This article is the first in a four-part series on New Testament textual criticism. It provides the basics on this science and art, answering such questions as these:

Did scribes make errors as they copied down holy Writ? If so, what kind of errors are they? Why wouldn’t God protect his Word from such errors? What’s the goal of the science and art of textual criticism? Should we even engage in criticism of the Bible? Isn’t that blasphemous? Should I trust the New Testament?

These questions and more are explored in a basic Question and Answer format, for ease of understanding. This article is written by a nonspecialist and is intended for the laity.

The entire series assumes the basic Christian doctrine of inspiration. The original authors of the New Testament were inspired. But we no longer have their very original manuscripts. Rather, they were transmitted by scribes and copyists who took their work seriously, but were not inspired as the original authors were. They made typical errors that all scribes and copyists do before the age of copy machines, word processors, and spell checks.

Textual criticism attempts to recover the originals, as much as humanly possible. Have textual critics succeeded? By any reckoning, we have 95% of the inspired words, and some scholars place the number as high as 99% (see Part Three and Question One). Where any uncertainties remain, they do not overturn New Testament doctrine, which is supported by other verses.

That is a remarkable achievement for any text coming out of the Greco-Roman world. Web readers need to know this, so they can be reassured about their Bible when they hear its critics misleading the public about the complete trustworthiness of Scripture. The New Testament (and the Old Testament) is a highly accurate, reliable, and faithful record of the words and ideas of the original authors, as inspired by God.

This article (and the entire series) is about the nonoriginal manuscripts. Let's educate ourselves about them so we won't be caught unprepared when the needlessly and heedlessly harsh critics appear in the media.

1. What is the original language of the New Testament?

Since the question and answer is so fundamental, I have repeated them in the other parts in this series. It was written in common Greek of the first century, in a vocabulary and sentence structure that most people could understand. This is especially true of the four Gospels. Christianity is a missionary religion, so it had to use the language that everyone knew in the cities in the first century. And that language was Greek. Not much later, as Christianity expanded farther, scribes translated the Greek New Testament into other languages.

It must be emphasized that ancient Greek (even koiné or common Greek of the New Testament) is a remarkably precise and nuanced language. It was conditioned, after all, by the two greatest philosopher who ever lived: Plato and Aristotle, not to mention other great geniuses in the Greek-speaking world, such as Sophocles and Euripides. The New Testament authors, though not indebted to them directly, drew from this deep source, ancient Greek.

2. What does criticism mean?

Webster’s Dictionary says that it means “the act of criticizing, usu[ally] negative.” This is the typical definition that first comes to mind because of its widespread use.

However, the third meaning in the dictionary is more relevant to New Testament criticism. It is “the scientific investigation of literary documents (as the Bible) in regards to such matters as origin, text, composition, character, or history.”

The two key words are “scientific investigation.” They do not mean negative criticism.

Further, this specialist in New Testament textual criticism says:

Textual critics . . . sort through these [New Testament] manuscripts and the variant readings therein in an effort to reconstruct the original wording of the Greek New Testament. (Comfort, Encountering, p. 289)

Note how he also states the goal in his definition: “to reconstruct the original wording.”

Next, the Oxford Classical Dictionary says that “textual criticism sets out to establish what a text originally said or meant to say.”

Another specialist says:

Textual criticism is the study of copies of any written work of which the autograph (the original) is unknown, with the purpose of ascertaining the original text (Greenlee, p. 1, emphasis original).

Finally, this specialist defines it thus:

Briefly stated, textual criticism is the science and art that seeks to determine the most reliable wording of a text. (emphasis original)

He goes on to say that it is a “science because specific rules govern the evaluation of various types of copyist errors and readings, but it is also an art because these rules cannot be rigorously applied in every situation” (Wegner, p. 24).

3. What do MS, MSS and NT mean?

The abbreviations stand for manuscript (singular), manuscripts (plural) and New Testament, respectively. Hereafter, I will use them.

4. What does variant mean?

It means a range of readings or words or phrases or clauses that could be inserted into a verse. It is any difference in two or more MSS in a verse from the NT.

This textual critic says:

The details of which texts are composed (letters, words) are “readings,” and, accordingly, all readings that differ from the accepted text as central are usually variant readings or variants. The term . . . refers to the existence of a deviation between the accepted text and another text. (Wegner p. 309)

See Questions Nine and Fifteen, below, for examples.

5. Isn’t it close to blasphemy to “criticize” the Word of God?

Not according to the third definition in Webster’s Dictionary, quoted in Question Two. In fact, we would not even have a Bible if scholars did not sacrifice their time and energy to get things right. Therefore, just the opposite from the assumed answer is true. No one doing this hard work would be close to blasphemy.

6. Why is it necessary to do textual criticism?

Necessity goes to need, and there is a definite need to do this.

The NT was written by scribes before the age of printing presses, computers, word processing programs, email attachments, and faxes. If twenty persons, sitting in far different places and without communicating with each other, were to copy by hand all of the four Gospels from an exemplar (a MS from which a copy is made), it is one hundred percent certain that they would make errors. They might spell their for there or form instead of from or write answer for answered.

How do we establish the correct readings? The process would be tedious, but it could be done by collating the twenty handwritten MSS (note the word Latin word for “hand” in “manuscript”). Collation is the “comparison of one manuscript against a known printed text for the sake of producing a list of the differences” (Comfort, Encountering, p. 381). Most of the errors are accidental, such as spelling and omitting words and jumping from one line to another one below or above, as the copyist’s mind wanders or he gets distracted.

However, now let’s take away the exemplar of the four Gospels. We could produce the original or autograph by coming up with a list of differences. It is extremely rare to have two or more copyists making the same error in the same place and in the same way. Therefore, most of the twenty MSS would lead us to the autograph.

However, this brief example is highly simplified because it too neatly assumes one generation and one exemplar. The NT MSS were written over centuries and from different exemplars that range in quality. In fact, each book of the NT has its own history and audience at the beginning. It was only gradually, but early, that the whole NT as we know it was put together. But the example illustrates the essence of the task and goal of textual criticism: sorting out MSS and eliminating errors so we can find the original wording.

7. What does autograph mean?

In short, it means the original MS. But according to a standard and longer definition, it means:

The authored manuscript, whether penned by the author, dictated by him, or endorsed by him. By comparison, the “original manuscript” is the archetypal exemplar from which other manuscripts were made for publication and distribution. This could be one-and-the-same with the autograph but not necessarily so, especially if editing occurred between the time of the author’s composition and publication. None of the original manuscripts of any book of the Bible are extant [exists and known] (Comfort, Encountering, p. 380).

As noted in that excerpt, these originals no longer exist; otherwise, we would not need to do textual criticism.

8. What’s the goal of textual criticism, in the first place?

This textual critic offers a clear purpose or goal:

The purpose of textual criticism, classically defined, is to recover the original wording of an ancient text, no longer extant [existing and known] in its original form, by means of examining the extant manuscript copies and then applying the canons [rules] of the discipline for determining the wording most likely original. (Comfort, Encountering, p. 289)

Other textual critics say virtually the same thing. (See the excerpts in Question Two).

9. So what kind of scribal errors are there, anyway?

The vast majority of errors are accidental. Here are some examples that have been classified and labeled.

• Mistaken letters is the confusion of similar letters, such as i for j.
• Homophony substitutes a similar sounding words, as in there for their.
• Haplography omits a letter or word usually due to a similar letter or word in context, as in occurrence written incorrectly as ocurrence.
• Dittography means that a letter or word has been written twice rather than once, such as latter written as later.
• Metathesis is the reversal in order of two letters or words, as in dog for god.
• Homoioteleuton is an omission caused by two words or phrases that end similarly. For example, in 1 John 2:23 in a MS or two the clause “he who confesses the Son” has been accidentally omitted because originally it was sandwiched in between the same clause appearing twice, “has the father.” The scribe skipped down to the similar two ending clauses and omitted the middle clause.

But are there some deliberate changes? Yes, but they amount to comparatively few and are not always difficult to correct.

• Changes in spelling or grammar. In Matthew 1:7-8 the name Asaph has been “corrected” in some MSS to Asa, the king of Judah, in conformity to 1 Kings 15:9-14.
• Clearing up difficulties. According to some MSS, in Mark 1:2-3 the composite quotation from Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3 is attributed only to Isaiah the prophet. But some later copyists changed it to “the prophets” to clear up any confusion.

Are there theological changes? Yes, and they also amount to comparatively few. Some scribes, motivated out of zeal or their need to protect doctrine, added or substituted or altered words, phrases, and clauses. Here is an example.

• In Luke 2:41, 43 the words “his parents” have been changed in a few and late MSS to “Joseph and Mary” (verse 41) or “Joseph and his mother,” “possibly to safeguard the doctrine of the virgin birth.” (Wegner, pp. 53-54)

That is, according to some scribes, saying that Joseph was a parent of Jesus may imply that Joseph was the biological father of Jesus. But the scribes’ “improvement” was unnecessary. It is possible to be a parent outside of physical procreation.

However, these “zealous improvements” do not negatively impact Christian doctrine because other passages in fact support a given doctrine. Other verses, for example, support the doctrine of the virgin Birth. Indeed, it is these undisputed verses supporting doctrine that inform the zealous scribe to “fudge” the text in the first place. The scribe needs a textual starting point before he slips in his “improvements,” long before theologians developed and crystallized theology, derived directly from the Bible.

All of these examples are adapted from Wegner, pp. 44-55, and Metzger and Ehrman, pp. 250-71. For other categories of variants, go to Part Three and Question One.

10. How is textual criticism done?

Broadly speaking, the technique and art of textual criticism is divided into two main approaches: examining the external and internal evidence.

