New Righteousness, New Law

Paul finished the previous section of his letter having articulated the problematic predicament of humanity. We are a people too weak to stand up to the power of sin. Likewise, God's good and gracious provision of the law was too weak to help us make that stand. All it could do was point to the reality of sin. It couldn't help to defend against it. How do we know this? Because Israel's own story, its own scriptures attest to the fact. Despite hundreds of years of following the law still "there is no one righteous, not even one."

"But now..." v. 21 begins. But now something new has happened. But now there is a new possibility for righteousness. But now an entirely new epoch in history has dawned because of what God has done in Jesus Christ. But now a new strength has come to rescue our weak flesh. "But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been revealed, being witnessed to by the law and the prophets - the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe."* This new righteousness, Paul claims, is for Jew and Gentile alike since there is no real difference between them since both have sinned. It is a gift freely given out of the redemption and atonement accomplished in Christ Jesus. As a result, there can be no boasting of Jewish Christians over Gentile Christians (or the other way around) since both are made righteous by the same God on account of the same faithfulness.

But just because God's righteousness has now been revealed apart from the law doesn't mean that God has now done away with law entirely. Rather this new righteousness revealed in Jesus requires a new kind of law. Paul says it is a law of faithfulness instead of the law of works. That is, rather than righteousness being determined by works of the Jewish law (things like circumcision, Sabbath observance, and food laws) the source of righteousness is now the faithfulness of Jesus Christ and living faithfully out of and in imitation of that faithfulness is the law which followers of Jesus are called to obey. Jesus is both the new righteousness revealed apart from the law and the new law of faithfulness. 

But even to call this righteousness and this law "new" is a fairly serious misnomer if by that we mean that it has no connection to what is "old". To be sure, Paul's claim that Jesus is God's righteousness and God's law is radically new in some very substantial ways. It is no small thing that Paul claimed that circumcision, food laws, and Sabbath observance were not necessary for Gentiles to be considered righteous. These were central pieces of Jewish identity and themselves crucial parts of the law that God had given Israel. But, in other ways, Paul wants us to see that this new law and new righteousness in Jesus really aren't so new - at least not so new as to be entirely alien to God's history with Israel. After all, Paul says that this righteousness is witnessed to by the law and the prophets.

One of those prophets was Habakkuk whom Paul has already quoted in 1:17. Paul's language in these latter verses of chapter 3 echoes and expands on much of the language Paul use in 1:17  and by that connections helps us to see yet again why that quotation from Habakkuk is so critical to Paul's understanding of what God has done in Jesus Christ. In Habakkuk's opening verses we hear that the law is paralyzed and that justice goes forth perverted. This is precisely the same thing that Paul has been arguing in the opening chapters of Romans; that the law is paralyzed, weak, and powerless to produce true righteousness. In Habakkuk chapter 2, the prophet declares that "the righteous will live out of faithfulness." In other words, in a time when when the law is failing to serve its purpose and God is doing strange and unexpected things like using the Babylonians as his instrument to make Israel righteous, those who wish to be counted as righteous will still live faithfully before God trusting in God's faithfulness even its strange, new forms. Paul sees a parallel here as well; since the law has failed to produce righteousness a new righteousness must come through a life of faithfulness, even if it is the strange and unexpected faithfulness of a crucified messiah. Paul sees Habakkuk as a precedent for arguing that this is not the first time that God has called the righteous to live by a law of faithfulness as an alternative to a law of works. What is new is that this faithfulness has been embodied in the person of Jesus, the crucified messiah.  He is the new law and Paul believes that the law of Christ can produce true righteousness in a way the law of works never could.

*You may have noticed that I translated this phrase in v.22 as "the faithfulness of Jesus Christ" rather than "faith in Jesus Christ." There are two issues that allow this phrase to be translated in these two ways. The first is that the word "pistis" in Greek can be translated either as "faith" or "faithfulness". It really means both intertwined together but one aspect of the word can be emphasized more than the other in certain contexts. 

