LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Concordia Lutheran Seminary

28 LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW XII
1 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to
everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the
righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith [evk pi,stewj eivj
pi,stin); as it is written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith” [~O de.
di,kaioj evk pi,stewj zh,setai].
The problem is, who is “the one who is righteous” in v.17b? According to v.
17a, it is clearly someone who reveals the righteousness of God (“through
faith, for faith”)—but otherwise this person is not clearly identified in the
text. Even so, there are two good reasons to suggest that “the one who is
righteous” and who reveals God’s righteousness “through faith, for faith” is
Christ Himself.
The first argument flows from the phrase o` di,kaioj—part of Paul’s quote
from Habakkuk 2:4, and the subject of the Gospel in 1:17. Richard Hays
suggests that o` di,kaioj is best understood as a messianic title in the NT. Not
only do other NT texts explicitly apply the title to Jesus (Acts 3:14, 7:52,
22:14; I Pet. 3:18, I Jn 2:1), but the expression is clearly messianic already in
I Enoch 38:2 and Isaiah 53:11. Furthermore, according to Hays, the LXX
version of Habakkuk 2:4 in particular “would have appeared to Paul as
unmistakably messianic” due to the translators’ use of masculine pronouns
and participles throughout Habakkuk 2:3-4. 26 As Hays explains, this
insight—seeing Christ, not the believer, as “the righteous one” who lives by
faith, not only here in Romans 1:17 but also in Galatians 3:11—improves the
flow of Paul’s argument tremendously by reinforcing the theo- and
christocentric character of God’s salvation. 27
The second argument concerns the expression “through faith, for faith”
(evk pi,stewj eivj pi,stin, 1:17a). The meaning of the phrase is admittedly
difficult, yet there is good reason to propose that it ought to be read with
primary reference to Christ’s faith(fulness), not the believer’s. His
faithfulness then becomes the instrument by which God’s righteousness is
revealed “in the Gospel”—a view which keeps the focus squarely fixed on
the Gospel, apart from its reception, and also coheres well with Paul’s
previous statements in 1:3 that the Gospel is “concerning [God’s] Son” and
in 1:9 that it is “the Gospel of His Son”. 28 This second argument stemming
from Romans 1:17, then, reinforces the first: both of them together
suggesting that Christ’s faith(fulness), not the believer’s, is the focus of
Paul’s thinking not only at 1:17 but also at 3:20-26. From 1:17 onward, the
26 Hays, Faith of Jesus Christ 151.
27 Hays’ full explanation of o` di,kaioj is found in Faith of Jesus Christ 151-58. Similar
interpretations are advanced by Wallis 79-82; Hooker, “PISTIS CRISTOU”, 336; Markus
Barth, “The Faith of the Messiah”, Heythrop Journal 10 (1969): 373-70; and especially Luke
T. Johnson, “Romans 3:21-26 and the Faith of Jesus”, CBQ 44 (1982): 77-90.
28 Campbell 115.