The external approach studies the MSS themselves. How early or late are they? Where do they come from? How do they compare with known reliable ones? Do any of them depend on another, or not? Can they be put into families, as in a genealogy? What scribal style are they written in? Is the style early or late? Can it be used to pinpoint the date of other MSS?

Generally, the earlier and more numerous the MSS, the better, but the dating is not a fixed rule. Sometimes it may be assumed that a later MS (eighth or ninth century) may come directly from a reliable and early, but unknown, MS.

The internal approach evaluates the MSS’s words on the page and all the variants. It answers such questions as these: Are there spelling or grammatical characteristics that would favor one reading over the others? Does the author commonly use words, phrases, or clauses a certain way? Are there clearly accidental errors (see Question, Nine, above)? Is there an identifiable reason that a copyist would change a word or phrase? What is the overall theology of a NT author (Wegner, pp. 238-39)?

11. How many scribal errors are there? Are there hundreds of thousands?

That number is misleading, because even the smallest spelling variant is counted. To use an example in English, a variant may be –ed after a word (answered) or without an –ed (answer). In Greek the word order of a sentence is much more flexible than in English. So if the word order changes in even the slightest way without changing the meaning (see Question Fifteen below, and Part Three, Question One), then this too is counted as a variant. Such trivial differences are counted in the grand total.

Plus, there are several million pages of manuscripts. If there are 500,000 variants (and that number is too high), then that would be much less than one variant per page, on average. Thus, saying that there are hundreds of thousands of variants turns the huge number of pages into a vice, when the huge number is in fact a virtue of NT MSS. Critics want us to believe that even more MS pages would make the NT less reliable, but that is wrongheaded.

So what is the total of more significant variants? It amounts to a surprisingly small percentage of the entire NT.

Most modern textual critics can agree on the bulk of the text (some 95 percent of it perhaps). It is the remaining 5 per cent or so where disputes occur and differing conclusions may be found. These discrepancies are the cause for most of the variants to be seen in the footnotes of our translations (Elliott and Moir, p. 8). Also, some scholars put the number as high as 99% (see Part Three, Question One). We nonspecialists do not have to debate over trivial variants. For us, the Scripture is 95-99% established. No other text coming out of the Greco-Roman world comes even close to this startling outcome, but a very, very far distant second.

This is significant because textual critics focus on a very small number of variants. This also means that after the five or so or one percent of variants have been worked through, we have essentially the Word of God in our hands.

These variants do not overturn or negate Christian doctrine. If one word or clause is being scrutinized in one verse, then the entire sweep of the New Testament supports basic doctrine, such as the deity of Christ (see Question Fifteen, below).

We need, therefore, to get a perspective. No one should doubt the Bible’s reliability in terms of the MS attestation.

12. What does witnesses mean?

Scholars (and all of us) look for shorthand ways to communicate. In the context of NT textual criticism, “witnesses” means all of the MSS, every early version or translation of the NT (usually from Greek into other languages), and the quotations of the NT in the writings of the church fathers (early Christian leaders).

13. How many MSS are there?

The official listing (as of 2006) of the several important categories of Greek New Testament manuscripts can be summarized as follows:

Papyri...118

Majuscule MSS...317

Miniscule MSS...2877

Lectionary MSS...2433

Total...5745

Source: Papyri

Hat tip: Komoszewski, Sawyer, and Wallace, p. 77.

Papyrus means writing material made from reed plants, in this case MSS that survive in fragments, but significant ones.

Majuscule (or uncials) denotes Greek MSS written in capital letters.

Miniscule indicates Greek MSS written in cursive.

And lectionary MSS mean books or lists of specific Biblical passages to be read (hence lectionary) in the church’s calendar. The MSS in the latter category need more detailed study, though the significant MSS have been used in textual criticism of the NT. Not mentioned here are the 20,000 or more different early versions, that is, translations, from original Greek into another language such as Latin, Ethiopic, Slavic, and Armenian.

Different scholars come to slightly different totals, but this chart gives us a clear idea of how many manuscripts scholars have to sort through.

After describing the poor showing of non-Christian MSS of ancient Roman authors, Metzger (and Ehrman, though this excerpt is found in the third edition without him) draws this conclusion about the richness and variety of the NT MSS:

In contrast with these figures [about non-Christian Roman writers], the textual critic of the New Testament is embarrassed by the wealth of material. Furthermore, the work of many ancient authors has been preserved only in manuscripts that date from the Middle Ages (sometimes the late Middle Ages), far removed from the time at which they lived and wrote. On the contrary, the time between the composition of the books of the New Testament and the earliest extant [existing] copies is relatively brief . . . several papyrus manuscripts of portions of the New Testament are extant that were copied within a century or so after the composition of the original documents. (Metzger and Ehrman, p. 51)

It should be pointed out that a footnote to this excerpt says that most of the papyri are relatively fragmentary and the great majority of other MSS contain only the four Gospels or only the Epistles. However, these MSS may still be used to cross-check the others. It is much better to have many MSS than few, as in the case of the Greco-Roman non-Christian MSS.

Further, the quotations of the NT in the writings of the church fathers have not yet been factored into the calculations. Though this fertile area is undergoing detailed study, Metzger (and Ehrman, though this excerpt is found in the third edition without him) estimates:

Indeed, so extensive are these citations that if all other sources for our knowledge of the text of the New Testament were destroyed, they would be sufficient alone for the reconstruction of practically the entire New Testament. (p. 126)

The quotations from the Church Fathers are significant in attesting to the reliability of the NT that we have in our possession.

14. Are there different levels of reliability or accuracy in the MSS?

Textual critics in fact see different levels of quality in MSS, and this is taken into account when they engage in their studies. For example, two scholars, Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, have five categories, but only the first three are mentioned here, for the latter two are for specialists and pertain to classifying the less reliable MSS (pp. 106 and 159).

I. Very special quality

II. Special quality

III. Distinctive character

Specialist may quibble over which MS belongs in which categories, but the main point here is to demonstrate that different levels of MS quality exist. Sometimes this fact is not always pointed out by skeptics, who may use a known weaker MS to score polemical points.

However, it should be noted that “the early church seems to have taken great care to monitor errant theology and their sacred texts” (Wegner, p. 38-39).

15. Don’t all these scribal errors and the great number of MSS cause confusion?

It poses challenges, but not confusion in a negative sense. With more MSS comes the risk of more scribal errors, but also the opportunity to cross-check the MSS and eliminate the errors. Scholars have to puzzle over a wide range of witnesses as they settle on the correct reading. The fourth edition of the United Bible Societies’ Greek NT discusses some variants in one clause of Luke 16:21. It tells the story of the rich man and the poor man Lazarus. Should the verse include the word crumbs or not?

19 There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table.

There are three basic variants (genitive plural).

1. Tōn piptontōn means what fell; this is the best rendering according to the witnesses, so the New International Version uses it.

2. Tōn psichiōn tōn piptontōn means the crumbs that fell or the crumbs falling; the witnesses are strong, but not quite as strong as the first variant.

3. Tōn piptontōn psichiōn means the falling crumbs or perhaps also the crumbs falling; the witnesses for this variant are few.

Do these variants in Luke 16:21 cause confusion for the textual critic? No, but they pose a challenge. In this case, the challenge is overcome because critics have boiled down certain MSS that are the most accurate, and they support the first variant. Still, though, the scholars at United Bible Societies, an organization under which they have united to produce a highly accurate NT, rate their certainty about the correct reading in Luke 16:21 as “some degree of doubt” their letter B, as compared with “virtually certain” for their letter A. The letter C indicates “considerable degree of doubt.” To finish off their rating system, D signals a “very high degree of doubt” about the strength or weakness of their decision about a variant.

However, does this example of Luke 16:21 impact basic Christian doctrine negatively? Not in the slightest. Textual critics may wrestle with variants like these, but web readers do not need to do this in most cases. Sometimes a good translation of the NT will signal in the footnotes important variants, and readers should pay attention to them. Perhaps the footnotes mean that we should not be too dogmatic about specific verses here and there, though essential doctrines are not seriously called into question when all the witnesses are collated properly, doctrines such as the deity of Christ.

Before leaving Question Fifteen, this should be repeated and emphasized: by far the vast majority of variants discussed by specialists have nothing or little to do with the solid meat of Christian doctrine. Rather, they concern “crumbs,” so to speak. And no variant overturns Christian doctrine, such as the deity of Christ, which is supported by other verses.

This article was originally hosted at American Thinker.

The article later hosted by biblicalstudies.org.uk has been updated in other areas.

References

Aland, Kurt and Barbara Aland. The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism. 2nd ed. Trans. Erroll F. Rhodes. Eerdmans, 1989.

Black, David Alan, New Testament Textual Criticism: a Concise Guide. Baker, 1994.

--- ed. Rethinking New Testament Textual Criticism. Baker, 2002.

Bruce, F. F. New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? 5th ed. InterVarsity, 1960.

Comfort, Philip Wesley. The Quest for the Original Text of the New Testament. Wipf and Stock (originally at Baker), 1992.

--- and David P. Barrett. The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts. corrected and enlarged edition. Tyndale House, 2001.

Comfort, Philip W. Encountering the Manuscripts: An Introduction to New Testament Paleography and Textual Criticism. Broadman and Holman, 2005.

Ehrman, Bart D. The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament. Oxford UP, 1993.

Elliott, Keith and Ian Moir. Manuscripts and the Text of the New Testament: An Introduction for English Readers. T & T Clark, 1995.

Epp, Eldon J. and Gordon D. Fee. Studies and Documents: Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism. Eerdmans, 1993.

Eldon J. Epp, “The Multivalence of the Term ‘Original Text’ in New Testament Textual Criticism.” Harvard Theological Review 92 (1999) 245-81.

Finegan, Jack. Encountering New Testament Manuscripts: A Working Introduction to Textual Criticism. Eerdmans, 1974.

