The notion of righteousness in Romans 4:24 has deliberate futuristic
sense. Paul could have used the aorist tense verb ελογισθη to highlight the
righteousness that has already been pronounced on believers (as he does with
respect to Abraham in Rom 4:22). In its lace, though, he employs the construction
οις μελλει
λογιζεσθαι which has neither a
past nor present connotation, but points to the verdict that “is about to be
reckoned” at the future judgment (cf. 2:16; 3:6; 8:33-34). The futuristic view
of righteousness in 4:24 coheres with 4;13-25, which looks forward to a cosmic eschatological
inheritance for Abraham’s offspring. Paul’s association of “eschatological inheritance”
and “future righteousness” also runs through texts in the OT and Second Temple
literature (Isa 54:1-17; 1 En. 24-27, 58-69; 4 Ezra 7-8; 2 Bar.
14, 51; 4Q171:4). Among such is Isaiah 54:1-17, which evidences that God will
bestow the status of righteousness on his people when they receive their
inheritance. Being steeped in Jewish tradition, Paul, in Romans 4:13-25, likely
sees his readers as those who will be righteous when they inherit the
world. Not only does this assert future righteousness in this passage, but also
the eschatological nature of the inheritance. (Miguel G. Echevarria Jr., The
Future Inheritance of Land in the Pauline Epistles [Eugene, Oreg. Pickwick
Publications, 2019], 150-51)
