The Righteousness of God

As I've said before, I am rather unenthusiastic about the Federal Vision and New Perspective on Paul controversies (I suppose they are linked; they seem to be). I think both sides make immoderate claims, and are often careless with their language. I keep abreast of it primarily through Mark Horne's blog. I prefer to hide in my little patristic bubble and go to church on Sunday. It keeps me out of any mess.

That is why I am about to say what I'm going to say.

I think the "righteousness of God" in Romans 3:21 is Jesus. Perhaps I say this because I've recently been thinking about Ireneaus' theology of recapitulation. I do think that those who say it's God's righteousness as he is in himself, i.e. his "covenant faithfulness," are basically right. But I think incarnational language can be helpful in presenting your case. The word "covenant" gets repeated so much in Reformed theology that it can lose its meaning, or obscure the thought enough so as to make it incomprehensible to someone who isn't already attuned to hear it.

The whole claim that this way of interpreting Romans 3 nullifies the Gospel or justification by faith is absolutely silly. I think this reading of Romans 3 actually vindicates the basic imputation theology of Luther, because it strengthens the claim that the righteousness by which we are saved is Christ's, not our own. All it does is criticizes his grammatical analysis of the text. The problem is with people who think theology is in the grammar. Well, it is to some extent, but I think it is to such a great degree shaped by the internalizing of narratives and life experience that two completely different grammatical approaches can yield fairly similar theology.

But as for a Pauline text on justification by faith, I think Romans 4:4-8 is sufficiently clear, even in the Greek (Paul's Greek can be a little obscure). But like I said, I prefer my little patristic world, so I tend to spend more time in the Gospels. And for that, nothing can be more clear than Jesus' words in John 11:25-26:

"I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?"

Perhaps I'm oversimplifying things. But I think the message of the New Testament, at its heart, is not all that complex.