Romans 3:21-23 - No Greater Relief (Justification Series, Part I)

 Part III: Our Justification, Confirmed

Yet now…

Oh God, this is exciting! He reminds me of the wrestling announcer in Spider-Man. Remember: humanity has earned condemnation, per Paul’s previous teaching.

…apart from law…

Here it c- oh, oh, wait, apart from law? Like, apart apart? Like forget-everyone’s-moral-grounds-and-Mosaic-law-it-has-no-power-here apart? What’s goin’ on here??

…a righteousness of God…

Okay, so there’s a righteousness of God apart from law? We know this, right? I mean, so far we only recognize it through our failure... Yet there’s a layer deeper than this: this righteousness of God, as we know now, has no equal. We are not on par with it. Adam never knew it. Moses never knew it. Joshua never knew it. Hell, even David never knew it. Job certainly didn’t know it. King Solomon didn’t know it. Isaiah was clueless to it. So was Elijah (and Elisha, to boot.) So was Jeremiah, Nehemiah, any other “iah.” Jonah didn't know, either. Nor Daniel.  Not even the disciples of Jesus were entrusted with this explanation! Indeed the only other One that knew this (and didn’t detail it the way Paul is here) was Jesus Himself. This is because Jesus is now the Channel, or, Example through which Paul can now explain what He’s about to explain.

…a righteousness of God is manifest…

Ohhhh, oh it’s manifested now. Well, that explains why no one (aside from Jesus) had it before. God’s got some pretty good timing, wouldn’t you say? I mean, if He’d revealed this sooner, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense! You can’t be given something apart from law in an era where the law takes precedent, can you??

Now, look: man’s failure to attain perfection is the platform which God is using to display His righteousness. It works, too: display a good movie next to a shitty one, and the good movie’s qualities stand out far better with a direct contrast. This is indeed apart from law, then, because the law causes us to recognize our imperfections. The law is just, in and of itself, but now we must wonder: if God’s righteousness is manifested, here, what of it? The last thing revealed to man was righteous too, being the law, and it really caused a stink in the ‘human’ community. What’s different about this?

Yet now, a righteousness of God is manifest (being attested by the law and the prophets)...

Attest: to provide clear evidence of

So, the law and the prophets now provide clear evidence of this manifested righteousness of God. That’s a good difference to start us off, no? He’ll go into more detail on this in the next chapter, but I’ll say, for now, that this notion is intimated in the entire Old Testament. It’s hard to spot, if it’s your first time through, because you can’t really tell what is foreshadowing or what God’s up to – indeed we’re just like the Israelites on a first read, because we’re sitting there along with them, like, Oh, herdederr, why would God send Abraham to sacrifice His child, or, like, send the Israelites through the wilderness for 40 years, or, like, make Adam naked, or, like, make the Israelites slaughter incredibly specific animals on an altar? Makes no goddamn sense, pun intended!

…yet a righteousness of God through Jesus Christ’s faith, for all, and on all who are believing, for there is no distinction, for all sinned and are wanting of the glory of God.

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring to you, with humble gratification, the beginning of God’s justification of mankind, through His Love for His Son. I cannot properly put into words the relief these words give! Romans takes a complete 180 degree turn, from one of utter decimation to complete justification. This man, Paul, who once slaughtered many true Christ followers in the name of Judaism, now preaches this succinct truth of God: that He is righteous.

So! This righteousness of God is through Jesus Christ’s faith. Through Jesus Christ’s faith. Through Jesus Christ’s faith. Let’s be clear, guys: through Jesus Christ’s faith. I cannot stress this enough. What is the Channel through which this righteousness is discussed? Certainly not our ability to believe! That would make it about us, and it doesn’t seem like God’s really crediting humanity with anything, right now. Here it is: Jesus Christ’s faith, through which God manifests Himself, not your belief, or faith, or my belief, or faith. 