Fee, Gordon D. “The Textual Criticism of the New Testament,” in Expositor’s Bible Commentary. Vol. 1, pp. 419-33. Frank E. Gaebelein (ed.). Zondervan, 1979.

The Greek New Testament. Ed. Barbara Aland et al. Fourth ed. United Bible Societies, 2001.

Greenlee, J. Harold. Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism. Rev. ed. Hendrickson, 1995.

Head, Peter M. “Christology and Textual Transmission: Reverential Alterations in the Synoptic Gospels.” Novum Testamentum 35 (1993) 105-29.

Komoszewski, J. Ed, M. James Sawyer and Daniel B. Wallace. Reinventing Jesus: How Contemporary Skeptics Miss the Real Jesus and Mislead Popular Culture. Kregel, 2006. See Chapters 4-8.

Metzger, Bruce M. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. 3rd ed. Oxford UP, 1992.

--- and Bart D. Ehrman. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. 4th ed. Oxford UP, 2005.

Parsons, Mikeal C. “A Christological Tendency in P75.” Journal of Biblical Literature 105/3 (1986) 463-479.

Roberts, Colin H. Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt, published for the British Academy by the Oxford UP, 1979.

--- T. C. Skeat, The Birth of the Codex. published for the British Academy by the Oxford UP, 1983.

Wegner, Paul D. A Student’s Guide to Textual Criticism of the Bible: Its History, Methods, and Results. InterVarsity, 2006.

This article comes second in a four-part series on New Testament textual criticism. It answers questions about the material and process of making the pages of a document, along with the scribal art of writing. What were the scribe’s utensils? How was a papyrus sheet or page made? What is parchment? Why wouldn’t God protect his Word from such complications? Should I trust the New Testament?

Let’s begin to answer those questions.

1. What is a papyrus manuscript, and where does it come from?

A papyrus manuscript comes from a reed plant. We get our word paper from the word papyrus. The plural of papyrus is papyri. Scribes in the ancient Mediterranean world, where Christianity first spread, used it as the material on which to write a variety of documents, ranging from personal letters to notes of legal minutes in a court proceeding. In our case, scribes used it to copy down the New Testament.

Bruce M. Metzger ranks as a top textual critic of the New Testament, and in the fourth edition of his book Bart D. Ehrman joins him. They give a description of the plant from which papyrus manuscripts are made.

Papyrus is an aquatic plant that grows most successfully in the still shallow marshlands (see Job 8:11, “Can papyrus grow where there is no marsh?”). Its broad roots stretches horizontally under the mud, and from this rise several strong stalks, triangular in cross section; short brown leaves protect the base. Papyrus is by far the tallest of the botanical Cyperus papyrus, growing to a height of 12 or 15 feet. At its top the stalk splits into a mass of strands (the umbel), and at the end of those the plant produces small brown flowers. The stalk of the papyrus plant has a tough green rind that contains an ivory white pith, which carries water and sustenance from the root to the flowering head. (Metzger and Ehrman. p. 4)

The plant produces a natural adhesive as it is pressed together.

Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, two of the most prominent New Testament textual critics of any generation, tell us where papyrus comes from.

In the early period New Testament texts were written on papyrus, as was all the literature of the time. This writing material was produced primarily (though not exclusively) in Egypt. (Aland and Aland, p. 75)

2. How was the reed plant turned into papyrus?

Aland and Aland say that the plant could grow to a height of six meters (longer than 12 or 15 feet, as stated by Metzger and Ehrman in the previous answer). Then Aland and Aland describe how the papyrus went from a plant to writing material.

Its thick stem was divided into sections and sharp tools were used to cut it lengthwise into wafer-thin strips. These strips were laid side by side to form a single layer with the fibers of the pith running parallel, and on top of it a second layer was placed with the fibers running at right angles to the first. The two layers were then moistened, pressed together, and smoothed down. Finally, any projecting fibers were trimmed off and the papyrus sheet was cut to a desired size. (p. 75)

See this slide show on how the reed plant was turned into a papyrus sheet.

3. What is parchment?

Parchment is treated animal hide on which scribes wrote their texts, such as the Bible. The term parchment comes from the Greek word for the city Pergamum, “which was noted for its fine quality of this product” (Greenlee, p. 11).

4. What is vellum?

This is also made of treated animal hide, calfskin, properly. It had a finer quality than parchment. But the two terms parchment and vellum are used interchangeably today.

5. How was this material turned into sheets for manuscripts?

The process required careful work.

The hide (theoretically of any animal, but usually of a goat or sheep) first had the hair and flesh removed by a solution of lime mordant, and was then trimmed to size, polished, and smoothed with chalk and pumice stone to prepare the surface for use. (Aland and Aland, p. 76)

6. How was the parchment sheet prepared for writing on it?

The lines had to be drawn on the sheet (the lines were ready-made with a papyrus sheet because the fibers guided the scribe to write in straight lines). Drawing the lines on parchment was done by a metal stylus.

The line was drawn on the hair side, so that it still appears there as a depression and on the flesh side as a slight ridge (guide line for the columns in manuscripts were marked in the same way). The difference between the hair side and the flesh side posed a difficulty with parchment manuscripts, because the one side was darker in color and the other lighter. A conventional solution was found by arranging the four-sheet quire (which became standard) so that the hair side faced the hair side and the flesh side faced the flesh side. (Aland and Aland, p. 77)

7. What is a quire?

It was “four sheets of paper (or papyrus or parchment) folded once and stitched at the fold. Scribes would use several quires to make up an entire codex,” an early form of the book as we know it (Comfort, Encountering, pp. 389-390).

8. How many animals were needed?

Many sheep or goats were needed to produce about 200-250 folios or a leaf or a page for a codex manuscript.

One sheep or goat could provide only two folios [a leaf, which when folded, provided four pages, front and back, twice], i.e., only four folios of the finished manuscript, the size of which would be determined by the size of the animals. A manuscript containing a group of New Testament writings in the average format (about 200-250 folios of about 25 x 19 cm) required the hides of at least fifty to sixty sheep or goats. This would mean quite a good size flock. Manuscripts would often need to be larger to accommodate more than a single group of writing, and this would require a greater number of hides. (Aland and Aland, p. 77)

9. How expensive was the preparation and copying?

A manuscript of only a part of an original writing could cost a small fortune.

For a large manuscript (Codex Sinaiticus was originally at least 43 x 38 cm in size) or one particularly fine quality of parchment, the expense would have multiplied. In fact, a manuscript of the New Testament represented a small fortune because the preparation of the parchment was only the first step. Once it had been prepared there was still the writing of the text to be done . . . Clearly the manuscript must have been commissioned by persons of the upper classes who could afford to ignore the expense. (Aland and Aland, p. 77)

Often, the church commissioned the codex of parts or the entire New Testament.

Emperor Diocletian (ruled AD 284-305), who persecuted the church terribly, set the wages for scribes copying secular manuscripts:

At the rate of 25 denarii for 100 lines in writing of the first quality and 20 denarii for the same number of lines in writing of the second quality (what the difference was between the two qualities is not mentioned) . . . the cost of producing one complete Bible, such as Codex Sinaiticus, would have come to about 30,000 denarii, a sizeable sum notwithstanding steadily rising inflation. (Metzger and Ehrman, p. 26)

For the four Gospels, these are the wages in round numbers of the Roman denarius:

2,600 for Matthew

1,600 for Mark

2,800 for Luke

2,300 for John

The following precise figures are found in several ancient manuscripts of the four Gospels, respectively: 2,560, 1,616, 2,750, and 2,024 (Metzger and Ehrman, p. 26)

The Roman denarius was the standard currency in the empire, and an average worker, agricultural or urban, earned one per day, as long as the work did not run out or was not seasonal at best.

In no way could an average Christian afford a New Testament, not to mention one Gospel. He might be able to afford a small epistle, if he scrimped and saved money, but the cost of daily living would typically prove too high. This is why reading the Scriptures in church was essential throughout church history.

Christians today should be grateful that they can afford Bibles, even many translations.

10. What were the writing utensils and other materials like?

Stylus

This was used for wax tablets. It was made of metal, ivory, or bone. A writer pressed down lightly on the tablet, making impressions. As noted in Question Six, it could be used to draw lines on a prepared parchment. The stylus had a point on one end for writing, and a knob on the other end for correcting errors.

Reed pen

It is probable that both New Testament manuscripts and other documents were written with reed pens. “To make a reed pen, the reed stalk was dried, sharpened to a point on one end, and slit somewhat as a modern pen point is slit” (Greenlee, pp. 12-13). The pen had to be re-inked about every fourth or sixth letter (Metzger and Ehrman, p. 27, note 37).

Other implements

The scribe needed some additional implements: a knife for making a new pen, “a whetstone for sharpening the knife, pumice stone for smoothing the parchment sheet and for sharpening the pen point, and a sponge for erasing and for wiping the pen point” (Greenlee, p. 13).

Ink

Two of the most common kinds were “ink made of lamp-black and gum dissolved in water, which produced very black writing; and ink made from nut-galls, which produced a fine rusty-brown color” (Greenlee p. 13). A nut-gall is also called an oak gall, which “is a curious ball-like tumor, about the size of a small marble, that grows mainly on the leaves or twigs of oak trees” (Metzger and Ehrman, p. 10-11).

Go online to the University of Michigan for a photo of a pen, an inkwell, and a papyrus from ancient Greco-Roman Egypt. Here is a photo of other writing material from the same site.

11. What did ancient books look like?

There were two main forms.

First, the roll or scroll:

In the Greco-Roman world, literary works were customarily published in the format of a scroll, made of papyrus or parchment. The papyrus scroll was made by gluing together, side by side, separate sheets of papyrus and then winding the long strip around a roller, thus producing a volume (a word derived from the Latin volumen, “something rolled up”). (Metzger and Ehrman, p. 12)

The length of a scroll works out nicely for the longer books of the New Testament.

