), but believers must also become conformed to His righteousness, His likeness (cf. Rom 8:29; Mat 5:48; Lev 19:2). See Special Topic at Rom 1:17.
NASB, NKJV,
NRSV”the one who has faith in Jesus”
TEV”everyone who believes in Jesus”
NJB”everyone who has faith in Jesus”
REB”anyone who puts his faith in Jesus”
NET”the one who lives because of Jesus’ faithfulness”
The Greek text has “the one of faith of Jesus.” The difficulty comes in the multitude of genitive usages (see G. B. Caird, The Language and Imagery of the Bible, p. 99). Most of the English translations see it as a person’s belief/faith/trust in Jesus. The NET Bible takes it as referring to Rom 3:22. However, Rom 3:22 has both a reference to
1. Jesus’ faithfulness
2. believers’ faith
Salvation is a result of Jesus’ faithfulness which must be received (cf. Rom 3:30).
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
now = at this present time. Greek. nuni. First of twenty-one occurances.
without the law = apart from (Greek. choris) law.
is manifested. Greek. phaneroo. App-106. Compare Rom 1:19.
witnessed. Greek. martureo. Compare Rom 10:2. 2Ti 2:6.
by. Gr hupo. App-104.
the law and the prophets. An expression for the whole O.T. Compare Mat 7:12. Luk 24:44.
prophets. App-189.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
21-26.] The Apostle resumes the declaration of ch. Rom 1:17 (having proved that man has no righteousness of his own resulting from the observance of Gods law): viz. that Gods righteousness is revealed by Christ, whose atoning Death is, consistently with Gods justice, sufficient for the pardon of sin to those who believe in Him.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Rom 3:21. ) now [as it is] forms the antithesis, including the idea of time, Rom 3:26.- – , without the law-by the law and the prophets) A sweet antithesis. The law is taken both in a limited and extended sense [David, for instance, must be reckoned among the prophets, ch. Rom 4:6.-V. g.].-, has been manifested) by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.-, being witnessed by, having the testimony of) according to [by] promise.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Rom 3:21
Rom 3:21
But now apart from the law a righteousness of God hath been manifested,-Gods plan of justifying man or making him righteous, apart or aside from the law of Moses, is revealed in Christ.
being witnessed by the law and the prophets;-The law of Moses and the prophets of the Old Testament foretold the coming of Jesus Christ and the salvation that should be brought to light through him. [The ceremonies and prophecies of the Old Testament could not give life; they did not develop the Christ; but in springing out of Judah, in his being made under the law, and that he died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures (1Co 15:3-4), they become a powerful and ever-living witness to him. How the ceremonies of the law pointed to Christ is elaborately unfolded in the book of Hebrews. The tabernacle, the priesthood, the lavings, and the sacrifices, all pointed to Christ. The prophets bore direct testimony to the Messiah that he would come just as he did come.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
All Freely Justified by Grace
Rom 3:21-31
From the universal need the Apostle turns to the all-sufficient remedy. The Law and the Prophets hinted dimly at justification by faith, but did not unveil it. Gods way of justification is to impute righteousness to the believer. He places us in that position in law, before proceeding by the Holy Spirit to bring us into the condition of holiness. The perfect day is imputed to the dawn, the perfect flower to the seed, the finished picture to the crude sketch. As soon as we trust in Jesus we are viewed as standing in Him and justified before the Law; but before us lies the great work of assimilation to His perfect likeness by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
It is sin to come short, Rom 3:23; and who among us has fulfilled his possibilities of godlikeness? Rom 3:24; Gen 1:26-27. Though justification costs us nothing but the sacrifice of our pride, it has cost Christ His own blood, Rom 3:25. The propitiatory, or mercy seat, was the golden lid of the Ark which the high priest sprinkled with blood. See Heb 9:5. Faith has no room in her household for vaunting and boasting, Rom 3:27. The Law is best honored when the Lawgiver, dwelling within us, fulfills it through us.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Lecture 4 – Rom 3:21-5:11
The Gospel in Relation to our Sins
Chapters 3:21-5:11.
It is with a sense of the greatest relief that we turn from the sad story of mans sin and shame to contemplate the wondrous grace of God as told out in the gospel, the divine remedy for the ruin that came in by the fall. And this presentation of the good news is in two parts: it presents the gospel first as having to do with the question of our sins: and then when that is settled, as having to do with our sin; the sin-principle, sin in the flesh, the carnal mind which dominates the unsaved, unregenerated man. The first theme is fully taken up in chapters 3:21 to 5:11, and this we will now consider.
BUT NOW-exclaims the apostle. It marks a decided change of subject. Now that man has been fully shown up, God will be revealed. Now upon the proven unrighteousness of all mankind the righteousness of God is manifested. Of old He had declared, I will bring near My righteousness. This is in no sense a wrought-out, legal righteousness, such as man was unable to produce for God. It is a righteousness without the law, that is, altogether apart from any principle of human obedience to a divinely-ordained code of morals. It is a righteousness of God for unrighteous men, and is in no wise dependent upon human merit or attainment.
The Righteousness of God is a term of wide import. Here it means a righteousness of Gods providing-a perfect standing for guilty men for which God makes Himself responsible. If men are saved at all it must be in righteousness. But of this, man is utterly bereft. Therefore God must find a way whereby every claim of His righteous throne shall be met, and yet guilty sinners be justified from all things. His very nature demands that this must not be at the expense of righteousness but in full accord with it.
And this has been in His mind from the beginning. It is witnessed, or borne testimony to, by the law and the prophets. Moses depicts it in many types of remarkable beauty. The coats of skin wherein our first parents were clothed; the sacrificial victims accepted in behalf of the offerers; the wonderful symbolism of the Tabernacle; all tell out the story of a righteousness provided by God for the unrighteous sinner who turns to Him in faith. The prophets, too, take up the same story. They predict the coming of the Just One who was to die to bring unjust men nigh to God. Deliver me in Thy righteousness, cries David. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow, he prays. He hath clothed us in the garments of salvation, in the robe of righteousness, says Isaiah, for the chastisement of our peace was upon Him who was bruised for our iniquities. This is His name, exclaims Jeremiah, whereby He shall be called, the Lord our Righteousness. I will save you from all your unclean-nesses, is the promise through Ezekiel. To Daniel the angel Gabriel foretells the making of reconciliation for iniquity and the bringing in of everlasting righteousness. The so-called Minor Prophets take up the same strain, and all point forward to the Coming One through whom salvation will be secured for all who repent; Jehovahs Fellow, who will become the smitten Shepherd for mans redemption. To Him give all the prophets witness that through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins (Act 10:43).
The righteousness of God is a by faith righteousness. It is not by works. Faith is taking God at His word. So He has sent a message to man to be believed. It is the offer of an unimpeachable righteousness to all, but is only upon all them who believe. There is a question as to the reading here. Some editors reject and upon all. But there can be no question of the underlying truth. God freely offers a righteousness to all. It is the covering of all those who believe, and of them only. All need it alike, for all have sinned. There is no difference as to this. No man has come up to the standard. All have come short of the glory of God. But He is not looking for merit in man. He offers His righteousness as a free gift. So we read, Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (ver. Rom 3:24).
To be justified is to be declared righteous. It is the sentence of the judge in favor of the prisoner. It is not a state or condition of soul. We are not justified because we have become righteous in heart and life. God justifies first, then He enables the justified one to walk in practical righteousness. We are justified freely. The word means without price! It is the same as in Joh 15:25, They hated me without a cause. There was nothing evil in the ways or life of Jesus, for which men should hate Him. They hated Him freely. So there is no good in man for which God should justify him. He is justified freely, without a cause, when he believes in Jesus.
This is by grace. Grace is not only unmerited favor. Grace is favor against merit. It is the goodness of God, not alone to men who have done and can do nothing to deserve it, but it is favor shown to men who have deserved the very opposite. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.
Sovereign grace, oer sin abounding;
Ransomed souls the tidings swell,
Tis a deep that knows no sounding;
Who its length and breadth can tell?
On its glories
Let my soul forever dwell.
In order thus to show grace in righteousness to admittedly guilty sinners God must have a just and satisfactory basis. Sin cannot be overlooked. It must be atoned for. This has been effectuated through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Redemption is a buying back. Mans life is forfeited because of his iniquitous ways. He is sold under judgment. Christ the Holy One-God and Man in one glorious Person upon whom the violated law had no claim-took the guilty rebels place, paid the utmost penalty, thus redeeming the believing sinner from the wrath and curse to which he had sold himself.
He bore on the tree, the sentence for me,
And now both the Surety and sinner are free.
And He who died lives again and is Himself the abiding propitiation-literally, the mercy-seat, the place where God can meet with man through Christs atoning blood-available to faith. The apostle clearly alludes to the blood-sprinkled mercy-seat on the ark of the covenant of old. Within the ark were the tables of the law. Above were the cherubim, justice and judgment the habitation of Gods throne. They are ready, as it were, to leap from that throne to execute Gods righteous wrath against the violators of His law. But sprinkled upon the mercy-seat is the blood that typifies the sacrifice of the cross. Justice and judgment ask no more. Mercy rejoiceth against judgment, for God Himself has found a ransom. Till the Lord Jesus suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God, the sin-question was not really settled. It was not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Old Testament saints therefore were all saved on credit, as we say. Now that Christ has died the account is closed, and God declares His righteousness in pretermitting sins down through the past ages when men turned to Him in faith. It is not our past, sins He refers to in verse Rom 3:25. It is the sins of believers in the ages before the cross. And now God declares at this time-since the work is done-His righteousness, for He has shown how He can be just and yet justify ungodly sinners who believe in Jesus. This leaves no room for boasting on mans part, rather for shame and contrition in view of what our sins cost the Saviour, and of joyful praise as we contemplate the grace that wrought so wondrously on our behalf. Human merit is barred out in the very nature of the case. Salvation is through grace by faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. This then embraces lawless Gentiles as well as law-breaking Jews. The same evangel is for all. He who is the Creator of all has passed none by. He will justify the circumcised, not by ritual, but by faith, and the uncircumcised Gentile through faith likewise.
Does this invalidate or ignore the law? Not at all. The law condemned the breaker of it and demanded vengeance. This Christ has borne, so the majesty of the law is upheld, yet sinners are saved.
On Christ Almighty vengeance fell That would have sunk a world to hell; He bore it for a chosen race, And thus became a Hiding-place.
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
3. The Righteousness of God Revealed.
Justification, what it is and what it Includes. Chapter 3:21-5:11.
CHAPTER 3:21-31
1. The Righteousness of God Manifested. (Rom 3:21-22.)
2. Just and Justifier. (Rom 3:23-26.)
3. Not of Works but of Faith. (Rom 3:27-31.)
Rom 3:21-22
And now God comes forward and manifests His righteousness. Rom 3:21 must be connected with Rom 1:17. As previously stated chapter 1:18-3.20 is a parenthesis proving all the world destitute of righteousness and therefore guilty. Righteousness of God as revealed in the Gospel was the statement in chapter 1:17 and it is this which is brought more fully in view. The term Righteousness of God is much misunderstood. Not a few think it is the righteousness of Christ (a term nowhere used in Scripture) which is attributed to the believing sinner. They teach that Christ fulfilled the law, lived a perfect life on earth and that this righteousness is given to the sinner. All this is unscriptural. Righteousness cannot be bestowed by the law in any sense of the word. If the holy life of the Son of God, lived on earth in perfect righteousness could have saved man and given him righteousness, there was no need for Him to die. If righteousness came by the law then Christ is dead in vain (Gal 2:21). It is Gods righteousness which is now on the side of the believing sinner; the same righteousness which condemns the sinner, covers all who believe. And this righteousness is revealed in the Gospel. Gods righteousness has been fully met and maintained in the atoning work of Christ on the Cross. By that wonderful work God is now enabled to save sinners and to save them righteously. The righteousness of God is therefore first of all revealed in the Gospel of Christ. Apart then from the law, righteousness of God is manifested, the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ. And this righteousness now revealed was also witnessed to by the law and the prophets. The law of the different sacrifices, insufficient in themselves to take away sins, pointed to the great sacrifice, in which God would be fully glorified as well as His righteousness satisfied. There were many types and shadows. Now since the righteousness of God is fully made known in the Gospel we can trace Gods wonderful thoughts and purposes in the types and histories of the Old Testament. To deny that the law testified to the coming redemption by the blood of Jesus Christ is to deny the Gospel itself. And this is done in the camp of higher criticism. But the Prophets also witnessed to it (Isa 41:10; Isa 46:13; Isa 51:5-6; Isa 51:8; Isa 56:8).
