Timotheos,
You have raised some crucial questions, questions that I also have. Let's see if we can work through them to some resolution that is true and satisfactory to the text.
Before I comment upon Romans 4:6-8 I would like to return to 4:1-5 to offer a note concerning an important aspect of the passage that I passed over previously.
Paul employs the imagery of bookkeeping when he says, "Now to the one who works wages are not reckoned in keeping with grace but in keeping with debt, but to the one who does not work but trusts upon him who justifies the ungodly, his trust is reckoned for righteousness."
Three features of the text stand out.
Paul understands Genesis 15 to mean that Abraham was ungodly when God justified him. This will be important to his argument later, particularly in 4:11-12, when he contends that God justified Abraham when he was yet an uncircumcised Gentile.
God's act in justifying Abraham, an ungodly man, distinctively sets God apart from humans. God forbids humans to do what he did with Abraham. God forbids any human judge to justify the ungodly. Paul's words--to dikaioounta ton asebē (the one who justifies the ungodly)--echo those of the Greek text of Exodus 23:7--ou dikaiōseis ton asebē (do not justify the ungodly), except in the positive (cf. Proverbs 17:15). As Paul has explained already, in 3:25-26, God is righteous to justify the ungodly because he has passed judgment and inflicted his wrath of punishment upon a substitute, namely, Jesus Christ. What God condemns as unjust in the lawcourt of humans is just in the lawcourt of heaven, not merely because he is God, as if by fiat God could reverse the matter. Justifying the ungodly is wicked, not simply because God determined that it should be wicked by sheer force of his will. No! Contrary to the Governmental Theory of the Atonement. Justifying the ungodly is wicked because of God's character. God had to satisfy his own wrath in order to declare sinners righteous.
Thus, Paul's statement--the one who justifies the ungodly--takes us back to the beginning of his argument in 1:18ff. The one who believes has nothing to offer to God as a premise or basis upon which God could ground his justice and thus declare the ungodly man righteous. God's justification of the ungodly is out of sheer grace, not out of any debt to the one justified.
Now I will offer a few comments on 4:6-8.
Paul's kathaper (so also, in the same way) makes it clear that he understands David's words from Psalm 32:1-2 as speaking of the same thing he has just mentioned, namely God's blessing to the one whom God reckons righteous apart from works. From where did Paul draw the inference that David speaks of the blessing of the one whom God reckons righteous apart from works? This is the the third of your questions set out with bullet points. How does Psalm 32:1-2 support Paul's assertion, particularly that God reckons one righteous apart from works? Psalm 32, itself, says nothing explicit about a reckoning of righteousness apart from works.
It seems that the answer to the question lies somewhere along this trail of thought. It is crucial that we recognize that Paul is working off the verb reckon (logizomai) which is common to both Genesis 15:6 (elogisthē autō eis dikaiosunēn) and Psalm 32:1-2 (hou ou mē logisētai kurios hamartian; Ps 31:2 LXX) in the Greek Old Testament. For Abraham, the ungodly man, God reckoned his trust for righteousness. For David, the blessed man, God did not reckon his sin for unrighteousness but forgave his transgression. In other words, David was as much a beggar as Abraham; neither man had any claim upon God. Neither one could claim God's reckoning on any other ground than God's graciousness. Thus, Paul understands the words of Psalm 32:2--God's not reckoning sin against David--as equivalent to his own words in Romans 4:6--God's reckoning righteousness apart from works. Paul's appeal to Scripture with regard to both men, then, supports his point that neither Abraham nor David had any claim upon God, for God's reckoning righteousness is entirely of grace and not of debt. This seems to me to be the answer to your third question, then.
