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2. Basic Facts On Producing New Testament Manuscripts

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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.

4. The Manuscripts Tell The Story: The New Testament Is Reliable

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This article, the fourth in a four-part series, has a focused goal. It provides evidence from the best New Testament textual critics that it is possible to reach back, as much as humanly possible, to the original (autograph) books and letters of the New Testament, though the originals no longer exist. And there are no originals of any classical text that has survived the ancient Greco-Roman world.

As noted in the previous parts, the entire series assumes the basic Christian doctrine of inspiration. The original authors of the New Testament were inspired. Their writings 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, Question One). 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.

When we hold in our hands the New Testament, we hold the Word of God, an accurate, reliable, and faithful record of the words and ideas of the original authors, as inspired by God.

A few New Testament textual critics, such as Bart D. Ehrman, who have frequent access to the national media, assert or imply that the New Testament has undergone such a degree of prejudicial corruption that its message and theology is shaky and biased. No one can be sure of its original doctrines, such as the deity of Christ.

However, many world-class textual critics disagree with him if not directly, then indirectly. So this article has the second goal of providing web readers with information that balances out hyper-skepticism employed by some scholars.

Three main facts give these reasonable textual critics their confidence.

First, we have a vast number of manuscripts. How is this an advantage? “The plethora of New Testament manuscripts is a great benefit when trying to determine the original reading of the New Testament, for it is easier to sift through and evaluate the various extant [existing and known] readings than to emend [correct] texts with no evidence” (Wegner, A Student’s Guide, p. 41)

Second, the New Testament has many, many more manuscripts backing it up than do classical texts, such as those written by Herodotus, Thucydides, Julius Caesar, Tacitus, and Livy. Moreover, the interval of time between the originals and the earliest copies is much shorter for the New Testament than for those classical texts, often by hundreds, even a thousand years.

The textual critics draw the right conclusion from this second fact: if scholars accept the classical texts as accurate, then why not accept the New Testament as accurate?

Third, the scribal variants do not overturn any doctrine. Where one word or clause in a verse may be scrutinized to determine the best reading among many variants, the entire sweep of the New Testament assures us that these doctrines stand on bedrock.

The textual critics about to be quoted repeat these three points in one way or another. It is time to bring their views into focus in one article for web readers.

Westcott and Hort

In 1881 B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort produced a Greek New Testament from New Testament manuscripts. Their version is a landmark in textual criticism, though they did not have the advantage of the papyrus discoveries in the twentieth century. Before they analyzed the variant readings (differences in manuscripts), they wrote a brief chapter at the very beginning of their two-volume work. The manuscript differences are only a small fraction of all of the words in the New Testament. After following principles of correcting the variants, and setting aside the differences in spelling, they write:

The words in our opinion still subject to doubt only make up about one sixtieth of the whole New Testament (The New Testament in the Original Greek, Macmillan, 1881, vol. 1, p. 2).

But then they break down the variants even further, to one thousandth of the entire text:

The amount of what can in any sense be called substantial variation, is but a small fraction of the whole residuary variation, and can hardly form more than a thousandth part of the entire text [of the New Testament]. (vol. 1, p. 2)

Westcott and Hort explain their purpose of writing their three-page first chapter. The vast majority of the New Testament is in no need of discussion or correction.

We desire to make it clearly understood beforehand how much of the New Testament stands in no need of a textual critic’s labors. (vol. 1 p. 3)

Westcott and Hort explain the large goal of textual critics: To recover an exact copy of the original. Specifically, textual criticism’s progress consists in:

Recovering an exact copy of what was actually written on parchment or papyrus by the author of the book or amanuensis [scribe] (vol. 1, p. 3)

Finally, has the New Testament been restored, in their view, after their hard labor? What about all of the manuscripts? Classical ancient texts, such as Herodotus, Thucydides and Roman authors, seem to be restored easily and accepted as such without doubt. How does the New Testament measure up to them? Westcott and Hort write in volume two, at the end of their labors:

The apparent ease and simplicity with which many ancient texts are edited might be thought, on a hasty view, to imply that the New Testament cannot be restored with equal security. But this ease and simplicity is in fact the mark of evidence too scanty to be tested; whereas in the variety and fullness of the evidence on which it rests, the text of the New Testament stands absolutely and unapproachably alone among ancient prose writing (vol. 2, p. 561)

Westcott and Hort say here what other textual critics repeat again and again, as we will see in this article. Classical texts are accepted as genuine after they have gone through an editing process of purging out errors, but these texts have much fewer manuscripts behind them. On the other hand, the New Testament has far more manuscripts behind it, which works to its advantage. The more manuscripts, the better, because they can be cross-checked with others. (The problem emerges when there are only a few manuscripts.) Therefore, the New Testament should also be accepted as genuine and restored, even more so than classical texts.

Sir Frederick Kenyon

Sir Frederick Kenyon (d. 1952), a premier New Testament textual critic of the first half of the twentieth century, is optimistic about the general result of all of the hard work done by many scholars.

It is reassuring at the end to find that the general result of all these discoveries and all this study is to strengthen the proof of the authenticity of the Scriptures, and our conviction that we have in our hands, in substantial integrity, the veritable Word of God (qtd. in Paul D. Wegner, Textual Criticism of the Bible, p. 25).

After Kenyon labored, other manuscripts have been found since his time. However, nothing has cropped up that challenges in a substantive way the meaning and content of the New Testament. “Still there are relatively few significant variants in the Bible, and among these variants there is very little difference in meaning and content” (Wegner, p. 25).

Jack Finegan

Jack Finegan is Professor Emeritus (retired) of New Testament and Archeology at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. This is not a conservative institution. He wrote Encountering New Testament Manuscripts (Eerdmans, 1974). He opines that the work of the copyists or scribes was careful on the whole:

The work of the copyists of the NT [New Testament] was, on the whole, done with great care and fidelity. (p. 55)

The differences in the huge number of New Testament manuscripts can be overcome, and the writings and intentions of the original authors can be reached.

It is obviously desirable to try to discern among the variant reading that which is most probably the closest possible to what was written originally and what was intended by the original authors (p. 55)

Finally, Finegan sums up his study of the rigorous methods that must be followed (though not mechanically) to get back to the originals, as far as this is possible. Indeed, this has been the purpose of his entire book.

Indeed the entire book is intended to provide background for reading with understanding the texts that lie before us and for finding our way in them as far as possible toward the original word. (p. 187)

Note how he uses the singular word at the end. Textual critics quibble over the right word—and, yes, a phrase or clause—but they do not overturn basic Christian doctrine or the sweep of the entire New Testament or of a single book.

Gordon D. Fee

Gordon D. Fee wrote an introductory article in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary (vol. 1, Zondervan, 1979) on New Testament textual criticism. And he assumes that the original Greek New Testament can be reached (as much as is humanly possible), as the original authors intended their books and letters to be read. Thus, textual criticism accomplishes at least two tasks for the interpreter of the Bible.

(1) It helps to determine the authentic words of [a Biblical] author . . . (2) The majority of Christians have access to the NT [New Testament] only in translation, and the basic consideration in choosing a translation is its accuracy in representing the original text of the author. (pp. 419-20)

Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland

Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, two of the highest ranking textual critics of any generation, are not known for overstatements. Yet they say that the editors of the two main editions of the Greek New Testament (Nestle-Aland and the United Bible Societies) are likely satisfied with their achievements:

On the whole each of the editors is probably satisfied that the new text represents the best that can be achieved in the present state of knowledge . . . (p. 34).

They go on to say that their edited Greek texts enjoy widespread use in universities and in a variety of Christian confessions or denominations.

In any event, the new text is a reality, and as the text distributed by the United Bible Societies and by the corresponding offices of the Roman Catholic Church (an inconceivable situation until quite recently) it has rapidly become the commonly accepted text for research and study in universities and churches. (p. 35)

Of course, Aland and Aland are open to challenges, and perhaps a scholar will quibble with some variants (alternate readings) of verses here and there, but for the church, the Greek New Testament texts that the team of editors edited is completely acceptable (pp. 35-36).

In one sentence in 1979 Kurt Aland says of the Nestle-Aland Greek text:

The desired goal now appears to have been attained, to offer the writings of the New Testament in the form of the text that comes nearest to that which . . . [the New Testament authors and redactors] set out on their journey in the church of the first and second centuries. (Quoted in P. W. Comfort, Encountering the Manuscripts, p. 290)

It should be taken into account that the Alands stand in the tradition of German Biblical scholarship which is infused with heavy skepticism. It would be a mistake to interpret them as fundamentalists or supportive of a pure text through and through. But when they endorse a text as “the best that can be achieved in the present state of knowledge,” this is substantial. At least their Greek New Testaments enjoy the support and use of many different churches and universities.

David Alan Black

In his introduction to textual criticism (New Testament Textual Criticism: A Concise Guide, Baker, 1994), he says that the huge number of witnesses (Greek manuscripts, ancient translations, and quotations from the church fathers) implies that we have the original text of the New Testament somewhere among all the words:

The sheer number of witnesses to the text of the New Testament makes it virtually certain that the original text has been preserved somewhere among the extant (existing) witnesses. (p. 24)

What does the large number of variants mean to Biblical doctrines? These variations may affect them, but a doctrine will always be supported by other passages, so there is no net loss. Black writes:

No biblical doctrine would go unsupported if a favorable reading was abandoned in favor of a more valid variant. This does not mean, as is sometimes said, that no doctrine of Scripture is affected by textual variation. Rather, a doctrine that is affected by textual variation will always be adequately supported by other passages. (p. 25)

J. Harold Greenlee

J. Harold Greenlee wrote an introduction to textual criticism (Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism, rev. ed., Hendrickson, 1995). He briefly totals the number of manuscripts for non-Christian Greek and Roman authors (e.g. fifty manuscripts for the Greek tragedian Aeschylus; one hundred for the tragedian Sophocles; three for the Roman poet Catullus; a few hundred known for Cicero, Ovid, and Virgil). Then he provides us with the interval of time between these Greek and Roman authors and the existing manuscripts, which vary from three hundred years for a few Roman authors and to a thousand or more years for most of the Greek classical authors. The New Testament, on the other hand, has thousands of manuscripts and the interval is much shorter. With these data in the background, Greenlee draws this conclusion:

Since scholars [classicists] accept as generally trustworthy the writings of the ancient classics, even though the earliest manuscripts [MSS] were written so long after the original writings and the number of extant manuscripts [MSS] is in many instances so small, it is clear that the reliability of the text of the NT [New Testament] is likewise assumed. (p. 6)

Greenlee is exactly right. Every classicist accepts or assumes the reliability of non-Christian Greek and Roman authors. So why should we not accept and assume the reliability of the New Testament authors, especially when the number of manuscripts is much greater and the interval much shorter?

