Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Romans · About this commentary
Righteousness Apart from the Law
Romans 3:21-24
21 But now apart from the law, a righteousness of God has been revealed, being testified by the law and the prophets; · WEB
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