The second is an issue of Greek grammar. The words "of" or "in" are not actually in the Greek text of Romans 3:22. Instead, this phrase is in what is known as the genitive case. (In English, word order is an important part of determining the meaning of a sentence. So, for example, in the sentence "Dave teaches his class lots of crazy Greek stuff." we know that "Dave" is the subject of the sentence because it comes before the verb. Greek, on the other hand, uses a case system to indicate how a word functions in the sentence. A change in case is indicated by a slight change in the spelling of a word. So, for example, "Jesus Christ" which is "Iesous Christos" in the nominative case becomes "Iesou Christou" in the genitive case.) The most typical use of the genitive case is to indicate possession but it can have a whole range of meanings throughout the New Testament. 

Two of those possibilities are known as the subjective genitive and objective genitive. You can see something similar to this in English in a phrase like the "the love of God." Does that phrase refer to God's love for us or our love for God? Is God doing the loving (so God is the subject, a subjective genitive) or is God receiving the love (so God is the object of the love, an objective genitive)? It can mean either or maybe even both at the same time but the only way you would be able to decide would be context. What makes the most sense with what is around it? If Paul said "Christ's death demonstrates the love of God" it would be clear that he was referring to God's love for us. If he said "Our love for others demonstrates the love of God" it might be more difficult to decide whose love Paul was talking about. 

Something similar is at stake in our phrase in Romans 3:22. Is Jesus Christ the object of the faith(fulness)? That is, is Paul talking about Jesus receiving our faith? Or is Jesus the subject of the faith(fulness)? That is, is Jesus the one who has himself been faithful? Of course, both are true in the big picture! The issue here is not choosing one to the exclusion of the other. The question is a matter of emphasis. Is Paul's emphasis in Romans on our belief or on God's faithfulness through Jesus Christ?  

Circumcision of the Heart

In the last half of Romans 1, we saw what was probably a typical first century Jewish view of Gentiles. That is, they are a people to whom God has not been revealed in the same way that God was revealed to Israel. Paul says that the Gentiles still should have been able to observe the attributes of the creator by way of his creation. However, they have not received God's good and perfect law. As a result of their ignorance of God and God's law, their lives have become ones that pervert justice and produce unrighteousness. In contrast to the Gentiles, Jews understood themselves as the chosen people of God who had been given God's law. As a result, Israel's life together was to be one where righteousness prevailed. Jews presumed that they were to be a light to the Gentiles.

Paul, a Jew himself, agreed with these presumptions. He understood (even after his encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus) God's law to be a good and perfect gift and he continued to believe that Israel was a people chosen by God to be a light to the rest of the world. Paul's point in Romans 2 is not to denigrate either of those realities. His point is to argue that neither of those intertwined realities - the gift of the law to Israel and Israel's election - automatically make Israel righteous. Righteousness is not a matter of being ethnically Jewish or even knowing the law but of faithfulness to God.

Paul begins by arguing that God does not show partiality. Even though God has chosen Israel that election is not a matter of favoritism. It is an election to live faithfully before God. As such, Paul says that God will judge Jew and Gentile alike according to their works. V.12-13 sum up Paul's point well when he says that those who don't have the law (Gentiles) will perish because they don't have it to lead them to righteousness but that those who have the law (Jews) and still commit sin aren't any better off because they will be judged by the law they have broken. It is not merely hearing the law that makes one righteous but doing it.

This is a place where the narrative of Habakkuk, which Paul quoted in 1:17, proves illustrative once again. In the days of the prophets, many in Israel thought that destruction could never come their way simply because they were God's chosen people. Habakkuk is shocked when he hears that God will use the Babylonians to clean up Israel. Likewise, we hear in Jeremiah the refrain "the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord" reflecting the belief that no harm would come to Israel so long as God's temple stood among them. But God warns through Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and the other prophets that this is not the case; that God's people must turn back to God or destruction will be brought upon them even though they are God's people and even though they have the law and the temple. As Habakkuk says, it is out of faithfulness that the righteous will live. Paul is arguing a similar point in Romans 2; that merely being Jewish or having the law will not save or make righteous. One must put God's law into practice through faithful living.

So far, so good. I don't think Paul has said much there that is terribly different from what any first century Jew would have said. Faithful Jews would have been very happy for Jews and Gentiles alike to live faithfully by putting God's law into practice. But Paul also goes on to say something that Habakkuk and Jeremiah do not say. In v.14-15 Paul states:

"For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts..".