J. K. Elliott and Ian Moir

Ian Moir set out to write a non-technical introduction to textual criticism, but his sudden death stopped the project. J. K. Elliott, with the support of Moir’s family, completed the task from Moir’s notes. (Their book is Manuscripts and the Text of the New Testament, T & T Clark, 1995). They cite the wide chronological gap between the originals of the Greek and Latin classics and their comparatively few surviving manuscripts. Classicists sometimes have to make educated guesses about a reading. However, as for the New Testament, they write:

It is worth stating now that unless a foolproof case can be made that all of the many surviving manuscripts have failed to preserve the original text, then it should not be necessary to resort to guesswork which can lead to a modern rewriting of the New Testament text. (p. 7)

As for the reliability of the New Testament and the task of the textual critic, they write, first, that about 95 percent of the Greek New Testament is settled.

Most modern textual critics agree on the bulk of the text (some 95 per cent, perhaps). It is the remaining 5 per cent or so where disputes occur and differing conclusions may be found. (p. 8).

Second, Elliott and Moir are optimistic about reaching back to the text of the first-century.

There are a few textual critics who are skeptical of our ever getting behind the text groupings that can be detected in the second and third centuries, but most textual critics are relatively optimistic that one can reach back to the texts of the first century. (p. 8)

They also caution us against the common assertion that variants in the Greek New Testament do not affect (their word) Christian doctrine (p. 3). They are right about this, if they use the light word affect. However, it is accurate to say that Christian doctrine is not impacted negatively, as if the variants overturn or deny a doctrine, such as the Virgin Birth or the deity of Christ.

Finally, Elliott and Moir state that New Testament textual critics have confidence that the original text can be recovered:

Not only do we have many manuscripts and many manuscripts of an early date but recent scholarly attempts to edit the New Testament text is done with the confidence that the original text is there to be discovered in the manuscripts. Sometimes editors reach different conclusions, sometimes an editorial judgment is questionable, but behind the debate the assumption is that the manuscripts, supported or supplemented by the version and by quotations in the writings of the [Church] Fathers, will yield the original text. (p. 94)

Philip W. Comfort

Philip W. Comfort is another prominent textual critic, writing books that introduce students to this science and art. In his Quest for the Original Text of the New Testament (Wipf and Stock, 1990, 1992), he quotes a few brief pessimistic pronouncements from textual critics, but then he is optimistic about the quest for recovering the original Greek New Testament.

I am optimistic because we have many early manuscripts of excellent quality and because our view of the early period has been getting clearer and clearer. I believe it is possible to recover the original text of the Greek New Testament. (p. 20)

Years later Comfort publishes another book on textual criticism (Encountering the Manuscripts, Broadman and Holman, 2005). His optimism does not seem to have flagged. He describes the difference among scholars on some variants that have an equal weight of manuscripts behind them, and maybe the scholars will never come to an agreement. But then Comfort puts this in perspective:

But this is, by no means, a large number of textual variants. And this should not cause us to abandon the task of recovering the original wording of the Greek New Testament. New insights have come and will keep coming, in the new form of actual documents, new methodologies, and new understandings. (p. 291-92)

Bruce M. Metzger

Bruce M. Metzger (d. February 2007) is on the same level as Aland and Aland as textual critics. He wrote the first three editions of the Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (Oxford UP, 1964, 1968, 1992). For the fourth edition (2005) he was joined by Bart D. Ehrman. I quote from this edition, while noting that conclusions are found in the earlier editions.

In the preface to the first edition Metzger writes that the goal of textual criticism is to recover the original words.

The textual critic seeks to ascertain from the divergent copies which form of the text should be regarded as most nearly conforming to the original. (p. v)

After describing the poor showing of non-Christian manuscripts of ancient Roman authors, Metzger (and Ehrman, though the following passage exists in the third edition without him) draws this conclusion about the richness and variety of the New Testament manuscripts:

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 manuscripts contain only the four Gospels or only the Epistles. However, these manuscripts may still be used to cross-check the others. It is much better to have many manuscripts than few, as in the case of the Greco-Roman non-Christian manuscripts.

Further, the quotations of the New Testament 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 the following passage 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)

This is significant in attesting to the reliability of the New Testament that we have in our possession. To speak personally, this estimate by Metzger is stunning. He is saying that if our knowledge of the text of the New Testament were to be destroyed (this means, I assume, that the manuscripts would be destroyed), then we could reconstruct the New Testament from the quotations of the church fathers alone. For me, this fact by itself leaves no doubt about the reliability of the New Testament.

Sometimes academics need to get out from behind their computers and to dialogue with people other than their colleagues and students. Bruce Metzger graciously did this with Lee Strobel in the latter’s The Case for Christ (Zondervan, 1998). They met on a Saturday at Princeton University, where Metzger used to teach before his retirement. We listen in on four portions of their conversation.

First, Strobel asks why it is so important to have thousands of manuscript to support a document like the New Testament. Metzger replies:

Well, the more often you have copies that agree with each other, especially if they emerge from different geographical areas, the more you can cross-check them to figure out what the original document was like. The only way they’d agree would be where they went back genealogically in a family tree that represents the descent of the manuscripts. (p. 59)

Metzger says here that the copies would agree if and only if there really were originals. And the more manuscript copies we have, the better chance we have of finding the wording of the originals, after we sift through all of the manuscripts.

Second, Strobel asks Metzger about the comparison of the New Testament texts and later manuscripts with those of non-Christian texts and manuscripts, such as the Roman historian Tacitus, Jewish historian Josephus’ Jewish War, and Homer’s Iliad. “How does the New Testament stack up against well-known works of antiquity?” asks Strobel.

“Extremely well,” [Metzger] replied. “We can have great confidence in the fidelity with which this material has come down to us, especially compared with any other ancient literary work.” (p. 63).

Third, Strobel asks about the variations in the manuscripts. “Do they tend to be minor rather than substantive?”

“Yes, yes, that’s correct, and scholars work very carefully to try to resolve them by getting back to the original meaning. The more significant variations do not overthrow any doctrine of the church. Any good Bible will have notes that will alert the reader to variant readings of any consequence. But again, these are rare.” (p. 65).

Fourth and finally, Strobel asks what Metzger’s scholarship has done to his personal faith.

“Oh,” he said, sounding happy to discuss the topic, “it has increased the basis of my personal faith to see the firmness with which these materials have come down to us, with a multiplicity of copies, some of which are very, very ancient.” (p. 71).

Then Strobel started to ask, again, if scholarship has diluted Metzger’s faith.

He jumped in before I [Strobel] could finish my sentence. “On the contrary,” [Metzger] stressed, “it has built it. I’ve asked questions all my life. I’ve dug into the text, I’ve studied this thoroughly, and today I know with confidence that my trust in Jesus has been well placed.” . . . Then he added, for emphasis, “Very well placed.” (p. 71)

At the time of this interview Metzger was eighty-four years old. He is a highly regarded scholar from a wide spectrum of his colleagues. It is refreshing to see a man like this declare his faith openly.

Moisés Silva

Moisés Silva attended an academic conference in 2000, on which he was invited to comment or respond to other guest speakers (the book of this conference was published as Rethinking New Testament Textual Criticism, ed. David A. Black, Baker Academic, 2002). At least one of the conference speakers was skeptical about recovering the original New Testament, but Silva affirms this possibility.

In conclusion, I would like to affirm . . . that the recovery of the original text (i.e. in its initial form, prior to the alterations produced in the copying process) remains the primary task of textual criticism [Silva briefly describes the difficulty in the process of recovery] . . . But neither these truths nor the admittedly great difficulties involved in recovering the autographic [original] words can be allowed to dissolve the concept of an original text. (p. 149)

Then Silva mentions that some variants may never be resolved to every critic’s satisfaction. But this should not deter the recovery process partly because of the advantage New Testament textual critics enjoy. What advantage?

But we cannot allow the exceptional [unresolved rare issues] to determine our course of action. Let us not forget that the distinctive challenges in our field are actually the result of enormous quantities of data (unavailable for other documents whose originality we take for granted!) and of extraordinary scholarly advances. Encouraged by this reality, we have plenty of good reasons to press on. (pp. 149-50)

As seen with other scholars quoted in this present article, Silva’s positive assessment is based, in part, on the thousands of New Testament manuscripts compared to the manuscripts of Greco-Roman and non-Christian texts. This numerical fact puts everything in perspective.

Paul D. Wegner

Paul D. Wegner’s book on textual criticism, A Student’s Guide to Textual Criticism of the Bible (InterVarsity, 2006), also affirms the reliability and accuracy of the Bible. In this passage he defines a variant; then in the last sentence he draws the natural inference about the Bible and its variants.

A variant is any difference between the texts in the numerous manuscripts of the Greek New Testament (e.g., spelling differences, missing or added words, different word order). Some variants are significant; for example, the last eleven verses of the Gospel of Mark. But the vast majority have little effect on the translation of a passage and are relatively insignificant, a fact that underscores how accurate our Bibles actually are. (p. 231)

As we have seen with the textual critics cited in this present article, Wegner puts the process of purging errors in perspective.

It is important to underscore two facts near the beginning of our discussion on New Testament textual criticism: (1) the verbal agreement between various New Testament manuscripts is closer than between many English translations of the New Testament, and (2) the percentage of variants in the New Testament is small . . . and no matter of doctrine hinges on a variant reading (p. 231)

The first fact is remarkable. The Greek manuscripts from divergent places and times agree more often than our English translations.