The length of the papyrus roll was limited by considerations of convenience of handling it; the normal Greek literary roll seldom exceeded 35 feet in length. Ancient authors therefore would divide a long literary work into several “books,” each of which would be accommodated in one roll. The two longest books in the New Testament, the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, would have filled an ordinary roll of 31 or 32 feet in length. Doubtless, this is one of the reasons why Luke and Acts were issued in two volumes. (Metzger and Ehrman, p. 12)

The scroll was arranged in a series of columns, each about 2 or 3 inches wide.

The scroll had its disadvantages, however. It was inconvenient to use, requiring two hands to roll it up or unwind it. Also, it was difficult to find a passage that the reader needed.

Second, the codex:

The codex is a leaf or page form of a book. It was made by folding a sheet of papyrus in the middle, and combining as many folded pages as needed, and then sewing together the folded ends.

12. Why did early Christians prefer the codex to the scroll?

Christians found that this form had a number of advantages over the roll: (1) it permitted all four Gospels or all of the Epistles of Paul to be bound in one book, a format that was impossible so long as the roll was used; (2) it facilitated the consultation of proof texts; (3) it was better adapted to receiving writing on both sides of the page, thus keeping the cost of production down. (Metzger and Ehrman, p. 13)

Metzger (and Ehrman, though the above excerpt and the following facts are found in the third edition without Ehrman) notes an economic advantage. The savings of the codex over the scroll was 44%. Combining the cost of the papyrus and the wages of the scribe would save about 26% (p. 14).

13. What was handwriting like?

Uncial or majuscule

This is Greek capital letters. Both papyri and parchment were written on with uncials. This is also known as book-hand style. It was written without spaces between words, so a reader had to be careful as he read a text out loud.

Minuscule or cursive

“Cursive” comes from Latin for “running.” It was smaller, and the letters tended to run together. This style came into its own in the ninth century and later.

Metzger (and Ehrman, though this excerpt is found in Metzger’s third edition without Ehrman) explains the differences between uncial and cursive, both in use and purpose.

In antiquity, two styles of script for writing Greek were in general use: the book-hand and the cursive. Both have existed side by side; the book-hand is conservative, but the cursive can change very quickly, with forms that tend to invade the book-hand. The cursive, or “running,” hand could be written rapidly and was employed for non-literary, everyday documents, such as letters, accounts, receipts, petitions, deeds, and the like . . . Literary works, however, were written in the more formal style of book-hand, which was characterized by more deliberate and carefully executed letters, each one separate from the other—somewhat like writing in capital letters . . . (p. 17)

14. Is there an advantage of one handwriting style over another?

Again, we let Metzger (and Ehrman, though this excerpt is found in the third edition without him) speak as a premier specialist:

The advantages of using miniscule script are obvious. Miniscule letters, as the name suggests, are smaller than majuscules, and thus writing is more compact. Hence, when the minuscule hand was used, less parchment was required and therefore the book was more economical. Furthermore, a literary work could be produced that was less bulky and therefore easier to handle than a larger manuscript. Moreover, it was possible to write minuscule letters more rapidly than majuscules, and consequently books could be produced more quickly and more cheaply (p. 20).

This article was first hosted at American Thinker.

The article later hosted by biblicalstudies.org.uk has been updated in other areas.

References

Aland, Kurt and Barbara Aland. The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism. 2nd ed. Trans. Erroll F. Rhodes. Eerdmans, 1989.

Black, David Alan, New Testament Textual Criticism: a Concise Guide. Baker, 1994.

Comfort, Philip Wesley. The Quest for the Original Text of the New Testament. Wipf and Stock (originally at Baker), 1992.

---. Encountering the Manuscripts: An Introduction to New Testament Paleography and Textual Criticism. Broadman and Holman, 2005.

Elliott, Keith and Ian Moir. Manuscripts and the Text of the New Testament: An Introduction for English Readers. T & T Clark, 1995.

Finegan, Jack. Encountering New Testament Manuscripts: A Working Introduction to Textual Criticism. Eerdmans, 1974.

Greenlee, J. Harold. Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism. Rev. ed. Hendrickson, 1995.

Metzger, Bruce M. and Bart D. Ehrman. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. 4th ed. Oxford UP, 2005.

Roberts, Colin H. Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt. Published for the British Academy by the Oxford UP, 1979.

--- and T. C. Skeat, The Birth of the Codex, published for the British Academy by the Oxford UP, 1983.

Wegner, Paul D. A Student’s Guide to Textual Criticism of the Bible: Its History, Methods, and Results. InterVarsity, 2006.

The term imputation has undergone some debate. Scholars have reached the conclusion that it is not very important in the Bible. The evidence suggests it is very important.

Let’s get started.

If readers would like to see the verses in various translations, they may go to Lumina.Bible.org and type in the references.

Basic Definitions

Linguistic Meanings

The Hebrew verb ḥāšab and the Greek verb logizomai both have the basic meaning of “thinking” and “considering.” They denote mental activities, but they are verbs nonetheless.

Sometimes in this study, however, we look at the concept behind the verbs even though they do not appear in a passage of Scripture.

Another basic definition of the verbs is seen in a business context: credit, reckon, or calculate. However, the main uses are when people think or consider.

We will discover the two basic meanings (thinking and commercial crediting) as we go along.

Sources: TWOT 330; TDNT, vol. 4, 284.

Theological Meanings

The OT and NT put theological meanings to the verbs.

Reformed Theologian Charles Hodge writes about imputation:

In the juridical and theological sense of the word, to impute is to attribute anything to a person or persons, upon adequate grounds, as the judicial or meritorious reason of reward or punishment, i.e., of the bestowment of good or the infliction of evil. … To impute is to reckon to, or to lay to one’s account. So far as the meaning of the word is concerned, it makes no difference whether the thing imputed be sin or righteousness; whether it is our own personally, or the sin or righteousness of another. (Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 2, 194, Logos Research Systems, orig. pub. 1871-73)

So according to Hodge God can lay or charge or reckon to our account either righteousness or sin. God’s thought makes it so. He is the ultimate arbiter of the universe, and he controls spiritual reality as well. So when he imputes Christ’s righteousness to us, for example, it belongs to us.

A more succinct definition (and I believe a better one), with two examples, is offered by Wayne Grudem.

To impute is:

To think of as belonging to someone, and therefore to cause it to belong to that person. God “thinks of” Adam’s sin as belonging to us, and it therefore belongs to us, and in justification he thinks of Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us and so relates to us on this basis (Systematic Theology, 1244, Zondervan, 1994)

As noted, when God thinks of us as righteous in Christ, his righteousness belongs to us, in his sight. Therefore, what God thinks matters, as the Biblical texts affirm (see below). Our personal feelings of righteousness one day and unrighteousness the next do not matter. And that is a blessing to us because everything flows from God through Christ; everything is based on them, not us. Now we are secure in our salvation.

When God thinks or imputes something, then that matters in his sight (Rom. 2:13; Rom. 3:20; Rom. 4:17; 1 Cor. 1:29).

8 ”For my thoughts are not your thoughts … 9 As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Is. 55:8-9)

Let’s look at some Biblical passages to see how the Hebrew and Greek verbs are used in various contexts.

The Old Testament

The NT is rooted in the OT and grows organically out of it. However, the New Covenant often redefines or recasts the concepts, so we must be judicious in how we use the OT.

1. God Honors Faith: Genesis 15:6

God called Abram (his name will be changed later to Abraham in Gen. 17:5), out of the blue, so to speak (Gen. 12:1-3). He required him to leave his family behind and go to a land the Lord would show him, which turned out to be Canaan (Gen. 13:14-17). Then God makes a covenant of promise to childless Abram. God will grant him a son (Gen 15:1-5). Abram simply believed God and then a blessing ensued.

6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. (Gen. 15:6)

God honors faith. Abram did not have to work to get this righteousness. God thought of Abraham as righteous, and it was so. This credit to his account took place before his circumcision (Gen. 17:9-14, Gen. 17:23-27). This gift was bestowed on him 400+ years before the law of Moses was thundered from on high on Mt. Sinai. In fact he had misled the Pharaoh earlier, which broke the moral law (Gen. 12:10-20). “Misled” is a euphemism for “lied.” And after that, he did not learn his lesson, for he “misled” Abimelek, the king of Gerar, and told him that Sarah was his sister (Gen. 20), which was partly true (Gen. 20:12). Nonetheless, Abraham passed the most difficult test of his life, (nearly) sacrificing his son Isaac (Gen. 22).

Therefore this gift of righteousness was not based on his own character or inner righteousness or the good or bad that he did. It was based on faith and God’s grace in granting his righteousness.

All of this agrees with Paul’s basic theology. God credits us with righteousness, even though we may not feel righteous. Nonetheless, he imputes it to us by faith alone, regarding it as ours, and therefore it is (Rom. 3:21-26; Rom. 4:1-25). God thinks of us as righteous in Christ, and therefore this righteousness belongs to us. We are righteous in his sight.

It is God’s sight that matters most.

2. Foreigners: Genesis 31:14-15

Jacob was a trickster, but his father-in-law Laban was more than a match for him. But God blessed Jacob with prosperity to make up for the conniving of Laban. Finally, the Lord called Jacob to return to his homeland, and his two wives were glad to go, for their father had manipulated them as well.

14 Then Rachel and Leah replied, “Do we still have any share in the inheritance of our father’s estate? 15 Does he not regard us as foreigners? Not only has he sold us, but he has used up what was paid for us. (Gen. 31:14-15)

Rachel and Leah really were Laban’s daughters, but he regarded them as foreigners by his behavior towards them. So in his sight it is as if they were foreigners, even though they never went through an inner transformation or a legal proceeding to be disowned. Laban thought of them as foreign, and so they were in his sight.

