1. The Theme Of The Gospel: The Righteousness Of God Revealed (1:16–17)
A. The Gospel According To Paul (1:16–11:36)
1. The Theme Of The Gospel: The Righteousness Of God Revealed (1:16–17)
‘Believe me,’ Paul goes on, ‘I have no reason to be ashamed of the gospel I preach. No indeed; it is the powerful means which God employs for the salvation of all who believe—the Jew first, and the Gentile also. And why is this so? Because in this gospel there is a revelation of God’s way of righteousness—a way of righteousness based on the principle of faith and presented to men and women for their acceptance by faith. It was of this righteousness that the prophet said, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.” ’
To understand the sense in which the gospel is said to reveal God’s righteousness it is necessary to bear in mind some facts about the concept of righteousness in the Old Testament, which forms the chief background of Paul’s thought and language.
The ideas of right and wrong among the Hebrews are forensic ideas; that is, the Hebrew always thinks of the right and the wrong as if they were to be settled before a judge. Righteousness is to the Hebrew not so much a moral quality as a legal status. The word ‘righteous’ (ṣaddîq) means simply ‘in the right’, and the word ‘wicked’ (raša‘) means ‘in the wrong’. ‘I have sinned this time’, says Pharaoh, ‘Jehovah is in the right (A.V. righteous), and I and my people are in the wrong (A.V. wicked)’, Exod. 9:27. Jehovah is always in the right, for He is not only sovereign but self-consistent. He is the fountain of righteousness … the consistent will of Jehovah is the law of Israel.1
God is himself righteous, and those men and women are righteous who are ‘in the right’2 in relation to God and his law. When, therefore, the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel, it is revealed in a twofold manner. The gospel tells us first how men and women, sinners as they are, can come to be ‘in the right’ with God and second how God’s personal righteousness is vindicated in the very act of declaring sinful men and women ‘righteous’. This second aspect of the matter is not dealt with immediately, but the former is expanded sufficiently to show that the principle on which God brings people into the right with himself is the principle of faith, and for this statement Old Testament authority is adduced in the words of Habakkuk 2:4b, ‘the righteous shall live by his faith’. Habakkuk 2:4b may be called the ‘text’ of this Epistle; what follows is in large measure an exposition of the prophet’s words.
16. I am not ashamed of the gospel. This is an instance of the figure of speech called litotes: Paul means that he glories in the gospel and counts it a high honour to proclaim it. Cf. C. K. Barrett, New Testament Essays (1972), pp. 116–143.
17. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed. A remarkable anticipation of this twofold sense of ‘the righteousness of God’—(a) his personal righteousness and (b) the righteousness with which he justifies sinners on the ground of faith—appears in the Qumran literature.
By his righteousness my sin is blotted out … If I stumble because of fleshly iniquity, my justification is in the righteousness of God which shall stand for ever … By his mercy he has caused me to approach and by his loving kindness he brings my justification near. By his true righteousness he justifies me and by his abundant goodness he makes atonement for all my iniquities. By his righteousness he cleanses me from the impurity of mortal man and from the sin of the sons of men, that I may praise God for his righteousness and the Most High for his glory.3
Through faith for faith. ‘It is based on faith and addressed to faith’ (NEB mg., which is preferable to NEB text, ‘a way that starts from faith and ends in faith’). According to J. Murray, Paul’s purpose in the repetition here and in 3:22 (‘through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe’) is ‘to accent the fact that not only does the righteousness of God bear savingly upon us through faith but also that it bears savingly upon every one who believes’.4
‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.’5 These words from Habakkuk 2:4b have already been quoted by Paul in Galatians 3:11 to prove that it is not by the law that people are justified before God. They appear again, together with part of their context, in Hebrews 10:38 to encourage the readers of that Epistle to press on and not lose heart. Hebrew ‘ĕmûnâ, translated ‘faith’ in Habakkuk 2:4 (LXX pistis), means ‘steadfastness’ or ‘fidelity’; in the Habakkuk passage this steadfastness or fidelity is based on a firm belief in God and his word, and it is this firm belief that Paul understands by the term.
Habakkuk, crying out to God against the oppression under which his people groaned (late in the seventh century BC), received the divine assurance that wickedness would not triumph indefinitely, that righteousness would ultimately be vindicated, and the earth would ‘be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea’ (Hab. 2:14). This vision might be slow in being realized, but it would certainly be fulfilled. Meanwhile, the righteous would endure to the end, directing their lives by a loyalty to God inspired by faith in his promise.
In the Qumran commentary on Habakkuk this oracle is applied to ‘all the doers of the law in the house of Judah, whom God will save from the place of judgment because of their toil and their fidelity to the Teacher of Righteousness’.6 In the Talmud (TB Makkoth 24a) the same oracle is quoted alongside Amos 5:4, ‘Seek me and live’, as an example of how the whole law may be summed up in one sentence. ‘Perhaps “seek” (in Amos 5:4) means “seek the whole Torah”?’ asked Rabbi Nachman ben Isaac. ‘No’, was the reply of Rabbi Shimlai; ‘Habakkuk came after him and reduced it to one sentence, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by his faith”.’
When Paul takes up Habakkuk’s words and sees in them the foundation truth of the gospel, he gives them the sense, ‘it is he who is righteous (justified) through faith that will live.’ The terms of Habakkuk’s oracle are sufficiently general to make room for Paul’s application of them—an application which, far from doing violence to the prophet’s intention, expresses the abiding validity of his message.
For Paul, as for many other Jews, ‘life’ (especially eternal life) and ‘salvation’ were practically synonymous. If Paul’s self-designation as ‘a Hebrew born of Hebrews’ (Phil. 3:5) means (as is probable) that he was the Aramaic-speaking child of Aramaic-speaking parents, he would very likely, when speaking his native tongue, employ the same word ḥayyē7 for both ‘life’ and ‘salvation’. ‘It is he who is righteous (justified) by faith that will live’ means, therefore, ‘it is he who is righteous (justified) by faith that will be saved’. For Paul, life in the sense of salvation begins with justification but goes beyond it (cf. 5:9–10); it includes sanctification (the subject of Rom. 6–8) and is consummated in final glory (5:2; 8:30). In this comprehensive sense ‘salvation’ may well be regarded as the key ‘to unlock the wards of Paul’s theology’.8