Before I proceed further, it seems right that I should pause to point out an important detail of Paul's text which, of course, is true of both Genesis 15:6 and Psalm 32:1-2, also. In our doing Christian theology we tend to ignore this fine detail of distinction. We tend to glide over the textual detail and say that God reckoned Abraham righteous or that God reckoned David righteous. Ultimately we are almost right to speak like this, for those to whom God has not reckoned sin these are justified and not under condemnation (Romans 5:1; 8:1). However, within Romans 4, for Paul, the blessing of Abraham and of David is not precisely that God has reckoned them righteous. Rather, Paul is careful to speak of the blessing of the one to whom God reckons righteousness. . . . Positively, in the case of Abraham, God reckons Abraham's faith for righteousness. Negatively, in the case of David, God does not reckon his sin against him but forgives his lawless deeds. This may seem picayunish and pedantic to say, but it is crucial, nonetheless. David's blessing is not that God does not reckon him a sinner; David's blessing is that God does not reckon his sin against him.
This, of course, sustains Paul's employment of the bookkeeping imagery. Expressed positively, as in Psalm 32:1, David's blessing is not that God forgives David; David's blessing is that God forgives David's lawless deeds and covers his sin. In other words, grammar matters. The person is not the direct object of the verbs reckon and forgive. Rather, the person is the indirect object of the verbs. God forgives sins, not people. Likewise, God's reckoning has in view Abraham's trust, positively, and David's lawlessnesses and sins, negatively. Why is this not pedantic or picayunish but significant? It is for this reason: If we are to know the blessing of which David speaks, we must see ourselves as Abraham and as David saw themselves, utterly destitute apart from God's grace, completely helpless and without any claim upon God at all because of our sins. We must recognize that the fundamental issue at stake in God's court of justice is our sin. God's reckoning concerns sin. God has to deal with our actual and real sins not just with us as persons, but with our sins. We must recognize that apart from God's act of reckoning we are rightly counted ungodly. Thus, it seems to me that the Reformers got this matter quite right when they protested against Rome's teaching and set out to reform the church.
I'm sorry that my response takes your questions out of order. I do so, however, because Paul's text suggests this reordering of the questions to my mind. So, now I return to your first two questions. First you asked: Does Paul's expression to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works mean the same as apart from works of the Law? Your second question flows from the first: If apart from works means the same as apart from works of the Law is Paul making the connection with David to the 'working' in 4:4?
It seems to me that we would wrongly take Paul's unqualified use of chōris erga (apart from works) in Romans 4:6 as strictly equivalent to chōris erga nomou (apart from works of the Law, 3:28) or chōris nomou (apart from the Law, 3:21). Surely, the expressions are related. Yet, the unqualified expression in 4:6, apart from works, seems to be somewhat distinct from apart from works of the Law (3:28) because a crucial point that Paul is making in Romans 4 is that Abraham, who was not under the Law as David was, also had no works to bring before God which would count for righteousness. In other words, it seems to me that the Reformers got it right, that God's reckoning righteousness is not grounded in any works of any kind that humans do. As David expresses the blessing of the one to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works, take note of the works encompassed in his view. The works David mentions do have reference to the Law (nomos), but they are Lawlessnesses (hai anomiai) and sins (hai hamartiai). Yet, even for David, things contrary to the Law of Moses fit a larger category, namely, sins. Thus, it seems to me that Paul's phrase apart from works is a larger category than apart from works of the Law, the latter being subordinate to the former.
Now, there is one more matter in your first question that I should address. As you reasoned whether Paul's expression apart from works should be understood as equivalent to his earlier expression apart from works of the Law, you made the following comment: Also in 3.21 Paul says that God’s righteousness has been revealed ‘apart from the Law’. Putting these things together would make sense that the ‘apart from works’ would refer to the Law of Moses. Again, this may seem picayunish and pedantic, but we need to recognize a distinction between Paul's expressions in 3:28; 4:6 and his expression in 3:21.
- 3:21--But now God's righteousness has been disclosed apart from the Law
- 3:28--For we reckon that a man is justified by faithfulness apart from works of the Law
- 4:6--as David speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works
The latter two passages are parallel, for both speak of being justified by God, and both negate a particular basis upon which God's justifying is grounded, apart from works of the Law and apart from works, respectively. However, in 3:21, Paul's expression apart from the Law does not attach to God's act of justifying but to God's act of disclosing his own righteousness. This is quite significant. The point Paul makes in 3:21 is not the same point he makes in 3:28 or in 4:6.
Undoubtedly, there are elements in the text that call for more and closer attention. This, however, must suffice for now.
Paulos
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