Understanding Romans 3.21-4.25, Part One: The ‘Faith of Christ’

In Romans 3.21-4.25, Paul presents two passages from the Old Testament as proof for his argument that God reckons righteousness to those who have faith in Jesus Christ.  I am well aware that this simple statement needs to be argued point by point, since alternative, scholarly views have been presented and because those using English translations will struggle to see some of the points.  Here I take up the first point in the phrase from above ‘to those who have faith in Jesus Christ.’

Does Paul argue that righteousness comes through our faith in Jesus Christ or through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ?  This issue has long been noted—before the so-called New Perspective on Paul.  The issue arises, first, because the syntax of the Greek could go either way: pistis Christou (or variations of this) could mean (1) faith in Christ (translating the Genitive as Objective) or (2) faith of Christ/faithfulness of Christ (translating the Genitive as Subjective). 

Since the issue will not be decided by Greek grammar, we have to look to other issues to make a decision.  One of these issues might be whether the theology works: Is this bad theology? or Is this good theology? or Is this theology that fits with other Scriptural teaching?  Well, it is not heresy.  The author of Hebrews depicts Christ as a high priest who was tested as we are and who can sympathize with us while remaining without sin (Heb. 4.15).  Paul commends the virtues of Christ to his readers: the humility of Christ (Phil. 2.1-11), the meekness and gentleness of Christ (2 Cor. 10.1), or the generosity of Christ (2 Cor. 8.9).  Indeed, a narrative and virtue interpretation of the Gospel of Christ is appropriate.  However, none of these texts locate the salvific work of Christ in his sinless virtues—key as these are to our understanding of Christ.  Hebrews locates salvation in the sacrificial work of Christ (chs. 8-10 explicate this in terms of the sacrifice of atonement).  Paul, as we shall see below, also locates the salvation Christ brings in his sacrificial work.  Put bluntly, we are not saved by Christ’s faithfulness to the covenant, as essential as that was, but by Christ’s sacrificial work—his dying for our sins.  In the words of 2 Cor. 5.21, we do not become the righteousness of God because Christ knew no sin but because He who knew no sin was made to be sin for us.  Being faithful to the covenant meant obeying the covenant law of God; faithfulness implies sinlessness, not becoming sin in an exchange that would allow sinners to become the righteousness of God.

A further argument that has been put forward in favour of seeing ‘faith of Christ’ as his faithfulness has to do with Rom. 3.22, which reads (in the ESV translation): ‘…the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.’  The words in italics comprise the contentious phrase: should it, alternatively, be translated, ‘faithfulness of Jesus Christ’?  Many think so in part because, they argue, the words ‘for all who believe’ would be redundant if Paul had already reference our faith in Jesus.  Why would Paul say that righteousness comes through our faith in Jesus Christ and then, immediately, add the same thing—‘for all who believe’?  This argument about redundancy, however, is not quite fair.  Switch the wording in the verse and one can see that this is not redundancy: ‘the righteousness of God for all who believe through faith in Jesus Christ.’  Righteousness comes (1) through believing (not through works) and (2) through believing (i.e., ‘faith’) in the righteousness of God that He provided through Jesus Christ (not any sort of believing/faith).

What clinches the argument that Paul is speaking of our faith in Jesus Christ, not the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, however, is that, when he elaborates on his point after Rom. 3.22, he does not elaborate on Christ’s faithfulness but on our faith in Christ.  This is so immediately after v. 22.  V. 24 says that we are saved through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, not his faithfulness.  V. 25 further explains that this redemption comes through Christ’s sacrifice of atonement by his blood.  V. 26 repeats the contested phrase, ‘from faith of Jesus,’ but by this point the emphasis has fallen on Jesus’ work, not his virtue of being faithful.  Indeed, it is God’s virtues of forbearance and righteousness that are in view: ‘in the forbearance of God, to show forth His righteousness at the present time, in order that He might be righteous and the one who makes righteous from faith of Jesus’ (my translation).  Paul is saying that God is righteous and that sinners are made righteous by Him as they put their trust in the righteousness that God puts forward, the redemptive, sacrificial work of Christ.  It is God’s righteousness that is in view, and it is a righteousness accomplished through Christ’s blood sacrifice for sinners.  Introducing the notion that Christ’s work was in some sense faithful, while not erroneous, is foreign to the context.

This argument continues in ch. 4.  Romans 4 is further proof of what has been argued about the meaning of Rom. 3.21-26.  Paul, as is typical of his theology, is concerned to anchor his teaching in what we find in the Old Testament.  Had Paul intended to speak of the faithfulness of Christ in Rom. 3.22, 26, he would have needed to introduce verses from the Psalms about the faithful, righteous sufferer who trusts in God—there are a number of possibilities.  He would then have had to argue that we sinners are righteous because we participate in this righteous sufferer’s faithfulness to God.  But this is not what Paul does.  Instead, his focus is on our faith, not the faithfulness of Christ.  He turns to two Scripture passages: Gen. 15.6 and Ps. 32.1-2.  The first speaks of Abraham’s faith in God’s provision of salvation.  The second says that ‘the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered’ is blessed, and ‘the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity’ is blessed.  God’s work is His forgiveness, to which those forgiven respond in faith.