3. No Credit Accepted: Leviticus 7:18

In the context of the fellowship or peace offering, one must eat the meat on the first or second day; otherwise, the offering will not be credited to the person.

18 If any meat of the fellowship offering is eaten on the third day, it will not be accepted. It will not be credited to the one who offered it, for it is impure; the person who eats any of it will be held responsible. (Lev. 7:18)

So God did not count or impute or think that the benefit that accrued from the offering belonged to the person who offered it. And so it was, in his sight or opinion.

4. Carrying by Imputing. Wait. What? Leviticus 16:22

On the day of atonement, Aaron (or the high priest) is to keep one goat alive, lay hands on it, confess all the sins of Israel, put their sins on it, and send it into the wilderness under the supervision of someone appointed to the task. Since the goat was leaving or “escaping” from the people, it was called the scapegoat.

22 The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a solitary place. (Lev. 16:22)

The verb “carry” (nāśā’) in Hebrew is not the typical verb for “impute,” but the concept is the same in this context. The goat did not commit the sins of the people. It was not a moral sinner by inner transformation. How could it be? Yet God thinks of the goat as carrying their sins, and therefore it does. Thus, the sins belong to the goat by imputation or reckoning, from God’s point of view.

This “carrying” or “bearing” is exactly what Jesus did. The same verb nāśā’ is in italics font:

4 Surely he took up our infirmities … (Is. 53:4)

12 For he bore the sin of many … (Is. 53:12; 1 Peter 2:24)

Jesus did not actually commit our sins, and he did not actually have our infirmities. He had none at all. He was not a moral sinner by inner transformation or by being infused with a sin nature. While on the cross, he did not get the flu or cancer. Yet he carries and takes up our sin and infirmity. How? Because God thinks of Jesus as carrying and taking them up them and therefore he does in God’s sight or opinion. Thus Jesus carries or bears them only by imputation or reckoning.

5. Considered Guilty: Leviticus 17:4

The ancient Israelites were forbidden to religiously sacrifice an animal in private because they might follow after the gods of the Canaanites in their pagan rituals and thus get corrupted (which eventually happened for many). Instead, the people of God were required to sacrifice at the tent of meeting, where they could be supervised by the priest.

3 Any Israelite who sacrifices an ox, a lamb or a goat in the camp or outside of it 4 instead of bringing it to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting to present it as an offering to the Lord in front of the tabernacle of the Lord—that man shall be considered guilty of bloodshed; he has shed blood and must be cut off from his people. (Lev. 17:3-4)

If the Israelite does not obey the command, he is considered or counted or charged with shedding the blood of a human, even though the disobedient Israelite actually did not shed human blood. Nonetheless, bloodguilt was imputed or charged to him because God thought as much, and therefore the bloodguilt belonged to the disobedient Israelite in God’s sight or opinion. The Israelite was therefore to be cut off from the people.

6. What’s Yours Is Mine: Numbers 18:20, 25-27, 31

This illustration is physical (grain and wine), so we should not take it too far. But it does yield some interesting insights.

The priests and Levites were not to have the share of the land; that is, they were not farmers.

20 The Lord said to Aaron, “You will have no inheritance in their land, nor will you have any share among them; I am your share and your inheritance among the Israelites. (Num. 18:20)

They were not to sow the crops or plant the vineyards; they were not to harvest the grain or pick the grapes from the vine. They were not to thresh the grains or press the grapes into wine. Instead, their sustenance was to come from the offerings that the Israelites gave them.

However, when the crops were offered to the priests and Levites, they were to give a tenth as the Lord’s offering. That tenth was then to be credited or counted or reckoned to them as grains from the threshing floor and juice from the winepress.

25 The Lord said to Moses, 26 “Speak to the Levites and say to them: ‘When you receive from the Israelites the tithe I give you as your inheritance, you must present a tenth of that tithe as the Lord’s offering. 27 Your offering will be reckoned to you as grain from the threshing floor or juice from the winepress. … 30 “Say to the Levites: ‘When you present the best part, it will be reckoned to you as the product of the threshing floor or the winepress.” (Num. 18:25-27, Num. 18:30)

Thus, this context is a business calculation. The priests and Levites get credit for the grain and juice. This reckoning or imputation does not come from any practical act that the priests and Levites did. They did not actually thresh the grains or press the grapes into juice. But the fruit of the land is counted or imputed as theirs, “as the product of the threshing floor or the winepress.”

But let’s not overlook the basic meaning of thinking, either. In God’s mind the work it took to get the finished product and the product itself (threshed grain and pressed juice) are considered as belonging to the priests and Levites, and therefore the labor and finished product do belong to them. They present it as an offering to God. But this physical example should not be taken too far.

7. Counted Forgiven: Psalm 32:1-2

David had a sense of sin, but he said it was blessed when anyone was forgiven.

1 Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 2 Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him. (Ps. 32:1-2)

The sin and transgression are not counted or imputed or charged against the person; therefore, forgiveness belongs to him. God thinks of us as forgiven as well. He imputes forgiveness to us through Christ, and therefore it belongs to us. But David kept on sinning in his life, and so do we. But he was forgiven, and so are we.

8. Sheepish Qualities: Psalm 44:22

This is another physical illustration that we should not take too far. Believers are considered as sheep.

22 Yet for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. (Ps. 44:22)

Believers are not real sheep. They have not been transformed into sheep or infused with the entire nature of sheep. They do not have to live like them or do their “work,” like giving wool or milk. They don’t have to bleat like sheep either.

Rather, they are counted or reckoned or considered as sheep. This is done by imputation both in God’s sight or way of thinking, and in the sight of humans who watch God’s people go through extreme difficulties (see Acts 8:32 and Rom. 8:36).

9. Feel the Zeal: Psalm 106:28-31

These verses credit righteousness by a zealous act – or so it seems at first glance. So we need to spend more time here, since it is appears to be at odds with Gen. 15:6 and Paul’s theology in Romans. But is it really?

Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, intervened to stop God’s plague of judgment against sinful Israel that had followed another god.

28 They yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor and ate sacrifices offered to lifeless gods; 29 they provoked the Lord to anger by their wicked deeds, and a plague broke out among them. 30 But Phinehas stood up and intervened, and the plague was checked. 31 This was credited to him as righteousness for endless generations to come. (Ps. 106:28-31)

Verse 31 is the same language used of Abraham in Gen. 15:6, which says Abram’s faith was credited as righteousness. Is there a contradiction?

Background

In the original context, the children of Israel yoked themselves to the god Baal (Num. 25). An Israelite man brought a Midianite woman before the tent of meeting and began “weeping” before it. One scholar suggests the word “weeping” is a euphemism for committing some kind of sexual act.

He writes:

It seems likely to me, however, that the subject of the verb “weeping” is not Moses and the congregation but the sinning Israelite and his Midianite partner. The focus of action in the verse is on them, not Moses. What they did was before Moses, in his presence – under his nose! And what they did was to engage in a sexual embrace in the manner of Baal worship – right at the entrance of the holy Tent of God! (Ronald B. Allen, Numbers, Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 2, 919, Zondervan, 1990)

He explains the reason for the euphemism:

The scribes, I suggest, have made a deliberate substitution of an opposite word, “weeping,” to connote “caressing,” an unusual form of euphemism to stress the heightened enormity of this act. They are not weeping; they are laughing – that is, engaged in delirious love-making (cf. Gen 26:8; Exod 32:6). Just as to say “curse God” is for the godly scribe too much; so “bless God” is stated when “curse God” is intended (see 1 Kings 21:10, 13; Job 1:5, 11; 2:5, 9; Ps 10:3); here, to “cry” in the sacred precincts (as in a cry of remorse) is used to present the antithetical meaning, “to laugh in sexual pleasure” – at the opening of the sacred tent. (ibid.)

He describes the monstrosity of the act:

The audacious action of this Israelite man is unparalleled and totally unexpected. The contempt for the holy things and the word of the Lord shown by Zimri and his Midianite lover, Cozbi (v.15), is unimaginable. This is a climax to the first section of the Book of Numbers; here is Israel at her very worst. This provides an unhappy justification for the ways of the Lord; it also provides a theodicy of his judgment of the entire first generation. (ibid)

In the Old Covenant, a blasphemer had to die (Lev. 24:10-23). The scholar again explains why the ancients used a euphemism or hid the meaning in code for some enormities.

The man is a blasphemer in the strongest sense. His sin is a deliberate provocateur of the wrath of the Lord, flaunting and taunting holiness in an almost unbelievable crudity. The issue was so blatant, so outrageous, so unspeakable – I suggest – that the ancients had to hide the meaning somewhat in code words. Those who read the text today find between the words that stand (which are awful enough) something that is truly an outrage against Majesty that is nearly unbelievable. (ibid)

But this background does not explain how Phinehas’ zeal would be credited to him as righteousness. As noted, this is the same language used of Abram, whose faith, not zeal, was credited to him as righteousness. So now we turn to classical commentaries.

Classical Commentaries

The older commentators say Phinehas was already justified by faith first, so God, out of pure benevolence, imputes or counts or credits an act as righteousness.

