The Righteousness of God:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith."-Romans 1:16-17

These sentences are widely understood to be the "topic sentence," the thesis, of the book of Romans. Paul declares that the gospel does not make him ashamed because it is "the power of God for salvation." The emphasis-as one would expect from Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles-is that this salvation is not just for Jews, but also for the whole world.

In verse 17, Paul gives us at least a nutshell summary of what he understands the gospel to do. "In it," he says (and he means "in the gospel", "the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith." Two different phrases in that sentence tells us what Paul understands the gospel to be about. First, he says that in the gospel, "the righteousness of God" is revealed. That phrase has elicited a huge amount of discussion. Does it refer to a righteousness that is from God in a legal sense-a righteousness that is imputed to us but is actually an alien righteousness? Or does it refer to a moral righteousness in us, or perhaps to God's own holy character? Alternatively, does it refer to the righteousness of God, defined as his wrath against human sin? What does Paul mean by saying that in the gospel is revealed the righteousness of God?

Without doubt, the best way to get at what he means is to trace the rest of his argument through the book. Beginning with the declaration in verse18 that "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men," Paul spends most of the first three chapters of the book indicting all of humanity with a charge of sin and rebellion against God. Chapter 1 is aimed primarily at Gentiles, chapter 2 at Jews, and then in chapter 3 he draws it all together with a devastating charge that "all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin" and that "every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God". Then, having established the hopeless condition of all mankind, Paul turns to the good news: "But now," he writes, "the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law" (v.21). There's that phrase again-"the righteousness of God." But what does it mean? And what does it mean that it is manifested now "apart from law"?

The answer becomes clear a few verses later, when Paul explains how Abraham came to be "counted righteous" before God (Rom. 4:3-6). That phrase helps us to understand what Paul means when he talks about "the righteousness of God." The question Paul is answering through this section of Romans is, How can a person be counted righteous before God? In other words, how can a person gain from God a final verdict of righteous as opposed to guilty? It's that final verdict of righteous that Paul is calling here "the righteousness of God."

It's a righteousness from God, a righteousness that is counted to us, or imputed to us, even though it is not our own. Paul's answer to that question, of course, is that a person will never receive a righteous verdict from God by works of the law, but only through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Thus he says in verse 6 that that person is blessed "to whom God credits righteousness apart from works." And he uses the same idea in Philippians 3:9 to say that he hopes to be included in Christ, "not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith." Thus, the "righteousness of God" that Paul says in Romans 1:17 is revealed in the gospel is precisely this-the righteousness from God that comes to those who have faith in Christ.

When Paul describes in summary what is revealed "in it [the gospel]," what he says is that the gospel reveals the glorious news that an imputed "righteousness from God is revealed and available to sinful human beings through faith. Of course he could have talked about much more, and in fact, he does: one of the Bible's most beautiful passages about the future renewal of the creation is found in Romans 8. But here at the beginning, when Paul wants to describe in summary what the gospel reveals, he points to justification by faith in the crucified and risen Jesus.

In conclusion, we are declared righteous when we trust in Jesus Christ. At the moment of our salvation Christ takes our unrighteousness and imputes (gives) to us His righteousness so that now we stand before God justified. A person will never receive a righteous verdict from God by works of the law, but only through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

*Excerpt taken from What is the Mission of the Church by Kevin Deyoung and Greg Gilbert