This next assessment by Wegner of both the Old and New Testaments expresses confidence in the reliability of the Bible.

It is humbling and reassuring to realize that the Old and New Testaments have been handed down through many generations as accurately and as completely as they have. Many scribes and copyists spent many countless hours copying and checking their work to ensure an accurate text for later generations. (p. 310).

Why did the scribes and copyists spend so many hours doing their job?

All of their effort was expended because they realized just how important the Word of God is and how crucial it is to maintain an accurate record of God’s revelations. (p. 310).

So what is the bottom line on textual criticism? Wegner writes:

Careful examination of these manuscripts has served to strengthen our assurance that modern Greek and Hebrew critical texts are very close to the original autographs, even though we do not have those autographs. (p. 301)

Two final, unnumbered questions:

Why wouldn’t God protect his Word from all of this? Where do inspiration and miracles fit in?

Christians believe that God works through history and humans. C. S. Lewis’ preliminary study on miracles is relevant. Once the inspired original manuscripts get assimilated into history, they undergo the effects of time:

The moment [the newcomer, e.g. miracle] enters [Nature’s] realm, it obeys her laws. Miraculous wine will intoxicate, miraculous conception will lead to pregnancy, inspired books will suffer all the ordinary processes of textual corruption, miraculous bread will be digested. (Miracles: A Preliminary Study, p. 81)

Recall the twenty scribes (Part One, Question Six). What if you were one of them? Would you make mistakes? However, these errors have been purged out (and continue to be), with very few remainders. Why can’t devout believers today conclude that God is in fact working through humans in the purging process? Isn’t this a kind of divine protection that is worked out over time and history?

Should I have any doubts about my NT?

Let’s end on the words of Sir Frederick Kenyon (d. 1952), a premier NT Textual critic of the first half of the twentieth century. He’s optimistic about the general result of all of the hard work done by many scholars.

It is reassuring at the end to find that the general result of all these discoveries and all this study is to strengthen the proof of the authenticity of the Scriptures, and our conviction that we have in our hands, in substantial integrity, the veritable Word of God (qtd. in Wegner, p. 25).

Kenyon worked in an earlier generation, and other MSS have been found since his time. However, nothing has cropped up that challenges in a substantive way the meaning and content of the NT. “Still there are relatively few significant variants in the Bible, and among these variants there is very little difference in meaning and content” (Wegner, p. 25).

Christians should have gratitude, if I may intrude with my own opinion, for scholars putting in so much time and energy and for clarifying the NT. Somebody has to do this thankless yeoman’s work, done often behind the scenes, with no glamour.

Therefore, far from losing your confidence, it should increase.

Conclusion

It must be pointed out that these scholars are not directly refuting a specific skeptic in the above quotations, for the most part. Instead, they have examined all of the evidence of the New Testament manuscripts and drawn similar conclusions, namely, that we have reached back as close to the originals as any human effort can. This positive result has been brought about in large part by the huge number of manuscripts, and by the short interval between the (now lost) originals and the nearest surviving manuscripts.

We may not have the very original books and letters of the New Testament (and no text today coming from the ancient world has the originals), but we can reconstruct it as accurately as possible in our present state of knowledge. If we consider Greco-Roman classics as accurate, though they do not have as many manuscripts so soon after the originals, then why not accept the New Testament as accurate?

After the arduous process of applying scientific methods to the New Testament to determine the best reading, where uncertainties remain, Christian doctrine is never overturned or negated. Where one verse may have a word or clause undergoing the arduous process of textual criticism, the entire sweep of the New Testament assures us that the doctrines stand on solid ground. The earliest church enjoyed high-level unanimity on such doctrines as the virgin birth and the deity of Christ.

We have come as close to the originals or autographs of the New Testament as is humanly possible, after textual critics have sifted through all of the evidence.

The Bible is the Word of God. We can put our confidence and trust in it.

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.

Strobel, Lee. The Case for Christ. Zondervan, 1998.

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

What Is Biblical Imputation? Think about It and Take it on Credit

Related Media

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.

To Be Justified in Paul’s Epistles

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I’m a radical believer in God’s radical grace. So I need to explore being justified in Paul’s epistle because I interpret him as a radical believer. And being justified is how I get there.

We have at least two ways to interpret the Greek verb dikaioō: it means being put right with God in a covenant context, or it is mainly (but not exclusively) a legal term, meaning to acquit or declare not guilty in a forensic or courtroom setting.

Let’s see if we can solve the dilemma or find out if the two interpretations can work together.

An interesting thing to look for is that the Greek word is almost always in the passive mood; that is, something is done to or on us.

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

Passages

1. To be justified is to be vindicated in the face of accusations from enemies.

Rom. 3:4; Ps. 51:4

Rom. 8:33

1 Cor. 4:3-5

1 Tim. 3:16

2. Paul speaks about the standards of God and implies from the rest of Romans that humans can’t meet them.

Rom. 2:12-13, Rom. 2:16

3. God justifies us apart from the law (our law keeping).

Rom. 3:19-20

Rom. 3:28

Gal. 3:11

Gal. 5:2-4

4. God justifies us apart from our works and works of the law.

Rom. 3:26-28

Rom. 4:1-5

Gal. 2:15-17

5. God justifies us freely by grace and faith.

Rom. 3:23-24

Rom. 3:26, 29-31

Rom. 5:1

Gal. 3:24

Ti. 3:7

Rom. 3:21-24

6. The Spirit Himself justifies us.

1 Cor. 6:11

7. God justifies us by Christ’s sacrificial blood.

Rom. 3:23-25

Rom. 5:9

8. We are freed and acquitted from sin (sin accusing us).

Rom. 6:7

9. God calls us to be justified and then he has glorified us.

Rom. 8:30

Summary and Conclusion

* We can take out of the discussion 1 Tim 3:16, which is a hymn about Christ. Vindication is the right translation. Though taken out, it does put things in the context of God’s evaluation or judgment of Christ’s work during his life and death; God saw that Jesus had fulfilled his mission and vindicated him in the presence of his enemies and the whole world.

* Nearly all the occurrences of dikaioō are in the passive. Justification happens to a human. It is an act of God on him or her. He or she is justified.

* Faith is how we appropriate being justified. It is faith in God.

* Being justified is a free gift (free to us) by the grace of God.

* God justifies us by Christ’s atoning blood and sacrifice.

* God does not acquit the guilty (Exod. 23:7), for that would be unjust based on a narrow set of facts against the guilty party. However, God includes and evaluates a broader set of facts, the atoning sacrifice of Christ. He takes the punishment.

* Even the Spirit justifies us.

* Being justified is not done by the works of the law, but by faith in Christ.

* Being justified stands in opposition to condemnation by the law as the standard and when our sin fails to meet the law’s requirement.

* Being put right with God in the New Covenant can apply to all occurrences.

* But a subset of those passages refer specifically to a judgment or forensic or courtroom setting (Rom. 2:13, Rom. 3:4, Rom. 3:25-26, Rom. 8:30; 1 Cor. 4:3-5). The forensic setting is sometimes down here on earth (Rom. 8:33, 1 Cor. 4:3-5) and at least one other passage is about the Last Judgment (Rom. 2:12-13, Rom. 2:16). 

Now we can look at the dilemma between being put right with God in a covenant and declared acquittal in a forensic setting. Can the two interpretations work together?

* The law by definition entails the forensic element. So every passage that has dikaioō or being put right with God and has the law nearby is placed squarely in the legal or courtroom setting.

* This is certainly true of Romans in which the law is mentioned eighty-six times (and the vast majority is in 2-10). Galatians records law thirty-two times.

*Romans and Galatians are where the vast majority of diakioō appears: fifteen times in Romans (mainly 2-8) and eight times in Galatians. (The other epistles have four occurrences.)

* See points 3 and 4, above.

* The law has legal rights over everyone and accuses everyone: “For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law” (Rom. 2:12). Even the Gentiles, who have the moral law and conscience, are not let off the hook (2:14-15).

* How do we escape from the law, the prosecuting attorney, named Mr. Law, who represents the legal system that accuses us?

* We can obey the law, and Mr. Law is happy and satisfied. We don’t have to appear in court at all. Unfortunately, he discovers that we get dragged back into court every day. We break the law in small or big ways. “You again!” he says with a scowl.

* The compassionate judge, Mr. Divine (God), also sees something is wrong with us. We can’t keep the law. Judge Divine, a special judge, can see into our hearts and concludes we’re bound by our own nature; it tends towards law breaking, like water flows downward.

* Jesus, our defense attorney, steps in and pays the fine for us. He even takes our just, deserved punishment for us.

* Since Jesus paid the fine and also volunteered to take the punishment in our place, Judge Divine declares us “not guilty!” So we are now acquitted or declared righteous by an act of his divine grace.

* This declaration of acquittal in a judgment or forensic setting puts us right with God in the New Covenant.

* So the forensic setting and being put right with God in a covenant context can work together.

Additional Discussion

Zech. 3:1-10 talks about Joshua the High Priest in the heavenly court. He was standing next to an angel. But Satan was also there accusing him. God orders the angel to take off Joshua’s unclean robes and put the “pure” vestments. Though the words “declared righteous” as such do not occur in Zech. 3, it is a beautiful image of God evaluating (judging) Joshua and calling him and putting a new garment on him. (See also about a robe of righteousness: Job 29:14; Ps. 132:9; Is. 11:5, Is. 59:17, Is. 61:10.)

Imagine if we had a custom in our courts that involved having an armoire in which a stock of white robes is kept. Call them the White Robes of Acquittal or the White Robes of Being Declared Righteous or (to please everyone) the White Robes of Being Put Right. When the accused is acquitted and put right, it would be a beautiful ceremony in our legal system if the judge told the court clerk to get a white robe and put it on the acquitted. As he walked out of the courtroom, the white robe could tell the world, with cameras flashing and videos rolling, that he is not guilty. All charges have been dismissed and expunged from the records.

God the Judge really does have such a heavenly courtroom. After he acquits us, declaring us not guilty and putting us right, he tells an angel to get the white robe and put it on us. We now walk around with the White Robe of Acquittal on – invisible to us and onlookers in the natural realm, but quite visible to angels and demons in the supernatural realm. Most importantly, God sees it and smiles. Jesus sees it and beams. He put us right, and now we’re in his New Covenant that he paid for and ratified by his blood.

