In Romans 3:21-26, the argument of the passage could be found in verse 21 “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it”. In summary, the argument declares that a life could be made right or the manifestation of the righteousness of God cannot be achieved through any human efforts and apart from any works of the Law. Besides, there is a certain point emphasized by the structure and that is “the righteousness of God”. Within the passage, the word “righteousness” is used triple times, and “righteous” once. The repetitive used of “righteousness” shows that Paul was aiming at emphasizing how, in what limitations and in what circumstance the justification, also known as the “righteousness of God” comes into reality throughout the whole structure of the passage.
As aforementioned, the argument is about the irrelevant conditions for manifestation of the righteousness of God. Hence, what is essential to the argument would be the important prerequisite that supports the righteousness of God could be manifested and that is found in verse 22 “ the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” one clarification to this phrase is that not “people’s faith devoted into Jesus Christ that brings the possibility that a life could be made right” but more concisely that “ Jesus's faith in God brings the righteousness of God into possible and reality”. The extraneous portion of the passage to the argument could be found in verse 24 “they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus” . In this phrase, “his grace as a gift” and “redemption” are not contributing to the argument but only explaining the righteousness of God is a gift to human and the way is through redemption from Jesus. Since the phrase has not push the passage to a higher level, therefore, it is extraneous to the argument. Without it, the completeness of the argument would not be affected. In Romans 3:21-26, the conclusion of the argument can be summarized into a sentence as followed: “The righteousness of God is ek pisteos Eis pistin (out of faith into faith).” More precisely, the righteousness of God is out of faith of Jesus into the faith of us. When you and I heard the message of radical faithfulness from Jesus to God, Jesus’s faith replicates itself to us and into our faithfulness to God and we will begin to think that a right life is possible.
The argument of the passage helps define that a right life cannot be achieved through any works of Law or human efforts while the conclusion of the passage declares that the righteousness of God is out of faith into faith. Therefore, the connection between the argument and the conclusion is that the argument defines the conditions that cannot lead to a right life while the conclusion gives out the answer to the exact condition to ensure how a right life can be achieved through the faith of Jesus into God. In the passage, Romans 3:21-26 reaches to its dramatic climax at the beginning of 3:21 starting with the transitional word “But”, which signals the significant turning point in human history that the possibility of a righteous life has suddenly emerged, and all sinned people can now have a chance to live a right life no matter Gentiles or Jews. So the dramatic climax started from verse 21 to verse 23 to deliver a message to the world that the hope of a right life emerged.
Mood
Prior to Romans 3:21-26, when we try to enter the flow of Paul’s thoughts, Paul describes in Romans 1:18-32 that the tragic fall of the Gentile world into sin. Then further on in Romans 2:1-3:20, Paul turns to the Jewish listeners in his audience and makes the point that even the Jews, who have the Laws of Moses, failed to obey it in front of sins. Paul then gives out the statement that “so the whole world is in the grip of the slave master called sin, which shows a sense of pessimistic and discouraged. However, referring back to the dramatic climax in 3:21, “But now” it is full of hope and opportunity since a turning point in the human history emerged! A right life is now possible to be achieved by the faith of Jesus Christ into God. Therefore, the mood of the passage transitioned from feelings of pessimistic and upset in Romans 2:1-3:20 to a mood of hope and transcend into gratitude towards the possibility of a right life can be achieved.
Form
In Romans 1:16-17, it stated that “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.””, from which Paul gives out his thesis statement that the righteousness of God is revealed through faith or faith. Although Paul is not ashamed of the gospel, the fact that crucifixion was reserved by Roman to Jesus the savior is bringing shame upon Paul since he is writing it to Romans and seeking help from them as well. In Romans 3:21-26, Paul provides a restatement of the thesis of “the righteousness of God is out of faith into faith”. For instance, Paul states in verse 21 that the turning point in human history emerged and led to the argument that the righteousness of God can become a reality without preconditions of either human efforts or works of Law. Then Paul asserts that Jesus’s faith has shown the world what a righteous life looks like. And the rest of the verse 22 to 26 describe how the faith of Jesus makes possible a right life. Therefore, the passage is a exhortation with a firm declarative statement that includes a restatement of the thesis shown in 1:16-17. The components of the form include an argument, portion that is essential to the argument, portion that is extraneous to the argument, and a conclusion of the argument which were described in detailed in previous paragraphs. The form has been altered and supplemented in a way of polemic style, which is also known as the “diatribe” style at that time. A “diatribe” style at that time represents a teaching technique that is about a discussion between teacher and students. Such diatribe style of writing has been supplemented into the context, boasting about the salvific economy of God and the power that proceeds from faith in Christ and zeal for the truth. The author Paul signifies his thoughts as expounded in his response to the Jew’s objections by placing the diatribe style of writing in the context. A discussion like of format not only can deliver the messages that Paul try to pursue, but also makes more believe about his response to the Jew’s objection as well.
