But now the righteousness of God apart from the Law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference
We'll need to take it slow through this passage, as these are among the most contentious words in the book of Romans for several reasons. Much theology is built off of them - much theology which (to me) disagrees with the essential Orthodox conception of God as love.
First, the righteousness of God (possessed by or belonging to God) exists apart from the Law. This is evident because a) God pre-exists the Law and b) the preceding chapters of Romans outlined conclusively that righteousness pre-existed the Law both in Jews (like Abraham) and in righteous Gentiles who live apart from the Law (being "law unto themselves").
So the Law is not equivalent to righteousness. Rather the Law and Prophets prophecy about the righteousness of God. They prepare the heart / nous to recieve that righteousness, but they are not themselves that righteousness. And since we are judged according to our deeds (as per Romans 2) the Law and Prophets are incomplete apart from the righteousness of God.
This can be seen in Luke as well, when on the road to Emmaus, Christ said: "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?" And, beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things conerning Himself. (Luke 24:25-27)
So this righteousness is CHRIST'S righteousness (who fulfills the Law by demonstrating how it points to Him and fulfills it by living righteously). It is CHRIST'S faithfulness that reveals the righteousness of God (since He is God). The word "now" in Romans 3:21 refers to the "end times" which Christ initiates. It also refers to the post-Pentecost period in which the righteousness of Christ (of God) is revealed to the faithful by the Holy Spirit.
So those who have faith in Christ (who believe Him to be God, trust Him to save them, and seek to follow His commands and live by faith) have the righteousness of God revealed to them by the Holy Spirit. This, necessarily, occurs in the Church since that is where we recieve the Scriptures and the teachings that enlighten those Scriptures for us to understand them. Furthermore, it was to the Apostles and the community of disciples that the Holy Spirit was sent, and it is this same Holy Spirit that reveals the righteousness of God.
Therefore this revelation of God's righteousness is "to all" since the Church is, as St. Paul is arguing in Romans, an inclusive institution open to Gentiles and Jews equally. And it (this revelation) is on all since the Holy Spirit is given equally to the Gentiles and Jews. This is revealed fully in the Book of Acts. It is revealed to those who believe since, if one does not believe, the righteousness of Christ would not be the revelation of the righteousness of GOD, but merely a human righteousness and therefore of no more worth than any other human righteousness.
This leads to St. Paul's conclusion that "there is no difference" between Jews and Gentiles, but rather that both are equally recievers of the Holy Spirit's revelation of the righteousness of Christ and, therefore, through faith are able to recieve the righteousness of God that the Law and Prophets prophesied.
Romans 3:23
For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
"For all have sinned." This is subject to the same (lengthy) reasoning I wrote in the previous post. Christ did not sin, so we know this is not a literal "every" but rather a tool to humble us. It is a collective "all." I have sinned. Jews have sinned. Christians have sinned. Gentiles and heretics have sinned. The saints sinned. This does not mean, as it is sometimes expanded to mean, that we are BORN with sinfulness. The Orthodox Church clearly states that we CHOSE our sins, and in so much as an infant cannot chose anything morally, not having the cognitive development, they are not held to account for that "sin" (if it can even be called that).
At what point do we gain that capacity to sin? God alone knows. I know at some point I crossed that line, and that's sufficient for St. Paul's point here. Remember, this WHOLE passage is referring to the Jews, to remind them to accept the Gentile converts as equal inheriters of Christ's message and righteousness. If all have sinned, then the Jews are no better than the Gentiles (aside from their having the prophecies and tutoring of the Law and Prophets, which does not produce righteousness but prepares the heart for Christ).
The Orthodox Study Bible has an excellent commentary on the second half of this verse, that we fall short of the glory of God: "The ultimate purpose of man's existence is to attain the glory of God. Even if a person were to keep the whole law, he would still fall short of that glory, because he would still be bound by death. The glory of God is both eternal righteousness and eternal life. Jesus Christ alone lived in completed righteousness, and He alone was resurrected from the dead. Therefore, He alone is the fullness of the glory of God, and we receive that glory in Him"
Since none of us can recieve theosis (divinization / partaking of the divine nature) by ourselves, since we are completely incapable of uniting the divine and human, since none of us can enter the grave and overcome death (but are instead overcome by it) - NONE of us can save ourselves. The law can do none of these things, and neither can the prophets. We cannot glory in them, but must instead look to the righteousness of Christ (God), who CAN do these things and HAS done these things. He conquered death on the cross, united the physical and divine in the Incarnation (which we enter by baptism, as St. Paul will describe later), and gave us the Holy Spirit to bring us INTO righteousness.
So we ALL fall short of God's glory if we try to get there on our own terms (which, in the case of the Judaizers, was through the Law; today we might point to people who pick and chose elements of a religion to follow, or make up their own spirituality, or Christians who reduce the faith to a sinner's prayer). This means, to continue the thoughts of the preceeding section, that we are equal before God. Even the righteous (the patriarchs, the prophets, the Theotokos Mary, the Apostles, the martyrs, the ascetics, the holy fathers and mothers of the Church, the saints) are dead before God unless Christ Himself enlivens them by His death on the cross.
This leads St. Paul to the next section, and it is CRITICAL to see it in this context:
Romans 3:23 - 25
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forebearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed
We are made just by God's grace. That is self-evident, and explained thoroughly in the preceeding chapters (see prior posts). We don't chose our own righteousness, and even if we do, we are entirely dependent on Christ's death to conquer death and Christ's incarnation to unite us to God. This is communicated to us through grace - through the Holy Spirit whom God sends equally on the Jew and the Gentile.
