The Meaning of Justification

The term justification itself must be explicated. I have suggested that Paul shares this terminology and even the specific term justification by faith with his Jewish-Christian opponents, here personified by Peter. It is important to realize, moreover, that the term justification itself is not a novum of Christianity but simply a basic Jewish notion. It refers to the situation of the believer at her last judgment (whether eschatological or merely after death is irrelevant here), when the question is: Will I be acquitted by the divine court? Justification means acquittal. The Greek is a calque (loan translation) on the Hebrew קדצי, which means both to be just or righteous and to be declared or recognized as just or righteous.^[22] In addition, there is already biblical speculation on how one becomes justified, whether through God's justice or through his mercy. The novelty of Christianity is that faith in Christ is what counts (either alone or in combination with works) at the divine Assizes. Paul's thought is therefore primarily soteriological, and his determination is that all shall be saved by the same means. Such ethnic practices as circumcision and refraining from eating shrimp could not possibly be the mechanism by which Scythians and Celts (in Galatia) would be acquitted at the Last Judgment, because these practices are specifically Jewish, whereas, as Sanders precisely formulates it, “Christ is the end of the law, so that there might be righteousness for all who have faith.” And therefore, according to Paul:

God's righteousness is, through Christ, available on the basis of faith to all on equal footing. If God's righteousness is the righteousness which is by faith in Christ and which is available to Gentile as well as Jew, then the Jewish righteousness which was zealously sought is the righteousness available to the Jew alone on the basis of observing the law. “Their own righteousness,” in other words, means “that righteousness which the Jews alone are privileged to obtain” rather than “self-righteousness which consists in individuals presenting their merits as a claim on God.” ^[23]

It is because it is God's righteousness that it could not possibly be for Jews alone, as Paul explicitly says in Romans 3:29: “Is God the God of the Jews alone?” To support this construction of the theology, detailed exegesis of Paul's hermeneutic is necessary.^[24]