Righteousness Apart from the Law
21 But now apart from the law, a righteousness of God has been revealed, being testified by the law and the prophets; 22 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all those who believe. For there is no distinction, 23 for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; 24 being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
The letter turns on two words, and the righteousness revealed is given freely to the same all who fell short.
But now apart from the law, a righteousness of God has been revealed, being testified by the law and the prophets.
But now — the two words on which the whole letter pivots. Everything before them was diagnosis: all under sin, every mouth stopped, no flesh justified. Everything after them is what God has done about it. The turn is temporal as much as logical — now, at this point in the world's story, something has entered.
What is revealed is a righteousness of God apart from the law — a way of being set right that does not run through law-keeping at all. And the paradox is immediate and deliberate: this law-free righteousness is testified by the law and the prophets. The Scriptures witness to a righteousness beyond themselves — Abraham will be exhibit one Romans 4:3, David exhibit two Romans 4:6–8, Habakkuk supplied the thesis Romans 1:17. Nothing here abolishes the old book; the old book takes the stand for the new announcement Romans 3:31.
Verse 22 specifies the channel and the scope: the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all those who believe. For there is no distinction. Faith is the receiving instrument — through it, never on account of it — and the all is doubled as if once were not enough.
Then the ground for the no-distinction, in the sentence that may be the most quoted in the letter: for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God Romans 3:23.
The tenses deserve notice: sinned, past; fall short, present and continuing — a standing deficit, everyone beneath the glory mankind was made to bear and traded away Romans 1:23. The universality of the ruin is what makes the universality of the offer coherent: one remedy fits all because one condition holds all.
And verse 24 gives the remedy its three prepositions: being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Freely — as a gift, the same word Jesus used for without a cause: with no cause in the receiver. By his grace — the source. Through the redemption — the costly means: the slave-market word, a price paid for a release. Free to the justified, and paid for in full elsewhere — which the next verse names.
settled What this mark means