Romans 4:1-5

While Paulos is away on a journey, I will keep posting. Here is my translation of Romans 4:1-5 with a commentary on the passage.

Romans 4

¹ What, then shall we say? Have we found Abraham to be our forefather according to the flesh? ² For if Abraham was declared righteous on the basis of works, he has grounds for boasting, but not before God. ³ For what does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness.” ⁴ But to the one who works the wage is not reckoned to him according to grace but according to debt. ⁵ But to the one who does not work but believes on him who declares the ungodly to be righteous, that one’s faith is reckoned for righteousness.

In chapter 4 Paul turns to the Scriptures, especially the accounts of Abraham and David to show how what he said in 3:27-31 is true to the text.

I have begun my translation going against the majority of English translations. But, because of Richard Hays’ work on this matter (for an easily accessible discussion see his Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, 54-55), I have adopted the above translation. The issue, then, is not what Abraham found, but how Abraham is the forefather of Christians. Within this treatment of how Abraham is the forefather of Christians, Paul says a few things regarding justification by God.

Paul argues beginning in verse 2 that if Abraham were declared righteous on the basis of works (that is works of the Law), he would have grounds for boasting. This boasting would be the type of boasting Paul described in 2:17-20. But Paul has already excluded this type of boasting in 3:27-30. Thus, Paul adds, ‘not before God’. The Scripture itself talks of how Abraham was reckoned righteous. How? Was it on the basis the works of the Law? No! The reckoning was according to grace to the one who believes in God who declares the ungodly to be righteous.

Thus, what Paul said in 3:21ff is shown to be true for Abraham. It was not on the basis of works of the Law that Abraham was reckoned righteous by God. Rather, the reckoning was according to God’s grace. Who are the ones that God will declare righteous in the last day? It is those who trust in him, just like Abraham.

As an aside (but an important one), I need to mention Wright’s take on justification in chapter 4. What he does is combine the metaphors of covenant and justification. He sees Paul to be saying, then, that when Paul says that Abraham’s faith was reckoned as righteousness that Abraham was considered to be in covenant with God.

I think this is a misreading of Paul. Rather than Wright’s view, I think it is better to see Paul as using the courtroom imagery of justification and keeping it legal. That is, it seems that Paul sees what was done with Abraham as a courtroom scene not as a covenant ceremony. One can see why Wright would go this route, since the quote is from Genesis 15, where God cuts a covenant with Abraham. But it seems to me that this would be a place where we should see the distinctions between the legal and the covenantal, while maintaining their inseparability.