It is blessed to see that the Prophet Isaiah who has the most to say concerning the sufferings of Christ, also witnesses to the righteousness which should follow. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool (Isa 1:18). Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities. I, I am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake and will not remember thy sins (Isa 43:24-25). A just God and a Saviour (Isa 45:21). His Name… the Lord our righteousness (Jer 23:6). The old, old question never fully answered how should man be just with God? is now solved. Thus the Oracles of God witness to the righteousness of God. And this righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ is unto all and upon all them that believe. It is unto all, which means that the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ is sufficient to save all. The whole world may be saved. It is upon all that believe, which means that only those who believe on Christ are covered by the righteousness of God and are justified.
Rom 3:23-26
Being justified freely by His Grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Christ has met all, He paid for all our sins. If we believe on Jesus we are justified freely by His Grace, that is, as a free gift. And justification is acquittal; we are acquitted from sin and from any charge of it. It is divine righteousness that acts in justifying; righteousness is just that attribute of God which is concerned in it. It is like a broad, effectual shield stretched over the believer, and for all like a house that with its open door invites men to take shelter from the coming storm of judgment. The redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ has satisfied every claim forever. Christ has paid the price and all who believe are fully acquitted from every charge and penalty. Whom God hath set forth a mercy seat through faith by His blood. On the day of atonement on the mercy seat, overshadowed by the Cherubim, the blood was sprinkled. And now the better blood, that which alone can take away sin, is upon the mercy seat, and God is faithful and just on account of that blood, to justify the believer.
To declare His righteousness in respect of the passing by the sins that had taken place before, through the forbearance of God. The sins that had taken place before, does not mean the sins committed before the conversion of an individual believer. It means the sins of believers before Christ had come and died. When sins were forgiven in Old Testament times Gods gracious forbearance was manifested, but when Christ had paid the great redemption price, when His blood had been shed, then Gods righteousness was made manifest in having declared righteous believers, who lived before Christ had died. In view of what Gods blessed Son would do, a righteous God forgave the sins of all who believed. And now God is just; His righteousness is unchanged and fully maintained and as the just God He is the justifier of Him that believes on Jesus. The justification of the believer is fully consistent with the righteousness of God. Negatively stated what if God were not to justify, declare free, a sinner who believes in Jesus? Then God would not be just to the blood of Christ. And in view of these wonderful revelations of the Gospel of Christ, so far above mans wisdom, God-like from start to finish, how awful the rejection of this blessed Gospel, as well as the perversion of it! Surely a righteous God must deal with such in judgment of eternal wrath.
Rom 3:27-31
Boasting from mans side is excluded. The law could do nothing but condemn man. The principle of simple faith excludes all boasting. Not of works lest any man should boast. It is all of God and therefore all the praise belongs to Him. And there is another question. God justifies the circumcision (the Jews); He justifies the uncircumcision by faith (Gentiles). Do not we then make void the law by faith? Far be the thought! No, but we establish the law. The law is not made void but established by the Gospel, not in the sense that it is to help the sinner. The broken law and its curse was borne by Christ; therefore the law has been vindicated as well as the holiness and righteousness of God. The man who tries to be right with God by the works of the law makes the law void, for he will not live up to the letter of the law, as the law demands and excuses his failures at the expense of the law, which is holy and good.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
righteousness of God
The righteousness of God is neither an attribute of God, not the changed character of the believer, but Christ Himself, who fully met in our stead and behalf every demand of the law, and who is, but the act of God called imputation Lev 25:50; Jam 2:23, “made unto us. . righteousness” 1Co 1:30.
“The believer in Christ is now, by grace, shrouded under so complete and blessed a righteousness that the law from Mt. Sinai can find neither fault nor diminution therein. This is that which is called the righteousness of God by faith.”–Bunyan.
2Co 5:21; Rom 4:6; Rom 10:4; Php 3:9; Rom 3:26
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
righteousness: Rom 1:17, Rom 5:19, Rom 5:21, Rom 10:3, Rom 10:4, Gen 15:6, Isa 45:24, Isa 45:25, Isa 46:13, Isa 51:8, Isa 54:17, Isa 61:10, Jer 23:5, Jer 23:6, Jer 33:16, Dan 9:24, Act 15:11, 1Co 1:30, 2Co 5:21, Gal 5:5, Phi 3:9, Heb 11:4-40, 2Pe 1:1
being: Deu 18:15-19, Luk 24:44, Joh 1:45, Joh 3:14, Joh 3:15, Joh 5:46, Joh 5:47, Act 26:22, Heb 10:1-14
and the: Rom 1:2, Rom 16:26, Act 3:21-25, Act 10:43, Act 28:23, Gal 3:8, 1Pe 1:10
Reciprocal: Psa 22:31 – his righteousness Psa 71:16 – thy righteousness Psa 89:16 – righteousness Psa 98:2 – righteousness Psa 103:17 – his righteousness Mat 6:33 – his Mat 11:13 – General Luk 9:30 – which Joh 1:17 – grace Joh 16:10 – righteousness Act 3:24 – and all Act 24:14 – in the law Rom 4:6 – without Rom 5:18 – the righteousness 2Co 3:9 – the ministration of righteousness Gal 2:16 – but Gal 3:21 – righteousness Heb 3:5 – for Heb 7:19 – the law Rev 19:10 – for the
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
:21
Rom 3:21. Righteousness of God without the law means that system of God’s righteousness explained at chapter 1:17. That system was predicted by the Old Testament writers, the very men whose writings the Jews in Rome professed to respect. Yet these Judaizers were speaking as if the righteousness taught in the Gospel was not sufficient, but that both Jew and Gentile should go to the old law for justification.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Rom 3:21.
But now. Either, at this time, i.e., in the gospel dispensation, or, in this state of things, i.e., as further defined. The latter is preferable.
Apart from the law. Though the article is wanting, there can be no question that the Mosaic law is meant. This phrase should come first, as in the Greek, both for emphasis, and to prevent the ungrammatical connection with righteousness of God, which some advocate. It qualifies the verb manifested, and means not, without the law, as if that had no existence and no office to perform, but independently of the law; the manifestation has been without its aid.
The righteousness of God, or, Gods righteousness. As in chap. Rom 1:17, the article is wanting. The meaning here is precisely as there, a righteousness which proceeds from God; it is given to the believer for Christs sake in the act of justification. It is here characterized by a series of antitheses; independent of the law, yet authenticated by the law and the prophets (Rom 3:21); freely bestowed on the believer, yet fully paid for by the redemption price of Christ (Rom 3:24); intrinsically holy, yet justifying the sinner (Rom 3:26); thus God is displayed as Himself the righteous Ruler of the universe and the merciful Father who provides free salvation.
Hath been made manifest. This revelation of righteousness is set forth as an accomplished and still continued fact. It was not thus known before, and it is now known independently of the law.
Being witnessed. Continuously witnessed in the whole Old Testament Scriptures. This is not a contradiction to apart from the law. The revelation having been made in the gospel, it turns out that the Old Testament attests what its legal requirements did not and could not make known, while the law could not justify (Rom 3:20), there is no contradiction between the parts of Gods revelation. The unity of God, on which Paul bases his argument in Rom 3:29, might be used to enforce the principle here set forth; indeed, chap. 4 forms the proof of this clause.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Section 1. (Rom 3:21-31.)
A propitiation, for grace in righteousness towards an.
The righteousness of God we have seen to be the power for salvation in the gospel. It is just that of which the convicted sinner is most afraid. He can believe that God is good; he can believe in His love to man; but that is not here the question. While careless himself, he could believe or hope that God would be found equally careless as to sin; but now the question of righteousness cannot so easily be settled; and God must be righteous in all He does. It is indeed the wonder of divine grace that it should reign through righteousness -that righteousness itself should provide and secure blessing for the lost and hopeless. And this is what we are now called to consider, -a righteousness which not only makes possible the security of all who flee for refuge to it, but absolutely ensures it. The procuring cause of this is a propitiation which displays fully God’s righteousness as to sin, so that there can be no more question of it when He receives the sinner, but the opposite: “He is faithful and just to forgive him his sins” (1Jn 1:9).
1. Law then is confessedly unable to produce any righteousness on man’s part which can be accepted of God, or enable him to stand before God. It has done its work in convicting of sin; and that in such sort that it is proved that man’s way of works can never avail for him: he can bring nothing that is not soiled by the hands that bring it. Thus his mouth is stopped: he cannot perform, nor therefore promise; he is helpless and hopeless; the account as to man is closed; he is simply in the hands of God, to do with him as He will.
If there is to be gospel, therefore, that is, “good news” for man, “apart from law” it must be. The law may witness to it, as it did, in its many types and shadows, in sacrifices which, as of bulls and goats, could never take away sin, but which thus by their own inefficacy pointed away from themselves to what they represented. The prophets amplified and made clearer these types of the law; and the hope of a Saviour to come grew through the ages of suspense.
But the time of expectation merely is over: “righteousness of God is now manifest through faith of Jesus Christ towards all, and over all them that believe.” In the salvation of Israel yet to come, the Lord speaks through Isaiah of His righteousness as to be revealed (Isa 41:10; Isa 46:13; Isa 51:5-6; Isa 51:8; Isa 56:1). For a Jew, therefore, these thoughts could not be strange to bring together; and we must not fail to connect with such passages those which declared their righteousness to be of the Lord (Isa 45:24; Isa 54:17). These are not at all equivalent things, though they are things that would fit well together, to enable truly convicted souls to think peacefully of a day when God would act in righteousness and for the salvation of His people. But the salvation of Israel in the day to come is nevertheless very different from the gospel salvation with which we have here to do. Righteousness will be then displayed in judgment upon the foes of His earthly people; in the salvation here, though it act in judgment, yet only contrast is seen in this “strange work” indeed to which the Cross is witness. Here is a judgment upon sin which is the salvation of sinners! The apostle has already spoken of righteousness of God revealed in good news to man; here also, as there, it is through faith or upon that principle, that such a thing can be. It is thus towards all men, and therefore where faith is found, it is over all such as have it: that is, it becomes for such like the roof that shelters from the storm, or like the shield that turns off every arrow of the enemy.
That this is the true force of the statement will be clear, I think, if we take into consideration what it is connected with, as the apostle goes on to explain himself in what immediately follows. “Being justified,” he says, “freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Thus it is of justification that he is speaking, as plainly through all this part of Romans. This justification is by blood, or what is equivalent, “through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus;” and here is that in which God’s righteousness in justifying is declared. But justification is acquittal: it is from sin -from any charge of it -and it is divine righteousness that acts in justifying, righteousness is just that attribute of God which is concerned in it: thus it is like a broad, effectual shield stretched over the believer, and for all like a house that with its open door invites men to take shelter from the coming storm of judgment.