These two Old Testament texts are connected—as any Jewish interpreter of the 1^st century would have recognized—by their sharing a word: ‘reckoned/counted’.  This is one of those places where English translation gets in the way.  In Gen. 15.6 we have ‘reckoned,’ and in Ps. 32.2 we have ‘counts’.  The same word is present in the Hebrew (hshv) and in the Greek (logizomai) for both passages.  Moreover, Jewish interpretation accepted as a rule that interpretation of the Old Testament could be done by linking texts that share a common word.  This is what Paul is doing in Romans 4 by linking Gen. 15.6 and Ps. 32.2.  Even so, the verses capture the related theological points that Paul is making: God reckons one righteous on account of faith in Him, and sinners have righteousness before God because He does not reckon their sin--not because someone else has been faithful.  Paul makes a lot of this word ‘reckons’ in Rom. 4, using it eleven times.  God’s reckoning sinners righteous occurs through their faith in His promises and His work, which is fulfilled in Christ’s blood sacrifice for our redemption.

Finally, where the question of ‘faith of Christ’ arises elsewhere in Paul, we have some clarification from him that he is thinking of our faith in Christ, not Christ’s faithfulness.  Where we first meet the issue in Paul is in his earlier letter in Gal. 2.15-21.  Once again, grammatically, the translation could go either way (Objective or Subjective Genitive).  However, Paul’s full statement in this paragraph comes in v. 20, where there can be no mistaking that he has in view our faith and that the object of our faith is Christ’s deliverance of himself for us.  He says, ‘I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me’ (Gal. 3.20).  Salvation comes through our faith in what God has done in Christ’s sacrificing himself for the sinner, not through his faithfulness as the one true, righteous Israelite who remained faithful to the covenant.

A corollary of this theology for Paul has to do with the location of boasting.  He makes the point in Galatians and in Romans.  Boasting has no place, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Gal. 6.14).  If salvation came through our own works, then we would have something to boast about.  But it does not.  It comes entirely through the work of Christ.  In Romans—in the context we have had in view in this exposition—Paul says that boasting is excluded because ‘one is justified by faith apart from works of the law’ (Rom. 3.27-28). 

As Paul unpacks his argument about boasting, works, and faith in this paragraph (Rom. 3.27-31)—which leads to his further exposition of this teaching in ch. 4’s interpretation of Gen. 15.6 and Ps. 32.1-2—he focuses on ‘faith’ per se.  That is, he focusses on faith versus works, not on Christ’s faithfulness.  Paul might have said, ‘There is no boasting in our own works because we have been unfaithful to God’s covenant, His Law, whereas Christ is the one who was faithful to the covenant.’  But he does not say this.  Instead, he contrasts our actions with God’s action in Christ, which is the righteousness that God accomplishes through Christ’s sacrificial death.  Again, where boasting and Christ are presented together in Paul’s thought, the boast is in the cross of Christ, not in his faithfulness (Gal. 6.14).   We are talking about the work of Christ, not His character.

Or, as we read in Ephesians, salvation is not through works, which would allow boasting (2.9) but by faith as a gift of God (2.8).  Focus is on the gift, God’s grace, rather than on Christ’s faithfulness.  Moreover, elsewhere Paul does speak of divine faithfulness, but it is not phrased as the faithfulness of Christ; it is the faithfulness of God (1 Cor. 1.9; 10.13; 2 Cor. 1.18; 1 Thes. 5.24).  One possible exception is 2 Tim. 2.13, which speaks of Christ’s faithfulness, but it is His faithfulness to us: ‘if we are faithless, he remains faithful.’  A few verses earlier, Paul spoke of the salvation that is in Christ Jesus (v. 10).  He also spoke of the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus (1.13).  What is it that Jesus has done?  He 'has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel' (1.10).  Only in Hebrews do we meet the theology of the faithful service of Christ (2.17; 3.2, 6; 10.23; 11.11; cf. Rev. 19.11).  That faithfulness is not His own obedient righteousness but is to His work.

So, while a theology of ‘the faithfulness of Christ’ is Biblical—as in Hebrews—it is apparently not a Pauline theology.  For Paul, ‘faith of Christ’ and related phrases is about our putting our trust in God’s salvation of sinners through the sacrificial death of Christ.  Our righteousness comes through Jesus’ shed blood.  To be sure, he was faithful, but this is not Paul’s understanding of soteriology.  Christ was also humble, gentle, meek, and generous, but this is not Paul’s understanding of soteriology.  Salvation comes through God’s gracious gift in the work of Christ, in His sacrificial death, in His shed blood.

We might conclude by noting that this theology is already present in Isaiah 59, which Paul uses in Romans.  He quotes Isaiah 59.7-8 in Romans 3.15-17 to affirm that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (which he states in Rom. 3.23).  He quotes from the same chapter of Isaiah, 59.20-21, in Romans 11.25-27 to affirm that all Israel will be saved.  However, as we read on from Romans 3.15-17 to Romans 3.21-26, we find that the theological argument of Isaiah 59 is still in view.  Isaiah, having established that there was no justice or righteousness due to the pervasiveness of sin, then says that God puts on righteousness and salvation (v.17), just as Paul says, ‘But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the Law’ (Rom. 3.21).  God is, of course, righteous, but the emphasis falls on His doing righteousness.  He brings judgement where judgement is due (Isaiah 59.15-19).  He also brings redemption.  Isaiah says that ‘a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression’ (v. 20), just as Paul says that, while ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ (Rom. 3.23), they are made righteous ‘through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith’ (Rom. 3.24b-25a, ESV).  The word 'redemption' appears in Isaiah and in Paul.  Paul interprets Isaiah: it is not Christ’s covenant faithfulness as the one righteous Israelite but His sacrificial death for our sins that Paul thinks of when he says, ‘the faith of Christ.’  While the Greek could be understood as either Subjective or Objective Genitive, Paul’s theology is surely focused on the Objective: our faith in the salvation God put forward for us in Zion when our Redeemer removed transgression from sinners and made us righteous.