Related Topics: Regeneration, Justification

The Language of Law in Paul

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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.

Related Topics: Law

The Old Testament in Romans

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I’m a radical believer in God’s radical grace. So I have to deal with Paul’s use of the Old Testament in the king of his epistles: Romans. Does he put people under the Old Covenant, by referring to its Scriptures? If not, then why borrow from them in the first place?

How do they relate to his radical grace message?

Citing the OT Scriptures – Paul’s only ones – has multiple purposes, but they all support radical grace and teach people how to walk in wisdom. They promise victory in our daily life in Christ.

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

The Gospel

It all starts here for Paul. He got it by revelation and devoted his life to it. It centers on Christ.

1. Call on his name: “Jesus is Lord”. Rom. 10:8-13

2. The message must go forth. Rom. 10:8-15

3. Paul was ambitious to preach in uncharted territory. Rom. 15:20-22

Sin and Righteousness

One purpose Paul has in telling us about sin and righteousness is to show us prophecies and promises about Jesus Christ. He is the coming Messiah, and he is here now. Now we depend on his grace to free us from sin and give us the free gift of righteousness.

Introduction

1. Righteousness comes on the basis of faith. Rom. 1:17

Law and Sin

1. God will be proven faithful and just. Rom. 3:4

2. The law brings out sin in us. Rom. 7:7

3. Certain Jews don’t live up to the law’s holy standards. Rom. 2:24

4. Jews and Gentiles are under the dominion of sin. Rom. 3:9-20

4. God will judge the world’s sin. Rom. 2:5-6

Justification and Righteousness

1. Jewish righteousness by the law (which was not accomplished), Gentile righteousness by faith. Rom. 9:30-33; cf. 1 Pet. 2:6-8

2. Righteousness by faith contrasted with righteousness by works. Rom. 10:5-13

3. Abraham is the example of justification by faith. Rom. 4:2-3, Rom. 4:16-18, Rom. 4:22-25

4. David is an example of being counted forgiven. Rom. 4:6-8

One Family

God wants the wall of separation between Jew and Gentile to be torn down. Paul uses Scripture – the OT – as prophecy for the coming Messiah, who for Paul came in Jesus. This is outworking of the gospel and justification by grace and through faith.

Israel and God

1. Isaac and Jacob are the promised line. Rom. 9:6-13

2. God is sovereign in his election. Rom. 9:19-21

3. God has not rejected his people, a remnant by grace. Rom. 11:2-6

4. Israel’s partial, temporary hardening. Rom. 11:25-27

Israel and Gentiles: One Family

1. Israel and the remnant, and the Gentiles’ acceptance. Rom. 9:22-29

2. The gospel is for Israel and Gentiles. Rom. 10:15-21

3. Israel rejecting the gospel opens doors to Gentiles. Rom. 11:7-10

4. Gentiles are welcome into God’s family through Christ. Rom. 15:8-13

5. Doxology about God and His One Family. Rom. 11:33-36

Church Life

The church needs wisdom, and Paul refers to the OT to get it.

Relationships

1. Love fulfills the law. Rom. 13:8-10

2. Repay evil with good, for vengeance belongs to God. Rom. 12:17-21

3. Each one will give an account before God. Rom. 14:10-12

5. We should not please ourselves. Rom. 15:1-4

Victory through Christ in Hardships

1. Christians are more than conquerors through hardships. Rom. 8:35-37

Summary

I started this study claiming that Paul’s use of the OT in Romans confirms radical grace. That claim has been confirmed.

The gospel is all about grace as opposed to the law. Paul uses the OT to show the Messiah was promised. It prophesies about him. He ushers in a new era of radical grace that is not dependent on the Old Covenant and its old law ushered in by Moses.

For law and sin, these passages support radical grace because they show how much we need God’s free gift (grace) of righteousness. Through the law we become conscious of sin, ad then we become conscious of our need for grace.

We are justified or declared righteous in a forensic setting and put right in the New Covenant by faith. That definitely supports radical grace.

Jew and Gentile are brought together by God’s grace and free gift of righteousness; the wall of separation is torn down. The Law of Moses, so righteous and holy, and circumcision do not matter compared with the Spirit living in everyone who asks and who have been circumcised in the heart by the Spirit and who have the Spirit writing on the tables of the heart.

Paul uses the OT for the promises of God about the coming Messiah. With him comes grace.

In church life, after we experience the free gift of God’s grace and righteousness, we still need wisdom becomes sometimes we don’t walk in righteousness. We get confused. We mess up. We sin. Paul draws from the OT to teach wisdom. For example, walk in love and you will fulfill the law. And through Christ and his grace flowing to and through us, we have victory, both down here in our daily life, and ultimately this victory is finalized in heaven.

This article has two related articles: The Language of Law in Paul and the Old Testament in Paul.

The Old Testament in Paul

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This study looks at the OT passages that Paul quotes in his writings, and then it places them in categories. We have to limit ourselves to the actual quotations and not include summaries or basic principles he gets from the OT, but does not quote (1 Cor. 10:2).

The summary and conclusions will also give some basic data.

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

The Gospel Message

This is the most important category of them all. It all begins here.

The Message of the Cross and Wisdom

1. Where is the wise person? 1 Cor. 1:18-21 and 1 Cor. 1:30-31

2. The message of wisdom is for the mature. 1 Cor. 2:6-10

3. The wise v. the foolish. 1 Cor. 3:18-23

4. We do not preach ourselves, but Jesus as Lord. 2 Cor. 4:3-6

The Message of the Gospel Must Be Proclaimed

1. Call on his name: “Jesus is Lord.” Rom. 10:8-13

2. The message must go forth. Rom. 10:8-15

3. Paul was ambitious to preach in uncharted territory. Rom. 15:20-22

4. We speak because God will raise us from the dead. 2 Cor. 4:13-15

5. Now is the time to receive the gospel. 2 Cor. 6:1-2

Sin and Righteousness

This broad topic or category is very important in Paul’s writings. It shows us our need for the gospel. What does righteousness mean? How does sin take away from it? How do we solve the sin problem and keep righteousness, even though we still have the sin problem? Or do we have a sin problem, after we “get” righteous?

Law and Sin

1. God will be proven faithful and just. Rom. 3:4

2. The law brings out sin in us. Rom. 7:7

3. Jews and their witness about God are summarized. Rom. 2:24

4. The law brings out a curse, but we have been redeemed. Gal. 3:10-14

5. Jews and Gentiles are under the dominion of sin. Rom. 3:9-20

6. God will judge stubbornness and unrepentance. Rom. 2:5-6

Justification and Righteousness

1. Righteousness comes on the basis of faith, not the law. Rom. 1:17, Gal. 3:11

2. Israel’s righteousness by the law is contrasted with Gentile righteousness by faith. Rom. 9:30-33

3. Righteousness by faith is contrasted with righteousness by the law. Rom. 10:5-13

4. Abraham is the example of justification by faith. Rom. 4:2-3, Rom. 4:16-18, Rom. 4:22-25, Gal. 3:6-9

4. David is an example of being counted forgiven. Rom. 4:6-8

5. Sarah and Isaac, not Hagar and her son, are the examples of Christian freedom. Gal. 4:24-31

Jews and Gentiles: One Family

The next major category is the problem of Jewish identity and Gentile exclusion. As Paul scanned the entire sweep on Israel’s history as recorded in the OT and the oral traditions of which he was well aware, he observed that God was reaching out to the Gentiles long before the Messiah came. But how does God still favor his Chosen People, as he reached out to Gentiles? Does this identity of his Chosen People still matter? Does the Messiah break down Gentile ethnic exclusion, and can Jews still enjoy God’s Favorite People status? Can Gentiles enjoy that too?

Israel and God

1. Isaac and Jacob are the promised line. Rom. 9:6-13

2. God is sovereign in his election. Rom. 9:19-21

3. God has not rejected his people, a remnant, by grace. Rom. 11:2-6

4. Israel’s partial, temporary hardening and their eventual salvation are described. Rom. 11:25-27

Israel, Gentiles, and God

1. Israel and the remnant mean the Gentiles’ acceptance. Rom. 9:22-29

2. Christ destroys the barrier between Jew and Gentile. Eph. 2:14-18

3. The gospel is for Israel and Gentiles. Rom. 10:15-21

4. Israel rejecting the gospel opens doors for Gentiles. Rom. 11:7-10

5. Gentiles are welcome into God’s family through Christ. Rom. 15:8-13

Doxology about God and His One Family

1. God’s ways are unfathomable, ultimately. Rom. 11:33-36

Church Life

Paul wrote many of his letters to explain his theology and gospel, but he also wrote them to solve church problems. How are Christians supposed to live? How does the OT relate to the Christian life? If believers are no longer under the Law of Moses, can they still use it? If so, for what purpose? What about the rest of the OT?

Relationships

1. Love fulfills the law. Gal. 5:13-15, Rom. 13:8-10

2. Repay evil with good, for vengeance belongs to God. Rom. 12:17-21

3. We should not please ourselves. Rom. 15:1-4

4. Be careful about being yoked with unbelievers. 2 Cor. 6:14-7:1

5. Christ speaking through Paul is not weak, to bring correction. 2 Cor. 13:1-3

6. Paul boasts in Christ. 2 Cor. 10:14-18

How to Judge in Different Contexts

1. Each one will give an account before God. Rom. 14:10-12

2. The spiritual person can judge wisely. 1 Cor. 2:15-16

3. Judging those outside the church. 1 Cor. 5:12-13

4. Speak truthfully, and don’t let anger rule. Eph. 4:25-27

Christians and Sex

1. Christians should not unite with prostitutes. 1 Cor. 6:14-17

2. Christians should listen to Old Testament examples and not commit sexual immorality. 1 Cor. 10:1-10

Christian Families

1. Husbands should love their wives. Eph. 5:28-32

2. Parents shouldn’t exasperate their children, and children should honor their parents. Eph. 6:1-4

Church and Money

1. Give what you can, according to your prosperity. 2 Cor. 8:13-15

2. Give generously. 2 Cor. 9:8-11

3. Leaders have the right to be supported. 1 Tim. 5:17-18

Christian Gatherings

1. Christians should be free but sensitive towards the weak. 1 Cor. 10:23-32

2. Worship service should be orderly. 1 Cor. 14:20-22

Victory

Paul’s gospel is eschatological; that is, it moves from one obsolete era to the new one, and it moves towards a culmination or ending, summed up in Christ. The new era brings victory in the Christian life today. But the new era will be transformed at the very Last Day, when death is destroyed and everyone will have to confess that Jesus is Lord.

