FOR US ALSO
FOR US ALSO
ROMANS 4:22-25
Paul concludes this part of his discussion of faith by emphasizing the importance of Christ’s death and resurrection.
Paul sums up. James Denney may be quoted in his comment on this paragraph. He points out that it is not arbitrarily that “faith is reckoned as righteousness.” Faith, he continues, “is the spiritual attitude of a man who is conscious that in himself he has no strength, and no hope of a future, and who nevertheless casts himself upon, and lives by, the word of God which assures him of a future.” This is the necessarily and eternally right attitude of all souls to God. “Now,” says Denney, “this was the attitude of Abraham to God, and it is the attitude of all sinners who believe in God through Christ; and to him and all alike it is reckoned by God for righteousness. The gospel does not subvert the religious order under which Abraham lived; it illustrates, extends and confirms it.” (Expositor’s Greek Testament, 2:621)
Fittingly, the chapter ends with an affirmation of that faith in Christ which Paul was expounding (4:24f.), in a rhythmical statement which may have been a credal formula for Christians, and especially Jewish Christians. It is couched in the poetic form of Hebrew parallelism, so apparent in the Psalms (eg “a lamp to my feet and a light to my path”). There is no theological separation between Christ’s death and his resurrection, as though atonement for sin and justification for the sinner were separate divine processes. Paul always associated the death of the Lord with his rising again. He knew Christ as the risen One who had died, and ever lived for our justification.
In 4:25 “delivered for our offenses,” we are reminded of Isaiah 53 where the same verb is used twice in the Septuagint version (Isaiah 53:6,12). That chapter concludes (Isaiah 53:12): “because of their sins he was delivered up.” This is the phrase Paul echoes, for he commonly has the Greek version of the Old Testament in mind. As Denney concludes: “It was the greatest display of power ever made to man when God raised Christ from the dead ... The only right attitude of any human being in presence of this power is utter self-renunciation, utter abandonment of self to God. This is faith, and it is this which is imputed to men in all ages, and under all dispensations, for righteousness.”