What comes to mind when you hear that phrase, "the righteousness of God"-or when you hear it declared that God is righteous? A natural reaction, I think, is to affirm it, but sort of the way one affirms that a triangle has three sides or that all unmarried men are bachelors. It is just one of those eternally true statements that is true by definition.
A Jewish person, on the other hand, at least in biblical times, would have heard such phrases differently. God's righteousness was understood in covenantal terms, which is to also say, historical terms. It was by no means a foregone conclusion that Israel's God, YAHWEH, was righteous, in view of the Assyrian and Babylonian invasions and subsequent captivity. It was hardly enough that God remained true to himself: given the covenant, he could not be "righteous" without being true to Israel. So the Bible is not a collection of timeless truths. Even if God himself transcends time, he condescends to have his character tested on the field. The Bible often reads like a courtroom drama, with pleas and counter-pleas, examination and cross-examination, and appeals to the witnesses and evidences of nature and history. In these court scenes, God is not only the judge, but sometimes the one Israel presumes to put on trial. And what is really amazing is that God stoops to allow this indignity, just to prove to everyone that he has been faithful and Israel has been the faithless partner.
So what does it mean for God to be righteous? Among other things, it means that God is faithful to his covenant word. In the Old Testament, the noun form of the word typically refers to someone (whether God or human) who is personally righteous or in a right covenantal relationship with God and the community. The verb form usually refers to God's salvation and vindication of his people, which exonerates him from any possible charge of negligence or powerlessness. When God acts "in righteousness," it is the same as saying that he acts for the salvation of his people and the judgment of the wicked. In the New Testament, especially in the Pauline epistles, "righteous" and "righteousness," as well as the verb, "to justify" (since English does not have a word meaning "to righteousize" in its vocabulary), take on slightly different meanings in addition to their traditional ones. As God's courtroom drama unfolds, it becomes clearer that the Messiah has come not merely to fix Israel and get it back on the right track while clobbering its enemies, but to do something far greater. He has come not only to forgive, but to justify-and not only to justify those who are actually themselves holy, but to justify the wicked. All of this was prophesied and now in Christ it is being fulfilled.
Among the believers in Rome, then, the Jewish Christians particularly would have had an acute sensitivity to this question about the righteousness of God. It would not have referred simply to an abstract attribute that was perhaps true but irrelevant; it would have triggered the big question of Jews ever since the Babylonian captivity: How long, O Lord? When will you restore the kingdom? Will you hide your face from us forever? Even more to the point: Will you keep the covenant? That, after all, is what it meant for God to be righteous.
Romans 1 to 3 belongs to this cosmic trial, and the courtroom intrigue is all over it. Paul is not ashamed of the gospel because it is God's answer to our covenant-breaking (1:16-17). That covenant-breaking, in fact, has provoked "the wrath of God" which "is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth" (v. 18). Like his righteousness, God's wrath is not an abstract attribute that we can affirm but never really encounter in history; it is God's own personal outrage at the violation of his covenant. Here "revealed" does not mean merely disclosed-as if it were merely new information. Rather, it means that God's wrath has now actually entered human history and the world that he had pronounced "good" in the beginning. The trial date has been set, and subpoenas have been issued.
Those who fancied that they were in the jury box rather than among the accused are themselves arraigned. They are judges, says Paul, but they are now to be judged by the one who really is righteous (2:1-11). In fact, in verses 1 to 3 alone, the noun "verdict" / "lawsuit" (krima, krimatos) and verb "judge" / "condemn" (katakrin) appear seven times, and the passage (vv. 1-11) is attended by similar courtroom language. The warning is clearest in 2:5: "But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed." It is not because of some vague and general pall of evil hanging over the world or because of the viciousness of the nations that God's wrath is being dammed up, waiting to burst, but because of the impenitent hearts of Jews and Gentiles. "He will render to each one according to his works," whether Jew or Greek (2:6-11).
After establishing the terms of God's righteous judgment and verdict (namely, faithfulness to the stipulations of the covenant), Paul, like the prophets in their role as covenant attorneys, then prosecutes the trial. That God judges righteously and rewards every person according to his or her deeds is not good news, Paul says, to those who are in fact lawless. "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" (2:12). "Great," Paul could hear his fellow Jews saying. "Just let God judge us according to his law and covenant, and we will be vindicated." But Paul reminds them, "For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified" (v. 13). If a Gentile happens to help a neighbor buy some groceries, then he or she has obeyed the law even if it is written on his or her conscience rather than on tablets of stone. And if a Jew fails to do so, being "hearer" who does not "do" the law is actually more reprehensible than one who does not even know God's commands.
The bottom line is that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. The Jews are not better off in this sense than the Gentiles. Although Paul does not quote Hosea 6:7, the idea is clearly present throughout this letter: "Like Adam, they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me." Those who rely on the law are under a curse not because the law is sinful, but because they are sinful and the law righteously condemns all such people.
So is God faithful to Israel? Is he really "righteous"? Can he legitimately pour out his wrath on Jews as well as Gentiles, on the circumcised as well as the uncircumcised? Absolutely, says Paul. "For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision" (2:25). In other words, the external sign and seal of covenantal protection from God's wrath becomes null and void if it is not accompanied by true faith, repentance, and obedience to all of the commands at Sinai. Like all children of Adam, those of Israel who are "uncircumcised of heart," stand condemned before God's tribunal.