Victory for the Believer Right Now through Christ

1. Through God who loves believers, they are more than conquerors in hardships. Rom. 8:35-37

2. Christians must put on the full armor of God to have victory. Eph. 6:14-18

Victory over Death

1. There will be a resurrection. 1 Cor. 15:29-32

2. The body will be spiritual. 1 Cor. 15:44-45

3. Death will be destroyed. 1 Cor. 15:54-57

Victory in Christ’s Ascension

1. Christ ascended higher than all the heavens and fills the universe. Eph. 4:7-10

2. Every knee shall bow to Christ. Php. 2:9-10

Summary

We can boil down Paul’s use of the OT thus:

1. Paul uses the OT to find the gospel revealed in it all along.

2. He uses it for wisdom about church life, without coming under the Old Covenant.

3. He uses it for the promises and prophecies about the Messiah.

4. He uses it to break down ethnic barriers between Jew and Gentile; no, God has not given up on his Chosen People, and they have been replaced, even obliterated, by the gospel or church, but they do need salvation, just like everyone else.

5. He uses it to figure out and solve the sin problem in all of humanity; we are no longer in bondage to sin or Satan, but have freedom and authority.

6. He uses it to explain the gift of righteousness and being put right with God.

7. He uses it to explain how the law-as-attached to the Old Covenant is no longer relevant, unless Christian believers sin or get confused; then it is used for wisdom and clarity, but not to impose the Old Covenant on them (see no. 1); that use can be divided into such areas as money, relationships, family, and so on.

8. He uses it to explain Christian victory today, now, down here on earth.

9. He uses it to reveal God’s ultimate victory summed up in Christ, at the Last Day.

Conclusion

All of the quotations from the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) or Old Testament reveal that Paul was a practical theologian. He was an apostle who planted churches. He was concerned with their spiritual growth.

First, the gospel message was extremely important for Paul; it was his life’s work, his very life even. The gospel expresses the wisdom of God, not the wisdom of the age. Why did Jesus have to be crucified? It had to be proclaimed throughout the known world. Wise Greeks rejected it because the cross seemed like folly. The God-man dying a criminal’s death? The Jews rejected it because it was a stumbling block. The Messiah dying on the criminal’s cross, the Roman way of execution? The cross outshines the wisdom of unbelievers and devout Jews. But to those who believe in the gospel, it is the power of God leading to salvation. People could obtain righteousness by faith, if they believe Jesus is Lord and God raised him from the dead.

Second, he needed to ensure that his churches understood that the whole world was under sin, and somebody had to pay for the penalty. It could not go unpunished. How would that be just? Either the payment for the sins and crimes would be the sinners – those who actually committed the sin – or someone else. Sinners could not pay for it on their own. They would end up experiencing the just wrath, righteous judgment, and everlasting damnation of God. Paul’s theology teaches that the volunteer, so to speak, was Christ. He became the atoning sacrifice who propitiated or turned away God’s wrath and satisfied the penalty, thus solving the sin problem and its just penalty. The consequences of people’s sins were fully paid for at the cross of Christ.

Third, faith triggers the whole chain of events in people’s lives. Faith activated the benefits that flow from cavalry. Abraham was the primary example of the man of faith who had a promise of God to beget a child. He believed God and this faith was credited to him as righteousness, four hundred-plus years before the law as thundered down from on high on Mt. Sinai. Abraham was counted forgiven. Sarah and Hagar symbolized those who are under grace and promise (Sarah) and those under law (Hagar). Isaac and Jacob are the promised line. Circumcision was the sign of being in the old people of God and eventually it became the sign of the Sinai covenant. This ritual no longer applied to the growing church in the Gentile world.

Fourth, yet Paul was reluctant to give up on his fellow Jews. They had the fathers, prophets, oracles, and law. Was God finished with them? How could he deny his promises? Israel is under a temporary hardening until the full measure of the Gentiles enters into the same promises. Israel’s rejection of the gospel and the Messiah opens the door to blessings for the Gentiles. Eventually God will work a miracle, and Jews and Gentiles would be one family. In the meantime, Messianic Jews and believing Gentile already constituted one family. Christ has torn down the wall separating them.

Fifth, Paul quotes from the Old Testament to clarify church issues and problems. He uses it for wisdom. Apparently Christians were quick to judge each other. He told them not to do this or to do it wisely if they had to set up a court of arbitration, so to speak. Further, Christians should not behave as the world does and engage in illicit sex. In family life, the members were to get along. Husbands were to love their wives, and children were to honor their parents. Leaders had the right to be supported, and the poor fellow-believers also had the right to financial gifts. Finally, the gatherings of all believers were to be orderly.

Sixth, Paul quotes the Old Testament to prove that Christ brings victory. Believers in God can experience victory through hardships and trials. They will overcome the first death by living forever. Christ’s ascension into heaven cleared the way and effected victory over death itself. Christ ascended on high and fills the universe. Every knee will bow to him.

But what does Paul not do with the OT? How does he ignore – even reject or repudiate – parts of it? Paul does not bring forward the old rituals like animal sacrifices and circumcision. Faith in Christ’s atoning sacrifice eliminated the need for animal sacrifices. Circumcision is no longer needed as the sign of the New Covenant. Baptism is the sign now. Another area that Paul does not bring forward is the harsh penalties for, e.g. adultery and homosexuality, which the OT treated as capital crimes. Christ paid the penalties for these sins (not crimes), which are no longer punishable by death, but forgivable by love. He does not bring forward the curses that were built into the law and slammed down on people’s heads by their disobedience.

Finally, the main reason Paul quoted from Scripture is the same reason we do today: to cite a divine authority. The Word has authoritative divine energy that produces faith in the hearers. They respond by believing it. They get saved or rescued from the world and themselves, their sins. The words of the gospel bring life, unlike the letter of the law.

See the companion article the Language of Law in Paul. See also the OT in Romans.

Data

Paul quotes from the Torah (first five books of the Old Testament) 45 times. The prophets are quoted 53 times, with Isaiah taking the lead at 36 times. Psalms are quoted 23 times. And other books are cited 10 times. It is clear Paul liked Isaiah with its many promises of Jews and Gentiles being forged into one family, and he liked the Psalms for Jesus the Messiah and the doctrine of forgiveness, but he also liked the Torah.

Torah

Genesis: 15

Exodus: 7

Leviticus: 5

Deuteronomy: 18

Subtotal: 45

Prophets

Isaiah: 36

Jeremiah: 4

Hosea: 4

Habakkuk: 3

Ezekiel: 2

Joel: 2

Malachi: 1

Zechariah: 1

Subtotal: 53

Psalms

Psalms: 23

Subtotal: 23

Other

Ecclesiastes: 1

Proverbs: 2

I Kings: 2

2 Samuel: 2

Job: 2

1 Chronicles: 1

Subtotal: 10

TOTAL: 131

The Language of Righteousness in Paul’s Epistles

Related Media

I’m a radical believer in God’s radical grace. So I’ve got to deal with righteousness because, it seems to me, a lot of confusion and guesswork have dominated discussions about the righteousness of God and our righteousness. Maybe if we looked at the verses, clarity can be achieved.

Is righteousness imputed? (Yes). Is it imparted? (Yes). Can it mean vindication? (Yes). Justice? (Yes). Holiness? (Yes). Declared not guilty in a forensic or courtroom setting? (Yes). Putting things right in a covenant context? (Yes).

The same word righteousness and its cognates mean all those things, depending on the context.

Together let’s discover how they’re worked out in this study.

English has to deal with righteousness and justice as if they come from two different stems in Greek, but they do not. In English, right has Germanic origins (cf. recht); justice has Latin roots (cf. iustitia).

However, both righteousness and justice come from the dik- stem in Greek. In fact, here are the other related words that also share the dik- stem. “Righteousness” or “justice” is dikaiosynê; “justification” is dikaiôsis; “to justify” or “pronounce righteous” is dikaioô; righteous deed or regulation is dikaiôma; also, dikaiokrisis is “righteous judgment”; endikos is “just”; and “punishment” or “penalty” is dikê. Antonyms: adikia “unrighteousness”; adikos “unrighteous.”

In this article, however, we look at the verb dikaioô (to justify, declare righteous in Paul) and the noun dikaiosunê (righteousness) and dikaiôsis (justification). We simply don’t have the time to include the adjective dikaios (righteous).

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

Justified or Declared Righteous (dikaioô)

This section uses the ESV.