We must not make any confusion between this and the righteousness which is ours in Christ. The righteousness of God is not the robe that is put upon us, nor is that the theme in this first division of the epistle. In its nature also, the righteousness of God cannot be imputed to us; righteousness is imputed, as the apostle afterwards says, but that is another thing. “Over,” therefore, rather than “upon,” seems the proper rendering in this passage, which also seems preferable because it better implies the activity of God’s righteousness in justification. It is this that is directly and specifically concerned in a question of this nature. We hear it often put as if God’s being just and justifying meant His being just, though justifying; but that comes short of its proper force. For, as already said, in acquitting it is righteousness alone that has the case in hand. In forgiving love may act; but in justifying, righteousness. And this is what makes the question of such intense importance for the convicted soul, and sets it so perfectly at rest when the divine sentence is pronounced.
As to men in general, there is one need, and one gospel: “All have sinned,” says the apostle; and then he brings forward once more the verdict of the law, which Israel so well knew: “all come short of the glory of God.” That was what the veil hanging ever before the holiest, where God in very mercy to man must hide His glory from those who could not stand before Him, proved for those very people among whom He was pleased to dwell. Love came as near as it could come, and be love. And even to Moses, the mediator of the covenant, it had been said, “Thou canst not see My Face.” Such was man at his best under the measurement of law, which, chosen by man in his self-confidence, darkened the glorious Face that longed to shine upon him. But now, when the full object of law has been attained, and its tale of man has been told out, the grace to which after all the law was meant to minister is free to show itself; condemned by law, we are “justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Redemption, a “ransoming from,” owns and meets the requirements of righteousness, delivering us from the condition of convicted men. The price is not yet stated, but being accepted and paid, righteousness has no further demands upon us, but is henceforth on our side: it now demands our discharge from every accusation, and in Christ Jesus is this redemption found.
Notice that it is already the risen Christ who is before us, as the order of the names distinctly indicates. Jesus was, as we know, the name given to Him at His birth, and is therefore His personal name as man; while Christ is His name of office upon which, His work of atonement being accomplished, He has now fully entered. Thus the precedence of either shows which is the predominant thought, whether Person or office. We are never said to be in Jesus, or in Jesus Christ; always in Christ, or in Christ Jesus. Here redemption is found for us in the Christ, who is Jesus, -in Him who has accomplished His work, and is in possession of the fruits of it.
Him has God set forth a propitiatory, through faith, by His blood; this, as the Revised Version has it, is no doubt preferable to the common one, which reads, “through faith in His blood.” The word “propitiatory” is that used in the Septuagint for the “mercy-seat,” as it is also in the epistle to the Hebrews (9: 5), the only place in which it is found again in the New Testament. The mercy seat was the place in Israel in which atonement, or propitiation was “set forth” as the formal basis upon which God dwelt in relation with a sinful people. It was the throne of God, where He dwelt between the cherubim, and was made a “mercy-seat” by the blood sprinkled upon it. Thus “a propitiatory by His blood” is right; faith being that by which it is available to us, who now have such a throne of grace, the antitype of that ancient one, really accessible, as for Israel that ancient one was not. We have boldness to enter into the holy places, (where the mercy-seat stood), and Christ gone in to God is He through whom “grace reigns through righteousness.” The rent veil is here implied as the characteristic of Christianity, though the theme in Romans is not worship, as in Hebrews, but that acceptance with God which is fundamental to it. The gospel of the glory (Paul’s gospel) is thus in fact here.
The typical blood upon the mercy-seat had to be renewed year by year; for the past year it manifested God’s righteousness in having gone on with the people as He had done; while it displayed for the future the basis upon which He could still go on. This aspect of the day of atonement is surely that to which the apostle now refers, though the survey now is as much more extensive as the blood of this one offering goes beyond all merely anticipatory ones. The propitiatory now set forth declares God’s righteousness “in regard to the passing by of sins done aforetime, through the forbearance of God;” as well as His righteousness in the present time, “that He may be just, and justifying him who is of the faith of Jesus.” That is, faith which has Jesus as its object.
The Cross stands thus among the ages with its light shining over the generations past, and more brightly in the present time. It is strange that the apostle’s words should have been taken, with the help of the misleading “I say,” preserved in the Revised Version, to define the gospel justification as simply from past sins, leaving the future unassured to take care for itself. It is true, indeed, that one cannot speak of sins put away before they have been committed, and that the question of the future is not taken up as yet. But “the sins done aforetime” are not the sins of a man’s past life, but those of bygone ages, when yet the gospel was not, as now, declared, and sins for which the legal sacrifices had no provision could only be met by what was truly uncovenanted mercy. At the best also, there was and could be no inherent value in the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. But how many questions did all this imply! How different from a sentence of justification, the hope of mercy! But now every question is answered, every shadow gone: Christ’s sacrifice has proclaimed God’s righteous judgment upon sin as nothing else could do; and enabled Him at the same time to justify him who is of the faith of Jesus.
2. Truth has wrought with grace: God could not justify man upon any ground which would give him opportunity for boasting. His principle of faith gives God, not man, the glory. That pride which is the devil’s own sin, and into which he has led mankind to imitate him, is broken down, not fostered, by a blessing so gained. A law, or principle, of works, if it had been possible in the nature of things for him to have been justified by it, could only have wrought disaster for him morally. Merit is not possible to a creature, from whom obedience is his constant due. “When ye have done all,” says the Lord, “say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which it was our duty to do.” No ladder of works, if it were long enough to reach to heaven, could give the spirit of worship which is in heaven, and which alone could make it heaven at all. Faith has a moral quality which makes it worthy to be God’s principle: it glorifies Him and blesses man, while the ruin of his self-confidence prepares him for it. It suits also a God to whom all His creatures are alike a care. A faith which can grow out of one’s own nothingness, the babe characteristic, needing not the wisdom of the wise, nor power of any kind, but according to which are chosen the foolish things, and the weak, and the base, and the despised, manifests One before whose greatness, and to whose love, the lowest is as the highest. In the adoption of such a principle none that do not banish themselves are banished from Him: for the highest can come down to the lowest level, when it would be impossible for the lowest to rise up to the highest. Man naturally thinks that God should be found most on the mountain tops; but the sun warms most the lower plains upon which men build their cities and live their daily lives. How would the most expert climbers of the peaks enjoy having these things reversed? Nay, the highest peaks send down their tribute of enrichment to the plains, and nature is in harmony with her glorious Maker.
So says the apostle here: “We reckon therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law.” The very exclusiveness of the law, which was the boast of the Jew, was thus the witness that it was not after all the way of blessing. Could God have thus forgotten the Gentile? “Is He the God of Jews only? is He not also of the Gentiles?” What can one answer? what but with the apostle: “Yea, of the Gentiles also; since it is one God who will justify the circumcision by faith” -upon that principle; and then, and thus, if he be found possessor of it, the “uncircumcision through” that “faith” which he possesses. God is drawing near to men would it be a greater and better thing to say, to the Jew? One might better plead for him the exclusive right to sun and rain, or to those blessings which the more necessary they are, the more widely they are found diffused.
But then, says the objector, you are making the law to be of no effect through this advocacy of faith. As if the sowing of the field showed the plow to have been vainly used! “Far be the thought,” says the apostle: “nay, but we establish law.” For the real purpose for which God gave it, the law still abides, and its use is clearly manifested.
Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary
THE GIFT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
If a righteousness were not obtainable by the words of the law as we saw in our last lesson, then a Jew especially might well ask in surprise how it were obtainable. To which the apostle replies, that now apart from the law a righteousness of God is manifested, (Rom 3:21 RV), i.e., a righteousness which may become mans without the keeping of the law. This righteousness he describes as:
Witnessed by the law and the prophets, in other words, taught in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament; obtained through faith in Jesus Christ (Rom 3:22); without respect of persons, Jew or Gentile (Rom 3:22-23); the free gift of Gods grace (Rom 3:24); based upon the death of Jesus Christ (Rom 3:25); and its bestowment declarative of Gods righteous character (Rom 3:25-26).
His righteousness in these last two verses does not refer as in the earlier instances, to the righteousness he is. It means that He is perfectly consistent with His own law and holiness in freely justifying a sinner who believes on Christ, because Christ has fully met every demand of the law on his behalf (Rom 10:4). In this connection propitiation should be understood clearly. It does not convey the idea of placating an angry God, but of doing right by His holy law and so making it possible for Him righteously to show mercy. Christ so honored the law by enduring its righteous sentence that God who ever foresaw the cross, is vindicated in having passed over sins from Adam to Moses (5:13), and the sins of Jewish believers under the old covenant, and in justifying sinners under the new covenant.
To appreciate chapter 4 go back to the phrase, witnessed by the law and the prophets (Rom 3:22). The Law of the Prophets was one of the names given by the Jews to the Old Testament. The Law meant the Pentateuch or the first five books of Moses and the Prophets the remainder of the Old Testament. Paul was showing that the salvation or justification by faith he preached was Old Testament truth, and in the present chapter he confirms the fact by the instances of David and Abraham. The illustration from Abraham is found in the Law and that from David in the Prophets. Abrahams case is first treated (Rom 4:1-4), and then Davids (Rom 4:5-8). To Abraham he returns at Rom 4:9, showing in what follows how justification is entirely distinct from ordinances. Rom 4:18-25 should be pondered because of their simple and picturesque presentation of the theme. Abraham believed Gods testimony about Isaac in the face of nature to the contrary, and this faith was counted to him for righteousness (Rom 4:22). We have only to believe Gods testimony about Jesus Christ, Whom Isaac typified, to receive the same blessing in the same way. Rom 4:2 of this chapter must not be thought to contradict Jam 2:24, because these two scriptures are but two aspects of the same truth. Paul here is laying down the principle which James is applying; or to put it better, Paul is speaking of that which justifies man before God, and James of that which justifies him before man. The former alludes to what God sees faith, and the latter to that which man sees works. The one has in mind Gen 15:6, the other, Gen 22:1-19.
There are three great results of justifying faith as indicated in Rom 5:1-11 : peace with God, access unto God, and rejoicing before God (Rom 5:1-2). The rejoicing is in hope of the glory of God, tribulations, and in God Himself (Rom 5:11). The rejoicing in tribulations is a theme full of interest. We rejoice because the tribulations of a justified man work patience, the patience experience, and the experience hope, that maketh not ashamed (Rom 5:3-5). The experience in this case is experience of the love of God who comforts us in our tribulation, sanctifies it to us and delivers us from it. This experience assures us of His love for us, the Holy Ghost thus sheds it abroad in our hearts, and in consequence of that assurance our hope of beholding and partaking of His glory grows the brighter. We know that we shall not be ashamed of, or confounded in regard to the fulfillment of that hope. Rom 5:6-10, important as they are and full of the riches of Christ, are in a sense parenthetical to the main line of teaching in this section. Bishop Moule suggests a rendering of Rom 5:10 of great beauty: We shall be kept in His life.