Yes, God is faithful, then, Paul insists in chapter 3. God has been faithful, but Israel has been unfaithful. Yet even Israel's unfaithfulness has been God's opportunity to be merciful to the world. Jews were in a better position, to be sure (3:1-2), but are not now any better off in God's courtroom (vv. 9-10). Not a single living person is righteous, understands, or seeks God, does good, or fears God (vv. 11-16). When the defense rests its case and we no longer hear the chatter of the accused trying to exonerate themselves, the law has done its work. "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. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin" (vv. 19-20).
Sometimes when we talk about the "three uses of the law," we can make it sound as if it is somehow the essence of the law to condemn-as if that is what it was designed to do. However, this "first use" of the law is accidental, not essential to the law's character. In other words, if Adam had fulfilled it, the law would have justly pronounced him righteous, and us with him. The law is simply God's calling them as he sees them. Yet after the fall, given the fact that we are not righteous, the law does not bring about a knowledge of God's favor and goodness but of his righteousness and wrath. This is why no one will be justified in God's courtroom according to the law. Those who appeal to the law or to their own works in any way, shape, or form, are simply digging their own graves. According to Paul, the problem is not simply the ceremonial and dietary laws that separate Jew from Gentile, but the entire condition of idolatry, impenitence, hypocrisy, and self-righteousness that he has described thus far. There simply is no way out. It is not hearers but doers who will be justified, he said in 2:13. But there are no doers, he argued in 3:9-18. Therefore, no one will be justified: the more clearly we recognize God's claims in the law, the more sinful we recognize ourselves to be, and the more aware we become that we are those who are storing up wrath for ourselves for that day when the final verdict is rendered.
Only with this bleak backdrop, with the courtroom completely silenced and unable to "spin" things in favor of the accused, are we astonished by the announcement that rends the heavens as the Judge himself acts in covenantal righteousness: "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it-the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe" (3:21-22). The law proclaims the righteousness of God that leads inexorably to our condemnation. Thus far, Paul's answer to the question as to whether God is righteous,that is, faithful to his covenant, is identical to that of the prophets: reversing the charges. Israel puts God on trial and by the end of it all, Israel realizes that it is her own sins that have justified the curse. Basically, Paul is saying, "Do you really want to talk about God's righteousness? You? Are you sure about that?" If God were to execute his covenantal righteousness, no one would have been saved after the fall; no one would have been left alive after the Babylonian captivity; no one would be saved on the last day.
The statement, "God is righteous," then, becomes for those aware of their sinful condition about the worst possible news. It is not a joyful exclamation of praise, but a dreary expectation of judgment. That indeed is what it means for many believers to say that God is righteous, and they spend their lives trying to measure up.
But Paul says that God's righteousness, that is, his covenantal faithfulness, is exhibited not only in the just condemnation of all people as law breakers. That would be enough to silence every objection against the righteousness of God's reign, but God's mercy led him beyond this, to reveal a righteousness that leads to salvation rather than wrath. It is not by suspending his righteousness or by ignoring his justice, but by sending his Son to fulfill the law and bear its just sentence in our place. In this way, we are justified or vindicated not on the basis of our righteousness, but "are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith" (3:24-25). Thus, the wrath that we were storing up finally burst like a dam at the cross, sweeping Christ away to the very bowels of hell itself, from which he returned not only safely but victoriously. The wrath of God is not set aside. It is not something that God finally "got over." Rather, it was propitiated-a word that "atonement" does not match. After all, "to atone" means to cover over; "to propitiate" means to exhaust until there is nothing left. Because Christ's death is propitiatory, God's wrath is not merely pushed aside or somehow overcome by God's love. It is entirely spent.
Therefore, God's mercy is not a counterweight to his justice; his love does not overrule his righteousness. God upholds his righteousness without having to condemn everyone to his eternal wrath! See, the question had begun with the assumption that if Israel, like the nations, is under God's wrath, then God is unrighteous, that is, unfaithful to his promises. Paul has reminded us that the promise to Israel as a nation (not to individual Jews, for whom salvation was by grace alone through faith alone, just as it is for us) was conditional. Under the law, Israel stood condemned-as Gentiles do without the law, and all Jews do who seek to be personally acquitted by it. In effect, Paul has turned the tables: If God were to simply be righteous (i.e., faithful to the covenant) by means of the law, this would not lead to Israel's vindication but the condemnation of everyone. The good news is that God has found a way to "be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" (v. 26). He remains righteous while "righteousizing" those who are in their own persons the unrighteous people described from 1:18 to 3:18. In this way, the Jews and the Gentiles are both equally condemned by the law and equally justified through faith in Christ. "Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law" (3:31).
Those who try to smooth the rough edges of biblical teaching on human sinfulness and God's righteousness and wrath necessarily miss the wonderful good news that Paul is announcing. In Christ, God's righteousness that would otherwise condemn us has now saved us. Having fulfilled the law in our place and absorbed its righteous sentence in his own body, Christ has now endowed us with his right covenantal standing that we would never have attained by our own obedience.