1. To be justified is to be vindicated in the face of accusations from enemies.

4 Absolutely not! Let God be proven true, and every human being shown up as a liar just as it is written: “so that you will be justified in your words and will prevail when you are judged.” (Rom 3:4; cf. Ps. 51:4)

33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. (Rom. 8:33)

3 So for me, it is a minor matter that I am judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not acquitted because of this. The one who judges me is the Lord. (1 Cor. 4:3-5)

16 And we all agree, our religion contains amazing revelation:

He was revealed in the flesh,
vindicated by the Spirit,
seen by angels,
proclaimed among Gentiles,
believed on in the world,
taken up in glory. (1 Tim. 3:16)

2. Paul speaks about the standards of God and implies from the rest of Romans that humans can’t meet them.

12 For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. … 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. (Rom. 2:12-13, Rom. 2:16)

3. God justifies us apart from the law (our law keeping).

19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. (Rom. 3:19-20)

28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. (Rom. 3:28)

11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Gal. 3:11)

2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. (Gal. 5:2-4)

4. God justifies us apart from our works and works of the law.

26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. (Rom. 3:26-28)

1 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” 4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. 5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness (Rom. 4:1-5)

15 We are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, 16 yet we know that no one is justified by the works of the law but by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by the faithfulness of Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. 17 But if while seeking to be justified in Christ we ourselves have also been found to be sinners, is Christ then one who encourages sin? Absolutely not! (Gal. 2:15-17)

5. God justifies us freely by grace and faith.

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. (Rom. 3:23-24)

26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. … 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one – who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law. (Rom. 3:26, Rom. 3:29-31)

1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Rom. 5:1)

24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. (Gal. 3:24)

7 And so, since we have been justified by his grace, we become heirs with the confident expectation of eternal life.” (Titus 3:7)

21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God (which is attested by the law and the prophets) has been disclosed – 22 namely, the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 24 But they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. (Rom. 3:21-24)

6. The Spirit Himself justifies us.

11 Some of you once lived this way. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Cor. 6:11)

7. God justifies us by Christ’s sacrificial blood.

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. (Rom. 3:23-25)

9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. (Rom. 5:9, ESV)

8. We are freed and acquitted from sin (sin accusing us).

7 For someone who has died has been freed from sin. (Rom. 6:7, NET; ESV notes: has been justified)

9. God calls us to be justified and then he has glorified us.

And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified. (Rom. 8:30)

Righteousness (dikaiosunê) And Justification (dikaiôsis)

Paul surely has these all of the main OT ideas in his mind when he writes about the righteousness of God. But now all their OT meanings are fulfilled in Christ. Therefore his theology is much more personal and Spirit-based. He is writing to Spirit-filled, small communities. It should be noted that the Reformers distinguished between God’s own righteousness, and his free gift of righteousness that he provides to all who believe in Christ. It is this latter meaning that is intended by “God’s righteousness” (see the list that follows).

This section uses the NET, unless otherwise noted.

1. God’s righteousness implies that no one is righteous by his absolute standards.

5 But if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? … 10 There is no one righteous, not even one (Rom. 3:5, 10, citing Pss. 14:1-3; 53:13, NIV)

2. God’s righteousness is apart from the law and comes through faith in Christ and saves us.

21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God (which is attested by the law and the prophets) has been disclosed – 22 namely, the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe. (Rom. 3:21-22)

25 God presented him [Christ] as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. (Rom. 3:25-26, NIV)

23 But the statement it was credited to him was not written only for Abraham’s sake, 24 but also for our sake, to whom it will be credited, those who believe in the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was given over because of our transgressions and was raised for the sake of our justification. (Rom. 4:23-25)

30 What shall we say then? – that the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness obtained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith, 31 but Israel even though pursuing a law of righteousness did not attain it. 32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but (as if it were possible) by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. (Rom. 9:30-32)

3 Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. 4 Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. … 8 But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: 9 That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11 As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” 12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Rom. 10:3-4, Rom. 10:8-13, NIV)

In that long passage in Rom. 10:3-4, Rom. 10:8-13 God saves or rescues us through our faith energized by the gospel.

9 If the ministry that condemns men is glorious [law of Moses], how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness [the gospel of Christ]! (2 Cor. 3:9, NIV)

21 I do not set aside God’s grace, because if righteousness could come through the law, then Christ died for nothing! (Gal. 2:21)

21 Is the law therefore opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that was able to give life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. 22 But the scripture imprisoned everything and everyone under sin so that the promise could be given – because of the faithfulness of Jesus Christ – to those who believe. (Gal. 3:21-22)

4 You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. 5 But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. (Gal. 5:4-5, NIV)

9 … not because I have my own righteousness derived from the law, but because I have the righteousness that comes by way of Christ’s faithfulness – a righteousness from God that is in fact based on Christ’s faithfulness. (Php. 3:9)

3. God’s righteousness is built into the gospel, from faith to faith.

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel from faith to faith, just as it is written, “The righteous by faith will live.” (Rom. 1:16-17)

4. Abraham shows God’s righteousness can be credited or imputed to our account.

1 We say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter? 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. 6 David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works … 10 We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. (Rom. 4:1-6, 10, NIV)

That previous long passage clarifies that when we work, we earn money. The employer owes it to us. When we don’t work, but get money anyway, that’s a gift. It has been freely credited to our account.

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. (Rom. 4:23-24, NIV)

6 Just as Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, 7 so then, understand that those who believe are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, proclaimed the gospel to Abraham ahead of time, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.” 9 So then those who believe are blessed along with Abraham the believer. (Gal. 3:6-9)

5. God’s righteousness is therefore a gift by grace.

17 … How much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. (Rom. 5:17, NIV)

5 He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. (Titus 3:5, NIV)

6. God’s righteousness means grace reigns and brings eternal life through Christ.

18 Consequently, just as condemnation for all people came through one transgression, so too through the one righteous act came righteousness leading to life for all people. (Rom. 5:18)

21 so that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace will reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rom. 5:21)

7. God’s righteousness means that Christ is our righteousness.

30 He is the reason you have a relationship with Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30)

21 God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor. 5:21)

Imparted Righteousness

The context of these verses helps us distinguish between the two meanings of justification and imparted righteousness or sanctification.

Now that we have received the gift of righteousness, the Spirit can work it out in our lives. This process is known as sanctification or growing up in Christ.

To be clear, righteousness is imputed. That’s our legal standing. And righteousness is imparted. That’s what we apply in our living. Righteousness affects our conduct.

Both imputation and impartation can happen at the same time. In fact they should happen at the same time.

This section uses the NET, unless otherwise noted.

1. Righteousness means we can offer our body, our whole person, as instruments or even slaves of righteousness.

13 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. 6:13-14, NIV)

16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? (Rom. 6:16, NIV)

18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. 19 I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. (Rom. 6:18-19, NIV)

10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. (Rom. 8:10, NIV)

24 And to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. (Eph. 4:24, NIV)

8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord. (Eph. 5:8-10, NIV)

2. Pursue righteousness and other virtues, and compete for the faith.

11 But you, as a person dedicated to God, keep away from all that. Instead pursue righteousness, godliness, faithfulness, love, endurance, and gentleness. 12 Compete well for the faith and lay hold of that eternal life you were called for and made your good confession for in the presence of many witnesses. (1 Tim. 6:11-12)

22 But keep away from youthful passions, and pursue righteousness, faithfulness, love, and peace, in company with others who call on the Lord from a pure heart.(2 Tim. 2:22)

3. Righteousness can become our weapons and armor.

4 Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: … 7 with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left … (2 Cor. 6:4, 7, NIV)

14 Stand firm therefore, by fastening the belt of truth around your waist, by putting on the breastplate of righteousness (Eph. 6:14)

4. Righteousness is not compatible with wickedness.

14 Do not become partners with those who do not believe, for what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship does light have with darkness? (2 Cor. 6:14)

13 For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. 14 And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. 15 Therefore it is not surprising his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will correspond to their actions. (2 Cor. 11:13-15)

8 For you were at one time darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light – 9 for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth – 10 trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. (Eph. 5:8-11)

5. Righteousness can lead to a harvest of righteousness or good deeds.

9 Now God who provides seed for the sower and bread for food will provide and multiply your supply of seed and will cause the harvest of your righteousness to grow. (2 Cor. 9:10)

9 And this is my prayer: that [you may be] … 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. (Php. 1:9, 11, NIV)

6. The kingdom of God is righteousness, as we serve others.

17 For the kingdom of God does not consist of food and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. 18 For the one who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by people. (Rom. 14:17-18)

7. A crown of righteousness awaits us.

5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we wait expectantly for the hope of righteousness. (Gal. 5:5)

6 For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. (2 Tim. 4:6-8, NIV)

Summary

Putting things right in a covenant context and being declared righteous or acquitted in a forensic (law court) setting do not need to conflict. When God declares you not-guilty or acquits you and yes, puts a robe of righteousness on you, you are put right in the New Covenant.

After (or at the same time) you are acquitted in the divine court of law, God expects you to walk like a free person, declared not guilty. He expects you to behave yourself, to walk in righteousness. That’s called sanctification. Since all analogies are weak, the human judge cannot send his spirit into you to sanctify you. But God is the heavenly judge. He can and does send his Spirit into you. He is called the Holy Spirit. He leads you towards holiness.

After that big-picture overview, now let’s turn to a summary of the biblical data.

People are declared righteous or just, not because of their good behavior, but because of their faith in Jesus Christ and Christ’s faithfulness and righteousness. So God sees the bad behavior of the sinner. But God notes that the sinner has turned in repentance and faith in Christ who forgives the sinner. Christ pays his debt. Then God declares the sinner righteous and not guilty. The man or woman is no longer a debtor because his debt of sin has been paid in full, by Christ.

Now we can study Paul’s doctrine of righteousness and justification.

His epistles are much, much shorter than the OT. But he packs a lot of theology into them. He takes over some themes from the OT, but clearly goes in new directions. After all, the Messiah had come and the Spirit was given. They account for some huge differences between the two covenants.

Justified, Righteousness, and Justification

All three words have the same Greek stem dik-.

In the big picture, the Messiah came. Paul met him in revelations. How does the Messiah match up with the OT standard of righteousness? Would he reestablish the Law of Moses in its entirety? Partially?

One more piece of the big picture: The Spirit came. Paul experienced him. So how does he work with righteousness? How does the Spirit relate to the law of Moses? Now Israel was not the only chosen people; Gentiles were chosen too.

Paul is ambiguous about the Law of Moses. The law brings wrath and exposes or intensifies sin. Both Jews and Gentiles need to be rescued or saved from God’s judgment and wrath.

Righteousness and justification has to go in a different direction from law keeping.

Paul zeroes in on Abraham’s faith, who was the father of faith 400+ years before the Law of Moses. Abraham was credited with righteousness before he was circumcised, even though circumcision was the sign of being in a covenant, now an old covenant. Keying off Abraham, both Jews and Gentiles can be credited with righteousness by faith. Paul teaches that faith apart from works of the law puts the legal declaration (to justify) in motion.

The Spirit and grace work in a person (even if he does not realize it). To be justified by grace is to be declared righteous apart from doing the law. This declaration has to come through the Messiah and the Spirit, not the Law of Moses.