John Calvin in his commentary on the Psalms writes about 106:31:

First of all, let us examine, whether or not Phinehas was justified on account of this deed alone, Verily, the law, though it could justify, by no means promises salvation to any one work, but makes justification to consist in the perfect observance of all the commandments. It remains, therefore, that we affirm that the work of Phinehas was imputed to him for righteousness, in the same way as God imputes the works of the faithful to them for righteousness, not in consequence of any intrinsic merit which they possess, but of his own free and unmerited grace. And as it thus appears that the perfect observance of the law alone (which is done nowhere) constitutes righteousness, all men must prostrate themselves with confusion of face before God’s judgment-seat. Besides, were our works strictly examined, they would be found to be mingled with much imperfection. We have, therefore, no other source than to flee for refuge to the free unmerited mercy of God. And not only do we receive righteousness by grace through faith, but as the moon borrows her light from the sun, so does the same faith render our works righteous, because our corruptions being mortified, they are reckoned to us for righteousness. In short, faith alone, and not human merit, procures both for persons and for works the character of righteousness. … (John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, trans. James Anderson, vol. 4, 232-33, Eerdmans, with minor mechanical adjustments)

What Calvin is doing here is interpreting the OT by the NT, a legitimate hermeneutical method. Phinehas had to have been already justified by faith alone, and that is his deepest source of righteousness.

Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown say another way of translating v. 31 is that Phinehas’ intervention was counted as a righteous act, which was rewarded with a perpetual priesthood.

That was counted to his credit as a righteous act, to be rewarded by God with His “covenant of peace … even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood because he was zealous for His God and made atonement for the children of Israel.” No act of man could be counted as righteousness, justifying him before God unto eternal life. Phinehas already was justified by faith. Now his good work obtains from God, who recompenses all men according to their works, a reward of grace viz., the continual priesthood, in contrast to the other descendants of Aaron, from whom it passed away (Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, A Commentary on the Old and New Testaments, vol. 3, 335, Eerdmans, orig. pub. 1871)

They add that “credited to him as righteousness” means “a just and rewardable action.” …

Here it was a particular act, not faith, nor its object Christ; and what was procured was not justifying righteousness, or what was to be rewarded with eternal life; for no one act of man’s can be taken for complete obedience. But it was that which God approved and rewarded with a perpetual priesthood to him and his descendants … (ibid, electronic version)

So Phinehas was already justified by faith, and his righteous act is rewarded through his descendants with a perpetual priesthood, not eternal life. And this reward was an act of grace from God.

Finally, these two classical commentators write that Phinehas already had constant faith and proved it with his work or action:

This accounting of a work for righteousness is only apparently contradictory to Gen. 15:5f.: it was indeed an act which sprang from a constancy in faith, and one which obtained for him the acceptation of a righteous man for the sake of this upon which it was based, by proving him to be such. (Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 5, 671, Hendrickson, orig. pub. 1866-91)

Those commentaries set up these elements in sequence:

(1) Phinehas already had saving faith – (2) his priesthood is by grace and election – (3) therefore he was already righteous – (4) his zeal again counts as righteousness or a righteous act – (5) he is rewarded with perpetual priesthood through his descendants

Phinehas had already received saving faith and right standing with God. His priesthood was an act of grace to begin with. He demonstrated his righteous standing with a zealous work, which counted as righteousness or a righteous act. His reward, also delivered by God’s grace, is an everlasting covenant of priesthood.

This sequence is no different from Paul’s doctrine that begins with saving faith. We are called by God’s grace to this saving faith through Christ (Rom. 3:21-26). This faith is credited to us for righteousness (Rom. 4). Then we demonstrate our salvation by behaving righteously (Rom. 6-7). We have the priestly duty to proclaim the gospel (Rom. 15:16).

However, there’s a simpler explanation to Phinehas’s action, and it’s found in Paul’s idea that the law brings wrath (Rom. 4:15). Phinehas was acting within that context. He was a priest after, all. He was expected to maintain the law. The law was given in Ex. 19, and only after that point in the Bible does God’s wrath increase exponentially. I mean exponentially.

Therefore we need to be careful about seeing justification within this legal, priestly context. Using Ps. 106:26-31 against justification is to be overly skeptical, using an exception to disprove the whole flow of Scripture. (There’s a whole Western epistemology, related to Descartes, behind this tactic, but that’s another topic entirely.)

See the Wrath of God in the Old Testament for more explanations and evidence.

The New Testament

We stay with Paul’s epistles, except one passage from James.

1. You Are Circumcised (whether you know it or not): Romans 2:26

This verse is conditional (if).

26 If those who are not circumcised keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? (Rom. 2:26)

Hypothetically, if someone could keep the law, then he would be regarded or considered or thought of as circumcised in God’s thoughts and sight, and circumcision would belong to the person’s heart, despite the outward appearance. It is those who are circumcised in the heart who belong to God, Paul goes on to say (Rom. 2:28-29; cf. Deut. 10:16; Deut. 30:6). Circumcision has been imputed to him by faith. He doesn’t need to be circumcised physically.

2. Abraham Again: Various Passages

A Free Gift

Paul uses logizomai three times in these verses, quoting Gen. 15:6 and using a business accounting image:

2 If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. 3 What does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” 4 Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. 5 However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. (Rom. 4:2-5)

We have already discussed Gen. 15:6, above. Now we can turn to the business metaphor.

When a man works at a company, the employer is required or obligated to pay him. That’s the law. It’s not a donation or gift. Then Paul switches up the metaphor in midstream and says when someone who does not work trusts God, his faith or trust is credited (donation) to him as righteousness (payment). If his boss were to credit or deposit money into a man’s account who is not working for him, that’s a gift. And that gift belongs to the man.

Apart from Works

In Paul’s days some Jews converted to Christ, just as he did. They looked around at the Gentile converts and concluded they needed to keep some portions of the law, particularly circumcision, which was the sign or seal of being part of the people of God in the Old Testament. However, Paul reasoned that Abraham was credited with righteousness by faith (Gen. 15:6) before circumcision was commanded (Gen. 17:9-14, Gen. 17:23-27). The fifteenth chapter of Genesis comes before the seventeenth chapter.

Paul writes:

9 Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. 10 Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! 11 And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. 12 And he is also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. (Rom. 4:9-12)

That is, righteousness by faith was imputed or credited before circumcision; therefore Gentiles did not have to be circumcised in order to be credited with righteousness. Abraham is the father both the circumcised who believe in Christ (Messianic Jews) and the uncircumcised who believe in Christ (Gentile Christians). They are one family (Rom. 9, Rom. 10, Rom. 11).

Promise and Resurrection

Paul observes from Genesis that Abraham’s and Sarah’s bodies were as good as dead, but God was able to work a miracle and energize their bodies, just as God raised Christ from the dead.

20 Yet he [Abraham] did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. 22 This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” 23 The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, 24 but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. (Rom. 4:20-25)

When we believe in Christ and his resurrection, we will have justification – a legal declaration that we are righteous. So now we have come to the climax of Paul’s thought about Abraham in Romans. When we have the faith of Abraham who believed God could work a miracle in his and Sarah’s dead bodies, and when we believe that God raised Christ from the dead, our faith is credited to us as righteousness and we are justified (declared legally righteous). God thinks of us as righteous, and therefore we are in his sight.

Who Are God’s Children?

Paul clarifies:

8 In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. (Rom. 9:8)

This reinforces the theme that Gentiles (and Jews) who have faith in Christ are counted or thought of or considered the children of God. Therefore that status belongs to them, from his point of view, even though Gentiles do not biologically descend from Abraham. They descend from him by faith and promise, fulfilled in Christ.

The Man of Faith

In this passage Paul puts a slightly different twist on the faith of Abraham.

6 Consider Abraham: “He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” 7 Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. 8 The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” [Gen. 12:3; Gen. 18:18; Gen. 22:18] 9 So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. (Gal. 3:6-9)

Isaac was the child of promise, and through this offspring of Abraham, all nations would be blessed. “Nations” speaks of Gentiles. When they have the same faith as Abraham’s, they too are included in the promise of righteousness or justification (legal declaration that we are righteous in Christ). The promised child and the subsequent blessing to the nations were all triggered by Abraham’s faith. “So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Gal. 3:9). To repeat, Gentiles are not biologically the offspring of Abraham, but are considered as having that status by imputation. God considers that they are Abraham’s offspring by their faith or believing in the promise of Christ.

Abraham’s Good Works

James takes the example of Abraham in a different direction.

20 You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? 21 Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. (Jas. 2:20-23)

Abraham (nearly) sacrificed Isaac (Gen. 22) long after God credited righteousness to him by faith (Gen 15). The fifteenth chapter of Genesis comes before the twenty-second chapter.

So this fits Paul’s distinctives. (1) God declare us righteous; that’s imputed righteousness. We receive it by faith, not by works. We don’t earn it by our own merits. (2) Then we walk in God’s imparted righteousness; that’s sanctification or God’s Spirit dealing with us and leading us to live a righteous life.

Imputed righteousness and imparted righteousness are worked out in love. Justification (a legal declaration that we are righteous) is by faith alone, not faith that is alone or by itself or solitary. Good works done for God come after justification by faith.

3. David Again: Romans 4:6-8

Paul quotes from Ps. 32:1-2:

6 David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:

7 ”Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 8 Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.” (Rom. 4:6-8)

God does not count or regard or impute or charge our sins against us; therefore his forgiveness belongs to us, all the days of our life, every moment, every second. Note that God credits righteousness (Rom. 4:6). Righteousness is the direct object of crediting. When God considers such a thing, it is a reality, not a fiction. We are righteous through God’s action of imputing his righteousness, not from our own righteousness. It’s a wonderful gift from God, not from ourselves.

4. First consider yourself dead to sin, and then live like it: Romans 6:8-14

The key verses are 11 and 14. We got to get the sequence down.

8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14 For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. (Rom. 6:8-14)

First, Christ conquered death by his resurrection (“raised from the dead”). Second, he also conquered sin (“He died to sin once for all”). Third, “he lives to God.”

Now Paul applies this to our life. First, we count or consider ourselves dead to sin. This is imputation. We are not actually sinless; we have not achieved moral perfection in our behavior. Second, we live in sanctification or practice holiness. “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body.” “Sin shall not be our master, because … we are under grace.”

