Daniel's Literal Translation and Commentary
The Renewed Covenant by Daniel Gregg
"Romans 4:4-6: Now for him who earns, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But for him who does not earn, but faithfully trusts on Him who does justice to the ungodly, His faithfulness is reckoned for justice, just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes justice apart from works:" (DLT: torahtimes.org).
Comment1: I have left the linguistic notes last due to their number. The corruption of this passage is the heart and soul of the gospel of lawlessness. So we must restore it carefully. For the real meaning is a 180 from what Christians think it is.
Comment2: We do not try to earn God's favor as if he owes it to us. On the contrary we faithfully trust in him knowing full well that he does not acquit anyone of sin, and that he does divine justice to the ungodly. With this realization of our helplessness before the divine court, and the admission of our guilty state, Messiah steps forward in his own faithfulness and commitment to the cross. It is His faithfulness we are talking about. His obedience to the work of the cross paid the penalty for us. This is his faithful act of payment that is imputed to our account, without our works involved in the matter at all.
Comment3: So understood, there is absolutely no teaching here that faith appropriates the moral righteousness of God to our account such that God looks at the account and sees no sin and thereby grants and acquittal. On the contrary, God sees the sin, and what is imputed is the substitutionary payment of the penalty by Yeshua, so that he grants a pardon.
earns : εργαζομαι. BDAG 3rd edition, "work for/earn ", def. 2e, page 389. The context is clear with the mention of "wages" what kind of work this is. The loving work of serving the Lord does not pay wages that are due to be paid by obligation. On the contrary, we don't deserve it, but he loves us anyway and rewards us any way (cf. Matthew 5:19). In the legalistic sense, we are only unprofitable servants. But we trust God who saves us without pleading an acquittal.
faithfully trusts : discussed in the preceding text.
does justice to : This is the original classical meaning of the verb. It is not "made righteous" or "declare righteous". Alister E McGrath explains this very well in his book, Iustitia Dei—A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification , page 12, " 'to do justice to'— i.e., 'to punish' ". This is a Greek meaning of the word unique to Paul (the other Apostles were not as well versed in normal Greek). The LXX does not really use the verb correctly either, and this contributes to the confusion between Paul's dispersion audience and James' Jewish audience. McGrath, of course, does not adopt the normal meaning due to his theological lenses, however. The same meaning is explained in Thayer and Liddell and Scott, and occurs in the first definition in BDAG, "show justice, do justice, take up a cause". This meaning must be the case here, because if not then a direct contradiction with Exodus 23:7 results. And indeed the potential contradiction with the LXX is even more stark. God does not declare the ungodly righteous.
faithfulness : πιστεως. The Greek word πιστις in the very best Greek Lexicon means "1a. faithfulness, reliability, fidelity, commitment" (BDAG, 3rd Edition, pg. 818). It reflects the meaning of its Hebrew equivalent אמונה. Paul interprets Habakkuk 2:4 to refer to both Messiah's faithfulness and our faithfulness in response. The Church misses Paul's point most of the time due to exclusive emphasis on the believer's faith. And in this case it is critically important because Paul means only Messiah's faithfulness. Yeshua's faithfulness to make the payment satisfies God's justice for us. And his commitment to pay the penalty is counted to our account as penalty paid. This is the real imputation at the cross. Messiah's payment of the penalty is imputed to us, so that God regards us as having paid the penalty of death.
justice : δικαιοσυνη. The first definition in BDAG is "1. justice, equitableness, fairness" (pg. 247). "righteousness" only rates definition number 2. This is the usual meaning of the word in Greek. It is a special problem of English speaking peoples. Latin based languages do not have this problem. (DLC: torahtimes.org)
composed: 4/23/09.
Daniel's Literal Translation and Commentary: (http://www.torahtimes.org/translation/rom0404.html)
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