Vindication has to go in a different direction from a narrow restoration of one nation. In fact, vindication is a minor theme in Paul. If anyone is vindicated, it is God, who had foretold he would establish a new covenant; and, having established it, he is not proven untrue. Only after the legal declaration of righteousness (justification) can a believer be considered “vindicated.” But this is different from ancient Israel’s vindication. Israel had been attacked, defeated and exiled, and the nations of the known world had heard about it. When a remnant of Israel had been restored, national vindication was accomplished.

Paul goes way beyond national vindication and is concerned with righteousness before God and his judgment. Christ’s sacrificial blood is the foundation of justification, because the demands of the law have been met. The punishment for our law breaking has been paid in full. To justify is to declare the person just or righteous, so that the ground of punishment no longer exists. Justification is the opposite of condemnation. To condemn does not make the character bad, and to justify does not make the character good. Justification is as much a legal and declarative act as condemnation is.

Some additional thoughts:

Law keeping does not bring righteousness. Only faith in Christ brings God’s freely given righteousness. To be declared righteous in God’s sight and to be justified are the same.

To justify is to impute righteousness. Righteousness is a free gift by grace and faith.

To impute is to reckon, calculate, consider, or regard it. The Greek logizomai – which is the verb that translates as “impute” – has the basic meaning of “thinking” or “considering.” God thinks of us as righteous because of Christ; therefore, his righteousness belongs to us. It is not a “legal fiction.” Therefore, after being justified, man can survive the judgment before an infinitely holy and righteous God.

To be justified or legally declared righteous is not an inner act, any more than a judge can make the acquitted be just or righteous on the inside. To be justified does not change the person’s character. Justification is not the same as sanctification (see next).

Justification and Imparted Righteousness or Sanctification

Justification and sanctification are inseparable, but distinct. Sanctification literally means “the process or act of making holy.” Only the Holy Spirit leads the believer to live a righteous life. From the status of declared righteousness (justification), he can live out a righteous life. Righteousness has been imputed (justification), so now it can be imparted (sanctification).

From the declared legal status of righteousness flows the activity of righteousness. We are no longer slaves of unrighteousness, but slaves of righteousness. Righteousness and wickedness are incompatible. Righteousness can produce a harvest of good or righteous deeds. The legally declared status of righteousness can lead us to put on the breastplate of righteousness. The legally declared status of righteousness can now lead us to take up weapons of lived-out righteousness.

We can pursue righteousness. This pursuit is the perfect illustration of the difference between justification and sanctification. Paul believes righteousness is a free gift by grace alone and faith alone – from faith to faith, apart from works of the law or our works, period. Yet we can pursue righteousness. If we’re not careful, our pursuit turns into our works. We might believe we have to earn righteousness. But why pursue something we already have as a gift in the first place? This is the confusion that comes from not understanding the difference between justification and sanctification.

Paul would tell us that we receive righteousness as a gift by a legal declaration. That’s imputed righteousness. That’s justification. Then our ethical conduct is affected. That’s imparted righteousness from the Spirit. We then pursue righteous living by following the Spirit. That’s sanctification. Then, one day, we will wear a crown of righteousness, after we die.

Though the declaration of righteousness or acquittal and sanctification are unified, we need to understand the distinctions. (1) God justifies or legally declares us righteous (justification). We have a righteous standing or status before God’s tribunal. We are put right in the New Covenant. We are acquitted. (2) That legal righteousness and being put right is worked out in our walk or growth in him by the power of the Spirit (sanctification). (3) Our day-to-day growth in righteousness comes together and is completed in heaven.

The free gift of righteousness impacts our living and behavior. We can now live righteously. We do this by walking in the Spirit.

Thus, justification and sanctification are inseparable, but distinct.

If we wrongly believe that God first has to sanctify us before he can declare us not guilty, we will never know for sure if our sanctification has progressed far enough. Are we holy enough before God can declare us righteous? Have we purged out enough sin so that God can then justify us (legally declare us righteous)? Though I’m cooperating with the Spirit in the sanctification process, is my personal cooperation and righteousness good enough?

This wrong way makes God’s legal declaration or justification too dependent on us. This backwards belief puts too much pressure on us. How is this pressure and self-dependency good news? It isn’t.

The answer: imputation and justification (legal declaration of righteousness) being put right in the New Covenant (new position in Christ) and impartation and sanctification (personal growth in righteousness in the Spirit).

Lesson 99: The Cross and Our Commitment (John 19:31-42)

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August 9, 2015

A hen and a pig saw a church sign announcing the sermon: “What Can We Do to Help the Poor?” The hen suggested that they feed them bacon and eggs. The pig thought about it and replied, “There’s one thing wrong with your idea: for you it requires only a contribution, but for me it requires total commitment!”

When I saw the photos a few months ago of the 21 Egyptian Christians who were beheaded on the beach in Libya or when I read stories about our brothers and sisters who are asked by Muslim extremists on threat of death, “Are you a Christian?” I wonder, “What would I do?” Perhaps we can never know for sure in advance how we would respond if we were faced with martyrdom. God would have to give special grace at that moment. But we all should be concerned about how we can deepen our commitment to Christ now so that we can be faithful to Him in this increasingly hostile world. Two minor characters in John’s Gospel, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, offer a lesson on how to deepen our commitment to Christ.

When I was in college, there was an ad for Clairol hair-coloring that had the tag line, “Only her hairdresser knows for sure.” You couldn’t tell by looking whether she dyed her hair or not. So we used to refer to certain Christians, who were quiet about their faith, as “Clairol Christians,” because only God knew for sure that they were believers.

Up to this point, both Joseph and Nicodemus had been “Clairol Christians.” Nobody except God knew that they were followers of Jesus. John (19:38) says that Joseph was “a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one for fear of the Jews.” From the other gospels, we learn that he was a prominent member of the Council (the Sanhedrin) who was waiting for the kingdom of God and that he had to gather up courage to ask Pilate for Jesus’ body (Mark 15:42). Luke (23:50-51) adds that he was a good and righteous man who had not consented to their plan and action to crucify Jesus.

We have encountered Nicodemus twice before in John’s gospel. In John 3, he visited Jesus by night, acknowledging that He was a teacher who had come from God as evidenced by His many miracles. Jesus startled Nicodemus, a Pharisee and “the teacher of Israel” (John 3:10), by saying (John 3:3), “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” All of Nicodemus’ religious activities and scrupulous obedience to the Law of Moses would not qualify him for God’s kingdom. Rather, he must be born of the Spirit.

We don’t know how Nicodemus responded to that meeting with Jesus. But in John 7, after the Pharisees were frustrated because their officers had not arrested Jesus, they scornfully ask (John 7:48), “No one of the rulers or Pharisees has believed in Him, has he?” Nicodemus weakly defended Jesus by stating (John 7:51), “Our Law does not judge a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?” His colleagues put him down by replying (John 7:52), “You are not also from Galilee, are you? Search, and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee.” Both Joseph and Nicodemus may have been among those whom John 12:42-43 negatively refers to: “Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.”

But now, after Jesus has been crucified, Nicodemus joins Joseph in giving Jesus a proper burial. Joseph went to Pilate to ask for the body, while Nicodemus provided about 65-70 pounds of myrrh and aloes to fold in with the linen wrappings to offset the stench of the decomposing corpse. The two men took Jesus’ body from the cross, prepared Him for burial, and laid Him in Joseph’s personal new tomb, a cave near Golgotha hewn out of the rock, where no other bodies had yet been placed (Matt. 27:60; Luke 23:53; John 19:41).

So you have this odd situation where the disciples, who had followed Jesus when He was alive, and had expressed their willingness to die with Him (John 11:16; 13:37), all fled when He was arrested and crucified. It seems that only John dared to come back to the scene at the cross. But Joseph and Nicodemus, who had hesitated to confess Christ publicly when He was alive, now risk their positions on the Sanhedrin and take this bold, open stand for Christ after He has died. Although a few commentators question whether these two men came to saving faith on the grounds that John never directly states this, it seems to me that the fruit of their bold actions here testifies to their underlying faith.

So you have to ask, “Why the change?” Why did these men now come out boldly for Christ when they easily could have reasoned, “He must not have been the Messiah or He would not have been crucified”? Why risk the wrath of Pilate and rejection from their fellow members on the Council now to join what seemed to be a lost cause? Why didn’t they just shrug their shoulders and say, “Oh well, I hope that His disciples give Him a decent burial”?

I believe that the answer lies in the way that John juxtaposes the final scene at the cross (John 19:31-37) with the actions of these two men (John 19:38-42). These men had watched Jesus die and it deeply affected them. Seeing Christ crucified solidified their commitment to Him. Thanks to them, Jesus’ body was not thrown on the ash heap where they burned the bodies of other crucified men. Of course, God could have raised Jesus from the dead even if He had been burned to ashes. But then we wouldn’t have the evidence of the empty tomb, which had been secured by the Roman guard. So God used these two men’s late, but costly, commitment. The application for us is:

Looking on the crucified Christ deepens our commitment to Him.

First, let’s look at the crucified Christ; then we’ll look on the commitment that results from looking to Him.

1. A look at the crucified Christ: He died to provide a full salvation in fulfillment of prophecy.

Note three things:

A. Jesus died.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Well, duh! Of course He died!” But that seemingly obvious fact has been denied down through the centuries. Late in the first century, Docetists denied that Jesus was truly a man. They asserted that He only seemed to be a man. Thus it only seemed that He died. Mohammed, whose knowledge of Christianity came through Docetist sources, wrote in the Quran (Sura 4.156), “They did not kill him, neither did they crucify him; it only seemed to be so.” (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], pp. 623-624, footnote 3) Note the devastating impact of false teaching, with over a billion Muslims today believing that fatal error! More recently there have been attempts, such as Hugh Schonfield’s, The Passover Plot, to revive the theory that Jesus didn’t die on the cross; He just swooned and was placed in the tomb, where the cool air revived Him.

But if Jesus didn’t die, then He didn’t atone for our sins. If He didn’t die, then He was not raised from the dead, which means that our faith is worthless and we are still in our sins (1 Cor. 15:17). If Jesus didn’t die, you have to throw out the entire gospel record, which is the only eyewitness testimony that we have about Jesus.

