Memory Verse Day 10: The Bible’s Least Known Most Important Passage
(Romanos 4:4 NBLH)
"Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due."
(Romans 4:4 ESV)
Today is the start of a two verse set – Romans 4:4-5.
This has got to be the least-known most-important passage in the Bible. I’ve used it in an explanation of the Gospel, and I’ve used it to explain the difference between Christianity and other religions. And there are probably many more times when I should have used it that I didn’t.
Study these verses, highlight these verses, struggle to understand these verses – it’s worth it!
Paul has just finished talking about Abraham, and how he was not justified by works. In other words, with God as his judge, Abraham was not declared righteous because of anything that he did.
In case there’s any doubt whatsoever, Paul clarifies what he’s saying with this illustration. Let’s say someone is employed somewhere, and he gets a pay-cheque. Is his pay a gift? Does he say thank you and act surprised and say you shouldn’t have?
Of course not – it’s obvious. This person is owed the money. If the money is not paid to him, there’s a problem.
One of the most beautiful words in the whole Bible is in this and the next verse. In the Greek it’s the logizomai. In the English it’s credited, reckoned, counted or imputed.
Imputed has become the theological word. It’s a very useful word. You can talk about imputed, imputation, impute…
…and with this one word Paul sets salvation apart from every religious system in the world.
And tomorrow we’ll see this, in one of the most stunning verses in all of the Bible.
If you’re following along, here’s the next set of verses (pdf format) – 10 more, giving us 21 in all.
22 March 2012 @ 9:32 pm
You have a very good point here! Romans is such an important book, one that I didn’t understand for many years after I became a Christian. I audited a course on it and learned so much. I also memorized chapters 6, 7 and 8. Fabulous truths there.
The next verse, chapter 4:5, I remember well from Awana. Great stuff!
26 March 2012 @ 5:29 pm
How is Paul using logizomai in verse 4? “Wages are logizomai as debt”?
27 March 2012 @ 6:57 am
Yes, great passage isn’t it?
Nick, logizomai is all over the place here – verse 3, Abraham’s faith was reckoned (logizomai) to him as righteousness, verse 4 a wage is not reckoned (logizomai) as a favour, verse 5 faith is reckoned (logizomai) as righteousness.
I’m not a Greek scholar, but you might find John Piper’s discussion of this passage interesting in his book (available free online) Righteous in Christ: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/online-books/counted-righteous-in-christ
Also another discussion of the passage here from the book The God who Justifies by James R. White: http://vintage.aomin.org/Rom45.html
27 March 2012 @ 9:57 am
Hi Jim,
What does it mean that “wage is not reckoned as a favor”? That the wage ITSELF is not reckoned to be favor? If so, then that seems it would mean “faith reckoned as righteousness” means faith ITSELF is reckoned as righteousness.
28 March 2012 @ 7:37 am
I assume you’re referring to my comments in the next post, but I’ll answer here.
I’m not exactly sure what you’re saying when you say that faith ITSELF is reckoned as righteousness. Of course the passage has been translated – in English – “faith is counted as righteousness” “faith is counted for righteousness” “faith is reckoned for righteousness” “faith is reckoned as righteousness”.
Now a couple of things are obvious from the passage. First, Paul is not saying that God owes us righteousness because faith is a work that creates a debt. Second, Paul is not saying God sees our faith and considers that to be our righteousness.
We know it can’t be the first, because Paul is talking about a gift here – it’s something related to grace (v.16). Faith does not mean that God owes us righteousness. He’s not obligated to call us righteous because we have faith.
Second, the faith itself is not righteousness. This is certainly not a faith=righteousness scheme on a ledger sheet.
You can see this by looking at the way Paul is describing the person who receives righteousness – it’s a person who has nothing to boast about (v.2), who doesn’t work and who isn’t owed anything (v.4), who is ungodly (v.5), lawless and sinful (v.7)… and he goes on to confirm and explain these things in the verses ahead.
In the end, our transgressions and our justification are all wrapped up in Jesus Christ Himself (v.25).
So even if the English translation is a little tricky, the context does explain what’s going on. Paul’s flow of argument is that nothing we can do can save us – we instead receive righteousness from God. Because it’s not reliant on our obedience to the law (Paul has made it clear that such a strategy is doomed to fail), the promise is certain or guaranteed (v.16).
This brings us to one more important point. If we’re receiving something that is not from works, what about faith?
Does Paul not consider faith to be a work? Or is faith not something that earns us righteousness? Or is it a work that simply is given by God?
Well, faith is certainly a gift of God as well, but I think it’s more than that.
Now this may get into the subtleties of the Greek, but it seems that we’re receiving righteousness by faith. In other words, as I pointed out above, faith is not earning us something, and it doesn’t = righteousness … 1 to 1. Instead, God uses faith to give us a perfect righteousness. You could say, instead of “faith is counted for righteousness” that righteousness is received by faith.
I could put it this way, since Paul uses a book keeping analogy here. It’s not faith on one side of the ledger, and righteousness on the other. It’s sin on one side (our side) and righteousness on the other (God’s side). God uses the means of faith to make the transfer.
If you want to continue to investigate logivzetai/logizomai itself, I suggest you use some Greek study tools or speak to someone who can comment more fully.
28 March 2012 @ 3:31 pm
Hi Jim,
IF I am reading you correctly, you are saying logizomai means “transfer” or “receives”. Thus, faith is ‘reckoned’ as righteousness means faith transfers/receives righteousness.
IF that is the case, then I’m baffled on how logizomai is operating in verse 4, wages are reckoned as debt then must mean wages are transferred/received as debt, but that makes little sense.
28 March 2012 @ 4:39 pm
No, that’s not what I’m saying at all.
First, it’s very clear what Paul is saying in the flow of the passage. It might help to see that Paul is talking about something different in verse 5 (compared to verse 4). In the one case, someone is receiving pay for his work. In the other case, someone is receiving righteousness when they haven’t worked at all. The meaning is clear.
Second, I said that if you wanted details about the Greek word itself, you should go elsewhere. So if you’re actually confused about the word itself, check out some other tools.