And in v.25-29

"For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God."

This is surprising because circumcision is itself a part of the law that Paul is talking about. When Paul says "if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law," I imagine that most of his fellows Jews would immediately object saying "How can one be uncircumcised and keep the law when circumcision is itself a central part of the law?" This is a question we will hear Paul begin to answer in more detail in Romans 4 where he writes about the faith/fulness of Abraham. For now, it is enough to notice the consequences of what Paul is arguing here: Gentiles can live just as faithfully in God's righteousness as Jews even without fulfilling certain parts of the law such as circumcision. Indeed, Paul go so far as to say that an uncircumcised Gentile who lives faithfully to God is more righteous than a circumcised Jew who breaks other parts of the law. We Gentile Christians may take this for granted but it was an enormous and controversial claim on Paul's part; one that puts him at odds with his fellow Jews, even at times with his fellow apostles (see Peter in Galatians), and one that will take him the rest of Romans to fully unravel.

As Gentile Christians it would be foolish of us if we did not see that Paul's admonition, which is here directed to his Jewish brothers and sisters, also applies to us. We might hear the Spirit speaking through Paul's words to us saying "You who call yourselves Christians and rely on the Spirit and boast in God and know his will and approve of what is excellent because you are instructed by the Scriptures, you who consider yourself a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in Jesus the embodiment of knowledge and truth, - you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?" Merely bearing the title "Christian" or knowing the Bible or being baptized is not enough. The righteous will live out of faithfulness to God.

The Source of Faithfulness

For I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God leading to salvation for all who believe, to the Jew first and to the Greek. For the righteousness of God is revealed in it from faith to faith, just as it is written "The righteous out of faithfulness will live."  Romans 1:16-17*

These are widely recognized as the theme verses of Paul's letter to the church at Rome. They are the thesis of what turns out to be one very long, sustained argument. As a result, there is a lot to unpack here. (After all, Paul will spend the rest of the letter doing just that.) But it is those final words, the quotation from Habakkuk 2:4 which I find most interesting and most enlightening for understanding these verses and the whole of Romans.

Habakkuk is a little prophetic book that begins with a familiar question:

"O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not hear? Or cry to you "Violence!" and you will not save?"

 The first four verses of Habakkuk paint a bleak picture of Israel as a violent and unjust place. Habakkuk says that the law is "paralyzed" and "justice goes forth perverted." This is an especially poignant depiction of corruption given that the law to which Habakkuk refers is the good and perfect law given by God. The corruption and injustice in Israel are so severe that even God's perfect law is powerless to correct it. The overwhelming sin of Israel perverts the instrument of God's own justice so badly that it only serves to produce more injustice. It is this dismal circumstance which causes the prophet to cry out to God asking "How long?".

To say that God's response to Habakkuk in 1:5-11 would have been "surprising" or "unexpected" would be an understatement overwhelming in its imprecision. "Jaw-dropping, difficult to wrap your brain around, alternative reality" would come closer to an apt description. God proclaims that his answer to the problem of violence in Israel will be Babylon: the pagan, know-nothing about Yahweh, worshipping other gods, soul-crushingingly-powerful nation of Babylon. This is the evil empire of the Bible; a nation so infamously etched in the memory of God's people that the writer of Revelation would still use them as a code name centuries later for the pagan, know-nothing about Yahweh, soul crushingly-powerful empire of his own day (Rome). In spite of this, God intends to use Babylon to clean up Israel.

This is a hard pill for Habakkuk to swallow to say the least. Habakkuk questions it, wondering how a holy God can use such an unholy instrument to correct the people God called to be holy. It is in the midst of this exceedingly strange circumstance, this frighteningly new and uncertain action by God that we hear the words "The righteous will live by his faithfulness." The call of God through Habakkuk is for the righteous to live out of faithfulness (whether their own or God's is, perhaps purposely, ambiguous)** even in these violent and terribly uncertain times.

In the context of Romans 1:17, the quote from Habakkuk is often seen as a call to a righteousness by faith rather than by works. Correspondingly, the whole of Romans is thought to be Paul's detailed exposition of the righteousness that comes through faith in Jesus rather than good deeds. There may be a shade of truth to such a reading of Romans but I think that truth has more to do with Martin Luther's guilt-laden conscience and his reading of Paul than it has to do with Paul's own writing.*** Instead, if we allow the narrative of Habakkuk to set the tone for Romans as Paul himself seems to do, we will find that there are remarkable similarities between the two.