John establishes the fact of Jesus’ death in three ways. First, in John 19:31 he reports: “Then the Jews, because it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.” It was a “high Sabbath” because it immediately followed the Passover. Deuteronomy 21:22-23 states that if a man was condemned to death and hung upon a tree, his corpse should not hang on the tree overnight so as not to defile the land. So the Jews wanted these crucified men’s bodies removed from the cross so that they would not defile their land at the same time that they had crucified an innocent man who was, in fact, their Messiah!

So, Pilate gave the order to break the crucified men’s legs, which would result in quick death. If you’ve ever hit your shin hard on something, you know how painful it is. Well, after these men had already suffered for hours on the cross, the soldiers would come and shatter their shins with a heavy mallet, disabling them from using their legs to push up for another gasp of air. The shock and pain of the broken legs along with the lack of air would quickly result in death. So the soldiers smashed the legs of the two thieves, who were on either side of Jesus, but when they came to Jesus they saw that He was already dead and so they did not break His legs (John 19:33). They would not have ignored Pilate’s orders unless they were absolutely certain that Jesus was, in fact, dead.

The second way that John shows that Jesus was dead is that he reports how one of the soldiers, presumably to make sure that Jesus was dead, pierced His side with a spear, resulting in blood and water gushing out (John 19:34). Medical experts disagree on exactly what happened (Carson, p. 623, cites the two most common theories), but it’s obvious from the flow of blood and water that Jesus was dead before the spear thrust. But even if He hadn’t already died, this spear thrust would have finished the job. It wasn’t a minor puncture wound—it left a scar large enough to put your hand into (John 20:27)! John (19:35) underscores his eyewitness testimony of the truth of the piercing of Jesus’ side: “And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe.”

The third way that John proves that Jesus was dead is that Joseph and Nicodemus prepared Him for burial by wrapping His body with linen and spices (John 19:40). If there had been the slightest evidence of breath or of a pulse, they would not have continued with the process. So we can be certain that Jesus died and was buried, which are essential to the gospel we believe in and proclaim (1 Cor. 15:3-4).

B. Jesus’ death provided a full salvation.

Jesus’ death was unique among all human deaths that have ever occurred because Jesus was unique. As fully God, His death satisfied God’s righteous requirement. As fully man, His death atoned for human sins. He paid in full the debt for the sins of His people (Matt. 1:21). As He proclaimed just before He expired (John 19:30), “It is finished!” The Greek word means, “Paid in full.”

But also, John wants us to think about the significance of the flow of blood and water from Jesus’ side as it relates to our salvation. Through his eyewitness testimony to the truth of this event he wants us to believe (John 19:35). Beyond the fact that the flow of blood and water certify Jesus’ death, John, who loves symbolism, most likely wants us to think about the symbolic meaning of this. But the problem is, commentators differ on what it means. The most common suggestion from Chrysostom on has been that the water represents baptism and the blood represents the Lord’s table, but most modern commentators view that as reading something foreign into the text (Carson, p. 624).

It is more likely that the blood and water point to the eternal life and cleansing that flow from Jesus’ death (ibid.). J. C. Ryle (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], p. 331) believed that John had in mind Zechariah 13:1, “In that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for impurity.” That verse occurs just five verses after Zechariah 12:10, which John (19:37) quotes with reference to the piercing of Jesus’ side. So the blood refers to the fact that Jesus’ blood cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7). The water also pictures cleansing, as well as eternal life and the Holy Spirit (John 4:14; 7:37-39; Carson, p. 624). Several beloved old hymns express this. William Cowper wrote,

“There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.”

Augustus Toplady’s “Rock of Ages” put it:

“Let the water and the blood,
From Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure;
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.”

Fanny Crosby sings,

“Jesus, keep me near the cross;
There a precious fountain
Free to all, a healing stream,
Flows from Calv’ry’s mountain.”

The important thing is that you don’t just say, “That’s interesting,” and move on without being moved. Jesus’ death on the cross should be real and personal for you! John testifies that he saw the blood and water flow from Jesus’ side, and he reports it “so that you also may believe.” Through the blood of Jesus there is a full pardon for all the sins of everyone who puts his or her trust in Jesus as Savior and Lord.

Before we move on, there is one more thing to note in looking at the crucified Christ:

C. Jesus’ death and burial uniquely fulfilled prophecy.

Although Jesus’ crucifixion must have been a horrifying sight, especially for those who knew Him and loved Him, John wants us to know that God sovereignly ordained it. He uses even the wicked to fulfill His purposes (Acts 4:27-28). John has already shown this in his narration of Jesus’ crucifixion (see my previous message), but he continues to drive home this point.

First, he writes (John 19:36), “For these things came to pass to fulfill the Scripture, ‘Not a bone of Him shall be broken.’” John is probably combining three Old Testament Scriptures: Exodus 12:46 & Numbers 9:12, which prohibit breaking the bones of the Passover lamb; and, Psalm 34:20, which refers to God protecting the righteous man from his enemies breaking his bones (Andreas Kostenberger, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament [Baker Academic], ed. by G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, p. 503). It’s significant that these soldiers who were under orders to break the legs of the crucified men would skip Jesus, who was in the middle! Even when they saw that He was dead, it would have been normal for them to break His legs, too, so that they didn’t get in trouble. But God sovereignly prevented the soldiers from obeying their orders so that Jesus would fulfill Messianic prophecy!

Also, a soldier thrust his spear into Jesus’ side, probably to make sure that He was dead. He wasn’t under orders to do this; it was just something that he did on a whim. But John (19:37) points out that this fulfilled Zechariah 12:10, “They shall look on Him whom they pierced.” That prophecy will have its final fulfillment when Jesus returns (Rev. 1:7), but it had its initial fulfillment here. It also fulfills Isaiah 53:5, which says that the Suffering Servant “was pierced through for our transgressions.”

The third prophecy that Jesus’ burial fulfilled was Isaiah 53:9, “His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet He was with a rich man in His death, …” Normally, a crucified man’s body would be left on the cross until the vultures had eaten it and then taken down and thrown on the ash heap called Gehenna. But because God always accomplishes His purpose (Isa. 46:8-11), Jesus was buried in this rich man’s tomb. One writer (cited by J. C. Ryle, p. 344) observes that Jesus was rich twice: once at His birth, when the wise men brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh; and again, at His death, when He was buried in the rich man’s tomb.

So looking at the crucified Christ should lead us to commitment because He died for our sins to provide a full salvation and He is the fulfillment of God’s prophetic promises. God planned every detail of His death and resurrection for our salvation. Let’s look briefly at …

2. The commitment which results: It costs you rejection, your religion, and your riches.

Salvation in Christ is free, but costly!

A. Commitment to Christ costs you rejection.

By burying Jesus, Joseph and Nicodemus would have incurred the wrath and rejection of the other Council members, who would have viewed them as traitors. Their reputation with the influential men of Jerusalem was ruined because they now identified with this despised, crucified Galilean.

Commitment to the crucified Christ will also cost you rejection. People don’t mind if you say that you admire Jesus as a great moral teacher. They’re okay if you say that He is a way to God. But when you say that Jesus was crucified for sinners and that He is the only way to God, you will feel their rejection: “Are you saying that I’m a sinner who needs a Savior?” That’s offensive! Prepare to be rejected.

B. Commitment to Christ costs your religion.

The Jewish leaders wouldn’t set foot in Pilate’s dwelling so as not to incur defilement for the Passover. They wouldn’t dare touch a dead body, especially during the Feast of Unleavened Bread! But Joseph walks into Pilate’s presence to ask for Jesus’ body and then he and Nicodemus defile themselves by preparing that body for burial. In so doing, they lost their religion, but they gained Christ!

By “religion,” I’m referring to those who are scrupulous about outward appearances, but don’t deal with God on the heart level (see Mark 7:1-23). Religious people are fastidious about cleaning the outside of the cup, while inwardly they are full of sinful self-indulgence (Matt. 23:25). Religious people do things to look good before people, but they don’t come to Christ as needy sinners to receive mercy and to live in holiness on the thought level. To be committed to Jesus Christ, you’ve got to give up religion and replace it with reality with God.

C. Commitment to Christ costs your riches.

Both Joseph and Nicodemus were fairly well off. To bury Jesus, Joseph had to give up his personal tomb (remember, he wasn’t expecting the resurrection!). Nicodemus supplied a lot of costly spices for Jesus’ burial. If both men later joined the early church in Jerusalem, they may have been among those who sold their properties to provide for the needy saints (Acts 4:34-35). Jesus made the radical claim (Luke 14:33), “So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.” God doesn’t just own a tenth of your income; He owns it all!

So commitment to Christ is costly. But, do you gain anything?

3. The gains of commitment to Christ: What you lose temporally you gain eternally.

Joseph and Nicodemus were rejected by the Jewish leaders, but by confessing Christ on earth they gained eternal acceptance in heaven (Matt. 10:32-33). They lost their rules-keeping religion, but they gained an eternal relationship with the risen Savior. They lost their earthly riches, but they gained treasures in heaven. Remember Jesus’ words (Matt. 16:25-26): “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Conclusion

Of course, there are also temporal benefits that accompany commitment to Christ. Peter said Jesus (Mark 10:28), “Behold, we have left everything and followed You.” Jesus replied (Mark 10:29), “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life.” There may be persecutions, but the Lord always takes care of His children!

So to deepen your commitment to Christ, meditate often on His death for you. Isaac Watts captured it well:

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Application Questions

  1. What is your biggest hindrance in seeking to be fully committed to Jesus Christ? How can you remove it?
  2. Consider the words of missionary C. T. Studd, who gave away a fortune to follow Christ: “If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.” What does the Lord want you to sacrifice for Him?
  3. Missionary martyr Jim Elliot wrote: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” If you haven’t done so, read Elisabeth Elliot’s, Shadow of the Almighty.
  4. Some Christians are needlessly abrasive and insensitive towards unbelievers. Where is the balance between tactfulness and boldness in our witness (see Col. 4:2-6)?

Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation

Related Topics: Christian Life, Discipleship

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