Full Text for Romans- Volume 13 - Translation of 1:17 and the Theme of Romans (Video)

No. 13. >> I sense the importance of these two verses. I noticed that sometimes there are different translations for the words of Verse 17. The King James says: The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. But the RSV says: Through faith for faith. And the ESV says: From faith for faith. And the NIV says: By faith from first to last. How should we understand this? >>PROFESSOR DAVID I. M. LEWIS: Well, thank you, Nick, for that question. And this gets us into a little more in-depth exegesis of these thematic verses of Romans, Romans 1:16 and 17. And you can see how important these verses are. There's a lot to talk about in just these two verses. Because how we understand these two verses will affect how we read the epistle to the Romans. I've got my Greek here. Go through Verse 16 again. For I am not ashamed of the Gospel. That's Paul speaking. For it is the power of God for the salvation to all who believe. First for the Jew and also for the Greek. Verse 17: For in it, in the Gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. You could even translate that the righteousness of God is being revealed. The present tense in Greek has that very dynamic idea, that it's something that's continuously going on. So the righteousness of God is being revealed in the Gospel. And now once again the righteousness of God as I understand it, as Martin Luther understood it, as we Lutherans understand it is that this is the act of God declaring righteous those who believe. So how is the gospel the power of God for the salvation to those who believe? Because God declares righteous those who believe. And so we have faith in Verse 16. Faith comes into Verse 17 with this, well, kind of awkward construction. For in it, in the Gospel, the righteousness of God, or God's act of declaring righteous those who believe in Jesus, is being revealed. And then in the Greek it says ***ek pistevo ace pistis. And what that is is we've got the word for faith twice. And it's coming with two prepositions. So first we have the preposition ek, which literally means from or out of. So the righteousness of God is being revealed from faith. And then we have the preposition ***ace, which means to or into, into faith. And so that would be a very literal translation of that phrase. The righteousness of God is being revealed in the Gospel from faith to faith. And so if you ever see a translation from faith to faith, they are basically just giving a literal rendering of those words. And not really translating them in such a way to explain or interpret what those words mean. So it's the same thing. Righteousness of God, those translations that render that righteousness of God, they are translating but not necessarily interpreting. They are not sort of telling you what they think that means. And the same thing here with from faith to faith. Now, once again, this is a place where the NIV not only translates by interprets. When the NIV says: By faith from first to last, they are giving an interpretation of what from faith to faith means. And their interpretation there is that you might say a righteousness of God is being revealed in the Gospel which is by faith from first to last. In other words, what that means is they are saying from faith to faith is kind of one way of speaking about the whole. From is kind of the origin. To is the point of destination. And so it's a righteousness of God that from the beginning to the end is always revealed by and through and in faith. Faith is the way that this righteousness of God is revealed. How do you know this righteousness of God? You know it through faith. So that's why it's the power of God for salvation to those who believe. And so what the NIV is saying in their translation is that this righteousness of God comes through faith and only through faith. To speak again about that Roman Catholic idea of faith and good works cooperating as we're trying to attain the righteousness of God. That was the medieval system under which Luther once lived. And it's still present in Roman Catholic teaching today. That it's faith and good works working together by which we attain the righteousness of God. And you might say the NIV is giving a very Reformation translation by saying by faith from first to last is that it's never about works. It's always about faith. When you become a Christian, this righteousness of God is revealed by faith. And when you live the Christian life and finally die you live that Christian life by faith. And so that's an interpretation of from faith to faith. And I happen to believe that it's a pretty good interpretation. But then there are those other translations out there. And I guess the problem with these words is that all of these different translations are possible. And no, I don't think we're going to settle the issue here in this Delto course. But we should talk through it. Okay. First there is the literal translation reading the prepositions as prepositions. And this would be the idea: From points to the origin. So from where is this righteousness of God revealed? It's from faith. And to shows the origin. To where does this righteousness of God bring us? Well, it brings us to faith. So kind of that literal idea would be that the righteousness of God begins with faith and it brings us into faith. And it ends with faith. And then you've got that NIV idea: By faith from first to last. Here the general idea again is that the Christian life, attaining this righteousness, it's not based on works. It's only based on faith. There's never a time in the Christian life when their righteousness, their being declared right with God, does not come from faith. Not works but always faith. Now, it is possible, however, to understand those two prepositions in a different way. For instance, the preposition ek, which means from or out of, can sometimes in Greek be used to signify through. Now this through would be not spacially like going through the room or driving through the tunnel. But it would be through to show the means by which something takes place. So it could be through in the sense of by means of. And then the preposition ***ace or to can have the dynamic meaning of for, to express purpose. And so sometimes people will look at this phrase and say we shouldn't be thinking origin and destination, from and to, but means and purpose. So they would say in it, in the Gospel, the righteousness of God is being revealed by means of faith for the purpose of faith. In other words, you attain this righteousness, you understand it, by faith. And then the goal is to call you into faith. Now, in Martin ***Fransman's commentary this is actually how he translates these words. Fransman translates them: Through faith for faith. With the understanding that God declares men righteous through faith by means of faith for faith. That they would be in the state in which they believe in Jesus and that they are declared righteous because they believe in Jesus. Now, is there any difference between these two options here? There's not really a profound difference. Because the emphasis really is upon faith. And it's really faith opposed to something else. And we'll see in Romans, it's really faith opposed to works. Faith opposed to keeping the law on your own. And so whether you see it as a from faith to faith or a by means of faith for the purpose of having faith, the emphasis is still upon faith. That this is the power of God for saving those who believe. Not those who do good works. Not those who live according to the law. Not those who attain God's righteousness on their own or even with his help. But those who believe the promise. They are the ones who God declares righteous. Now, there is one other option that I would like to bring forward. This option has been argued by the scholar James Dunn, a Pauline scholar. And it represents more of a Calvinist or Reformed tradition. James Dunn, by the way, would be one of the scholars who would be a part of that new perspective on Paul. Reading Paul in a different way usually opposed to the traditional Lutheran understanding of Paul. Now, James Dunn would argue -- argues in his commentary that you actually have two different subjects of faith going on here. He argues that from faith, the first time we see faith, that this is actually God's faithfulness. And that to faith, that would be our believing. And so what Dunn argues is that in the Gospel a righteousness of God is being revealed out of God's faithfulness for our faith. And then Dunn argues that when Paul references Habakkuk 2 Verse 4, the righteous man will live by or from faith or by means of faith, Dunn tries to argue that in Habakkuk it's not faith that's referred to but God's faithfulness, God's promises. So Dunn argues what is going on here is that in the Gospel the righteousness of God is being revealed out of God's faithfulness. The origin is God's faithfulness. To or for our faith. So you actually have a different subject of faith in both places. First it's God being faithful. Second it's us believing in God. Now, just to comment, I don't think any of us would have any theological objections to what Dunn is arguing here. In other words, we would all agree that God is faithful to his promises. He sent his Son for us. He's more than faithful. However, in the context of the book of Romans, I would have to argue that I would agree more with the NIV's dynamic translation. And probably even more with the way Martin Fransman reads this that really the faith here is referencing back in Verse 16 those who believe. So the Gospel is the power of God for saving those who believe. For in it a righteousness of God is being revealed by faith from first to last. Or by means of faith for the purpose of faith. In other words, this is a righteousness of God that comes to those who believe. And so I would argue that this from faith to faith simply is really telling us it's all receiving God's grace and his salvation. It's all about faith. As a Lutheran I guess we might choose to dynamically translate this this way: For in the Gospel a righteousness of God is being revealed by faith alone. And that's how I read those words.