Understanding Justification and Righteousness

INTRODUCTION

John Calvin described justification as “the main hinge on which religion turns,” while Martin Luther described justification as “the doctrine on which the church stands or falls.”

DEFINING TERMS

Two terms must be defined before we go further: righteousness and justification. The basis of this paper is to look at the doctrine of justification as Paul presents it in Romans, but clarification of these two terms will be helpful at this point. As N.T. Wright states, “English and American have two quite different root words, just and righteous, where Greek and Hebrew have one each, dikaios and its cognates in Greek, tsedaqah and its cognates in Hebrew.” In order to properly understand justification we must begin with an accurate understanding of the biblical relationship between these two words. Paul relies heavily on the Old Testament in his writing of Romans therefore, to arrive at a proper understanding of these terms; it is necessary to ground them in their Old Testament meanings.

In order to arrive at an understanding of justification, it requires us to first understand the concept of biblical righteousness. In the Old Testament righteousness have two basic meanings. Pertaining to one of its usages, Erickson states, “In the Old Testament, the verb (tsadaq) and its derivatives connote conformity to a norm.” The norm does vary with the situation. For example, in Genesis 38:26 Judah states the Tamar is more righteous than himself since he had failed to fulfill his obligations as her father-in-law. Here the norm is the family relationship. In the situation with David and Saul, David is deemed more righteous in that he refused to kill Saul (1 Samuel 24:17; 26:23). Here David is honoring the standards of monar...

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...een given a conscious; that is “an inbuilt recognition of good an evil ad sense that God is just when he punished wrong doing.”

Last, Paul tells us that all men are guilty. It matters not whether you are a Jew or Gentile, for all are under sin (3:9). All mankind has knowledge of God and have the ability to make decisions, whether right or wrong. But man has failed to live up to what is known about God: “all have turned aside; together they have become worthless (3:12). Therefore, “by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin (3:20). Paul’s closing argument could be summed up this way: men, by his actions, are guilty before a Holy God and rightfully are legally responsible for the punishment of their ungodliness and unrighteousness, and are desperately in need of acquittal from the wrath of God.