So many Christians today like to say to others, “Would you take the place of Jesus?” Many in the Baptist church ask it, and especially the Catholic church. Hell, Christian artists today love to ask it! See the song “This Man” by Jeremy Camp, for example, which uses the literal words, ‘Would you take the place of this Man?” Would you take His place, Jeremy? Because that didn’t seem to be the point of the story; you’re not supposed to look at Jesus and go, “Yeah, you know, I could do that!” The true answer is, not only would you or I not put ourselves through such misery and spiritual indignation, but we couldn’t do such a thing. You can’t handle the entirety of Sin following you to death, and neither can I. That honor belonged to Jesus Christ alone, and was a display of righteousness, not a challenge to the unrighteous.

His faith on that cross (stake, or ‘pale’ in the Greek, word is stauros,) was second to none. He was there to fulfill the law (Matt. 5:17.) Those who are under the law are also under a curse (Gal. 3:10,) so that, Christ, in His death (His death specifically,) becomes this curse for our sakes (Gal. 3:13.) Yet, even though He knew this, He still believed with 100% certainty (no doubt, as doubt is the opposite of faith,) that God would save Him from His predicament, and pull Him back out of death. His faith at the cross (Heb. 5:7) made Him the “Inaugurator of Salvation,” (Heb. 2:10, 5:9.) And this is especially apparent in the knowledge that the evangel, God’s power for salvation (Rom. 1:16,) is primarily concerned with Him (Rom. 1:3.)

…yet a righteousness of God through Jesus Christ’s faith, for all, and on all who are believing…

Now, His faith brings God’s righteousness for all. Those two words could not be any clearer. God’s righteousness is for all. I didn’t realize this until I read George Rogers’ dissection, but apparently the words “and on all” are omitted from most Scriptural texts! I never knew this before! The original Greek text does indeed prove Knoch wrong here:

In my humble opinion, the words “and on all,” while true, should not be added here, and detract from the current point Paul is making about faith. We should be careful not to mix separate teachings, but watch them align together, that unbelievers don’t call us out on these discrepancies.

Now, in Knoch’s defense, the Greek New Testament that we are reading from above is the Codex Vaticanus, which is debatably the oldest, and thus the text I will be most relying on when texts differ. However, it is important to note that the Concordant Greek Text, which covers the original Greek text, shows that the Concordant Literal Version geeeeeenerally works through a ‘majority rule,’ in aligning the three oldest Greek texts, the Codex Alexandrinus, Sinaiticus, and Vaticanus.

But which text has the "and on all?" Truth is: none of them. Indeed, the only text that has "and on all" is from an editor of the Sinaiticus, whose input A.E. Knoch highly valued (for what reason, I'm unsure.) It led him to add "and on all," here.

Now, I do believe, in dealing with such Scriptures, that we should be concisely and humbly relegating ourselves to a majority rule with these three texts in the rare places they disagree. Additions should not be included in the text, and certainly not at the beginning of our justification. This is because the text, as rendered above, has led some in Christ (myself included) to believe that, because of Christ's sacrifice, that now the entire world is justified. This is not true. Only believers are justified. This is a personal message, intimate for only us, through Christ's faith. There's a clear divide between "righteous" and "unrighteous" in Paul's evangel (2 Cor. 6:14-7:1.) To be "justified," is again, to be "made righteous." The alternative is unrighteousness. This is a crucial distinction that must be made known about our justification as we go through each part of the evangel.

To sum up, the version should read:

…yet a righteousness of God through Jesus Christ’s faith, [for] all who are believing…

One more thing: there is no punctuation in the original Greek, so I don’t feel bad editing the punctuation, here, to match a proper literal rendering. I’m going to fix this for the following verse, so it may read slightly differently than the printed CLV:

…into all who are believing. For there is no distinction, for all sinned and are wanting of the glory of God.

Keeping in mind the literal rendering, I must now talk about how there is no distinction. This is not discussing the difference between believers and unbelievers, but of the Jew and Greek, as laid out in mankind’s conduct. All sin. I sin, you sin, we all sin. Since 3:9, we’ve been speaking of how none are righteous. This phrase at the end of verse 23 wraps up the final objection from the ‘conduct of humanity’ section. Here Paul adds that we are all wanting of the glory of God. In Gen. 1:27, man is explained to be made in the image of God, and it is man’s corruption in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:1-4) that ruins this image, weakening the flesh and turning us corruptible. Man has since strived to re-attain this perfection in the flesh, apart from God, without realizing that they are seeking His glory (and failing in every way to do so.)