The Passage That Opened Heaven to Luther

If you haven’t yet stopped by the Perspectives in Translation discussion over at Bible Gateway, you may want to check out the ongoing discussion over Romans 1:17. As I explained in the introduction to this question, Romans 1:17 directly affected the course of the Protestant Reformation more than any other verse. This is the passage that opened a gate to heaven for Martin Luther as he “grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith.”

Yet scholars today continue to contest the exact meaning of this potent, complicated passage. How, then, should a translation render Romans 1:17? That’s the question four scholars so far have answered.

• Robert Yarbrough identifies five issues that must be considered: the whole of biblical revelation, the overarching theology of Paul, the flow of discourse of Romans, historical or cultural background, and the original context and meaning of the passage Paul quotes from Habakkuk. He ultimately prefers the translation, “For in it is revealed God’s righteousness from faith to faith. As it is written, ‘But the righteous shall live by faith.’”
• Michael Bird disagrees with Piper, Schreiner, and Wright about the meaning of dikaiosynē theou. While Bird says it literally means the “righteousness of God,” he understands it as the “saving righteousness of God.” He arrives at this overall translation: “For in the gospel the saving righteousness of God is revealed, by faith and for faithfulness, just has it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’”
• Doug Moo, chair of the Committee on Bible Translation, which updated the NIV this year, declines to re-engage all the exegetical issues. After all you can check out his landmark commentary on Romans. But he argues, contra Yarbrough, that “from faith to faith” doesn’t communicate. And he expresses concern about Bird’s response and says laypeople are “badly misled by our language of ‘literal,’ as if ‘literal’ = accurate. It just ain’t so.”
• Denny Burk prefers the updated NIV to the original on this particular verse. Even so, he pushes back against Moo. Burk says “the old gloss ‘righteousness of God’ is still the best one. And in this case, it is the most literal one as well.”

The discussion at Perspectives in Translation continues later today with the question, “Should I use multiple Bible translations or stick with one?” Until then, check out these responses on Romans 1:17 to learn more about a crucial passage in God’s Word.