Does Romans 4:3 Teach That Our Faith Is Our Righteousness?

For those who believe that God does not accept and account a person righteous by imputing to them faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience, as the Westminster Confession contends, a passage like Romans 4:3 is hard to understand.  Not because of the grammatical construction. We see it in Genesis 15:6, from where Paul derives the quote, and we see the same construction in other places like Psalm 106:31. There we read that Phinehas’s killing of an Israelite man and Midianite woman was “counted to him as righteousness.” So, were the Westminster divines simply oblivious to something so plain as Romans 4:3 when they wrote chapter eleven or is there something that we might be missing?

The divines also state that “all things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves” and therefore require some work on our part to understand them. Therefore, I opt for the latter. We are missing something. But before we can start talking about what is missing from our understanding of the text, we need to start a little farther back.

Unity of the Theological Disciplines

To put it simply, what’s missing is the unity of the theological disciplines. We ought to think of the disciplines as a pyramid. At the foundation is the Bible, God’s Word. The Old Testament and the New Testament form the foundation of the pyramid. These disciplines include, at the very least, a study of the original languages and exegesis. Having done their work, these exegetes hand up the fruit of exegesis to the Biblical theologian whose method is historical in character. After he are finished, the historical theologians assess the development and continuity of a particular doctrine or movement.  And finally, the ripened fruit of these disciplines is handed to the queen of the sciences, systematic theology, and she assesses and organizes the evidence into a logical concatenated system of thought.

However, today the disciplines have gone rogue. Scholars have placed a chasm between the testaments and the queen has been accused of being a Greek philosopher in disguise. As a result, it is each discipline for itself. So, today it might help us to think about our opening example from the perspective of one scholar who appreciated the unity of the theological disciplines.

John Murray was a professor at old Westminster, and he was both a New Testament exegete and a first-rate systematic theologian who understood the need for the theological disciplines to respect and work together for the well-being of the church. Consider what Murray wrote in his essay titled, “Systematic Theology.”

Systematic theology is tied to exegesis. It coordinates and synthesizes the whole witness of Scripture on the various topics with which it deals…. Thus, the various passages drawn from the whole compass of Scripture and woven into the texture of systematic theology are not cited as mere proof texts or wrested from the scriptural and historical context to which they belong, but, understood in a way appropriate to the place they occupy in this unfolding process, are applied with that particular relevance to the topic under consideration.  Texts will not thus be forced to bear a meaning they do not possess nor forced into a service they cannot perform.  But in the locus to which they belong and by the import they do possess they will contribute to the sum-total of revelatory evidence by which biblical doctrine is established. We may never forget that systematic theology is the arrangement under appropriate divisions of the total witness of revelation to the truth respecting God and his relations to us men and to the world.[1]

Thus, in the work of exegesis, Murray is unwilling to do systematic theology and yet systematic theology is the end and capstone of the vital process of interpreting Scripture. This is a valuable lesson. In our haste to prove a point we must not press a particular passage to teach more or even less than it does. Or, as Murray puts it, we should not ask a text to bear a meaning that it cannot sustain. Now, you can already see how this applies to Romans 4:3.

Exegeting the Biblical Text

In exegeting Romans 4, Murray considers it essential to allow the text to speak without imposition. In other words, though systematic theology is vital it does not turn up at the level of exegesis. But it is equally wrong for exegesis to believe itself to be the end of the process.  Consider this quote from Murray’s commentary on Romans,

In terms of the formula, it was faith that was reckoned to him for the righteousness with which justification is concerned. In each case of appeal to Genesis 15:6, therefore, we must not, for dogmatic reasons, fail to recognize that it is faith that is imputed (vss. 5, 9, 10, 11, 22, 23). How this comports with the truth attested so clearly elsewhere in this epistle that the righteousness of Christ is the ground of justification, the righteousness by which we are justified, is a question that must be dealt with in its proper place. It is not in the interests of exegesis to evade the force of the apostle’s terms here or fail to take account of the emphasis, so germane to the whole doctrine, that faith is reckoned for righteousness in justification.^[2]