QUESTIONS
1. What is meant by righteousness apart from the law?
2. What is meant by witnessed by the law and the prophets?
3. How do you distinguish the righteousness of God (Rom 3:25-26), from the same phrase as used earlier?
4. How do you understand propitiation?
5. What part of chapter 3 is illustrated by chapter 4?
6. What is the meaning of The Law and the Prophets?
7. Why is the phrase used in this case?
8. What is the substance of chapter 4?
9. How does Abrahams justification illustrate ours?
10. Harmonize Rom 4:2 with Jam 2:24.
11. Name the three results of justifying faith.
12. Name the three causes of rejoicing.
Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary
Our apostle having proved negatively, that by the works of the law righteousness and justification is not to be had for any person, be he Jew or Gentile: He comes now to prove the affirmative part of his assertion; namely, that the God hath manifested another way of justification in the gospel, to wit, by faith in Jesus Christ. “For, saith he, now, that is, since the coming of Christ, since the dispensation of the gospel; the righteousness of God, that is, the righteousness which God appoints, approves, and accepts for a sinner’s justification, is without the law, that is, without performing the works of the law, either natural, ceremonial, or moral; and is manifested to be the righteousness which is by faith in Christ; which all that believe and obey the gospel, shall be admitted to the participation of, both Jew and Gentile; for there is no difference; that is, no difference between Jew and Gentile, as to the way and means of their justification.” And the reason assigned by the apostle, why there is, and can be, no other way of justification but this, we have in the next verse, namely, because all have sinned, the whole race of mankind , not one mere man excepted; and so will fall short of obtaining the glory of God and eternal life, if they seek it not in this way.
Learn hence, 1. That there is no standing or appearing before God for any creature, in a creature’s righteousness. There is much unrighteousness in our righteousness, and therefore we cannot stand justified before God in it. Besides, the wisdom of God has appointed another righteousness, or the righteousness of another, even the righteousness of Jesus Christ, to stand before him in: But now the righteousness of God is manifested, even the righteousness of God which is by faith in Jesus Christ.
Learn, 2. The necessity and excellency of faith; the righteousness of God is unto all, and upon all that believe: Faith is the bond of union, the instrument of our justification, the spring of our consolation: Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, Rom 5:1. Render we then unto faith the things which are faith’s, as well as unto Christ the things that are Christ’s.
Learn, 3. That in reference to, or in respect of, our justification before God, there is no differnece among believers, For there is no difference Rom 3:22; that is, no difference as to the way of justification, between Jew and Gentile, male and female, bond and free; but all, without the righteousness of faith in Christ, must die, and be damned to all eternity.
There is now a difference amongst believers, with respect to the degrees of glory in heaven, than others; but the justification of all believers is alike.
There is the same sin in all, not for measure and degree, but in respect of guilt and obligation to punishment:
There is the same price paid, by way of satisfaction to divine justice, for all; namely, the death of Christ:
There is the same rightesouness imputed to all, the same spirit of holiness imparted amongst all, and the same mansions of glory designed for all; thus there is no difference.
And there is no difference amongst believers, in respect of truth of grace, but much in respect of strength of grace;
no difference amongst them in respect of God’s promises, but much difference with respect of God’s covenant, but much difference in respect of God’s counsels, as also, in respect of God’s dispensations;
no difference in respect of God’s acceptation, but much in respect of their application;
no difference as they are a body, in respect of their head, but much difference as they are members of that head.
And if there be no difference amongst believers (as such) before God, why should there be so much difference amongst themselves, as there is oftentimes here in this world? You are all dear, truly dear to God; why should you not be so to one another? Why should not one church and one communion hold you now? Ere long, perhaps, one prison may, one heaven shall certainly hold you all.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Rom 3:21-24. But now the righteousness of God That is, the manner of becoming righteous which God hath appointed; without the law Without that perfect and previous obedience which the law requires; without reference to, or dependance on, the law, ceremonial or moral, revealed or natural; is manifested In the gospel, being attested by the law and the prophets. The example of Abrahams justification by faith, recorded Gen 15:6, and the passage which the apostle quotes, Rom 4:7, from Psa 32:1-2, as well as that from Habakkuk, quoted Rom 1:17, are clear testimonies, from the law and the prophets, that there is a righteousness without the law, which God accepts; and that the method of justification revealed in the gospel was the method in which men were justified under the law, and before the law: in short, it is the method of justifying sinners, established from the very beginning of the world. Even the righteousness of God That which God hath appointed to be, by faith of Jesus Christ By such a firm, hearty, lively belief of Christs being what the gospel declares him to be, a divinely-commissioned and infallible Teacher, a prevalent Mediator between God and man; an all- sufficient Saviour, and a righteous Governor; such a belief as produces a sincere confidence in him, a true subjection to him, a conscientious obedience to his laws, and imitation of his example. Unto all Which way of justification is provided for, and sincerely and freely offered unto all, and is bestowed upon all them that believe Whether Jews or Gentiles; for there is no difference Either as to mens need of justification and salvation, or the manner of attaining it. For all have sinned In Adam and in their own persons; by a sinful nature, sinful tempers, and sinful actions; and come short of the glory of God The supreme end of man; short of his image and nature, and communion with him, and the enjoyment of him in heaven. Or, they have failed of rendering him that glory that was so justly his due, and thereby have not only made themselves unworthy the participation of glory and happiness with him, but stand exposed to his severe and dreadful displeasure. The word , here rendered come short, is properly applied to those, whose strength failing them in the race, are left behind. The word, therefore, is very suitable to mankind, who, being weakened by sin, have lost eternal life, the reward which they pursued by their obedience. Being justified Pardoned and accepted, or accounted righteous; freely, , of free gift, and not through any merit of their own; by his grace His unmerited favour, his undeserved goodness, and not through their own righteousness or works, in whole or in part. Freely by his grace One of these expressions might have served to convey the apostles meaning: but he doubles his assertion in order to give us the fullest conviction of the truth, and to impress us with a sense of its peculiar importance. It is not possible to find words that should more absolutely exclude all consideration of our own works and obedience, or more emphatically ascribe the whole of our justification to free, unmerited goodness. Through the redemption which is in, or by, Christ Jesus Procured for them by his death, the price paid for their redemption. The word , here and elsewhere rendered redemption, denotes that kind of redemption of a captive from death, which is procured by paying a price for his life. See note on 1Ti 2:6. The redemption purchased for us by Christ is deliverance from the guilt and power of sin, and the wrath of God consequent thereon, and from the power of our spiritual enemies, the devil, the world, and the flesh. See Eph 1:7; Col 1:14; Tit 2:14; Gal 1:4; 1Pe 1:18-19.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Eighth Passage (3:21-26). The Fact by which Justification by Faith is acquired for us.
We have already proved that Rom 3:21 is directly connected in sense with Rom 1:17 (see p. 99). In the interval from. 18 to Rom 3:20, the apostle has shown that the wrath of God rests on mankind, whence it follows that if the world is not to perish, a divine manifestation of an opposite kind, and able to overcome the first, is indispensable. It is this new revelation which forms the subject of the following passage. Vv.21 and 22 contain the theme of the first piece, and at the same time of the whole section. Rom 3:23 once more sums up the thought of the preceding section; and Rom 3:24-26 are the development of the subject, the exposition of the new way of justification.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
But now apart from the law a righteousness of God hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets [Having shut up all under condemnation for sin under the law with its works, Paul turns now to point all to freedom and justification under the gospel with its grace. This section of the Epistle is, therefore, as Bengel observes, “the opening of a brighter scene.” There was no justification under the Mosaic dispensation, says the apostle; but now, under the dispensation of Christ (Rom 3:26; Rom 16:26), a righteousness apart from or independent of the law, having God as its author, and proceeding from God, and long hid in the councils of God, has been at last manifested (Rom 16:25-26; 1Ti 3:16). Having thus distinctly announced this new justification, Paul proceeds to give details, the first of which is a statement that it did not come unannounced or unheralded, for in their types, promises and prophecies (Gen 15:6; Hab 2:4) both the law and the prophets foretold that this righteousness would be revealed];
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
21. But now the righteousness of God is made manifest without law, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. This righteousness of God is utterly independent of all law, because God Himself is the law-giver.
Law in this passage is without the article, showing that it excludes all law indiscriminately, while in the statement, the law and the prophets, having reference to the Mosaic law, we have the article. What is the righteousness of God? It is the righteousness (or justification, as they are synonymous) of God in Christ, i. e., the righteousness which Christ procured for us by His vicarious death. Our Savior has a righteousness peculiar to His divinity, and essential to it, which He will never give to another, but retain forever. He so has a righteousness peculiar to His humanity, and essential to it, which He will retain forever, and never give to another. Yet He has a third righteousness arising from His perfect obedience to the divine law, both keeping it actively and passively paying its penalty for us. This third righteousness, which is neither essential to His God-head nor His manhood, He procured not for Himself, as He did not need it, but for you and me. This righteousness is the only palladium that can possibly fortify us against the terrors of the violated law, and it is Gods glorious and munificent gift in Christ. Since it is a free gift, we do not have to give anything for it. The abandonment of all sin is indispensable to put us in position to receive it by simple faith, i. e., faith is the hand by which the soul receives it, i. e., the only spiritual faculty competent to receive it.
Hence, if we do not receive it by faith alone, we will never get it, and hell is our doom.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
Rom 3:21-31. A new chapter opens in human historythe achievement of Redemption in Christ Jesus.
Rom 3:21. In the desperation to which mans sin, brought home to him by the Law, has reduced him, a manifestation has been made of Gods righteousness (Rom 1:17*) for salvation outside of law, yet attested by law and prophets (see, e.g., Rom 4:3, Rom 1:17). The Jew regarded Moses law as a complete revelation of Gods ways.
Rom 3:22 a. It is a righteousness realised through faith in Jesus Christ, destined for all that believe. The Divine righteousness displayed in the Gospel is communicative; sinners become Gods righteousness in Christ, even as He became sin for us (2Co 5:21).
Rom 3:22 b, Rom 3:23 sustains the all of Rom 3:22 a: Jew and Gentile are condemned without distinction; everywhere the glory of God, which shone in mans proper nature, is eclipsed under sins shame.
Rom 3:24. If sinners then are to be justified, it must be gratuitously (cf. the gift of righteousness, Rom 5:17)a justification effected through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.To justify is to count righteous, p. 811, whether (Rom 2:13, Rom 3:4) the subject has been such in conduct or (as here) the opposite; the term is relative to status. The change of character ensues, as ch. 6 will show; God makes men righteous by treating them as such on Christs account. Justification is forgiveness, and more; it implies reinstatement (see Rom 8:14-17; cf. Luk 15:20-24).By derivation redemption is recovery by ransom: the Greek term, however, like the English, came to include deliverance broadly; the stricter connotation holds in this connexionthe thought of price, the sense of the immense cost of mans salvation (cf. 1Co 6:20*, 1Ti 2:6), attaches to the word; Rom 3:25 speaks of the blood (Mar 10:45, 1Pe 1:18 f.). How redeemed, Rom 3:25 a tells; with what issue, Rom 3:25 b, Rom 3:26.
Rom 3:25 a. God set Him forth in the eyes of all the worlda propitiation . . . in His blood. Propitiation (1Jn 2:2*) bears reference to the anger of God resounding from Rom 1:18* onwards. The death of Jesus consummated the direful train of causation, at once natural and supernatural, under which sin worketh out death; on the Cross the law of sin and death took full effectfor the sheltering sinner, final effect (cf. Rom 5:9). In heathen propitiations guilty men strove to appease the displeasure of their gods; here God both prescribes the means and is at the cost of expiation (Rom 8:32, 1Jn 4:10). The intervening clause through faith makes the saved man a party to Gods redeeming action; the propitiation avails as he identifies himself with it.