But Christ’s victory over death is absolute, while our victory over sin is relative or partial (Rom. 7:7-25). So we must not stretch the comparison too far. Then what is Paul saying here?

Paul’s main point is that sin not mastering us is not the same as our actual moral perfection every minute of every day. Rather, sin not dominating us means we don’t have to allow its lordship over us. We have a new lord – the Lord.

But Paul’s big point: First imputation of righteousness (declared righteousness) and then impartation of righteousness (sanctification). That’s the proper sequence.

5. Sheep to Be Slaughtered: Romans 8:36

Paul quoted Ps. 44:22 (see above):

36 As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” (Rom. 8:36)

We are not actual or literal sheep, so this passage is metaphorical. We do not undergo an inner transformation to become sheep. We are considered or counted as being them while we are “slaughtered” by tough times and persecution, possibly leading to literal death.

6. Food for Thought: Romans 14:14

In the context of food, Paul writes:

14 As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. (Rom 14:14)

This is a clear verse about logizomai and imputing. We are so free in Christ, and we have so much of his authority in him that our thoughts can determine the uncleanness of food, and for us it is so. This quality of uncleanness belongs to the food in an imputed sense according to the point of view of the person who imputes. But food is actually morally neutral in its physical makeup: “No food is unclean in itself” (food is a pile of chemicals and cells). It does not go through an inner moral transformation that renders it unclean in itself.

The best illustration of kosher food laws that change is found in Acts 10:9-23, especially Acts 10:15, though logizomai isn’t used. God simply declared unkosher foods kosher. The food did not undergo an inner, chemical transformation. (See Mark 7:19.)

7. Can God Count? 2 Corinthians 5:18-19

God reconciles the world to himself.

18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. (2 Cor. 5:18-19)

These verses are very much like Ps. 32:1-2 and Paul’s quotation of them in Rom. 4:6-8. As noted, God was not counting or reckoning or regarding people’s sins against them in Ps. 32:1-2. Therefore, reconciliation and forgiveness belong to them. The same is true in 2 Cor. 5:18-19. So God can count, but sometimes he judicially chooses not to do so (see point no. 11, below).

8. Desertion and Forgiveness: 2 Timothy 4:16

Paul’s friends deserted him during his first trial.

16 At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. (2 Tim. 4:16)

Paul asks God not to count, charge, impute or consider his friends’ desertion and hold it against them. This is like David’s thought about God’s forgiveness. Blessed is the man when God does not count his sin and transgression against him (Ps. 32:1-2). Paul also expressed forgiveness. As it turns out, his friends joined him later (vv. 9-11). Forgiveness often brings restoration.

9. Send Me the Bill: Philemon 1:18-19

In this passage a cognate verb of logizomai is used: ellogaô (note the log- stem), but it still conveys the same concept.

Philemon was a slave owner, and Onesimus was his runaway slave who possibly stole something. However, he ran away into the arms of Jesus. That is, Paul preached the gospel to Onesimus, and he got saved. Paul says to Philemon that if Onesimus has done anything wrong, then Philemon should charge (ellogaô) it to Paul.

18 If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. 19 I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back—not to mention that you owe me your very self. (Phm. 1:18-19)

This is clearly a business context. Paul says to send him the bill or put it on his account. Then he will pay it back – except he reminds Philemon that he owes Paul his life, meaning Philemon also got saved under Paul’s ministry. So he implies the account is now even. Paul uses the spiritual to balance out the material. Think of us as even, and it is so – by calculation.

10. Counted Guilty: Romans 5:13-14

Now we get into complications. Theologians teach that we inherit a corrupt nature from Adam’s sin at the Fall. We don’t need to get into the details of the various theories: Realism (in the first sin man became corrupt and guilty, and this was transmitted to Adam’s descendants; humans co-sinned with Adam); federalism (Adam acted as the representative of all humanity, so his guilt was imputed to humanity); corporate personality (God see humanity as a collective in solidarity, so Adam’s sin was imputed) on that basis.

Instead of deciding on any of those theories or a middle position, which theologians have not settled, we look at the verb used in one passage.

Once again ellogeô is used, conveying the same idea as logizomai (note the same log- stem)

13 For before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come. (Rom. 5:13-14)

Sin is not taken into account (as an infraction of the law) where there is no law. In the logic of those two verses, the sin of Adam brought death, and people died, even though humans did not break a specific command as Adam did. Those two verses imply that God thinks of Adam’s sin and guilt as belonging to his descendants, including us, and therefore they do.

Some argue that the parallel between Adam’s sin and Christ’s righteousness, which we discuss next, is not exact. The imputation of Adam’s sin to us is personal and inherent, while the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us is a legal (forensic) status.

We should leave it at this: Adam’s sin and guilt is imputed to us (the scope of this study, but only in one Greek word, ellogeô). And they are passed on to us inherently and personally (beyond the scope of this study). Theologians get this latter idea throughout Rom. 5, not just the one Greek verb.

Now we can focus on the good news. Best of all, we get his righteousness in exchange – the next point.

11. The Blessed, Divine Exchange (what’s his is ours and what ours is his): Romans 4:6 and 2 Corinthians 5:21

Our sins and guilt were imputed to Christ, and that’s good news in itself. However, we need something more. We need God’s gift of righteousness. But how do we get it? Do we work for it? We could never measure up to God’s infinite holiness. We sin daily. So how then do we get it? It’s out of our price range. We can’t afford it.

The greatest news of all is that God imputes Christ’s righteousness to us. Christ – the sinless one – obeyed the law and so he accrued or compiled all the merits we will ever need. He took the penalty of our law breaking on himself, and he fulfilled the positive demands of the law that we could not do.

We also get his righteousness as his gift to us.

New Legal Credit Rating

We already saw that Abraham believed God, and Abraham’s faith was credited to him for righteousness. If it’s good enough for him in the OT; it’s certainly good enough for us in the NT.

Paul also says God credits righteousness to us.

6 David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works ... (Rom. 4:6)

Righteousness is the direct object of the crediting or imputing. God thinks of this righteousness as ours, and therefore it belongs to us in his sight or opinion. It is a legal status, declared and bestowed by God, coming out of his heavenly courtroom.

New Legal Status

In the next verse we see a perfect description of imputation and the Blessed, Divine Exchange.

21 God made him [Christ] who had no sin [to be] sin for us, so that in him [Christ] we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor. 5:21)

Perhaps Paul had this verse in Deut. in mind:

25 And if we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness [Hebrew tsdaqah; LXX oddly translates it as eleêmosunê “mercy”] (Deut. 6:25, NASB).

Obedience to the law is the ancient Israelite’s righteousness. Not so for the believer in Christ, Paul would argue. Christ is our righteousness.

In any case, here’s the context of 2 Cor. 5:21:

God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. (v. 19)

The word logizomai in 2 Cor. 5:19 is translated as “counting” (see point no. 7, above). God does not think or reckon or consider that those who are being reconciled to him should be held accountable to sin, since the believer is a new creation (v. 17) and because of what is said in v. 21.

Because imputation was on Paul’s mind, 2 Cor. 5:21 says Christ did not know sin, but God made him sin, a noun, not a verb (“to be” is not in Greek). This “making” can only be done by imputation.

The second word “sin” in v. 21 could be translated – so some scholars argue – as “sin offering,” which is described in detail in Lev. 4 and Lev. 6:24-30. The animal’s carrying people’s sins was done only by imputation because it cannot rightly be said that the animal sinned morally as humans do. And how is imputation done? God thinks of the animal as carrying the sins of the people, and it is so, in God’s sight or from his point of view (cf. Lev. 16:21-22).

In a similar way, Christ is our sin offering. Just as the sins of the people were imputed to the sacrificial animal, so our sins are imputed to Christ. But it cannot be said that Christ is literally a moral sinner. So, again, how is this “making” done? Only by imputation, for Christ is not transformed inwardly by sin or infused with sin. Rather, God imputes sin to him, and so this status belongs to him, but this new status is alien or foreign to him. It comes from the outside by imputation. It is legal or forensic, emerging out of God’s heavenly courtroom.

In a parallel way, God’s righteousness comes from the outside of us. It is alien or foreign to us. It is God’s righteousness in Christ, and God imputes it to us, and therefore it belongs to us. It becomes ours, in God’s sight. And to keep the parallel to Christ and sin in the first half of the verse, God’s righteousness is not a transformation of us or an infusion into us. It is a status or position by imputation. It is legal or forensic, emerging out of God’s heavenly courtroom.

Conclusion

Imputation is an important doctrine in the Bible. By it God considers or regards something physical – humans, animals, grain and so on – as having a different or new status.

For example, God thinks of animals as carrying the sins of people, and therefore they do – by imputation. God considers Christ as carrying our sins, and therefore he does – by imputation. God thinks of Adam’s sin as belonging us, and it does – by imputation. God accepts or rejects certain offerings because he regards them as acceptable or not – by imputation. God imputes righteousness to Abraham by his faith. God imputes righteousness to us.

All of this is done in the sight or opinion of God. It is not necessary that the object or human go through an inner moral transformation. Specifically, the animals that carry the sins of the ancient people do not have to become inwardly and morally sinful. How could an animal be sinful in the way humans are? Rather, animals have the status of bearing humans’ sins. God considers the animals as doing this, and therefore it is so. People’s sins now belong to the animals – by imputation. When Christ took on the sins of the world, he did not go through an immoral inner transformation, and sin was not infused into him. He took on the sins by imputation.

Humans can impute as well. Laban considered his daughters as though they were foreigners (but they really were not). Humans regard some foods as clean or unclean, even though the food does not go through an inner moral transformation; it is not subjectively changed. Food in itself is neutral, but its status changes when humans regard it as clean or unclean.

