Romans 1:17

Romans 1:17. For. The proof of Romans 1:16, especially of the assertion that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation,

Therein; in the gospel.

God's righteousness. The word ‘righteous,' so frequent in the Old Testament, is used of conformity to law, equivalent to holy, perfect. It is applied absolutely to God alone, and the entire family of similar terms has a religious significance. ‘Righteousness,' when used of man, means conformity to the holy will and law of God, as the ultimate standard of right; when used of God, it expresses one of His attributes, essentially the same with His holiness and goodness, as manifested in His dealings with His creatures, especially with men. Closely allied with these words is another, meaning to declare or pronounce one righteous, expressed in English by the word ‘justify,' derived from the Latin equivalent of ‘righteous.' It is unfortunate that the correspondence cannot be preserved. In this verse ‘God's righteousness,' in itself, might mean: (1) a righteousness which belongs to God; (2) a righteousness which comes from God; (3) a righteousness which He approves. But the discussion in chaps. 3, 4, leaves no room for doubting that the correct meaning is (2), a righteousness of which God is the author, and that too His free gift, so that it is reckoned to the believer (chap. Romans 3:21-25). But while this is to be insisted upon as the prominent thought, it must be borne in mind: (a) That neither here nor elsewhere is ‘righteousness' exactly equivalent to ‘justification,' or God's method of justification, (b) That this revelation of ‘righteousness from God,' by imputation, grows out of the righteousness which belongs to God; in the gospel He reveals His own righteousness by revealing that He is ‘just and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus' (chap. Romans 3:26); nothing shows His righteousness so plainly as the death of Christ for our Redemption, (c) Hence this ‘righteousness from God,' freely reckoned to the believer, necessarily leads to a change of character in the sinner who believes, so that the righteousness imputed ‘becomes righteousness inwrought.' This is necessarily the case: because when God accounts a man righteous, He is pledged to make him so; because faith which lays hold on this imputed righteousness brings the justified man into living fellowship with Jesus Christ, who gives him the Holy Spirit; and because on the human side this method of pardon and reconciliation affords motives for well-doing, which that Holy Spirit uses to fulfil the pledge God makes of sanctifying the believer. It has been found that a denial of the fundamental sense (righteousness from God, imputed by Him) leads to a practical obscuration of both the other senses; while God has been proven righteous and man made righteous by the maintenance of the truth that in the gospel He reveals a righteousness which He puts to the account of the believer.

Revealed. The present tense indicates continued action: it is being revealed, it is continuously proclaimed and made known. In the Old Testament it was promised and prepared for, but first made known fully in the gospel.

From faith to faith. This is to be joined with ‘revealed,' not with ‘righteousness.' The righteousness is revealed ‘from faith' as the starting-point, and ‘to faith' as its aim, continually producing new faith. This is substantially the generally accepted explanation. (It is improper to refer ‘from faith' to God's faithfulness.) The gospel makes known constantly that faith on Christ is the subjective cause of the righteousness from God, the condition of its imputation, the organ which appropriates it; and it further makes known that thus faith is produced; faith is the beginning and end, the vital principle is ever the same. ‘Faith,' in the New Testament, has well-nigh invariably the subjective sense, not what is believed, but believing. It includes knowledge and belief, assent and surrender, appropriation and application; and hence cannot be limited to a purely intellectual credence.

As it if written. By this passage (Zechariah 2:4), Paul would show that this revelation of righteousness from God, from faith and to faith, is in accordance with the Old Testament Scripture, and hence according to the divine plan.

The righteous. The rendering ‘just' obliterates the verbal correspondence with ‘righteousness.' Paul here refers to one who possesses the righteousness from God, If this were not the case the quotation would lack point.

Shall live by faith; or, ‘the righteous by faith shall live.' The former view of the connection agrees better with the original prophecy of Habakkuk, where ‘faith' is equivalent to ‘faithfulness' (both having the same fundamental idea of trust in God). The latter, however, is accepted by some, on the Sound that Paul, in this case, is seeking to prove from the Old Testament, not a life by faith, but the revelation of righteousness by faith. (‘By' here is the same word as that rendered ‘from' in the preceding clause.) In any case, Paul clearly holds that if the righteous man truly lives, it is because he has been accounted righteous by faith; comp. Galatians 3:11, where the same passage is quoted. In favor of the connection ‘live by faith,' we may urge the greater emphasis which falls upon ‘by faith', in accordance with the order of the Greek.

We add a paraphrase of these important verses: To you Romans also I am ready to preach, for even in your imperial city I would not be ashamed of the gospel. How can I be ashamed of it before any sinful man, since it is that through and in which God's power works so as to save men, all of whom are sinful, and any one of whom can be thus saved when he believes

whether he be of God's ancient people, to whom it was first preached, or of the Gentiles. It is God's power unto salvation because it brings to sinful men righteousness which comes from God, given freely by Him, so that they are accounted righteous (and made righteous because He so accounts them); and this, not by any impossible way, but revealed from faith as its starting-point and faith as its terminal point: whatever of righteousness man has comes by faith. And this was God's way, predicted already in the Old Testament, for He there says: The man who is declared righteous lives by faith (or, the man who is righteous by faith lives).