Rom 3:25 b, Rom 3:26. The expiation covers, retrospectively, the time of passing over of sins (RV; cf. Act 17:30, Heb 10:1-4), when God acted in forbearance with wrong-doers. The present epoch witnesses the full exhibition of Gods righteousnessthat of One who is Himself righteous and the justifier (righteous-er, as Du Bose renders it) of the man that is of faith in Jesus. The and is no but: the justification vindicates Gods own righteousness (Rom 1:17*), who in perfect rectitude reinstates, for Christs sake. His disinherited children. Of faith is more than through faith (Rom 3:25): faith originates the new order.
Rom 3:27-31. Three consequences emerge: Jewish pride is abased (Rom 3:27 f.), the Divine Unity is safeguarded (Rom 3:29 f.), and the Divine Law vindicated (Rom 3:31). The excluded glorying is that of Rom 2:17-20, the boast asserted under the law of works (Rom 2:21-25, Rom 4:4 f.; cf. Rom 10:3)quashed when faith is recognised as the norm of Gods kingdom; for (mg.) we account that justification comes to man (qua man, not qua Israelite) by faith apart from works of law: such a calculus annihilates boasting (cf. Rom 4:1-3). Incidentally. this principle guards the unity of God: God being one, there is only one way to set men right with Him; He will justify the Circumcision out of faith, and the Uncircumcision through that faithin salvation, as in sin, they stand on an equal footing. Faith is, to Jews, the source of salvation, excluding works; for Gentiles, standing afar off, the pathway to salvation.Finally, we (Christians) establish law, instead of overthrowing it (cf. Rom 6:15, Rom 8:4), by means of faith. Paul saw in faith a law (Rom 3:27) within and beyond the law; he found here the basal principle of Gods dealings with mankind (Rom 4:3 ff.; cf. Hebrews 11). His conception of law has deepened along with his conception of righteousness.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Verse 21
The righteousness of God; the righteousness which God attributes to the believer in his justification through faith.–Is manifested; is revealed or made known in the gospel.–Being witnessed; having been witnessed, that is, predicted.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
DIVISION II. JUSTIFICATION AND ITS RESULTS CHS. 3:21-26
SECTION 10. JUSTIFICATION THROUGH FAITH AND THROUGH CHRIST
CH. 3:21-26
But now, apart from law, a righteousness of God has been manifested, witness being borne to it by the Law and the Prophets, a righteousness of God through belief of Jesus Christ, for all that believe. For there is no difference: for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation through faith, in His blood, for demonstration of His righteousness, because of the passing over of the beforecommitted sins in the forbearance of God, for the demonstration of His righteousness in the present season, in order that He may be Himself righteous and a justifier of him that has faith of Jesus.
Rom 3:21. But now etc.: sudden and joyful transition from the condemnation of the Law to the light of the Gospel.
Apart from law: independent of, and in some sense contradicting, the great principle underlying the Jewish Scriptures, viz. that the favour of God is conditioned by obedience to His commands. It is practically the same as apart from works of law in Rom 3:28.
Righteousness of God: as in Rom 1:17.
Manifested: set conspicuously before the eyes of men, as in Rom 1:19. Compare and contrast Rom 1:17. The righteousness of God has-been-manifested (perfect tense) once for all by the appearance of Christ and by His announcement of salvation: day by day it is revealed by faith (present tense), i.e. brought into the consciousness of each one, as each one believes.
Witness-being-borne-to-it: day by day, as the ancient Scriptures are read. This testimony was mentioned in Rom 1:2 : and a specimen was given in Rom 1:17. Much more of it will be given in Romans 4, 9, 10.
The Law: the Pentateuch only.
The Prophets: the other chief division of the Jewish Scriptures: cp. Mat 5:17; Mat 7:12; Mat 11:13; Mat 22:40. A fuller description is given in Luk 24:44 : the Law of Moses and the Prophets and Psalms. The phrase here is not only a common division of the O.T. but describes two conspicuous elements which run through the whole: for very much of the Law is expressly or symbolically prophetic, and the Prophets announce or rather reiterate Gods will about mans conduct. The word law refers to the principle of law, which is the great feature of the Pentateuch: the term the Law refers to the book in which it assumes written form.
Rom 3:22 a. Additional information about the righteousness of God, viz. the channel through which, and the persons for whom, it comes.
Belief (or faith) of Jesus Christ: an assurance of which Christ is Himself the personal object, a sure confidence that the words of Christ are true and will come true because they are spoken by One who cannot deceive and who is able to perform His own promises. Same construction with the genitive in Rom 3:26; Gal 2:16 twice, Gal 3:22; Eph 3:12; Php 3:9; Mar 11:22.
For all that believe: persons for whom the gift of righteousness is proclaimed in the Gospel. The emphatic word all, like everyone in Rom 1:16, includes Jew and Gentile, whether previously moral or immoral. We can conceive the favour of God given through faith, yet only to a portion of those that believe. These words declare that faith is the only condition.
Some have supposed that, although salvation is proclaimed for all who believe, God has secretly resolved to bestow only upon a portion of the race selected by Himself those influences without which repentance and faith are impossible. If so, salvation is limited, not really by mans unbelief, but by Gods eternal purpose. This view seems to me at variance with the teaching of this verse: and I hope to prove in a note under Rom 9:33 that it is utterly at variance with the teaching of Paul.
This verse states the personal object of our faith, but not its object-matter. It tells us whom, but not expressly what, we must believe. But there can be no belief without something believed, no mental rest in an idea without an idea in which to rest. See note under Rom 4:25. And evidently the object-matter of saving faith is the good news announced by Christ: so 1Th 2:13; Mar 1:15. We obtain the favour of God by belief that through the death of Christ God bestows His favour as a gift upon us who believe, this belief being reliance with all the interests at stake on the word and faithfulness and power of God.
The conspicuous phrase righteousness of God in Rom 3:21 and again in Rom 3:22 at once recalls the same phrase in Rom 1:17; and takes up and carries forward the thread of discourse which was broken off in Rom 1:18 in order to prove the need of the salvation announced in Rom 3:16-17. This proof is given in Rom 1:18 to Rom 3:20, which I have comprised in DIV. I., an integral portion of the epistle, the dark background of that Gospel of salvation which is its chief matter. Under this deep shadow we went suddenly in Rom 1:18, and emerged from it as suddenly in Rom 3:21; and on emerging we found ourselves where we were before we entered it. This return to, and restatement of, teaching stated at the beginning of the doctrinal part of the epistle marks out this teaching as the foundation-stone of the Epistle to the Romans.
Paul has now taught us that it has been publicly announced that, without requiring previous obedience to the Law but in harmony with the teaching of Moses and the prophets, God bestows, as a gift, a state which He approves; and that this gift is obtained by believing the words of Christ and is designed for all that believe. In other words, he teaches that God accepts as righteous all who believe the glad tidings of salvation announced by Christ. This doctrine, in the equivalent form of justification through faith, meets us again in Rom 3:24; Rom 3:26; Rom 3:28; Rom 3:30; is illustrated from the O.T., in the form of faith reckoned for righteousness, throughout Romans 4; and is made in Rom 5:1-11 a ground of exultant hope of coming glory. The same doctrine is with equal clearness stated and defended in the Epistle to the Galatians. That his readers are justified, is taught in 1Co 6:11; Tit 3:7; and that by faith they are already in the way of salvation, which is the same doctrine in another form, is stated in other epistles bearing the name of Paul. By an important coincidence, the same doctrine in the same phrase is in Act 13:39 attributed to Paul in a recorded address; as is similar teaching in Act 16:31; Act 26:18. All this taken together is decisive documentary evidence that as matter of historic fact Paul taught, in language equivalent to that used in Rom 1:17; Rom 3:21-22, that God accepts as righteous, in spite of their past sins, all who believe the Gospel. This teaching, which we may conveniently speak of as JUSTIFICATION THROUGH FAITH, is the FIRST and chief FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINE of the Epistle to the Romans and of the theology of Paul.
We now ask, How came Paul to claim, without proof, his readers belief for this important and fundamental doctrine? An answer is suggested by the fact that although the phrase justified through faith is found only with Paul, the equivalent doctrine that all who believe the Gospel are in the way of salvation is found in other N.T. documents altogether different in thought and phrase from the epistles of Paul. In the Fourth Gospel Christ is said to have frequently taught that all who believe in Him will have and already have eternal life: e.g. Joh 3:15 ff, Joh 3:35 f, Joh 5:24; Joh 6:29; Joh 6:35; Joh 6:40; Joh 6:47. If so, they already possess by faith the favour of God. Similar teaching, in Mar 1:15; Mar 16:16; Luk 8:12; Luk 18:14. And in Mat 8:10; Mat 9:22; Mat 9:29; Mat 15:28; Mat 17:20; Mat 21:21 we have, attributed to Christ, teaching wonderfully in harmony with the same. So also Jas 2:1; Jas 2:14-26; Jas 5:15; 1Pe 2:6-7; 1Jn 5:1-13. We notice also that the doctrine that God accepts as righteous all who believe in Him is unknown to writers earlier than Christ except somewhat vaguely as a prophecy of the future, e.g. in Hab 2:4; Isa 28:16; but that since His day it has been taught by many calling themselves His disciples. All this is decisive documentary evidence that this doctrine was actually taught not only by Paul but by Christ. And that Paul learnt it from Christ, he asserts in Gal 1:11. That it was accepted by all Christians everywhere because they knew that it was taught by Christ, is a complete explanation, and the only conceivable explanation, of the confidence with which Paul assumes it without proof and makes it the foundation-stone of his theology. See further in Diss. vi. of my Galatians.
Rom 3:22-23. A short recapitulation of DIV. I., proving the universal need of salvation implied in the universal assertion all that believe; just as DIV. I., introduced in Rom 1:18, justifies similar words in Rom 1:16.
For there is no difference: summary of Romans 2. Same words in same connection in Rom 10:12. They are here supported by a reassertion of the teaching in Rom 2:1; Rom 3:9; Rom 3:19 : for all have sinned. The Greek aorist includes all sins in all ages up to the moment of writing. It must therefore be translated by the English perfect. For our preterite pushes the event into the past, and thus gives to it a definiteness, as separated from the present, which the Greek indefinite tense has not.
Glory: admiration evoked by an object in the mind of a beholder, or that quality in the object which evokes admiration: see under Rom 1:21. In Rom 1:23; Rom 6:4; Rom 9:23
the glory of God denotes the manifested grandeur of God evoking His creatures admiration; and in Rom 3:7; Rom 4:20; Rom 11:36; Rom 15:7 the admiration thus evoked. So the glory of Jehovah in Exo 16:10; Exo 24:16-17, and frequently in the O.T.; cp. Luk 2:9. But this meaning does not give good sense here and in Rom 5:2. In Rom 2:7; Rom 2:10, the word glory, i.e. a splendour evoking admiration, describes the reward of the righteous: so Rom 8:18; Rom 8:21; 1Co 2:7; 1Co 15:43; Col 1:27; Col 3:4. They will share the splendour of Christ: Rom 8:17; 2Th 2:14. This must be the meaning in Rom 5:2 : hope of the glory of God; and it gives good sense here. For this future splendour, although concealed from view, is a present possession of the servants of Christ. Their afflictions are working out for them an eternal weight of glory, and already they can say we have a house eternal in the heavens: 2Co 4:17; 2Co 5:1. Thus understood, the glory of God here and in Rom 5:2 is the splendour which God gives, just as righteousness of God in Rom 3:21-22; Rom 1:17; Rom 10:3 is a righteousness which God gives. In both cases, the divine gift is related to a divine attribute; but must be carefully distinguished from it.