The redemption which is in Christ Jesus is precisely this: we are redeemed from death (the consequence of sin) because God, in Christ Jesus who (as a man) could die, brought Life (God being life) INTO death. At the point that death contains life, it becomes a road to life. No longer, when I die, do I die into separation from God, but I, through God's grace, die into UNITY with God. When I die, I die WITH Christ - WITH God. God is EVERYWHERE - even in death.
Further, the barrier between God and man - the barrier of the curtain in the Holy of Holies - is torn assunder by Christ's incarnation. In a certain way, this complete unity of God to man was COMPLETED on the cross. God literally became as we are: rejected, suffering, dead. Through this, God is not brought down to our level (for that is impossible; nothing can diminish the glory of God). Rather, we are dragged UP to GOD.
The langauge of propitiation here has often been used to justify a "satisfactionalist" or "penal substitutionary" model of the cross - something which is foreign to Orthodoxy for several reasons.
- First because it makes God a tyrant. God commands us to forgive freely. Yet according to satisfactionalism, God Himself demanded payment in blood before granting the fullness of His forgiveness and mercy. If I were to "imitate" God in this way I would be viewed as a tyrant and unmerciful fool. Even if I were to make the payment myself (as God does in this model) it would still be viewed as foolish. If God wishes to forgive, He may simply DO so. We profess that He does.
- It makes sin GOD'S problem rather than ours. We sin, God gets mad (and therefore rejects us in His just wrath). God sends Christ, who appeases God's wrath, and then God is ok with us again if we accept Christ. EVERY change in that scenario is GOD'S. Yet we profess that God doesn't change. Sin isn't God's problem - its OURS. WE are the ones in need of change - not God.
- It externalizes sin. It lets me "off the hook" so to speak. Because the problem is one of courtroom-style "guilt" or "innocence" the ACTUAL righteousness of the sinner in question is neglected. No longer are we judged for our deeds (as Romans 2 says we are), but rather we are judged through CHRIST'S deeds. Instead, Orthodoxy prefers to think of sin as an ontological problem. If we are not GENUINELY transformed in Christ into living by faith, then we are not saved. If we still fall short of the glory of God (i.e. are not united to God through Christ) then we are not saved. Salvation, in the Orthodox view, is a long journey, not a moment of being declared "not guilty" (while both we and God know full well that we are guilty). God DOES forgive us; we just don't see it as the CENTRAL idea of salvation.
So then what does St. Paul mean by "propitiation" here? The word can be translated "expiation" (which does carry more of an ontological "God removes sin" sense to it), but I think the answer is simpler. He's following through on his idea that the Law and Prophets prophecy Christ to us. The concept of propitiation / expiation (the idea that death eliminates sin) stems from Leviticus. Indeed, the mercy seat of the temple and the altar both communicated God's mercy through sacrifice. These sacrifices didn't cure the sin, but prophesied of the means by which God would redeem us: through Christ's death.
The propitiation of the Levitican Law PROPHESIED the propitiation of Christ on the cross. Just as the EXODUS of the Israelites prophesied of the EXODUS Christ would bring to the Church. But to mistake the "type" (the model) for the entirety of the thing described (as is done in penal substition) would be to remove the mystery from the cross. One can describe the cross as a propitiation of God for our forgiveness, but if we take that as anything past a metaphor (a pedagogical tool demonstrated prophetically in Levitican Law) we run into the above problems.
Historically, the early Church knew this. Irenaeus of Lyons and Athanasius both write about the cross and the salvation God granted us there, and both use several metaphors - both do not refer to this verse as a starting point for a satisfactionalist view of the cross. That wouldn't start until Anselm of Canterbury in the 12th century. The 12th century. 1000+ years of Christians read this verse without concluding penal substitution as the sole Biblical idea of the cross. It is therefore NOT apostolic tradition to do so.
We may see this internally in the passage as well. No where does it prescribe WHO is being propitiated (the penal substitution model assumes it is God or God's justice / wrath). Metaphorically, it could be the personified "death" to which St. Paul frequently refers. Christ dies, propitiating the apetite of death and "satisfying" it (filling it with life).Furthermore, the passage itself goes on to interpret the meaning (ultimately) of this propitiation: by his blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness.
Christ's death - His redemption of us by His TOTAL solidarity with humanity (in suffering and death) and His overcoming of the human condition by His glorious divinity - this demonstrates God's righteousness. How? First, by Christ's total obedience (even unto death). Second, as St. Paul indicates here, because in His forebearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed.
Take careful note of this: Romans 3:21-25 is about the demonstration of God's righteousness apart from the Law (though prophesied BY the Law). God is faithful; He redeems us through the cross (by uniting us to Him and His glory, which we were unable to do) and He does this DESPITE our sins (of which we are all guilty, all falling short of God's glory). This act of Christ on the cross was prophesied by the Levitican sacrifices (called propitiation).
That fits into Paul's overall themes of discussing how Judaism "fits" into Christianity without excluding the Gentiles, and it never requires us to conclude penal substitution.
Therefore, as St. Paul concludes this passage, this act of Christ crucified was to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Romans 3:26). The cross demonstrates the righteousness of God (understood by those who have faith) and declares GOD as JUST (for God is faithful, despite our sins), and, by uniting us to God it opens us to the grace of God which comes by the Holy Spirit to those who live by faith. Therefore, God, through the redemption He earns for us on the cross, is able to unite us to Himself and He becomes the JUSTIFIER (the one who makes just) of the one who has faith. This act of justification makes us into children of Abraham - it makes us live by faith (Romans 2).
Forgive me,
Macarius
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