On Rom 3:20
This seems at first sight, to contradict ii.
13: “Those who do the Law will be declared just!” There is, however, no
contradiction. In ii. 13 there is question of the Last Judgment—in which each
will be requited according to his works (ii. 6): here there is question of
attaining to justification. For this faith is necessary (i. 17), but works are unavailing.
The just of the Old Testament period became
just, not by doing works of the Law, but by believing in the Promised
Redeemer. Their observance of the Law was, in reality, the fruit of their justification,
not the source or cause of it. (Patrick Boylan, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans: Translation and Commentary [Dublin:
M.H. Gill and Son, Ltd., 1934, 1947], 54, emphasis)
On Rom 3:28
The statement concerns first justification: ανθρωπον implies complete universalism,
so that the principle laid down is to be taken as true for all. The justification,
then, by which any man becomes just, is effected without works of the Law. By
opposing πιστις as a basic
of justification to εργα νομου, Paul makes it clear that the “works of the Law” in question are
religious and moral activities that precede paoecedentia
vel non a fide profecta. Paul does
not, of course, exclude from the
process of justification disposing acts, in which the “faith” as it
were, unfolds, or develops, itself—acts of confidence, and repentance, and
resolutions of amendment (Cf. iv. 17
f). He wishes only to state that it is not a man’s fulfilment of Jewish, or
other, prescriptions, that supplies the basis for his justification, but only his
faith in Christ. Even in the Old Dispensation, faith was, precisely as it is
now, the sole means of approach to salvation.
Since verse 28 deals with first
justification, it gives no basis for the theory that faith alone justifies—as if nothing more were necessary for salvation
than belief in Christ as redeemer.
Even the faith which is required for first
justification is not a mere abstract, intellectual faith: it is accompanied by
a variety of other acts, and by an attitude of readiness to do all that follows
from the acceptance of Christ as Lord and Saviour. We have seen in ch. ii 6
that men will be judged according to their works; and in Galatians v. 6 Paul
says clearly: εν Χριστω Ιησου ουτε περιτομη τι Ισχυει ουτε ακροβθστια, αλλα πιστις δι’αγαπης
ενεργουμενη (Cf. Jas. i. 22; ii. 26).
It is not
works of the Christian life that Paul here excludes, but works which might be
regarded as demanding or deserving, first justification. Elsewhere (Eph. ii. 8) Paul
makes it plain that even the very faith which is necessary for justification is
itself a gratuitous divine gift: τη γαρ χαριτι εστε σεσωμενοι δια πιστεως και
τουτο ουκ εξ υμων, θεου το δωρον ουκ εξ εργων, ινα μη τις καυχησηται.
There can, obviously, be no ground for the
boasting of any individual within a system of salvation in which the basis and
starting point must be regarded as a free gift of God. (Ibid., 60-61, emphasis added)