Fall-short-of: fall behind others, or fail to reach some goal set before them. Believers are already (Rom 8:17) sharers of Christs heritage of glory: but of this heritage they who have not by faith obtained a righteousness of God are destitute. In this sense, through their sin, they fall short of the glory of God. The middle voice scarcely implies that they are conscious of their failure: it implies only that it reacts in some way upon themselves.
Rom 3:24-28. A participial clause, grammatically subordinate to Rom 3:23, followed by other subordinate clauses, but really introducing a new and all-important doctrine, viz. justification through the death of Christ. By introducing this great doctrine in this subordinate form, Paul intimates its logical connection with the doctrine of universal sin and failure. The prominence of this last doctrine throughout this epistle reveals its large place in the thought of Paul.
Rom 3:24. Justified: a judges decision in a mans favour, as in Rom 2:13. But in this last passage the word refers to the day of judgment; whereas here the present tense being-justified refers to a judgment now going on. Same word in same present tense in Rom 3:26; Rom 3:28; Rom 4:5. That it is introduced without further explanation, implies that its meaning is involved in what Paul has already said. If, as we learnt under Rom 3:21-22, God accepts as righteous all who believe the Gospel, then is the Gospel a formal announcement of justification for all who believe it. They have no need to wait till the day of judgment to know their destiny: the judge has already pronounced their acquittal. In the Gospel, they read their own justification. It is
(Rom 1:17) revealed by faith. Thus day by day men are being justified as one and another put faith in Christ. Paul could not say having been justified: for this is not true of all who have sinned. Moreover, he does not speak of justification in the past tense till Rom 5:1. He refers to it now only generally as a process going on. Cp. 2Co 5:19 : reconciling the world to Himself.
Freely: as a gift: so Rev 21:6; Rev 22:17.
By His grace: source of the gift, in the undeserved favour of God, i.e. the love of God contemplating its objects with a purpose of blessing: see under Rom 1:5.
Redemption, or ransoming-off: a setting free on payment, or by payment, of a price, combining the ideas of liberation and price. Same word in Rom 8:23; 1Co 1:30; Eph 1:7; Eph 1:14; Eph 4:30; Col 1:14; Heb 9:15; Heb 11:35; simpler cognates in Mat 20:28; Mar 10:45; Luk 24:21; Tit 2:14; 1Pe 1:18; Luk 1:68; Luk 2:38; Heb 9:12; Act 7:35.
These cognates are common in classic Greek for liberation of captives by payment of a ransom; and in the LXX. for the liberation by price or substitute of those, e.g. the firstborn, on whom the Mosaic Law had a claim. Cp. Exo 13:13; Num 18:15; Lev 27:27-33; Num 3:46-51. Like most others denoting a combination of ideas, these words are sometimes used when only one of the ideas is present, viz. liberation: so Exo 6:6; Exo 15:13, etc. This last idea is evidently present here. For, to justify the ungodly (see Rom 4:5) involves liberation from the ruin which is the due penalty of sin: see Rom 4:5; Rom 6:22-23. Whether, and in what sense, this liberation involves payment of a price, we must learn from the further teaching of Paul.
Through the redemption etc.: channel through which the justification goes forth from God; just as faith is the channel (Rom 3:22; Rom 3:28; Rom 3:30) through which it reaches the sinner.
In Christ Jesus: His personality being the element or environment in which the liberation takes place. This important phrase, peculiar to Paul, except that in a slightly different form it is very common in the Gospel and First Epistle of John, (see also 1Pe 3:16; Jud 1:1,) meets us again in Rom 6:11; Rom 6:23; Rom 8:1; Rom 8:39. It is a conspicuous and important feature of the teaching of Paul. See under Rom 6:11.
Rom 3:25. Whom God set forth etc.: further explanation of the redemption in Christ.
Propitiation: cognates in 1Jn 2:2; 1Jn 4:10; Heb 2:17; Luk 18:13; also (LXX.) Lev 4:20; Lev 4:26; Lev 4:31; Lev 4:35; Lev 16:30; Lev 16:32-34; Num 16:46-47. These passages make the meaning of the word quite clear. Propitiation was a means of forgiveness. To propitiate, was to shelter the sinner from the punishment due to his sin. In each case the propitiation was provided and commanded by God. The O.T. use of the word recalls the sacrificial ritual of the Law of Moses: and the words in His blood place the blood shed on the cross of Christ in relation to that which was so conspicuous in the Mosaic ritual. In Homers Iliad bk. i. 147, 386, 444, 472 and elsewhere in classic Greek, the word is used in the sense of deprecating the anger and regaining the favour of an offended deity, the name of the god being put in the accusative: similarly Gen 32:20; Pro 16:14. But this construction and conception are not found, in reference to God, throughout the Bible. In the passage before us, as in 1Jn 4:10, God Himself provides the propitiation.
In Heb 9:5; Exo 25:17-22, the exact word used in Rom 3:25 denotes the mercy-seat, the place of propitiation. But to any comparison of Christ with the mercy-seat we have no reference throughout the New Testament. Moreover, the death of Christ is here mentioned as a demonstration, not of the mercy, but of the righteousness, of God. To call Him a mercy-seat, would add nothing to the meaning of this great statement of doctrine; whereas, to call Him a propitiation, connects His death with the ancient sacrifices; as in 1Co 5:7; Eph 5:2; 1Pe 1:19; Heb 9:26. It is therefore better to take the word to mean a propitiatory sacrifice, a means of atonement. In the ancient ritual, the blood of the sacrifice procured for the offerer forgiveness. God set-forth Christ conspicuously before the eyes of men to be a sacrifice by which they might escape from the punishment due to their sins. The word propitiation derives its force from the proof in DIV. I. that all men are exposed to punishment.
Through faith: means by which the propitiation becomes effective for each one. As each one believes, he goes from under the anger of God. God set forth Christ in His own blood: presented Him to the eyes of men covered with His own blood. This indicates wherein lay the propitiatory efficacy of this sacrifice. The above connection of thought is better than faith in His blood: for the phrase faith in (Eph 1:15; 1Ti 3:13; 2Ti 1:13; 2Ti 3:15) is not common with Paul: and we nowhere else find such an idea as faith in the blood of Christ. But the practical difference is not great: for justifying faith takes account of the death of Christ as the means of our pardon.
Since the validity of the propitiation in Christ was in His blood, i.e. in His violent death, His blood and life were the ransom price of our justification: so Eph 1:7; Mat 20:28; 1Pe 1:18-19; Rev 5:9. For in all human language every costly means used to obtain a result not otherwise possible is correctly called the price paid for it. Thus the word propitiation sheds light on the foregoing word redemption.
For demonstration of etc.: purpose for which God set forth Christ as a propitiation.
His righteousness: as in Rom 3:5 : the divine attribute by which God impartially administers His own laws and will judge the world. This meaning, differing from that of the same phrase in Rom 3:21-22, is required by the words Himself righteous in Rom 3:26. Such administrative righteousness, we commonly call justice: but in Greek the words are the same.
Because of the passing over etc.: conduct of God in the past prompting Him now to give proof of His justice. Passing over: not forgiveness, but apparent tolerance of sin shown in delay to inflict punishment.
The before-committed sins: during the long ages of the past history of Israel.
In the forbearance of God: as in Rom 2:4 : His holding back the due punishment of their sins: cp. Act 17:30; Act 14:16. God gave proof (Rom 1:24-27) of His anger against sin by now and then inflicting punishment on the Gentiles and on Israel. But He did not inflict the full penalty: else the whole race would have perished. He did not forgive, but to a large extent He passed over, the sins of men. Now, for a king to overlook crime, to forbear to punish, or even to delay punishment, is unjust. And Gods character was lowered in the eyes of some by His forbearance, which they misinterpreted to be an indication that they will escape punishment. God gave Christ to die in order to demonstrate His justice in view of a tolerance of past sins which seemed to obscure it.
Rom 3:26. For the demonstration of His righteousness: conspicuous and emphatic repetition of the same words in Rom 3:25.
In the present season: the days of Christ, who, as we read in Rom 5:6, in due season died for ungodly ones, in contrast to Gods forbearance in earlier ages.
In order that He etc.: further and final purpose of this demonstration of Gods justice, and of His gift of Christ to die. This purpose implies that, apart from the demonstration of Gods justice in the death of Christ, God could not be at the same time Himself just and a justifier of those who put faith in Jesus. For certainly He would not have given His Son to die in order to reach an end which might have been reached at less cost. In other words, Paul here asserts that God gave Christ to die in order to harmonize with His own attribute of justice the justification of believers announced in the Gospel.
Faith of Jesus: belief of the words of Jesus, as in Rom 3:22. Him that has faith: literally him whose position and character are derived from a faith of which Jesus is the personal Object: same phrase in Rom 3:30; Rom 1:17; Rom 4:16; Rom 9:30; Rom 9:32; Rom 10:6, etc. These words keep before us Doctrine I, asserted in Rom 3:22.
Rom 3:26 is Pauls last and highest word about the death of Christ; and it is the fullest teaching in the New Testament, explaining all its other teaching on the same solemn subject. If the death of Christ was needful in order to demonstrate the justice of God in view of the justification of sinners announced in the Gospel and in view of His own past forbearance of sin, then Justice itself demanded this demonstration. For a ruler is bound not only to administer impartially his own laws but to make his impartiality manifest to all; because whatever obscures his justice defeats the ends of justice, and whatever manifests it aids those ends. Now, if God gave Christ to die in order to harmonize with His own justice the justification of believers, then was Christs death absolutely necessary for mans salvation: for God could not possibly be unjust. Consequently, by the death of Christ was removed an absolute barrier to mans salvation having its foundation in the eternal nature of God.
The above teaching explains the word redemption in Rom 3:24 : for if, as we have just seen, mans salvation was impossible apart from some such demonstration of Gods justice as is found in Christs death, then was this last the price paid for our salvation. We need not ask, To whom paid? For the phrase is one of the most common and expressive of human metaphors. There was no bargaining with Satan, or between the Persons of the Godhead, but there was an infinite price paid. The word propitiation in Rom 3:25 is also explained: for through the death of Christ believers are saved from the penalty of their sins which otherwise would have fallen on their own heads, just as in Egypt the firstborn was saved from death by the death of the Paschal lamb.
In Rom 3:24-26, Paul asserts, without proof, the SECOND FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINE of this epistle, viz. that God gave Christ to die in order to harmonize with His own justice, and thus make possible, the justification of believers. The same doctrine He reasserts in Rom 4:25, and draws from it important inferences in Rom 5:6-10; Rom 6:3-10; Rom 7:4; Rom 8:32-34; Rom 14:9; Rom 14:15 : it is equally prominent in other epistles from his pen. The complete confidence with which he asserts and assumes it, without proof, leaves no room to doubt that this remarkable doctrine was actually taught and held by the apostle Paul and by the Christians among whom he moved.
That our life comes through Christs death, is taught clearly in Heb 9:12-28; Heb 10:1-19; 1Pe 1:18; 1Pe 2:24; 1Pe 3:18; 1Jn 2:2; 1Jn 4:10; Rev 1:5; Rev 5:6-9; Rev 7:14. Similar teaching is attributed to Christ in each of the Four Gospels: Mat 20:28; Mat 26:28; Mar 10:45; Mar 14:24; Luk 22:20; Joh 6:51; Joh 10:11; Joh 12:24. That these numerous and various documents agree in teaching this remarkable doctrine, proves clearly that it was universally held by the first generation of the disciples of Jesus; and that it was actually taught by Him. For only thus can the agreement be accounted for.
