Monday, August 7, 2023

Frank J. Matera on Romans 1:17 and “the Righteousness of God”

  

This righteousness, however, is not to be understood in a legal sense as God’s retributive justice (justitia dei), but as God’s saving justice, God’s covenant loyalty, God’s uprightness and integrity, God’s faithfulness to what it means for God to be God. This dimension of God’s righteousness, which appears in the Psalms and in the book of the prophet Isaiah, can be seen in Isa. 51:5, 8 LXX, which equates God’s “righteousness” (dikaiosynē) with God’s “salvation” (sōtēria):

 

My righteousness draws near swiftly,
my salvation will go out, . . .
but my righteousness will be forever,
and my salvation for generations of generations. (Isa. 51:5, 8 NETS)

 

The parallel nature of these texts indicates that God’s “righteousness” (dikaiosynē) is God’s “salvation” (sōtēria). Righteousness, then, is not static quality whereby God exercises justice but a dynamic quality whereby God effects salvation. This interpretation of the righteousness of God puts the emphasis where it ought to be (on God’s saving justice) without neglecting the righteousness that God grants as a free gift. For when the righteousness of God’s revealed, those who respond in faith receive the gift of God’s righteousness. (Frank J. Matera, Romans [Paideia Commentaries on the New Testament; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2010], 35-36)

 

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