Habakkuk’s sentence, Paul’s mercy seat, a bookkeeper’s verb, and the scandal of a judge who justifies the ungodly
Credited as Righteousness
If the lamb did it, what did the person do? The Passover household painted a door and waited. Abraham believed a promise. Israel stood outside the tent on the Day of Atonement. The pattern has been in every lesson, and Paul is the one who named it. He took a verse from Genesis, a verse from Habakkuk and a word from the Day of Atonement, and wrote the chapter of Romans that the Reformation was made of.
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Lesson 9 of 12 · The credit
Righteousness by faith is not Paul’s idea. It is Genesis 15:6, Abraham believed and it was credited to him for righteousness, and Habakkuk 2:4, the righteous will live by faith, read together by a man who had spent his life trying to be righteous by the law. Paul’s claim in Romans 3 and 4 is that God’s own righteousness is given, as a gift, to the one who believes, on the strength of what the lamb did; and he says where the gift is paid for in a word from the fifth lesson, the mercy seat, the lid of the ark where the Day of Atonement blood was sprinkled. God set Christ forth as that. Then he takes Abraham and a bookkeeper’s verb and presses it: to the one who works, the reward is a wage; to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, faith is credited as righteousness. A judge who justifies the ungodly is the one thing the law says a judge must never do. Paul says God does it, and says how, and the how is the lamb.
The righteous will live by faith
Habakkuk is watching Babylon come and asking God why, and the answer he is given is a sentence.
Behold, his soul is puffed up. It is not upright in him, but the righteous will live by his faith. — Habakkuk 2:4 · WEB
Read the comment on The Righteous Will Live by His Faith
Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright in him; but the righteous will live by his faith. The proud man, the invader, trusts his own strength and will not stand; the righteous man will live by holding on. The Hebrew word is emunah, steadiness, faithfulness, trust that keeps its grip, and a reader should know that; the Greek Old Testament rendered it faith, and that is the form Paul quotes in the first chapter of Romans, in it is revealed God’s righteousness from faith to faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. Both senses are about where a person’s weight rests. Habakkuk’s righteous man survives Babylon by trusting God rather than walls; Paul’s is made righteous by trusting God rather than himself. The sentence was the one Luther could not get past in 1515, and everything after came from it.
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The mercy seat
Paul’s central paragraph on the subject is six verses long and uses the vocabulary of every lesson so far.
But now apart from the law, a righteousness of God has been revealed, being testified by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all those who believe. For there is no distinction, 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 sent to be an atoning sacrifice through faith in his blood, for a demonstration of his righteousness through the passing over of prior sins, in God’s forbearance; to demonstrate his righteousness at this present time, that he might himself be just and the justifier of him who has faith in Jesus. — Romans 3:21–26 · WEB
Read the comment on Righteousness Apart from the Law
Now apart from the law, a righteousness of God has been revealed, being testified by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe; 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 sent to be an atoning sacrifice through faith in his blood. Apart from the law, but witnessed by the law: Paul says the Passover and the Day of Atonement were testifying to this. Freely: the Greek word means as a gift, for nothing. Redemption: the kinsman’s price. Blood: Leviticus’s word. And the phrase this reader’s text renders "an atoning sacrifice" is one word in Greek, and the word is the name of a piece of furniture.
ἱλαστήριον hilastḗrion G2435
neuter of a derivative of ἱλάσκομαι; an expiatory (place or thing), i.e. (concretely) an atoning victim, or (specially) the lid of the Ark (in the Temple):--mercyseat, propitiation.
The place or means of atonement — and, in the Greek Old Testament, the lid of the ark, the mercy seat, the gold slab between the cherubim on which the high priest sprinkled the blood on the Day of Atonement. Hebrews 9:5 uses the word for exactly that object. Paul says God set Christ forth publicly as the hilasterion: the translations divide between "propitiation," a sacrifice that turns wrath aside, "expiation," a sacrifice that wipes sin away, and "mercy seat," the place where the blood goes, and readers argue which Paul meant. He may have meant all three, since the mercy seat was where both happened. What is certain is the picture: the room one man entered once a year, and the blood on its lid, are now in the open, in a person, for anyone who believes.