This proof is greatly strengthened by the ordinance of the Lords Supper. Wherever there are Christians, they celebrate His death by the most solemn act of their worship. The universality of this custom proves clearly that it dates from the origin of Christianity. Now, if the servants of Christ live because He died, we wonder not that they commemorate His death by a feast: and we wonder not that in the most solemn crisis of His life He commanded them to keep this commemorative feast, thus giving it a unique position as the one recurrent rite of His Church, and thus indicating His purpose to make it a channel of special blessing. But, of this rite, and of the importance attached to it by Christians everywhere, I can conceive no other explanation. It is thus an abiding witness to the doctrine before us. A similar though less definite witness is borne by the animal sacrifices so conspicuous in the Mosaic ritual and in the worship of the ancient world.
In almost every nation men believed that in some cases the guilty could be saved only by the blood of an innocent victim. Whence this strange belief? If the teaching of Rom 3:24-26 be true, we can conceive that He who wrote His law in the hearts of all in some way taught men to offer animal sacrifices, in order that, by their evident insufficiency, they might proclaim the need of a nobler Victim.
On the whole subject, see Diss. vii. of my Galatians, on The Cross of Christ; and Part iii. of my Through Christ to God, on The Death of Christ.
Paul has now, after proving that all men are or have been under condemnation, asserted two great doctrines, viz. (1) that God receives into His favour all who believe the good news announced by Christ, and (2) that this salvation comes through the death of Christ, whom God gave to die in order to harmonize with His own justice the justification of those who put faith in Christ. Of these doctrines, the first is implied in, and the second is the only explanation of, teaching which can be traced by abundant and decisive documentary evidence to the lips of Christ. We may therefore, apart from the apostolic authority of Paul, accept each of these doctrines with perfect confidence as a sure basis for further theological research.
REVIEW of 10. Through the Gospel announced by Christ, God has, apart from obedience to law and from natural distinctions, manifested a righteousness which is His own gift to all believers. Such was needed: for all have sinned, and are thus destitute of the heritage of glory which belongs to the sons of God. This Gospel implies justification by Gods free favour: and this is itself a proof of the moral failure of our race, a proof strengthened by the assertion of Paul that it was made possible only through the death of Christ. This last was therefore the ransom-price of our salvation. The payment was made, and the liberation takes place, in Him who was born at Bethlehem to be our King. Because no other means would avail, God set Him forth before the eyes of men, covered with His own blood, to be a propitiatory sacrifice sheltering from the punishment due to their sins those who believe. God did this in order thus to afford proof of His own righteousness, a proof made needful by His past forbearance and by His present purpose to proclaim pardon for those who believe the words of Jesus. To delay punishment, and still more to pardon the guilty, by mere prerogative, is unjust and therefore impossible to God. But that which by itself would have been unworthy of a righteous ruler, God has harmonized with His own absolute justice by the demonstration of it given in the death of Christ.
JUSTIFICATION. The word rendered in N.T. justify denotes to make righteous, but always in a forensic or subjective sense. In non-biblical Greek, it denotes to claim as a right, to judge right, or to treat with justice, sometimes in the sense of condemning and punishing. In the LXX. it is a technical term for a judges sentence in a mans favour, in Deu 25:1; Isa 5:23; and of God the Judge of the world, in Exo 23:7; 1Ki 8:32; 2Ch 6:23; Isa 50:8. In Job 33:32, it denotes approval by a friend: and in 2Sa 15:4; Psa 82:3 it is a judges righteous sentence, thus approaching from another side the classic use of the word. The only passage in the LXX. in which the word can possibly denote objective conformity to the Law is Isa 53:11; and its use elsewhere suggests that even here it means simply to procure for guilty men the acquittal of the great Judge.
In complete agreement with this use of the word in the LXX., is its use in the New Testament. From her works and her children has gone forth a declaration that Wisdom is in the right: Mat 11:19; Luk 7:35. We read in Luk 10:29; Luk 16:15 of men who justified themselves, in the sight of others and perhaps of themselves. Even the publicans, in Luk 7:29, justified God. i.e. declared Him, by receiving Baptism, to be in the right in His severe words to them through the lips of John; in the sense in which the word is used in the quotation in Rom 3:4. In Mat 12:37, as in Rom 2:13, the word denotes a favourable sentence of God at the great assize; and refers in Jas 2:24-25 to Gods approbation of Abraham expressed in Gen 22:16, and to His approbation of Rahabs faith as shown in her rescue amid the destruction of Jericho. Christs words about the publican in Luk 18:14 foreshadowed Pauls use of the word: for he went down to his house justified. Throughout the Bible the word justify denotes, never impartation of inward righteousness, but always a reckoning or declaring or treating as righteous.
This constant use of the word, in close harmony with its somewhat different use in classic Greek, determines its meaning in Rom 3:20; Rom 3:24; Rom 3:26; Rom 3:28; Rom 3:30; Rom 4:5; Rom 5:1; Rom 5:9 and in Gal 2:16-17; Gal 3:8; Gal 3:24 : and this determines the meaning of the equivalent word righteousness in Rom 1:17; Rom 3:21-22; Rom 9:30; Rom 10:3-4; Rom 10:6. All these passages refer, not to actual conformity to the moral law, but to Gods forgiving reception into His favour of those who put faith in Christ. And this is confirmed by the phrase faith reckoned for righteousness used in Rom 4:3; Rom 4:5; Rom 4:9; Rom 4:24 as an equivalent to justified through faith. For the word reckoned is evidently forensic.
To the above meaning of the word it cannot be objected that a forensic righteousness without actual conformity to the moral law is worthless. For, as we shall see, justification through faith is followed by adoption into the family of God, and by the gift of the Spirit of Adoption to be the animating principle of a new life of devotion to God. But this all-important teaching is clothed in other phraseology. It is not suggested by the word now before us. See further in Diss. vi. of my Galatians.
Since we appear before God charged with sin, to us justification is acquittal. And, since we are actually guilty, it is practically pardon. But it is not looked upon as such: for, whereas pardon is a setting aside of law, justification is a carrying out of the new Law of Faith.
In the N.T., no writer except Paul uses the phrase justified through faith. Notice therefore an all-important coincidence in Act 13:38-39, in a recorded address of Paul.
Fuente: Beet’s Commentary on Selected Books of the New Testament
3:21 {7} But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
(7) “Therefore”, says the apostle, “so that men would not perish, God now exhibits that which he promised from ancient time, that is to say, a way by which we may be instituted and saved before him without the law.”
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
A. The description of justification 3:21-26
Paul began by explaining the concept of justification. [Note: See Carl F. H. Henry, "Justification: A Doctrine in Crisis," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 38:1 (March 1995):57-65, for discussion of the crisis that Protestant Catholic rapprochement poses for the doctrine of justification.]
"We now come to the unfolding of that word which Paul in Chapter One declares to be the very heart of the gospel . . ." [Note: Newell, p. 92.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
The "righteousness of God" here refers to God’s method of bringing people into right relationship with Himself. His method is apart from Law (cf. Rom 3:20). The definite article before "Law" is absent in the Greek text, though it probably refers to the Mosaic Law. Moreover the righteousness of God "has been manifested" (perfect tense in Greek, "stands manifested"), namely, through the coming of Jesus Christ. The Old Testament revealed that this would be God’s method even before He appeared. The reference to the Old Testament as the law and the prophets, two major sections of the Hebrew Bible, prepares the way for chapter 4 (cf. Mat 5:17). There Paul discussed Abraham and David, two representatives of these two sections of Scripture.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
III. THE IMPUTATION OF GOD’S RIGHTEOUSNESS 3:21-5:21
In beginning the next section of his argument Paul returned to the major subject of this epistle, the righteousness of God (Rom 3:21; cf. Rom 1:17). He also repeated the need for faith (Rom 3:22; cf. Rom 1:16) and summarized his point that everyone is guilty before God (Rom 3:22; cf. Rom 1:18 to Rom 3:20). This brief recapitulation introduces his explanation of the salvation that God provides for guilty sinners that follows.
"The first main division of the epistle forms a powerful negative argument for the second, and was evidently so intended. Since man is a sinner with no help in himself and none in the law, what is left to him but to look to the mercy of God? . . . In a court of justice it is only after every defense has failed and the law itself has been shown to be broken, it is only at this point that the appeal is made to the judge for his clemency. The epistle has brought us to such a point." [Note: Stifler, p. 58.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Chapter 9
THE ONE WAY OF DIVINE ACCEPTANCE
Rom 3:21-31
So then “there is silence” upon earth, that man may hear the “still, small voice,” “the sound of stillness,” {1Ki 19:12} from the heavens. “The Law” has spoken, with its heart-shaking thunder. It has driven in upon the soul of man, from many sides, that one fact-guilt; the eternity of the claim of righteousness, the absoluteness of the holy Will of God, and, in contrast, the failure of man, of the race, to meet that claim and do that will. It has told man, in effect, that he is “depraved,” that is to say, morally distorted. He is “totally depraved,” that is, the distortion has affected his whole being, so that he can supply on his own part no adequate recovering power which shall restore him to harmony with God. And the Law has nothing more to say to him, except that this condition is not only deplorable, but guilty, accountable, condemnable; and that his own conscience is the concurrent witness that it is so. He is a sinner. To be a sinner is before all things to be a transgressor of law. It is other things besides. It is to be morally diseased, and in need of surgery and medicine. It is to be morally unhappy, and an object of compassion. But first of all it is to be morally guilty, and in urgent need of justification, of a reversal of sentence, of satisfactory settlement with the offended-and eternal-Law of God.
That Law, having spoken its inexorable conditions, and having announced the just sentence of death, stands stern and silent beside the now silent offender. It has no commission to relieve his fears, to allay his grief, to pay his debts. Its awful, merciful business is to say, “Thou shalt not sin,” and “The wages of sin is death.” It summons conscience to attention, and tells it in its now hearing ear far more than it had realised before of the horror and the doom of sin; and then it leaves conscience to take up the message and alarm the whole inner world with the certainty of guilt and judgment. So the man lies speechless before the terribly reticent Law.
Is it a merely abstract picture? Or do our hearts, the writers and the readers, bear any witness to its living truthfulness? God knoweth, these things are no curiosities of the past. We are not studying an interesting phase of early Christian thought. We are reading a living record of the experiences of innumerable lives which are lived on earth this day. There is such a thing indeed in our time, at this hour, as conviction of sin. There is such a thing now as a human soul, struck dumb amidst its apologies, its doubts, its denials, by the speech and then the silence of the Law of God. There is such a thing at this hour as a real man, strong and sound in thought, healthy in every faculty, used to look facts of daily life in the face, yet broken down in the indescribable conviction that he is a poor, guilty, lost sinner, and that his overwhelming need is not now-not just now-the solution of problems of being, but the assurance that his sin is forgiven. He must be justified, or he dies. The God of the Law must somehow say He has no quarrel with him, or he dies a death which he sees, as by an intuition peculiar to conviction of sin, to be in its proper nature a death without hope, without end.
Is this “somehow” possible?