The reason for this mystery of a changed status by imputation finds its roots in the Hebrew verb ḥāšab and the Greek verb logizomai; both have the basic meaning of “thinking” and “considering.” They express mental activities. When God considers something as having a status, then in his sight it has that status. If God considers us as righteous, then we have the legal status of righteousness, even though we may not feel righteous from one day to the next.

8 ”For my thoughts are not your thoughts … 9 As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Is. 55:8-9)

We now turn to Paul’s theology.

Someone had to pay for our sins. Either we do it or someone else does. If we pay for our own sins, we won’t survive God’s judgment, for he is infinitely holy. Paying for our own sins is out of our price range. We can’t afford it. Therefore, for the same reason, someone else who does it cannot be just any person, like your wife or brother. He has to be God’s best. He has to be divine. He has to be from heaven. Most of all, he cannot be part of God’s created order or universe. He cannot be created, for creation suffers from decay and groans (Rom. 8:21-22). Only one person fits that description: Jesus Christ, the Son of God and God the Son.

The deepest part of our sin problem originates long before we were born. Humans die, and death is the result or wage of sin. Why are we born to die? When God imputes Adam’s sin and guilt to us, God considers it as belonging to us, and so it does, even though we did not sin in the specific way Adam did.

But the good news of a solution: when God imputes Christ’s righteousness to us, God considers it as belonging to us and so it does, even though we have not done any works of righteousness in ourselves that merit or earn God’s free and loving gift of righteousness. It is our new legal status before God, bestowed by him. It was declared in God’s heavenly courtroom.

God’s declaring us righteous, and his imputing righteousness to us does not depend on our inner moral transformation; it depends on him and his opinion. And his thinking or imputing depends on his grace and love for his Son. It would be inconsistent for God to send his Son as an atoning sacrifice and then withdraw its reality. God is perfectly consistent. Therefore the efficacy (getting the job done) of Christ’s death is like unshakeable bedrock. Now we are secure because we don’t depend on our own faith, which sometimes can become a new kind of work.

While it is true that my faith wavers and fluctuates, God’s gift does not. Once we exercise this saving faith, which was energized by the Spirit in the first place, God imputes or credits his righteousness to us as a free and once-and-for-all gift. So now it is not sustained by my faith, which might be weak one day or strong the next. Rather, it is sustained by God’s grace and love – for his Son first and then for us. Therefore we are secure in our walk with him.

God is a living person, not an abstract principle. He will help us stand in faith, as he sees us through the atoning work of his Son, a work that God initiated before the beginning of time. So it does not depend on the man who runs or the man who wills, but on God who has mercy (Rom. 9:16).

That’s God’s radical love and grace. And that’s the good news of the Gospel. By it the church stands or falls – and stand she will, if she remains in God’s grace alone apart from works.

At this website that is all about God’s love and grace, I need to deal with the law of God in Paul’s letters. If I don’t, some readers may accuse me (wrongly) of not understanding the law.

This study, I hope, will help me better understand the law, as opposed to grace.

My method was simple enough. I looked up the major passages where law, nomos, appears and quoted them, but I also look at gramma, which means written code or letter (of the law), entolê, commandment, and graphō or “it is written” (= Scripture in many contexts).

Most of the verses refer to the Law of Moses. Then I saw the patterns or categories that come up again and again. I trust I got them right, though some may quibble here and there about them.

For whatever purpose Paul uses the law, he surely does not put the New Covenant people of God under the Old Covenant. In the Old Covenant, the law was inseparably linked to the covenant. It is true that people had a relationship with God by his grace, but they had to know how that worked out in daily life. This is when the Law of Moses comes in. People were righteous when they kept the law, unrighteous when they did not. They maintained their grace and relationship when they obeyed the old Law of Moses and were circumcised as a sign of the covenant..

In the New Covenant, Paul’s ultimate goal and the very best for his fellow believers is to walk in the Spirit. He delinks the old Law of Moses from the New. And he certainly put broad daylight between life in the Spirit and circumcision. If all of that is antinomianism (underemphasizing the law; the –nom- root means law), then that’s a term with more than one definition, depending on who’s throwing it around. Maybe the critics of Paul’s radical grace and Spirit-filled living are hypernomians – they overemphasize and misuse the law.

Let’s get started to see what the delinking and the New Covenant looks like.

If you would like to see the verses in various translations, you may go to Lumina.Bible.org and type in the references.

Passages and Categories of the Law

1. The law is holy, righteous, good, and spiritual and is upheld.

Rom. 3:31

Comment: the law is upheld because of nos. 4 and 5, below.

Rom. 7:12

Rom. 7:14, Rom. 7:16

Rom. 8:4

1 Tim. 1:8

2. The Gentiles without the Law of Moses have natural law written on their hearts.

Rom. 2:12, Rom. 2:14-15

3. The Law of Moses subjects Jews to strict requirements and judgment.

Rom. 2:12-13

Rom. 2:17-24

Rom. 9:31

4. The law restrains societal sin

1 Tim. 1:9-10

5. However, the law increases or heightens sin and brings wrath.

Rom 3:19-20

Rom. 4:15 (See the Wrath of God in the OT.)

Rom. 5:13-14

Rom. 5:20

Rom. 7:5

Rom. 7:7-11

Rom. 7:21-25

Rom. 8:1-2

Rom. 8:7

1 Cor. 15:56

Gal. 3:19, Gal. 3:22-25

6. We are released from the law because we died to the law.

Rom. 7:1-6

Gal. 2:19-21

7. Circumcision, a ritual under the law, is useless without keeping the law.

Rom. 2:25-29

Rom. 4:10-12

1 Cor. 7:19

Gal. 5:1-6

Gal. 6:13-15

8. Righteousness and justification come apart from the law, and by faith in Christ and by God’s grace, for Jew and Gentile.

Rom 3:20

Gal 2:16

Rom. 3:21-22

Rom. 4:13-15

Rom 3:27-29

Rom. 6:14

Rom. 6:15

Gal. 2:14-16

Gal. 3:6-12

Gal. 3:15-18

Rom. 4:16

Eph. 2:11-18

Php. 3:9

9. The “law” of the Spirit and Christ is contrasted with the old law.

Rom. 7:6

Rom. 10:4-10

1 Cor. 9:21

2 Cor. 3:2-18

Gal. 3:2-5

Gal. 3:13-14

Gal. 4:21-23

Gal. 4:21-27

Gal. 5:16-18

Gal. 5:22-23

Gal. 6:13-15

Gal. 6:2

Php. 3:5-8

10. Christ redeemed us from the law and its curse.

Gal. 3:13-14

Gal. 4:4-5

11. Christ is the end or culmination of the law for everyone who believes.

Rom. 10:4

Gal. 4:3-11

Eph. 2:13-15

Col. 2:8-23

12. Paul uses the law to win those under the law.

1 Cor. 9:20-21

13. Christian love fulfills the law.

Rom. 13:8-10

Gal. 5:14

14. Paul uses the law as a source of wisdom and to clarify church issues and confusion.

1 Cor. 9:8-10

1 Cor. 10:1-11

1 Cor. 14:21-22

1 Cor. 14:33-35

Eph. 6:2-3

1 Tim. 1:9, 1 Tim. 1:11

15. The law serves to teach the church who lives in the New Covenant.

Rom. 15:4

1 Cor. 10:11

16. The law refers to Scripture as such.

Rom. 3:21

1 Cor. 14:21-22

Summary

In most of these passages the law is the Law of Moses. It is contrasted with faith and the Spirit. We receive a certain glory by the law, but we go from glory to glory in the Spirit who gives liberty and freedom. He is Liberty and Freedom. The old law, on the other hand, restricts the follower to his own efforts. He focuses on his obedience. The law demands; the Spirit supplies. Therefore, for whatever purpose Paul uses the law (see below), he never puts the New Covenant people of God under the Old Covenant.

The “law” of the Spirit and of Christ is another species; no, it’s another genus, a different kind. Paul is not exactly using irony, but we could put the word in quotation marks (“law”) in these verses: Rom. 8:2; 1 Cor. 9:21; Gal. 6:2, for he is transforming the word law to mean a new kind of life of obedience that comes from the Spirit living in us daily and powerfully. Holiness does not come from kosher food laws and animal sacrifices and circumcision and following the Holiness Code in Leviticus, but from following the Holy Spirit by faith.

Nonetheless, the old law is holy and good (no. 6) and serves three major purposes:

1. The law shows our sin and our need for Christ and for the gospel of grace (nos. 2, 4, 7, and 9);

2. It restrains societal sin (nos. 1 and 5);

3. It offers wisdom and clarifies the will of God for Christians or church issues (nos. 13, 14, and 15).

So the Reformers were right about those three purposes.

But the law has other functions too, some of which we are free from.

Circumcision is useless if one does not keep the whole law, which no one can do. It is not the sign of the New Covenant (no. 3).

We are released from the law as we follow the Spirit (no. 8).

Christ redeems us from the law and its curse (no. 10). He is the end or culmination of the law. He fulfills it, as does love.

Paul uses the law to win those under the law, so this purpose is outreach, not church governance or policy (no. 12).

One minor purpose is that the law can refer to all of Scripture (no. 16).

Paul does not bring back the sacrificial system and other the ritual aspects. Christ fulfilled them by his death on the cross. And Paul does not re-institute the death penalty for sins like adultery and homosexuality. Christ took these sins and their penalty on himself while he was on the cross.

Walking in God’s love and grace and in the Spirit takes priority over the law.

16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. … 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. (Gal. 5:16-18, Gal. 5:22-25)

I omitted the verses about works of the flesh because Paul’s emphasis is about life in the Spirit. However, people don’t always walk in the Spirit or his love. In that case, the law can offer wisdom, as long as we don’t use it to impose on them the old and obsolete covenant that forms the foundation of the law.

See the companion article The Old Testament in Paul. See also the OT in Romans.