The Righteousness Of God In Letter To Romans

In his letter to the Romans, Paul twice mentions ‘the righteousness of God.’ What is the message Paul is putting forward? A great place to start is with the original Greek phrasing ‘δικαιοσύνη δὲ Θεοῦ’. From this we can take the righteousness to mean: uprightness, justice, justness, righteousness, righteousness of which God is the source or author, but practically: a divine righteousness (Strong’s Concordance online). It is easy to understand that God is just, holy, righteous, and all the things listed above. It is also plain to me that God is the source of his own righteousness, just as he is the source of his own existence. But these ideas and definitions of God’s righteousness, as seen through the word itself, do not fully paint the picture

Wrath and salvation (Greathouse, 119). His wrath is a current reality, found in Romans 1:18. Yet in spite of the unfaithfulness of humanity, God is capable of keeping his covenant promise by “reestablishing his lordship over creation” (118). He takes sin’s power and breaks it; making the sinner clean and reconciling the broken relationship. Different from the justice seen in the daughter of Zeus, God’s justice is here seen as being equivalent to his righteousness. “A righteousness only God can provide” (118). The saving power of God, which is put forth as a part of his righteousness, is equivalent to his integrity. “He acts in complete conformity with his character” (119) as loving and

In my word study I discovered that there is a disagreement over whether the righteousness of God should be translated as ‘righteousness from God.’ This would make a difference in that a righteousness from God indicates our being given righteousness. The righteousness of God, as we have seen already, is a different sort of thing. While Paul does indicate that believers are counted as being righteous (3:26, 28), this is quite a different thing than God’s own righteousness. The righteousness we receive is the result of God first revealing his righteousness to us. The righteous keeping of his promise, which is culminated in the person of Jesus, the death of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus. This is the righteousness of God, in Christ