Abstract
Varghese Chiraparamban’s The Manifestation of God’s Merciful Justice is a revised version of his doctoral dissertation, defended at Leuven in 2015. His thesis is that a theocentric reading of Romans 3:21-26 – and indeed of the first three chapters of Romans – best interprets the text rather than christocentric or anthropocentric readings. Chiraparamban clarifies that a theocentric reading does not cast a shadow on the christological or anthropological themes that are certainly present in this passage but instead illuminates them and puts them in their proper perspective, with God as their ultimate center.
The author begins with an assessment of the prevailing approaches to interpreting Romans 3:21-26 and its key phrase δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ – ‘the righteousness of God’ – noting that influential commentators such as Bultmann, Conzelmann, and Nygren followed an anthropocentric reading of the text, understanding ‘the righteousness of God’ as a subjective genitive and seeing humanity as the recipient of God’s justification. Scholars including David Southall advocate a christocentric interpretation, considering ‘the righteousness of God’ to be a metaphorical description of Christ himself. In contrast, Chiraparamban notes that Ernst Käsemann and E. P. Sanders take a theocentric position on the place of righteousness in the passage, conceiving of it as a representation of God’s sovereign desire to bring all peoples to salvation.
Situating Romans 3:21-26 in its context is Chiraparamban’s next task; after reviewing the possibility of pre-Pauline phrasing having been used in Romans 3:24-26, he examines the place of Romans 3 within the larger letter, arguing that the whole fabric of Romans should be read in a theocentric light since ‘the main concern [of Romans] is to show how God can redeem his people. In other words, Paul’s concern is how Gentiles can be included in God’s saving plan’ (p. 61). Chiraparamban takes up a text and narrative criticism and a syntactical analysis of the pericope to prepare for his interpretation, observing that the continuity between Romans 3:21-26 and the preceding text is an argument in favor of a theocentric reading, as God and his standard of righteousness are the principal themes of Romans going back as far as Romans 1:16-17.
The core of Chiraparamban’s case is forecast in chapter four where he assesses a broad range of possible meanings of the phrase often translated as ‘righteousness of God’, documenting the wide range of semantic nuance of δικαιοσύνη in the Old Testament as well as the consistent use of δικαιοσύνη as defining God’s relationship to humanity in the Psalms and as God’s will for the salvation of all humanity in Isaiah. The author illustrates this point commenting on a series of texts in Second Isaiah: ‘δικαιοσύνη is used in the context of God’s concern for all and his plan to save everyone’ (p. 172). Chiraparamban proposes ‘God’s merciful justice’ as his translation of δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ, in part to highlight the relational character of righteousness in Hebrew thought and to avoid the present-day English connotation of ‘self-righteousness’ that has attached itself to the word ‘righteousness’. In sum, Chiraparamban argues that rendering δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ by ‘God’s merciful justice’ captures the relational nature of the righteousness God extends to humanity, marked by mercy – a relational nature reflecting precedents in the Psalms and Isaiah. He further notes the inclusivity of the redemption God would work by his ‘merciful justice’, which is intended to reach Jews and Gentiles alike.
Chiraparamban further builds his case in chapter five, where he assesses potential translations of πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ and their bearing on God’s righteousness which is imparted to believers on account of their ‘relational trust’ in God through Christ. Chiraparamban focuses especially on Paul’s use of πίστις and reviews the semantic range of this term in and beyond the New Testament, considering its use in the LXX and extra-biblical Hellenistic literature. His conclusion that Paul’s use of πίστ-stemmed words is meant to underline man’s relation to God, mediated through Christ, supports his theocentric reading of Romans 3. Three additional word studies follow in chapters six and seven, with Chiraparamban taking up the roles of ἀπολύτρωσις, ἱλαστήριον, and πάρεσις in Romans 3:24-25. Among other points, he argues that Paul uses ἀπολύτρωσις in Romans 3 as ‘a theocentric metaphor, which expresses a general concept of “redemption”, rather than a specific mechanism of liberation in the context of slavery’ (p. 288).
The author’s thesis of Paul intending a theocentric reading of Romans 3:21-26 and an interpretation of δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ focusing on righteousness expressed in mercy is solidly supported throughout Chiraparamban’s work, with fair consideration being given to competing understandings. In all, he has authored a thorough and insightful study, making a solid case for his conclusions regarding the critical nature of righteousness, properly understood as ‘God’s merciful justice’, in weaving together the narrative of Romans.