Commenting on the use of words in the δικαι-word group, Joseph Fitzmyer wrote
the following, showing that Paul did not
teach justification was declarative merely
and that such terms are also transformative:
The
action whereby the God of uprightness “justifies” the sinner has been the
subject of no little debate. Does the verb dikaioun
mean “to declare upright” or “to make upright”? One might expect that dikaioun, being a verb belonging to the -oō class, would have a causative or
factitive meaning, “to make someone dikaios”
(as dēloun, “make clear”; douloun, “enslave”; nekroun, “mortify”; anakainoun,
“renew”). But in the LXX, dikaioun
seems normally to have a declarative, forensic meaning (Schrenk, TDNT 2.212–14; cf. D. R. Hillers, JBL 86 [1967]: 320–34; cf. N. M. Watson,
“Some Observations on the Use of dikaioô
in the Septuagint,” JBL 79 [1960]:
255–66). At times the declarative seems to be, indeed, the sense in Paul’s
letters (e.g., 2:13; 3:4, 20; 8:33); but many instances are ambiguous, and the
effective sense seems to be supported by 5:19, “through the obedience of one
many will be made upright (dikaioi
katastathēsontai).”
Again,
if Käsemann’s emphasis on “God’s uprightness” as “power” is correct, this sense
of dikaioun acquires an added nuance,
and the OT idea of God’s word as effective would support it (Isa 55:10–11). The
debate about the declarative or effective sense of dikaioun has been acute ever since the Reformation. Yet it is to be
recalled that even Melanchthon admitted that “Scripture speaks both ways” (Apology 4.72). Compare too the modern
debate about its meaning between (Presbyterian) B. M. Metzger (TToday 2 [1945–46]: 562) and (Baptist)
E. J. Goodspeed (JBL 73 [1954]:
86–91).
From
patristic times on, the effective sense of dikaioun,
“make upright, just, righteous” has been used (dikaion poiēsai: John Chrysostom, In ep. ad Romanos 8.2 [PG 60.456]; In ep. II ad Corinthios 11.3 [PG 61.478]; Augustine, De Spiritu et littera 26.45 [CSEL
60.199]: iusti facti; 32.56 [CSEL
60.215]: iusti efficimur; Sermo
131.9: iustos facit; 292.6: iustum facere [PL 38.733, 1324]). From
such statements, McGrath concludes that “righteousness, effected in
justification, is regarded by Augustine as inherent
rather than imputed, to use the
vocabulary of the sixteenth century” (Iustitia
Dei, 1.31). He also maintains that this sense of dikaioun persisted throughout the early and late medieval period
(ibid., 184).
In
modern times this sense of dikaioun
is often called “transformationist.” It would mean that the sinful human being
is not only “declared upright,” as dikaiousthai
may mean in some instances in Romans, but is “made upright” (as in 5:19). For
the sinner’s condition has changed: dikaiousthai
is the opposite of hamartanein and hysterountai tēs doxēs tou theou,
falling short of the glory of God (3:23). Through justification the condition
of doxa is restored to the sinner.
“God’s judgment has creative power. Declaring the sinner upright has not only a
forensic effect, but as forensic also an ‘effective’ meaning” (Kertelge, “Rechtfertigung,” 123). Through faith in Christ Jesus the sinner
experiences the manifestation of God’s uprightness and “becomes” in the
concrete “the uprightness of God” (2 Cor 5:21). As a result, the sinner is dikaios and stands before God as
“upright, acquitted.” (Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 33;
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008], 118-19)
