Romans 4:2-5
2If, in fact, Abraham
was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. 3What
does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as
righteousness.”
4Now when a man
works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation.
5However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the
wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.
This is a critically
important passage, often cited by Lutherans and Protestants in support of a
purely forensic conception of righteousness. The word for “credits” is logizomai,
a word that means to think or to estimate, especially to ascribe value to. Very
much the same meaning attaches to the Hebrew word chashab, which occurs
in the Genesis passage (Genesis 15) that Paul is quoting, following the
Septuagint translation. The words logizomai and chashab do not
carry any connotation of mere supposition or make-believe: in most cases, they
express the holding of an accurate belief and estimation. Consequently, when God,
who is omniscient and omnipotent, reckons something, that reckoning is true and
just. God reckons Abraham’s faith to be righteousness; he appraises the value
of Abraham’s faith as constituting righteousness.
The passage does not
directly support Melanchthon’s theory of imputation: it does not say that God
reckons Christ’s (extrinsic, alien) righteousness to be Abraham’s righteousness.
Rather, it says that God reckons Abraham’s faith to be Abraham’s righteousness.
Why is this? Why is Abraham’s faith of such value? Here all Christians will
agree: because Abraham’s faith lays hold of Christ. But, how does it do that? Faith
lays hold of Christ by uniting us to Christ through baptism (Romans 6), and by keeping
us united to Christ through the gift of the Spirit (Romans 8). There is
certainly nothing in this passage to indicate that our union and conjunction
with Christ is a purely external matter. Hence, it does not support the
Lutheran conception of the alien righteousness of Christ, as opposed to the
Roman Catholic doctrine of an internal appropriation of Christ through infusion
of grace and the Spirit.
Moreover, Paul
typically uses the words for “work” and “to work” (variants of ergon)
with a negative connotation, signifying things done autonomously, apart from
Christ. The one exception is Romans 2:6, where Paul is quoting the Septuagint
and uses ergon, or “deed,” in a neutral sense. (Ephesians 2:10, if this
letter is in fact Pauline, is a second exception.) Throughout his letters, Paul
rarely uses ergon to refer to the fruit of the Spirit or the results of
walking or living in the Spirit. In Ephesians 2:20, the one exception to this
rule, Paul combines the word work with the qualifier “good” and with the
phrase ‘to walk in them’ (peripateo), a phrase with a consistently positive
connotation for Paul. Hence, there is little reason to take him to be here
excluding the fruit of the Spirit from any role in justification. In the context
f Romans 4, it is likely that “work” is shorthand for “work of the law of
Sinai,” since Paul’s point is that faith in Christ equalizes Jews and Gentiles,
limiting the significance of the law of Moses.
Romans 4:6-9
6David says the same
thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness
apart from works:
7”Blessed are they
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
8Blessed is the man
whose sin the Lord will never count against him.”
9Is the blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We
have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness.
We see in this
passage the same characteristics: the pejorative use of the word work (ergon),
the use of “credit” (logizomai), implying a truthful estimation of the
believer’s righteousness and sinlessness. All this is consistent with a
transformational conception of justification, with faith as the channel through
which transforming grace is conveyed. God does not “count” our sins because he
has, by his grace, annihilated them.
The root of the word
for “forgive” (aphiemi) gives the sense of sending away. What God
forgives, he removes. The fact that sin is described as “covered” does not give
some support to a fictional or suppositional form of righteousness, if we think
of the sin as a blemish that is hidden or disguised by the covering. However,
we could instead think of the covering as a fulfilling a real need: supplying
raiment to the naked sinner or bandages to his wounds. Similarly, the saints in
heaven are described as having robes washed white by the blood of the Lamb.
This cannot be taken as suggesting that even the saints in heaven remain
internally sinful, with a mere covering to disguise this fact. The covering
with a clean robe signifies a corresponding, internal cleanliness. (This is not
to deny that the metaphor indicates that there is a forensic element in justification,
in additional to the transformational one.)
Romans 4:16
16Therefore, the
promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all
Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who
are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all.
The context of this
verse makes clear that “the law” refers specifically to the Torah, the Law of
Moses. For Paul, there is clearly an essential connection between grace and
faith. Salvation must be out of (ek) faith if it is to be according to (kata)
grace. The key contrast here is between the faith of Abraham and observance of
the Law of Moses. By giving priority to the first, Paul secures the equality
between Gentile and Jewish Christians, since both have access through faith in
Christ to God’s saving grace. This does not establish that grace a merely
external righteousness or legal status, nor does it exclude the possibility of
the Christian believer’s active cooperation with God’s grace, outside of the
Law of Moses. (Robert C. Koons, A Lutheran’s Case for Roman Catholicism [Eugene,
Oreg.: Cascade Books, 2020], 119-22)
Further Reading
Response to a Recent Attempt to Defend Imputed Righteousness
An Examination and Critique of the Theological Presuppositions Underlying Reformed Theology
