they are mostly Gentiles (1:13), which includes Greeks and barbarians (1:14), and of these two groups they are largely the former (1:16). The Roman congregations were mostly Greek speaking at this time (as the earliest Christian inscriptions and leadership lists show). Romans also often considered themselves “Greek” rather than “barbarian,” which was not a flattering designation. But Paul often employs the contrast between “Jew” and “Greek” (2:9–10; 3:9; 10:12), and not only in this letter (see 1 Cor 1:22, 24; 10:32; 12:13; Gal 3:28; Col 3:11; cf. Acts 14:1; 18:4; 19:10, 17; 20:21), as equivalent to “Jew” and “Gentile” (Rom 3:29; 9:24; 1 Cor 1:23). “Greek” provided a natural metonymy for the larger category of “Gentile.” Josephus often uses “Greeks” for all non-Jewish urban residents,41 and Jews had longstanding severe conflicts with Greeks, the dominant urban culture in the eastern Mediterranean.42
As the introductory “for” (gar) indicates, Paul now explains why the good news brings salvation to Gentiles as well as Jews: God’s way of implementing his righteousness is through faith (1:17). Scholars read this explanation, however, in different ways, regarding both “God’s righteousness” (dikaiosunē) and “faith” (pistis). Both are clearly key concepts: if we include their cognates, Paul employs each term over fifty times in Romans. Here I must digress to address dikaiosunē more fully.
Excursus: Dikaiosune¯ in Romans
In common Greek, dikaiosune¯ normally meant “justice.”43 In what sense would God’s “justice”44 or “righteousness” (Rom 1:17; 3:5, 21–22; 10:3) put people right with him (cf. 3:26)? Scripture often connects God’s righteousness with his faithfulness and/or covenant love (e.g., Pss 36:5–6, 10; 40:10; 88:11–12; 98:2–3; 103:17; 111:3–4; 119:40–41; 141:1; 143:1, 11–12; 145:7). In the Psalms, God’s righteousness causes him to act justly (e.g., Pss 31:1; 35:24) or mercifully (Pss 5:8; 71:2, 15–16, 19, 24; 88:12) in favor of his servant. When forgiven, the psalmist will praise God’s righteousness (Ps 51:14).45
In the Greek version of the OT, the cognate verb dikaioo¯ did not imply a legal fiction, but recognizing one as righteous,46 including in forensic contexts (cf. Gen 44:16; Isa 43:9, 26; Ezek 44:24): judges must not “acquit the guilty” (Exod 23:7), but must “justify,” i.e., pronounce righteous, the innocent (Deut 25:1).47 God himself would punish the guilty but “justify” and vindicate the righteous (1 Kgs 8:32; 2 Chr 6:23); he himself was “justified,” or “shown to be right,” when he pronounced just judgment, even against the psalmist (Ps 51:4, in Rom 3:4). Thus for God to “justify,” “acquit,” or “vindicate” someone who was a morally guilty person, as in Rom 4:5, might shock hearers.
Nevertheless, those immersed in Scripture could also understand God rendering judgment in favor of someone based on his mercy. For example, God pronounced judgment justly against Israel (Dan 9:7, 14); but they could entreat him to forgive them according to his “righteousness” (Dan 9:16). God might punish the guilty, yet ultimately plead their case, “justifying” them to see his “righteousness” (Mic 7:9). Israel hoped for God’s promise of vindication someday (Isa 45:25; 50:8; 58:8), including through the righteous servant who would bear their sins (Is 53:11; cf. Rom 4:25).48 God being “righteous” meant that he would honor the promise to Abraham, whom he found “faithful” (Neh 9:8).49
For Paul, God’s righteousness is incompatible with dependence on mere human righteousness (Rom 9:30—10:6; Phil 3:9). Divine righteousness is not a goal to be reached by human effort, but a relational premise that should dictate the new life of faithfulness to Christ. Often Romans uses the verb cognate (dikaioo¯) for God putting believers right with himself, reinforcing the possibility that this is how Paul uses the noun here.50 This verb can signify just vindication; in a forensic context it may entail “justification” (as many translations render some of its occurrences in Romans) or acquittal. Those who argue for legal acquittal rightly emphasize God’s generosity, or “grace,” as opposed to human achievement.
Nevertheless, Paul does not think only of “acquittal,” which is only one element of the term’s normal sense. Acquittal does not dominate the entire letter, which goes on to address conduct (Rom 6; 12:1—15:7);51 moreover, when God pronounces something done, one expects this to happen, not merely produce a legal fiction (Gen 1:3; 2 Cor 4:6).52 In Romans, righteousness is a transforming gift. It is a divine gift rather than human achievement (Rom 5:17, 21), but God’s gift also enables obedience (cf. 1:5; 2:8; 5:19; 15:18), i.e., right living (6:16–18; 8:2–4; 13:14). In theological terms, justification is inseparable from regeneration.
Although disputed, “from faith to faith” may simply mean that God’s righteousness revealed in the gospel is a matter of faith from start to finish.53 Romans often uses pistis (“faith”) and its verb cognate pisteuō (“believe”). Apart from disputed instances (e.g., 3:22), faith is normally in God or Christ (most obvious in cases where the verb is being used). Whatever else “faith” means for Paul, it is not a human work, whether physical or (as sometimes in Protestantism) mental in nature (Rom 3:27–28; 4:5; 9:32; Gal 2:16; 3:2, 5). It involves dependence on God’s righteousness. This means not a Kierkegaardian “leap into the dark” (reacting to the Kantian consignment of faith to the category of subjectivity), but embracing truth in the gospel (in contrast to the false ideologies of the world; cf. Rom 1:18–23, 28). We should note, however, that just as “righteousness” involves transformation, so the term pistis includes the sense of “faithfulness”—loyalty and allegiance—and not simply an intellectual acknowledgment. Genuine dependence on Christ invites genuine loyalty to him, not simply reciting a statement about him as if nothing is truly at stake.54
As in the rest of Romans, Paul now turns to Scripture to demonstrate a controversial point, using a familiar early Jewish and Christian citation formula.55 Paul here cites Hab 2:4, which concerns God preserving the righteous in the time of impending judgment. Some interpreters take “righteous one” here as Jesus (cf. Acts 3:14; 7:52), but none of the other sixteen uses of dikaios (“righteous”) in Pauline literature in context refer to Jesus (including in the quotation of this same passage in Gal 3:11).
Scholars also debate whose faith(fulness) is in view in this Habakkuk quotation. Although the dominant Greek version of Hab 2:4 says, “my [God’s] faith [pistis],” Paul undoubtedly knows that the Hebrew speaks of the faith of the righteous person; Paul simply omits the debatable pronoun. Scholars have taken him in one or both ways here; Paul does speak later of God’s faithfulness (pistis, 3:3). Yet it would have been easy for him to have followed the Greek rendering familiar to his audience, which he chooses not to do,56 and in Romans he far more often speaks of believers’ pistis (e.g., 1:8, 12), even when echoing the text here (4:5). Elsewhere (Gal 3:6, 11) Paul midrashically links the two biblical texts that mention both