Significant words
Throughout the passage, three words are especially important: “righteousness”, “faith”, and “expiation”. In order to grasp the content of Paul’s thoughts, these words will be studied in different perspectives as followed. Firstly, the word “righteousness” is also used in Romans 1:16-17 that “the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed.” Since Romans 3:21-26 is the restatement from Paul to his thesis statement in 1:16-17, then the meaning of “righteousness” would be the same in both passages. Therefore, the word “righteousness” in 1:16-17 means “the thought that a right life is possible.” “Righteousness” is used in a connotative sense since the meaning of a right life is hidden beyond the word itself and it is such a technical term in theology with a broader significance in pursuing how a right life could be achieved. The word “faith” is used in Romans 1:17 “The righteous will live by faith.” and in Romans 10:8 “ the word of faith, which we preach.” The “faith” in Romans 1:17 means faithfulness that Jesus had into the God, and the “faith” in Romans 10:8 represents the result of the replication from Jesus’s faithfulness to God into our faithfulness to God, which is different from the one in Romans 1:17. The word “faith” is used in a bald sense and becomes a technical term for “belief in something with a theological significance of describing the condition that people make believe into something. The word “expiation” is used only in Romans 3:25 but similar concept of a meaning of expiation or atonement is represented in Romans 5:9 “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! “The meaning of the word “expiation” in Romans 5:9 means the sacrifice of Jesus’s body and devoted his body and blood. The word “expiation” is used in a denotative sense which represents the atonement by Jesus Christ and is regarded as a technical term for the meaning of “sacrifice” and including a broader significance in memory of Jesus’s sacrifice for all human’s goods.
The word “righteousness” is used by Paul in 1 Cor 1:30 “It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.” The meaning of the “righteousness” in the phrase is also “a right life” and is used in a bald sense. However, what is still unclear is that whether righteousness is as an attribute of God or the genitive signifies Christian’s righteousness of God.
In the New Testament, the word “righteousness” is used in Psalm 1:6 “For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.” In this phrase, the word “righteous” means morally right or justifiable; virtuous. The word “faith” is used in Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Although Hebrews is traditionally attributed to Paul, scholars have long recognized that Paul is not the author. Whoever wrote Hebrews lived a number of years after Paul. The term “faith” in the phrase means “complete trust or confidence placed in someone or something.” And the word “expiation” is found in the New Testament only in Hebrews 9:5 “Above the ark were the cherubim of the Glory, overshadowing the atonement cover. But we cannot discuss these things in detail now.” The substituted word “atonement” is used in the phrase as the same meaning as “expiation”, which represents the sacrifice of Jesus.
In the Old Testament, the word “righteousness” is used in Amos 5 multiple times. For instance, in Amos 5:24 “But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream”, the word “righteousness” is used in order to inform the readers about Paul’s thought that God is righteous and just, from which demands justice from us. Besides, the word “faith” is used in Habakkuk 2:4 “ See, the enemy is puffed up; his desires are not upright— but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness.” The word “faithfulness” is used in the meaning that the person who has faith in Jesus Christ is the person who can have a right life that can conquer the enemy as “slave master- sin and not manipulated by his desires. Then the word “expiation” is used in two places, both Leviticus 16:13-15 and 4 Maccabees 17:22. In Leviticus 16:13-15, the term “atonement cover” is used in each verse from 13 to 15. The term “atonement cover” represents the doctrine concerning the reconciliation of God and humankind, especially as accomplished through the life, suffering, and death of Christ. From both Leviticus 16:13-15 and 4 Maccabees 17:22, it can conclude that there is not distinction between Gentiles, only one standard of life and that is the radical faithfulness to Jesus.
In Greco-Roman, righteousness is one of the chief attributes of God as portrayed in the Hebrew Bible. Its chief meaning concerns ethical conduct mentioned in Leviticus 19:36. However, the word “righteousness” is understood differently in Jewish. Righteousness is not regarded as an attribute of God but more likely a gift for human to embrace a right life.
Situation
In the passage, Paul gives his readers the concept that how the righteousness of God is apart from any works of Laws. The mindset behind this is that Paul tries to reveal about the situations for his readers in Rome that they are uncertain whether righteousness should be defined as obeying the laws or not since they are ruled under the cruel administration of the Roman Empire. In their minds, maybe they believe that by obeying the laws set by the Roman Empire, they live in right lives. However, they were not necessarily believing in either Jesus or God because they are unaware of how much Jesus has done so much in order to make a right life to become possible by his own expiation and his faith devoted in God. Only thing they have in mind is the word of Laws that they have to obey day by day. In addition, readers in Rome did not notice that the slave master- sin had already manipulated the daily lives around them including violence, unfairness, and salvations before reading the Romans. Paul try to reveal the circumstances that his readers in Rome are currently at and remind them that Jesus and God had so much contribution to human beings, but they never noticed before.