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To him who does not work
Paul turns to Abraham, as this series did in its second lesson, and asks what he found.
What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not toward God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Now to him who works, the reward is not counted as grace, but as something owed. But to him who doesn’t work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. — Romans 4:1–5 · WEB
Read the comment on Abraham Believed God
If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not toward God. For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now to him who works, the reward is not counted as grace, but as something owed; but to him who doesn’t work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. The argument is about a wage. Work earns; what is earned is owed; and a debt paid is not a gift. Abraham did not work for the promise of a son; he believed it, in the dark, and God entered the belief in the column where righteousness goes. Then the sentence that has never stopped being a scandal: God justifies the ungodly. The law forbids a judge to do this; a court that acquits the guilty is a corrupt court. Paul says God does it, and is not corrupt, because the acquittal was paid for at the mercy seat.
λογίζομαι logízomai G3049
middle voice from λόγος; to take an inventory, i.e. estimate (literally or figuratively):--conclude, (ac-)count (of), + despise, esteem, impute, lay, number, reason, reckon, suppose, think (on).
To reckon, to count, to credit, to enter in an account — a bookkeeper’s verb, and Paul uses it eleven times in Romans 4 alone. It is the Greek of Genesis 15:6’s "credited." The point of the word is that righteousness is put to a person’s account by another’s decision, as a sum is credited, and not grown in them like a harvest; the Reformation’s word for this was imputed, and the argument over whether righteousness is imputed or infused, credited or poured in, is the argument the next lesson marks. Whichever side a reader takes, Paul’s verb is a ledger’s.
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David’s blessing, and the lamb in the credit
“Even as David also pronounces blessing on the man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whom the Lord will by no means charge with sin.”” Romans 4:6–8 · WEB
David pronounces blessing on the man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered: Paul quoting Psalm 32, where the verb for covering is the atonement verb of the fourth lesson.
“Even so, Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.” Know therefore that those who are of faith are children of Abraham. The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the Good News beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you all the nations will be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed with the faithful Abraham.” Galatians 3:6–9 · WEB
Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness; know therefore that those who are of faith are children of Abraham: the same verse, the same argument, to a church being told to add the law.
“Therefore it also was “credited to him for righteousness.” Now it was not written that it was accounted to him for his sake alone, but for our sake also, to whom it will be accounted, who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification.” Romans 4:22–25 · WEB
It was credited to him for righteousness, and not for his sake alone but for ours also, who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and was raised for our justification: the credit and the lamb in one sentence, with the verb of the eighth lesson of the fourth series, handed over.
“But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we will be saved from God’s wrath through him.” Romans 5:8–9 · WEB
While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us; much more then, being now justified by his blood, we will be saved: justified by blood, which is where the first eight lessons and the ninth meet.
The last two lines are the joint of the series. Delivered up for our trespasses, raised for our justification: the lamb and the credit are one event, described from two sides. Nobody is credited with righteousness in Paul without a lamb; nobody’s lamb, in Paul, does anything for them without their believing it did.
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What the credit asks
It asks a person to accept an entry in a ledger they did not earn, which is the hardest thing a religious person is ever asked to do. Working for it is easier; working is what the law-keeper, the Corinthian and the modern reader all instinctively prefer, because a wage is dignified and a gift is not. Paul’s whole argument is that the dignity is the problem: a wage leaves room to boast, and God has arranged the matter so that there is none. The household behind the Passover door could not boast of the blood. Neither can anyone of the credit.
Read Romans 3:21 through 4:8. Write down what Abraham did and what he did not do, what God did, and where in the passage the lamb of the first eight lessons stands. Then write one sentence on why Paul thinks a wage would ruin it.
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