The New Perspective on Paul

Timothy Keller:

Recently a “new perspective” has developed over what the term “observing the law” (or, as the ESV puts it, “works of the law”) means in Romans 3.20, 28.

     Many interpreters believe Paul is talking about the Mosaic ceremonial law only—circumcision, the dietary laws, and the other laws which are about keeping ritually “clean.” In this view, “works of the law” is not moral performance in general, but the adoption of Jewish cultural customs and ethnic boundary markers. Paul is not therefore addressing, and countering, a works-righteousness system of salvation (ie: the idea that you must obey particular laws in order to be right with God). Instead, the argument goes, Paul is opposing a view that Gentile Christians must take on Jewish ethnic markers and become culturally Jewish.

     So in this “new perspective” the Jews to whom Paul is speaking in Romans 2 and 3 are not legalists, but nationalists And Paul is therefore not opposing salvation-by-works, but rather, racial and ethnic exclusivity. This means that Paul’s purpose in the book of Romans is to insist that all races and classes sit down equally at the “table of God,” because we are all one in Christ.

     I have taken extensive time to weigh the pros and cons of this “new perspective,” and I believe it is very helpful in several ways, but that it cannot overthrow the essence of the historic, classic approach, This is not the place for an in-depth analysis, and what follows is certainly not intended to be any sort of last word, but here are my brief conclusions…

     You cannot ultimately drive a wedge between nationalism and legalism as if they are two separate things. Works of the law probably does include the observance of cultural boundary markers (eg: a reliance on circumcision, 2:25-29; 4:9-12). And this was clearly a serious issue among the Galatian believers, too, with the potential to split that church and undermine the gospel (Galatians 2:1-16). But nationalism is a form of legalism. Legalism is adding anything to Jesus Christ as a requirement for full acceptance with God. A moral superiority that comes from good works or from racial and cultural pedigree grows out of the same spiritual root. The gospel is that we are saved through what Christ does, and not by what we do or are. So when Jews thought that their cultural identity and norms—their Jewishness—saved them, they were adopting a form of self-salvation. Human achievement was becoming the basis for their standing with God.

     It is key that Paul associates the works of the law with “boasting” (Romans 3:27-28). And throughout the Scriptures, “boasting” is used about what you rely on and have pride in (see Jeremiah 9.23-24; 1 Corinthians 1:31). Paul says that boasting in, or trusting in, yourself is what underlies the works of the law. So while works of the law can mean relying on (or boasting in) nationalism, it cannot only mean that; nationalism is a form of self-salvation, or legalism. And it is this that Paul means by the phrase “works of the law.”

     So, ultimately, we must still read the book of Romans as Paul’s defense of the gospel of free grace against winning God’s favor by human accomplishment or status. The new perspective can’t dislodge the classic understanding of Romans. But this debate over the term “works of the law” is nonetheless helpful to us in two ways.

     First, it shows us how subtly the gospel can be undermined from within the Christian church and community. The new perspective shows us that those who “called [themselves] a Jew” (Romans 2:17) were not full-bore legalists who flatly rejected Christ.

     Instead, they were saying: Jesus is critical and crucial to getting saved, of course, but faith in him alone is not enough for full acceptance with God. We must continue to perform the full range of Mosaic ceremonial and cultural customs. This is much more subtle.

     In the same way, spint-deadening moralism would not grow in our churches by blatant, obvious denials of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. This truth is much more likely to be undermined in new forms of demanding cultural conformity or other approaches, which are much more subtle.

     Second, this debate shows us that the book of Romans has often been read too much as a rather academic debate about doctrine. But Paul is not only, or mainly, concerned about a breakdown in the doctrinal beliefs of individuals. He has a deep concern about a breakdown in Christian unity and community. It is important to see how much the book of Romans is addressed to the problerns of how people from very different cultural backgrounds and religious traditions can live in unity as Christians. The truths of the gospel are not matters only for the ivory tower, for lecture rooms and doctoral theses, they are fundamental to everyday life, in the heart and the home, with congregation members and co-workers.

(Timothy Keller, Romans 1-7 For You, [The Good Book Company, 2014], pp. 197-199.)

Robert Jewett:

     With the words χωρὶς ἔργων νόμου (“without/apart from works of law”), Paul drives home the separation between the new honor system in Christ and the traditional achievement of honor through performance or social privilege. The point of emphasis is the opposition between the law of faith and the law of works. Aspects of this opposition appear throughout Romans. The expression “apart from law” appears in 3:21; 7:8, 9, and “apart from works” in 4:6. That χωρίς appears nowhere else in the NT in connection with law or works aside from Jas 2:26,44 which appears to counter Pauline doctrine, confirms that this is a theme distinctive to Romans. These expressions of apartness are all generic, lacking the article, so it appears that not only the Jewish Torah but all other forms of law or works of law are eliminated as means of access to the new form of honor in Christ.

(Robert Jewett, Hermeneia—A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible: Romans, [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007], on Rom. 3:28, pp. 298-299.)

Cf. Robert Jewett:

Since the anarthrous use of νόμος here could extend its semantic field to every kind of law, it seems unlikely that Paul wishes to restrict the argument to Israel’s law.

(Robert Jewett, Hermeneia—A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible: Romans, [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007], on Rom. 3:21, p. 274.)

Douglas J. Moo:

My quarrel with new perspective advocates is often not so much over what they say but about what they do not say – or, perhaps better, the overall balance that they give to certain issues. Romans, for instance, is without doubt deeply concerned with the “people” or “national” question: how God’s grace in Christ embraces both Israel and the Gentiles – as Paul announces the theme in 1:16, “first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.” But this national breakdown follows and explicates the immediate recipient of the salvation which Paul’s gospel both proclaims and effects: “everyone who believes.” Individual human beings here and, I would assert, in Romans generally are the immediate concern of Paul. The specific referents “Jews” and “Gentiles,” representing the key salvation-historical categories of “human being,” are a very important but secondary concern. New perspective advocates, I think, exchange background and foreground in their overall reading of Romans.

