Romans 1-8, Volume 38A by James D. G. Dunn

Author:James D. G. Dunn [Dunn, James D. G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL006070 Religion / Biblical Commentary / New Testament
Publisher: Zondervan

Explanation

Paul has demonstrated from the crucial scriptural testimony concerning Abraham how scripture’s talk of God’s righteousness as reckoned to man should be understood. He now proceeds to draw out this basic insight and its implications not only for the individual believer but also for humankind as a whole.

5:1 “Therefore, having been justified out of faith.” This is clearly Paul’s recapitulation of the exegetical conclusion, reached in 4:22, and its extension to all who believe, in 4:23–24. The wording of Gen 15:6 had dictated the prominence of the noun “righteousness” in the midrash of chap. 4. Here he reverts to the equivalent verb “justify.” His readers would, of course, have been in no doubt that the verb “justify” was fully synonymous with the verbal phrase of chap. 4, “reckon righteous” (as 3:20–26 had already clearly demonstrated anyway). What Paul asserts of himself and his readers (“having been justified”) is what Gen 15:6 asserted of Abraham. The point, which he reiterates from chap. 4, is that God justifies by faith—God holds a person in good standing, reckons him an acceptable partner in covenant relationship, simply on the grounds of that person’s trust, his humble acceptance of God’s unconditional promise to act for him.

Since the covenant with Abraham is still so much in the background, the Roman congregations would be unlikely to make the mistake of reading the aorist tense (“having been justified”) as though it excluded other tenses. That is to say, they would be unlikely to regard their justification, their acceptance by God, simply as an act finished and past. Paul’s use is a good deal more flexible. And though his emphasis here is on what initially makes a person acceptable to God, the implication of the scriptural background and covenant connotations is that God’s acceptance is no single once-for-all (far less merely passive) act; rather, it is God’s reaching out to embrace and sustain up to and including the final verdict of acquittal. We might even paraphrase, therefore, “Since we too have now been drawn into God’s promise and its fulfillment through our acceptance of that promise. . . .”

Paul then goes on to describe the consequences of that initial acceptance by God, the consequence of being within the sphere of God’s covenant promise. Or to put it another way, he goes on to describe what the ongoing experience of God’s acceptance means, how God’s accepting and sustaining righteousness works out in day-to-day reality. The first is the experience of peace with God (or, less likely, the possibility of peace with God). The association between righteousness and peace is a natural one, not least for a Jew familiar with the Psalms and Isaiah, particularly Pss 72:1–7 and 85:8–13. And indeed, the sequence of Paul’s thought (justification resulting in peace) may have been suggested by Isa 32:17 (“the effect of righteousness will be peace”). The Jewish or God-worshiping reader would also be familiar with the richer Jewish concept of peace—not merely cessation of war, but also material prosperity, all that makes for total well-being and harmony.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.