Paul strives for revealing his state of mind by touching the righteousness of God from the faith of Jesus into God and revitalizing the spiritual life of the church, has restored an understanding of what God did and continues to do in Jesus Christ. He tries to remind his readers in Rome about how God had embraced all people with his grace of righteousness as a gift. After finishing his missionary activity in Achaia, Paul desires to take his missionary activity westward and he wants to meet with Romans. Although he had never been to Rome before, he expects Romans to notice and pay more attention to his Gospel. Therefore, he regards the journey as a base of operation in Rome for supporting his Western missionary excursion, hoping for obtaining the support from the Roman community and let more Romans become closer to have faith in God in order to achieve a righteous life.
In the passage, the phrase “all have sinned” sets the circumstance of the life of the church. In Paul’s opinion, without any exclusion, all of the people even the ones in the church are manipulated by the slave master sins which are not able to live a right life. At this moment, Jesus’s expiation and his faith into God brings new hope for human beings and now “a right life” becomes possible. The literary form suggests a new possibility that everyone stay together to hold the same faith in God that is replicated by the faith of Jesus into God and now it’s possible to live for others because of Jesus.
Comparison
1 Cor 4:6-7
The passage (Romans 3:21-26) is quite different from 1 Cor 4:6-7 no matters from its content, tone, and person. While Romans primarily explain how the righteousness of God can be manifested, 1 Corinthians focuses on the idea that people should not regard themselves as the special ones under the glory of God. Besides, the tone of Romans is less intense and more likely as a diatribe style of teaching between teacher and students while 1 Corinthian contains plenty amount of intense as it brought up several questions among the texts consecutively. The tone in Romans seems to be more comfortable for readers to read and readers are more willing to read less intense material. In Romans, Paul uses third person for the whole passage and applies words such as “his”, “it”. However, In 1 Corinthians, first person of “I” is mainly used in the text, which seems to be less official and less persuasive. The similarity of both texts are as followed. Firstly, both text mentioned the “gift”, which reminds people that we received gift by the grace of God.
2 Cor 5:14-21
The passage 2 Corinthians mainly focuses on the redemption and sacrifice of Jesus Christ to give human beings the ministry of reconciliation. Instead of using only one word in Romans to describe the Jesus’s sacrifice as “expiation”, 2 Cor 5:14-21 spends about two paragraphs on how Jesus “one has died for all”. The structure between these two passages is different. 2 Cor 5:14-21 is more likely a text first showing the fact that Jesus’s sacrifice leads to the righteousness of God as a conclusion at the end of the passage while Romans 3:21-26 reveals the result of righteousness of God from the very beginning in the text in verse 21. Also, Romans uses third person while 2 Cor 5:14-21 uses both first and second person as its main writing style. The similarities of both texts would be the ideas that Paul try to deliver to his readers. For instance, both texts is under a tone of persuasion, more precisely a exhortation, in which both starts with a statement, develops with the rationales behind the statement and provides evidences to support the argument, and ends with a conclusion that comes from the developments related to the initial statement.
Gal 3.21-25
The passage Gal 3.21-25 addresses a significant aspect mentioned in Romans 3:21-26 as well and that is the relationship between righteousness and the word of Laws. However, Romans 3:21-26 only used one verse in verse 21 to give an answer to the readers that righteousness of God has nothing to do with the work of Laws when Gal 3.21-25 mentioned “law” throughout the two paragraphs for several times. In Galatians, Paul seems to be less certain about the relationship between work of Laws and righteousness of God since he starts with a question “Is the law then against the promises of God?” But in Romans, Paul’s words show a sense of affirmative that Laws and righteousness of God are irrelevant at all, which shows Paul’s mindset is evolving and his confidence towards his ideas get strengthened over time. The similarities between both texts is that they all mentioned the significant word “faith”. Both texts confirm the function of “faith” towards the path to achieve the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus into God.
Phil 3:2-11
In Phil 3:2-11, a new concept of “confidence in flesh” is introduced by Paul to his readers while in Romans 3:21-26 is not mentioned at all. The Philippians worships the glory of Jesus from not only spiritually, but also physically. A huge different between Romans 3:21-26 and Philippians 3:2-11 is that Romans 3:21-26 is written in a positive tone with hope since the turning point in human history has emerged while in Phil 3:2-11 a pessimistic tone is set since “everything as loss including the redemption”. First person is widely used in Phil 3:2-11, the word “I” is all over the passage and it never shown once in Romans 3:21-26. The similarities between two texts is that both gives credit to Jesus’s redemption and admits the grace of God.
Comparing and contrasting the similarities and differences among texts above, it can be determined that Paul’s writing skill, mindset, and confidence in his ideas are strengthened over time. And it can be concluded that the differences are from the maturation of Paul’s thoughts. A great point to prove this is from the transcendence from using first person and second person at first and using third person in Romans, which is the latest letter Paul wrote among all texts mentioned above. Paul’s letter to the Romans is the most ordered, complete, and comprehensive statement comparing to the texts he wrote before Romans. Because of its contents, Romans had shown a remarkable influence on the early life of the church and its theology through its diatribe style of writing that impresses more and more people throughout the history.
yangximi
Paper.docx
0
