Justification

But this does not mean that he has "fulfilled the law" in the sense of obeying it perfectly and thus building up a "treasury of merit" which can then be "reckoned" to his people.

This is not simply a problem for Israel; it is not simply a problem for the world (though it is of course both of those as well). It is a problem for God, as Romans 3:1-8 makes clear. God's single saving plan has apparently been thwarted. How is he then going to be faithful not only to the promises made to Israel but to the promises made through Is

And here, in the middle of the passage, Paul quotes a line whose immediate sequel, if I am right, simply repeats the exact meaning of 2 Corinthians 5:21b: I have given you as a covenant to the people. Or, in Paul's language, "That we might, in him, become the righteousness of God."

It would have been taken for granted that "God's righteousness" referred to the great, deep plans which the God of the Old Testament had always cherished, the through-Israel-for-the-world plans, plans to rescue and restore his wonderful creation itself, and, more especially, to God's faithfulness to those great plans.

"Righteousness" carries the overtones both of "justice"-the Creator's passion to put things right-and of "faithfulness"-YHwx's faithfulness to the covenant which he established so that through it he might indeed put all things right.

His "acts of righteousness" are thus the acts he performs as outworkings or demonstrations of his covenant faithfulness. But, even at that point, "righteousness" does not mean the same as "salvation."

Rather, unless we are absolutely forced to deny it, we should assume that when Paul appears to be laying down first principles about God's future judgment, he is laying down first principles about God's future judgment.

The whole point of Abraham in Romans 4, as I have said before in relation to Galatians 3, is not that he is an "illustration" or an "example," as though the saving plan consisted of the simplistic narrative, "Humans sin; God rescues; all is well (and, by the way, God has done this here and there in the past as well)."

But I do know that if a church only, or mainly, relies on the NIV it will, quite simply, never understand what Paul was talking about.