Listen, guilty and silent soul, to a sound which is audible now. In the turmoil of either secular indifference or blind self-justification you could not hear it; at best you heard a meaningless murmur. But listen now; it is articulate, and it speaks to you. The earthquake, the wind, the fire, have passed: and you are indeed awake. Now comes “the sound of stillness” in its turn. But now, apart from Law, Gods righteousness stands displayed, attested by the Law and the Prophets; but-though attested by them, in the Scriptures which all along, in word and in type, promise better things to come, and above all a Blessed One to come-(it is) Gods righteousness, through faith in Jesus Christ, prepared for all and bestowed upon all who believe in Him. For there is no distinction; for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God, being justified giftwise, gratuitously, by His grace, through the redemption, the ransom rescue, which is in Christ Jesus. Yes, it resides always in Him, the Lord of saving Merit, and so is to be found in Him alone; whom God presented, put forward, as Propitiation, through faith in His blood, His blood of death, of sacrifice, of the altar; so as to demonstrate, to explain, to clear up, His righteousness, His way of acceptance and its method. The Father “presented” the Son so as to show that His grace meant no real connivance, no indulgence without a lawful reason. He “presented” Him because of His passing by of sins done before; because the fact asked explanation that, while He proclaimed His Law, and had not yet revealed His Gospel, He did nevertheless bear with sinners, reprieving them, condoning them, in the forbearance of God, in the ages when He was seen to “hold back” His wrath, but did not yet disclose the reason why. It was with a view, he says again, to this demonstration of His righteousness in the present period, the season, the , of the manifested Gospel; that He may be, in our view, as well as in divine fact, at once just, true to His eternal Law, and Justifier of him who belongs to faith in Jesus.
This is the voice from heaven, audible when the sinners mouth is shut, while his ears are opened by the touch of God. Without that spiritual introduction to them, very likely they will seem either a fact in the history of religious thought, interesting in the study of development, but no more; or a series of assertions corresponding to unreal needs, and in themselves full of disputable points. Read them in the hour of conviction of sin; in other words, bring to them your whole being, stirred from above to its moral depths, and you will not take them either indifferently, or with opposition. As the key meets the lock they will meet your exceeding need. Every sentence, every link of reasoning, every affirmation of fact, will be precious to you beyond all words. And you will never fully understand them except in such hours, or in the life which has such hours amongst its indelible memories.
Listen over again, in this sacred silence, thus broken by “the pleasant voice of the Mighty One.”
“But now”; the happy “now” of present fact, of waking certainty. It is no daydream. Look, and see; touch, and feel. Turn the blessed page again; , “It stands written.” There is indeed a “Righteousness of God,” a settled way of mercy which is as holy as it is benignant, an acceptance as good in eternal Law as in eternal Love. It is “attested by the Law and the Prophets”; countless lines of prediction and foreshadowing meet upon it, to negative forever the fear of illusion, of delusion. Here is no fortuitous concourse, but the long-laid plan of God. Behold its procuring Cause, magnificent, tender, divine, human, spiritual, historic. It is the beloved Son of the Father; no antagonist power from a region alien to the blessed Law and its Giver. The Law Giver is the Christ Giver; He has “set Him forth,” He has provided in Him an expiation which-does not persuade Him to have mercy, for He is eternal Love already, but liberates His love along the line of a wonderfully satisfied Holiness, and explains that liberation (to the contrite) so as supremely to win their worship and their love to the Father and the Son. Behold the Christ of God; behold the blood of Christ. In the Gospel, He is everywhere, it is everywhere; but what is your delight to find Him, and it, here upon the threshold of your life of blessing? Looking upon the Crucified, while you still “lay your hand upon your mouth,” till it is removed that you may bless His Name, you understand the joy with which, age after age, men have spoken of a Death which is their life, of a Cross which is their crown and glory. You are in no mood, here and now, to disparage the doctrine of the Atoning Blood; to place it in the background of your Christianity; to obscure the Cross behind even the roofs of Bethlehem. You cannot now think well of any Gospel that does not say, “First of all, Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures”. {1Co 15:3} You are a sinner, and you know it; “guilty before God”; and for you as such the Propitiation governs your whole view of man, of God, of life, of heaven. For you, however it may be for others, “Redemption” cannot be named, or thought of, apart from its first precious element, “remission of sins,” justification of the guilty. It is steeped in ideas of Propitiation; it is red and glorious with the Redeemers blood, without which it could not have been. The all-blessed God, with all His attributes, His character, is by you seen evermore as “just, yet the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.” He shines on you through the Word, and in your hearts experience, in many another astonishing aspect. But all those others are qualified for you by this, that He is the God of a holy Justification; that He is the God who has accepted you, the guilty one, in Christ. All your thoughts of Him are formed and followed out at the foot of the Cross. Golgotha is the observatory from which you count and watch the lights of the moving heaven of His Being, His Truth, His Love.
How precious to you now are the words which once, perhaps, were worse than insipid, “Faith,” “Justification,” “the Righteousness of God”! In the discovery of your necessity, and of Christ as the all-in-all to meet it, you see with little need of exposition the place and power of Faith. It means, you see it now, simply your reception of Christ. It is your contact with Him, your embrace of Him. It is not virtue; it is absolutely remote from merit. But it is necessary; as necessary as the hand that takes the alms, or as the mouth that eats the unbought meal. The meaning of “Justification” is now to you no riddle of the schools. Like all the great words of scriptural theology it carries with it in divine things the meaning it bears in common things, only for a new and noble application; you see this with joy, by the insight of awakened conscience. He who “justifies” you does exactly what the word always imports. He does not educate you, or inspire you, up to acceptability. He pronounces you acceptable, satisfactory, at peace with Law. And this He does for Anothers sake; on account of the Merit of Another, who has so done and suffered as to win an eternal welcome for Himself and everything that is His, and therefore for all who are found in Him, and therefore for you who have fled into Him, believing. So you receive with joy and wonder “the righteousness of God,” His way to bid you, so deeply guilty in yourself, welcome without fear to your Judge. You are “righteous,” that is to say, satisfactory to the inexorable Law. How? Because you are transfigured into a moral perfectness such as could constitute a claim? No, but because Jesus Christ died, and you, receiving Him, are found in Him.
“There is no difference.” Once, perhaps, you resented that word, if you paused to note it. Now you take all its import home. Whatever otherwise your “difference” may be from the most disgraceful and notorious breakers of the Law of God, you know now that there is none in this respect-that you are as hopelessly, whether or not as distantly, remote as they are from “the glory of God.” His moral “glory,” the inexorable perfectness of His Character, with its inherent demand that you must perfectly correspond to Him in order so to be at peace with Him-you are indeed “short of” this. The harlot, the liar, the murderer, are short of it; but so are you. Perhaps they stand at the bottom of a mine, and you on the crest of an Alp; but you are as little able to touch the stars as they. So you thankfully give yourself up, side by side with them, if they will but come too, to be “carried” to the height of divine acceptance, by the gift of God, “justified gift-wise by His grace.”
Where then is our boasting? It is shut out. By means of what law? Of works? No, but by means of faiths law, the institute, the ordinance, which lays it upon us not to deserve, but to confide. And who can analyse or describe the joy and rest of the soul from which at last is “shut out” the foul inflation of a religious “boast”? We have praised ourselves, we have valued ourselves, on one thing or another supposed to make us worthy of the Eternal. We may perhaps have had some specious pretexts for doing so; or we may have “boasted” (such boastings are not unknown) of nothing better than being a little less ungodly, or a little more manly, than someone else. But this is over now forever, in principle; and we lay its practice under our Redeemers feet to be destroyed. And great are the rest and gladness of sitting down at His feet, while the door is shut and the key is turned upon our self-applause. There is no holiness without that “exclusion”; and there is no happiness where holiness is not.
For we reckon, we conclude, we gather up our facts and reasons thus, that man is justified by faith, apart from, irrespective of, works of law. In other words, the meriting cause lies wholly in Christ, and wholly outside the mans conduct. We have seen, implicitly, in the passage above, verses 10-18 (Rom 3:10-18), what is meant here by “works of Law,” or by “works of the Law.” The thought is not of ritual prescription, but of moral rule. The law breakers of verses 10-18 (Rom 3:10-18), are men who commit violent deeds, and speak foul words, and fail to do what is good. The law keeper, by consequence, is the man whose conduct in such respects is right, negatively and positively. And the “works of the law” are such deeds accordingly. So here “we conclude” that the justification of fallen man takes place, as to the merit which procures it, irrespective of his well-doing. It is respective only of Christ, as to merit; it has to do only, as to personal reception, with the acceptance of the meriting Christ, that is to say, with faith in Him.
Then come, like a short “coda” following a full musical cadence, two brief questions and their answers, spoken almost as if again a Rabbinist were in discussion.
Is God the Jews God only? Not of the Nations too? Yes, of the Nations too; assuming that God is one, the same Person in both cases; who will justify Circumcision on the principle of faith, and Uncircumcision by means of faith. He takes the fact, now ascertained, that faith, still faith, that is to say Christ received, is the condition to justification for all mankind; and he reasons back to the fact (so amply “attested by the Law and the Prophets,” from Genesis onwards) that the true God is equally the God of all. Probably the deep inference is suggested that the fence of privilege drawn for ages round Israel was meant ultimately for the whole worlds blessing, and not to hold Israel in a selfish isolation.
We cancel Law, then, by this faith of ours? We open the door, then, to moral license? We abolish code and precept, then, when we ask not for conduct, but for faith? Away with the thought; nay, we establish Law; we go the very way to give a new sacredness to its every command, and to disclose a new power for the fulfilment of them all. But how this is, and is to be, the later argument is to show.
DETACHED NOTE TO Rom 3:1-31
It would be a deeply interesting work to collect and exhibit together examples of the conveyance of great spiritual blessing, in memorable lives, through the perusal of the Epistle to the Romans. Augustines final crisis {see below, on Rom 13:14} would be one such example. As specimens of what must be a multitude we quote two cases, in each of which one verse in this third chapter of the Epistle proved the means of the divine message in a life of historical interest.
Padre Paola Sarpi (1552-1623), “Councillor and Theologian” to the Venetian Republic, and historian of the Council of Trent, was one of the many eminent men of his day who never broke with the Roman Church, yet had genuine spiritual sympathies with the Reformation. The record of his last hours is affecting and instructive, and shows him reposing his hope with great simplicity on the divine message of this chapter, though the report makes him quote it inexactly. “Night being come, and want of spirits increasing upon him, he ceased another reading of the Passion written by St. John. He spake of his own misery, and of the trust and confidence which he had in the blood of Christ. He repeated very often those words, Quem proposuit Deus Mediatorem per fidem in sanguine suo, Whom God hath set forth to be a Mediator through faith in His blood. In which He seemed to receive an extreme consolation. He repeated (though with much faintness) divers places of Saint Paul. He protested that of his part he had nothing to present God with but miseries and sins, yet nevertheless he desired to be drowned in the abyss of the divine mercy; with so much submission on one side, and yet so much cheerfulness on the other side, that he drew tears from all that were present.”
It was through the third chapter of the Romans that heavenly light first came to the terribly troubled soul of William Cowper, at St. Albans, in 1764. Some have said that Cowpers religion was to blame for his melancholy. The case was far different. The first tremendous attack occurred at a time when, by his own clear account, he was quite without serious religion; it had nothing whatever to do with either Christian doctrine or Christian practice. The recovery from it came with his first sight, in Scripture, of the divine mercy in our Lord Jesus Christ. His own account of this crisis is as follows:
“But the happy period which was to afford me a clear opening of the free mercy of God in Christ Jesus, was now arrived. I flung myself into a chair near the window, and, seeing a Bible there, ventured once more to apply to it for comfort and instruction. The first verse I saw was the 25th of the 3d of Romans (Rom 3:25); Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.”
“Immediately I received strength to believe it, and the full beams of the Sun of Righteousness shone upon me. I saw the sufficiency of the atonement He had made, my pardon sealed in His blood, and all the fulness and completeness of His justification. Unless the Almighty arm had been under me, I think I should have died with gratitude and joy. I could only look up to heaven in silent fear, overwhelmed with love and wonder. But the work of the Holy Ghost is best described in His own words; it is joy unspeakable and full of glory.”