Righteousness Now and Glory at Christ’s Return
But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God Romans 3:21-23
Paul repeats his theme of ‘the righteousness of God’ and adds two more truths to it. The first is that it comes ‘through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe’ and the second, that this righteousness is directly linked to our justification. Here we are only touching on the first.
‘This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe’ (3:22). Paul may be expressing two thoughts here or repeating one in a different way for emphasis. If he is taking two thoughts, he is saying that God’s righteousness comes to us through Christ’s ‘faithfulness’ to the task God gave Him as well as our ‘faith’ in Him. ‘Faith in Jesus Christ’ can equally be translated as the ‘faith’ or ‘faithfulness’ of Jesus Christ. If this was Paul’s intent, he was saying Jesus was faithful to the saving purposes of God and then goes on at once (just as in 1:16,17) to stress that the only ones to benefit from this are those who have faith in Christ.
If Paul has only one thought in mind here, that the righteousness of God is ours through faith in Christ, then he adds ‘to all who believe’ for emphasis. This is obviously how the NIV understands Paul’s wording, ‘This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe’ (3:22). Paul continues to be especially concerned to show that although God’s work in Christ is for everyone, His righteousness is ‘activated’ only for those who believe. It is offered to all because it is needed by all. There is no difference between Jews and Gentiles in this respect, as Paul has been arguing in 1:18 – 3:20, or between any groupings of humanity because ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’ The aorist ‘have sinned’ means everyone’s cumulative past is summed up but “fall short’ is continuing present tense. We continue to fall short ‘of the glory of God.’ All have sinned and all are falling short of God’s glory.
God’s glory in the Bible is first of all His awesome presence. In this sense falling ‘short of the glory of God’ means forfeiting God’s approval or praise. But the Bible teaches that God’s people are destined to share in that glory, meaning ‘glory’ also describes the eternal destiny of believers (Romans 8:18; Philippians 3:21; 2 Thessalonians 2:14). Jewish texts speak of Adam having lost the ‘glory’ of being like God at the time of the fall, and all humanity since then sharing the same fate. We have all failed to live up to the glory displayed in our forefather Adam being made in God’s image and likeness (Genesis 1:26,28).
And just as sharing in God’s ‘glory’ involves conformity to the ‘image of Christ’ (8:29,30; Philippians 3:21), so the absence of glory means a falling away from the ‘image of God’ in which human beings were first made. The future glory will be the restoration of the lost, original glory. What the first Adam lost, the second Adam, Christ, will restore. All Christians will be transformed in the last day at Christ’s return.
We have much to look forward to.