Romans 3:26Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Do you see how often he reminds the Jews of sins? Above he said, "through the law comes knowledge of sin" (Rom 3:20), and then, "for all have sinned" (Rom 3:23). Here he speaks still more strongly.

He did not say, "because of sins," but "because of the passing over" (Rom 3:25), that is, because of deadness from sins. There was no longer any hope of recovery.

As a paralyzed body needed help from above, so did a soul that had become dead. Most astonishingly, the Apostle counts as the stronger accusation against people the very thing he states as the cause of paralysis.

What is this? That the paralysis happened during the forbearance of God. You cannot say, he means, that you did not enjoy much forbearance and goodness.

The words "at the present time" (Rom 3:26) mean that God showed great forbearance and love for mankind.

When we came to despair, says the Apostle, and it was the time of judgment, when evil increased and sins multiplied, then God manifested His power. He did this so that you might understand how great is the wealth of His righteousness.

Had this taken place at the beginning, it would not have seemed so wondrous and extraordinary as now, when every method of healing had already been tested.

He said "set forth" to show that deliverance by the Blood of Christ was foreordained from ancient times. It was for healing paralysis, that is, the deadness caused by former sins, during the forbearance of God.

Although we enjoyed great goodness, we became like the paralyzed and the dead. This happened for the manifestation of God's righteousness.

Thus not only did God Himself appear righteous, but He could also raise and justify others who were dead in sin. Likewise the manifestation of wealth consists not only in being rich oneself, but in being able to make others rich.

Therefore do not be ashamed, being justified in this way. If God claims this work for Himself, that is, if He exalts and boasts in it as justifying us in the present time, why should you be ashamed, O Jew, of such glory of God?

For this present time is when sin reached its furthest limit, and when we were recognized as paralyzed and dead.

Since its commandments were many, even a strict keeper of the law inevitably stumbled in something and became a transgressor of the law. That this was truly burdensome the divine disciples clearly confessed, saying, "Why do you now tempt God, wishing to put a yoke upon the necks of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?" (Acts 15:10).

Therefore, when the Greeks were under sin, because they did not know the Creator, and the Jews were guilty of transgressing the law, those who dwell on earth necessarily needed Christ, who justifies. For we were justified not by works of righteousness which we had done, but according to His mercy (Tit 3:5).

He was the One who in ancient times spoke through the prophetic voice: "I Myself blot out your transgressions, and I will not remember them" (Is 43:25, abridged).

The grace that justifies extends equally to all, I mean to Jews and Greeks, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The glory of God may rightly be understood as both ignorance of transgressions and the natural inability to sin.

Yet creation, brought into being, falls short of the prerogatives of the Godhead, for even some of the angels slipped. Nevertheless, God was pleased to sum up all things in Christ (Eph 1:10).

He justifies freely by His grace, for He is set forth as a propitiation in His Blood through faith. Since His own Blood became the redemption of the life of all, He saved the world under heaven. He made the heavenly God and Father merciful and gracious toward us.

Without them you could not have stood before the laws for even a single moment. He says that the sins which were formerly committed, He then spared by the revelation of this righteousness.

And now, through baptism, He justifies the one who remains in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Both things must be known: that the God of all ordered our salvation righteously and with love for mankind, and that everyone who believes in the Master Christ gathers the righteousness of faith as fruit.

Having thus briefly shown the gifts of grace, he returns again to the discussion of the law and shows that it yields place to grace.

Then wrath ceased, reconciliation followed, and enmity was changed into friendship. Instead of the condemning sentence, the supernatural gift of adoption was given.

Thousands of gifts poured forth, adorning the Church, so that righteousness was both manifested and the exceeding abundance of goodness was revealed.

Or, as the Apostle says, this occurred "during the forbearance of God" (Rom 3:26), that is, during the Old Testament. Even before Christ's sufferings, the Lord left human sins unpunished, beholding in His foreknowledge the future bloody sacrifice of His Son.

"For the showing of His righteousness at the present time" (Rom 3:26). That is, even if God's great righteousness was accomplished in pardoning the people of the Old Testament, it still remained invisible to human beings.

This righteousness had to be shown also in the present time, and before the whole world. This happened when the Lamb of God was actually slain upon the wood of the Cross.

Sprinkled with His own Blood beneath the burden of human sins, He cried out in prayer to His heavenly Father: "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Mt 27:46).

"That He might be righteous and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus" (Rom 3:26). That is, after His sacrifice on the Cross, Christ can intercede for our justification before His heavenly Father.

He does this in relation to Himself, no longer freely only, but according to true righteousness and truth. He does it with the full right of the most perfect righteous One.

On the basis of His own personal merits, God's mercy can now be manifested righteously to everyone who is of the faith of Jesus.

These sins were committed over millennia. Therefore some could have imagined impunity and a general violation of justice. But Christ shed His Blood on the Cross for human sins and bore punishment for them.

By this He manifested the justice of God and made possible the justification of sinners themselves, through their faith in Jesus Christ the Savior. On the Cross, in the prophet's words, "mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed."

"When the time of judgment came, evil had increased and sins had multiplied. Then God manifested His power," says Chrysostom, "so that you might understand what abundance of righteousness He possesses."

For those terrified by judgment, yet thirsting for salvation, it was very consoling to hear: now the righteousness of God has appeared. Yet their desire to know more precisely what this righteousness is, and wherein it consists, could only grow stronger.

And so the Apostle answers: "the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ." That is, through faith in Jesus Christ. By faith in Jesus Christ he means the whole New Testament divine economy of salvation, appropriated by sincere, heartfelt faith in the Lord.

