Jesus once said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." With these words, we see that Jesus is crystal clear about His mission. He knows to whom He was sent and it was not to those who believed they could rely on their own self-achieved righteousness. It was to those who knew they needed justification, those who recognized their need to be made righteousness.
God Justifies the Ungodly, not the godly.
We have seen in previous blogs that God’s pre-designed plan from the beginning of creation, and before, has been to justify all people, Jews and Gentiles. What this implies is that all people, Jews and Gentiles are ungodly. The logic is simple. If God justifies all people. And if God justifies the ungodly. Then, all people are ungodly.
Paul has already told us in Romans 1:16-17 that salvation is for everyone for the Jews first and then for the Gentiles. He has also told us that all have sinned, both Jews and Gentiles, and that all people will be justified by faith, both Jews and Gentiles. 3:23-24.
And so, Paul’s premise is that because God pronounces both Jews and Gentiles as sinners (ungodly), and both in need of justification, the Jews no longer have their own self-achieved righteousness before God based on works of the law to boast about.
Paul has already asked his readers to consider, if that premise is true then, “What advantage has the Jew? (3:1) and “Are we Jews any better off? For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin…”(3:9). So, also Paul asks, “Then what becomes of our boasting?” His response…“It is excluded.”
Paul explains that Jewish boasting about their self-achieved righteousness is excluded because the basis for their supposed righteousness i.e., works of keeping the law, has been pulled out from under them. “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” (3:27-28). Boasting before God is excluded because, “by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight.” (3:20) So, the Jews, in their state of unrighteousness, have nothing at all to boast about before God, just as the Gentiles have nothing at all to boast about before God, because “all (both Jews and Gentiles) have sinned and fall short of God’s glory.” (3:23)
Paul moves his conversation along by suggesting that indeed, in accordance with God’s overall pre-designed plan, Jewish “unrighteousness (based on the law and on par with the Gentiles) serves to show the righteousness of God (by faith, and also on par with the Gentiles)” (3:5). To illustrate his point, Paul turns to the life of Abraham in chapter 4.
In Romans 4, Paul continues his line of questioning regarding the value of the Jewish nation since they too have now been pronounced to be under the judgment of God, like the Gentiles, for their respective sin. Paul begins with yet another question…
“What then shall we say was found by the example of Abraham?” Paul is asking his readers to consider what has been discovered from the life of Abraham in regards to the topic of righteousness.
What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works…(4:1-6)
The word in the original language used for “found,” (or “gained” in some translations,) is a root word from which we get our English word, ‘eureka’ “joyous discovery” According to the Oxford Dictionary, the English word ‘eureka’ is defined as “a cry of joy or satisfaction when one finds or discovers something.” Our English word ‘eureka,’ is a Greek transliteration of the word εὑρίσκω. For a very interesting story about Archimedes, the Greek scientist and mathematician and his use of the word ‘eureka’ click here.
In the context of discovering “the means to righteousness,” Paul is excitedly saying to his readers, “we have found it!” We have found, in the life of Abraham, the means by which God declares a person “righteous” in His sight. It is “by faith!” “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” And, “to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.”
Paul is using Abraham to help his readers understand that “if Abraham believes that he can be justified before God by his self-achieved righteousness based on his own works of the law, he is mistaken, but he does have something to boast about, but not before God,” because “by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight” (3:20), and because “in the scriptures, “we have found it!.” (4:1-6) That “it” is FAITH. Righteousness, Paul says, “depends on faith” (4:16), not works. “Righteousness by faith” is the “it” he is excitedly announcing!
It is interesting, (yes it is, and the double partial pun is intended) to note that in the New Testament, the words we read in English as “righteous/righteousness” and justify/justification are derivatives of the same root word in the original language. The same root word (δικαιό-ω/δικαιο-σύνη) is used for both words, in the verbal form and as a noun respectively. So the one who has been justified is righteous, and the righteous one has been justified.
“Righteousness,” by definition, is “the condition or state of a person who has been declared, pronounced, or rendered to be innocent or free of guilt.” On the other hand, “justify,” by definition, is the act of “declaring, pronouncing, or rendering a person to be innocent or free of guilt.” “Righteous/righteousness” is a descriptive noun describing is the result of the action of the verb “justify.”
The root word is prevalent throughout Romans, being translated as justify/justification/justifies 22 times and translated as righteous/righteousness 64 times.
This is helpful in reading Romans (and the entire the New and Old Testaments) as the actor performing the act for the most part in scripture is God. He is the one who justifies, the justifier, the one declaring a person as innocent or free of guilt, or as righteous. If God justifies, then it is presumed that the one who is justified is in need of being justified. He/she is the sick person, not the healthy person. The one who is justified must be guilty of something, not innocent nor free of guilt. Paul tells us in 4:5 that God Justifies the Ungodly. He is the one who makes that declaration, not man.
There would be no reason for God to justify the godly just as there would be no reason for a doctor to heal the healthy. In fact, ‘to justify the godly’ would be an oxymoronic act because by definition, “justify” is ‘to declare a person as innocent or free of guilt.’ So, if a person is godly, he/she in unable to be made righteous because that person would already be innocent and free of guilt. Hence, there would be no reason for nor would there be the need for being justified.
And if God has already told us that “all have sinned and all short of His glory,” then that means all are in need of being justified by God. However, if God is the one who justifies, it makes sense then that it is an affront to God for anyone to determine him/herself as “righteous” based on ones own works, a point that Paul doggedly pursues throughout Romans. That person would be denying God’s reality that all have sinned and fall short of His glory, and they would be assuming the position of God, as God Justifies the Ungodly. From Paul’s perspective, righteousness by works does not work for those two reasons.
That “it”, (righteousness by faith), that Paul has discovered was found in the scriptures (4:3). That “it”, (righteousness by faith), is what Paul is wanting his readers to understand. That “it”, (righteousness by faith), is the reason he is so eager to visit Rome and that “it”, (righteousness by faith), is the reason why he so desires to preach the gospel to them.
Since God Justifies the Ungodly, it depends on faith.
That “it” (righteousness by faith) is the gospel message that God foresaw so long ago and preached beforehand to Abraham saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” (4:13)
In my next blog we will explore, “The Blessing: Faith Counted as Righteousness Sins Not Counted as Unrighteousness”