It is obvious that Murray himself feels the tension. The reading of this passage does not square with the truth so clearly taught in the epistle “that the righteousness of Christ is the ground of justification” and yet the exegete must resist the temptation to move directly into systematics. So, what is the meaning of the text. Murray concludes after investigation of verses 4-5,

The antithesis is therefore between the idea of compensation and that of grace—the worker has compensation in view, he who does not work must have regard to grace. In verse 5 we do not read therefore by way of contrast, “but to him that worketh not the reward is not reckoned of debt but of grace”. On that side of the antithesis the terms are carefully chosen to suit the main interest at this point. The antithesis is not simply between the worker and the non-worker but between the worker and the person who does not work but believes. And it is not only believing but believing with a specific quality and direction—“believing upon him who justifies the ungodly”. The issue is then stated in the language of the formula on which everything turns, namely, that “his faith is reckoned for righteousness”.^[3]

Clearly, Murray determines what Paul is not teaching. He is not teaching us about the ground or nature of our justification. According to Murray, the point of Romans 4 is the contrast between work and belief. It is a simple contrast. And from this understanding the reader is able to see how such an understanding fits into the overall teaching of Romans.

From Exegesis to Systematic Theology

However, when writing systematic theology, Murray is equally rigorous as to his method of collating the total witness of revelation under the appropriate heads of theology. Consider what Murray writes in his wonderful little book, Redemption Accomplished and Applied. He writes,

In Genesis 15:6 it is said of Abraham that he believed in the Lord and he reckoned it to him for righteousness.  This text is quoted repeatedly in the New Testament (Rom. 4:3, 9; Gal. 3:6; James 2:23) and it might appear that it was the faith of Abraham which was reckoned as the righteousness on the basis of which he was justified, that faith itself was accepted by God as fulfilling the requirements necessary for a full and perfect justification.  If this were the case then Abraham was justified and all other believers also are justified on the ground of faith and because of faith.  It is important to observe in this connection that the Scripture never uses such terms. It speaks always of our being justified by faith, or through faith, or upon faith, but never speaks of our being justified on account of faith or because of faith.[4]

Murray goes on to demonstrate from the totality of Scripture’s witness that our faith cannot be our righteousness. This is clearly the work of a systematic theologian and not that of an exegete enamored with a single text believing it has the power to uproot and upset an entire system of thought! The systematic theologian offers a cooler assessment of all the material, which, I might add, is what the theologians of the Westminster Confession also did when constructing chapter eleven on Justification.

From Scholarship to the Pulpit

   But let me go a step further. Murray was an exegete, a biblical theologian and a systematic theologian.  However, Murray was also a preacher. And Westminster Theological Seminary has, within the last decade, put us all in their debt by publishing a volume of Murray’s sermons. In a sermon called “Reckoned to Us as Righteousness” Murray queries the congregation saying, “In order to have acceptance with him, there must be full credit, and credit that is unto everlasting life.  What is that credit?”[5] Now, we watched him exegete this passage in his commentary, we observed him work it out systematically and now we have the pleasure of hearing him preach it.

It’s interesting that in this sermon Murray doesn’t spend time helping us to understand how Romans 4:9 is understood individually even though that is his text. Instead, he takes us through one passage after another wherein we are reminded that the righteousness of God is imputed by, through, or upon faith.  And then he reminds his hearers, “If I’m justified on the basis of what I am or on the basis of what I do, then, after all, my righteousness is human, and it doesn’t measure up to the gravity and to the desperateness of my need.”[6] What is credited must be of God’s own righteousness in Christ.

Thus, Murray teaches us an important lesson in pastoral theology. Murray especially helps us pastors to see why not only exegesis and biblical theology are important to the preacher, but he goes on to demonstrate in his own preaching why it is that systematic theology is indispensable to the work of the pulpit, perhaps an observation that he learned from Benjamin B. Warfield.[7] Why study systematic theology? According to Murray, the answer is obvious. 

Jeffrey A Stivason (Ph.D. Westminster Theological Seminary) is pastor of Grace Reformed Presbyterian Church in Gibsonia, PA.  He is also Professor of New Testament Studies at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, PA. Jeff is the Editorial Director of Ref21 and Place for Truth both online magazines of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.