According to blessed Theodoret, "The Apostle Paul imitated the finest physician. First he shows the sufferers the severity of the disease, and only then offers the healing remedy as aid.

"So also he, after exposing lawlessness and showing that the lawless are liable to account and worthy of punishment, finally offers the remedy of faith. He reveals the love for mankind in the divine economy."

How the act of justification itself is accomplished through forgiveness of sins, and through the action of grace expelling sinfulness from the justified heart and implanting righteousness, the Apostle explains further on.

Or He waited to see whether they would repent and be corrected, as "the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah" (cf. 1 Pet 3:20).

Meanwhile they sank ever more deeply into sins and became corrupt in them. Thus there remained only either to abandon them completely to destruction or to come to them with His extraordinary and incomprehensible help.

God chose the latter and arranged a special and wondrous way of salvation, which is now offered in the Gospel.

How is the righteousness of God manifested in the present time, after the Incarnation of God the Word?

Let us first set forth a small philological note on the words, "and for the showing of His righteousness at the present time." Namely, the conjunction "and" is not in the Greek.

Above, "for a manifestation" in Greek is eis endeixin. Here, "for a showing," it is pros endeixin.

By adding "and," our Slavonic translators showed that here begins a new sequence of thoughts, corresponding, however, to the preceding one.

This is fully justified by the content of both halves of this small section. One begins with "for a manifestation," and the other with "for a showing."

But why is the same word, endeixis, translated there as "manifestation" and here as "showing"? There is no reason except to preserve in translation the shade of thought conveyed there by the preposition eis, and here by pros.

Eis endeixin means toward the manifestation of something far off, as something awaited and expected, as a goal.

Pros endeixin means toward the showing of the same thing before the eyes, as the fulfillment of what was awaited and expected, as a goal attained.

After this remark, let us turn to the solution of the proposed question.

As before, in answer to the question of how God's righteousness was manifested before Christ's coming in the flesh, more than one thought was presented. So also here, in answer to how this righteousness is manifested after Christ's coming, more than one thought may be offered.

These thoughts correspond to the preceding ones.

Let us take the first of the former thoughts. God manifested His righteousness in showing mercy to sinners before the Incarnation of God the Word.

He did this by showing them mercy, not by a mere superabundance of goodness and love for mankind, but by looking to the blood of His Son that would be poured out for them.

They received the cleansing power of that blood when He descended into Hades and preached to them the deliverance, redemption, and cleansing prepared for them through faith in Him.

With this thought in mind, how is God's righteousness manifested in showing mercy to and justifying sinners now, when the Gospel is preached?

The same is true here. God's righteousness is manifested in that mercy and justification are not given by an indiscriminate superabundance of goodness, but according to the faith of those who receive this mercy.

Faith covers before the face of righteousness the one who is of faith in Jesus. Justification descends upon him not without satisfaction and not without the participation of righteousness, but righteously, with the manifestation of righteousness.

By this God shows that He is righteous, for He justifies the one who presents faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

This faith joins and unites the believer with Christ the Lord, and presents him before the face of God as the same as the Lord Himself is before Him.

This is the righteousness of the One Who now justifies.

Both there and here, mercy rests upon the person of Christ Jesus the Lord, and upon the all-cleansing power of His blood shed for sinners.

If from the preceding thoughts we accept this one, that God manifested His righteousness in showing mercy to former sinners by giving His Son for the remission of their sins, then the showing of righteousness in the present time consists in this.

The believer immediately receives upon himself the drops of the cleansing blood. This blood does not act backward, but directly upon the one who is of faith.

According to this thought, the Cross of Christ with His blood is seen as planted in the midst, overshadowing by its cleansing power both all former sinners and all present ones.

If we accept the thought of Saint Chrysostom and our other commentators, then when moral corruption reached its final limits, God resolved to pour His righteousness into mankind and thereby manifest it in them.

In this case, the words "for the showing of His righteousness at the present time" will serve as a confirmatory repetition of what was said before.

It is as if he said: for a manifestation of righteousness and so forth, for a showing, I say, of righteousness at the present time.

By this the preceding and present state are divided into two halves. There was corruption, but here righteousness and holiness begin.

New blood flowed in the veins of mankind. It began to recover and be sanctified.

One may also admit here an allusion to the actual experience everywhere, that believers were immediately changed and transformed from vicious people into pure and holy ones.

The words "so that He might be righteous and the one who justifies" will then have this meaning: so that it might become evident that He is not only righteous Himself, but also makes others righteous (see Saint Chrysostom), under the condition of faith in the Lord Jesus.

Faith signifies a great transformation in the believer and a great change in God's relation to him.

In the believer there begins to be love for every righteousness and hatred for every lawlessness, for the sake of love for the Lord.

From above, the heaven that was formerly shut is opened and pours abundant grace into the believer's heart. This grace gives him strength to bear the fruit of righteousness and holiness, like a tree planted by streams of water (cf. Ps 1:3).

Such is the content of verses 25 and 26, spoken by the Apostle to explain what the redemption in Christ Jesus is, or justification by His blood.

Having set this forth, he again presses upon the Jew. It was difficult to crush his pride.

Therefore the Apostle uses various methods for this purpose. At one time he drew from their life the conclusion that they were no better than the Gentiles.

At another time he depicted by prophetic reproofs how far they had fallen in morals. Now he deprives them of every boast by pointing to the establishment of the New Covenant.