Similar to what we have seen in Habakkuk, much of Paul's writings are about the strange, completely unexpected, frighteningly new thing that God has done in Jesus Christ. No one, no one, expected a crucified messiah. "Crucified" and "messiah" are themselves mutually exclusive terms. If you were one, you couldn't be the other. As if that weren't odd enough, Paul's experience was that Gentiles, not Jews, were the ones responding most readily to God's, that is, Yahweh's, the Jewish God's crucified messiah. These were strange, new actions on God's part, indeed. So strange that Paul referred to them as a new era, a totally new epoch in the history of the world, the beginning of a new creation. 

With this in mind, we can see why Paul would feel the need to say that he was "not ashamed of the gospel" (a religion with a crucified leader would have been a very shameful thing) but we can also see why he would call it the "power of God" (powerful enough to cause non-Jews to proclaim Israel's failed messiah as "Lord"). We can see just how it is that "the righteousness of God is revealed in it" as it makes sinful people (Romans 1-3) into righteous, just, and faithful people (Romans 6 and 8); something God's own perfect law had been powerless to accomplish (Romans 7). Likewise, we can see that just as the prophet Habakkuk has some questions about God's righteousness, Paul wonders aloud how it is that God will remain faithful to the promises God made to the people of Israel (Romans 9-11) even as this new righteousness/faithfulness is revealed in Christ (Romans 3-5). But in the midst of all this newness and uncertainty, the call upon those who proclaim Jesus as Lord is to live out of the faithfulness of Christ into a faithful imitation of Christ (1:17; chapters 12-15).

After 2000 years of Christian history and tradition, we too easily forget what an odd thing it is that we, who are nearly all Gentile, worship a crucified Jew. By doing so, we also forget what a strange, new thing God did in Jesus. If we read it carefully, Romans will help to remind us just how unbelievably good this good news really is for us. It will remind us that God keeps his promises even when it looks like they are most certainly being abandoned, whether it be as Abraham raises the knife over Isaac or as Jesus lays in the tomb or as Paul's kin reject their own savior. It is especially in these most uncertain of times that God calls the righteous to find in God's own faithfulness the source of their endurance to live faithfully.





*This is my own translation. Readers familiar with most English translations may be surprised by my use of the word "faithfulness" rather than "faith." The Greek word Paul uses here can be translated either way and really means both. Separating faith as a kind of mere cognitive belief from faithful action would have likely been a foreign idea to Paul. The single word faith/fulness encompassed both and bound them together. Furthermore, the Hebrew word Habakkuk uses has a much stronger leaning toward the idea of faithfulness than mere belief. 

**It is ambiguous for a couple reasons. First, the "his" in Hebrew probably refers to "the righteous one" but it is possible that it refers to God. Second, the Greek version of the Old Testament known as the the Septuagint, reads "my faithfulness" and portrays the verse as being spoken by God thus making it God's faithfulness. To make things even more interesting, Paul leaves out the pronoun entirely in his quotation of the verse so rather than "his faithfulness" or "my faithfulness" we have simply "The righteous will live out of faithfulness." This serves Paul's purposes well because he wishes to talk about both God's faithfulness in Christ and and faithful human response. 

*** There are a plethora of books that make this argument. A few are: 
Krister Stendahl's Paul Among Jews and Gentiles. http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Among-Gentiles-Krister-Stendahl/dp/0800612248/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379470781&sr=8-1&keywords=paul+among+jews+and+gentiles
E.P. Sanders Paul: A Very Short Introduction. http://www.amazon.com/Paul-A-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0192854518/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1379470965&sr=8-2&keywords=e.p+sanders
http://www.amazon.com/Justification-And-The-Perspectives-Paul/dp/0875526497/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1379471201&sr=8-6&keywords=New+Perspective+on+Paul
http://www.amazon.com/Perspectives-Old-New-Paul-Lutheran/dp/0802848095/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1379471201&sr=8-5&keywords=New+Perspective+on+Paul