(Douglas J. Moo, “Israel and the Law in Romans 5-11: Interaction with the New Perspective;” In: Justification and Variegated Nomism: Volume II: The Paradoxes of Paul, eds. D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, Mark A. Seifrid, [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004], p. 188.)

I. Howard Marshall:

The new perspective has rightly reinstated the place of grace within Judaism. It is also right in what it asserts about Paul, namely, that at least one of the reasons why he was attacking the works of the law was because they were being imposed upon Gentile believers, but it is wrong in what it denies.

     It seems clear enough that in the eyes of Paul Judaism could be a religion in which grace and works were compatible. Paul makes two clear distinctions. One is between works and faith, excluding any suggestion that faith is also a work, but the right kind of work. The other, more basic and important, one is an antithesis between grace and works, and not simply between faith and works (Rom 11:6). The Judaism of the new perspective could combine God’s initial act of grace with reliance on the works of the law to stay in the covenant. But Paul makes a contrast between faith and the law (Rom 4:14) that can only mean that these are two contrasting ways to righteousness, the latter of which is not in fact a way. Paul describes the exclusion of many Israelites from favor with God because they followed the law rather than faith; this demonstrates further that in his eyes they were relying on the works of the law to gain righteousness. Thus the observances of the law were being treated not just as identity markers but also as the basis of misplaced confidence.

(I. Howard Marshall, New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses, One Gospel, [Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2004], p. 446.) Preview.

Michael F. Bird:

     With respect to the NPP, I could not help but think that several of its authors were spot on in giving us a corrective to caricatures of Judaism as completely legalistic and identifying Paul’s ministry in the context of trying to normalize Jew and Gentile relationships in the early church. I think that Paul did confront Jewish exclusivism as at least one facet of his critique of Judaism (in general) and the Christian judaizers (in particular). N.T. Wright raises a valid point when he says that for Paul what counts is grace not race. Clearly then justification by faith has serious consequences for legitimizing the identity of Gentiles as members of the people of God. Yet as Howard Marshall points out the NPP is correct in what it affirms but wrong in what it denies. There is a tendency in the NPP to sometimes squeeze all of Paul’s righteousness/justification language into social categories. But I cannot believe for a minute that “covenant membership” is the exhaustive meaning of justification. Resultantly, NPP advocates either deny, or more often than not underrate, the way that Paul construes justification as affecting a person’s vertical relationship with God and not merely their standing with other Christians. In Paul’s thinking, justification predominantly functions to address the anthropological problem of human sin, it explains God’s contention against human wickedness, articulates the change of status from condemnation to vindication that occurs in the dispensation of Christian faith, and explicates the inability of the law to provide a means of salvation.

(Michael F. Bird, Paternoster Biblical Monographs: The Saving Righteousness of God: Studies on Paul, Justification and the New Perspective, [Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2007], pp. 3-4.)

Joseph Fitzmyer, S.J. (Roman Catholic Theologian):

     Paul uses for the first time the pl. phrase erga nomou, “deeds of the law.” The sg. appeared in 2:15, and the pl. will appear again in 3:28 and 9:32 (in some MSS); Gal 2:16; 3:2, 5, 10; and in abbreviated form in Rom 3:27; 4:2, 6; 9:[11?], 32. With the gen. of possession nomou, the phrase denotes the discrete, concrete actions demanded or required by the law or the human activity dictated by the law (“what the law says” [3:19]); possibly it might also include the mentality of the pious Jew who seeks to observe the law (Lohmeyer, Probleme, 57). By contrast, Dunn would understand this phrase as designating “a mode of existence marked out in its distinctiveness as determined by the law, the religious practices which set those ‘within the law’ (v 19) apart as people of the law” (Romans, 154). For Dunn, it would refer specifically to “circumcision and food laws,” two obligations that “functioned as boundary markers” to set Jews off from Gentiles” (see also Dunn, “New Perspectives” and “Works of the Law”). This restricted sense of the phrase is hardly correct, for it contradicts the generic sense of “law” about which Paul has been speaking since 2:12 and to which he refers in 3:20b. See further Cranfield, “The Works of the Law.”

(Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J., The Anchor Bible: Volume 33: Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, [New York: Doubleday, 1993], on Rom. 3:20, p. 338.)

Joseph Fitzmyer, S.J. (Roman Catholic Theologian):

     28. we maintain that a human being is justified by faith apart from deeds prescribed by the law. Lit., “. . . apart from deeds of (the) law.” See Gal 2:16, “knowing that a human being is not justified by deeds of (the) law but through faith in Jesus Christ.” Paul uses anthrōpos, even without an article, as in 1 Cor 4:1 and 7:1, and speaks generically and indifferently of “a human being,” making no specific reference to Greek or Jew. But his emphasis falls on pistei, “by faith,” as Kuss, Bardenhewer, and Sickenberger recognize. That emphasis and the qualification “apart from deeds of (the) law” show that in this context Paul means “by faith alone.” Only faith appropriates God’s effective declaration of uprightness for a human being. These words repeat what Paul already said in v 20a.

(Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J., The Anchor Bible: Volume 33: Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, [New York: Doubleday, 1993], on Rom. 3:28, p. 363.)

C. E. B. Cranfield: (on Rom. 3:20)

But, even if Dunn’s explanation of ἔργα νόμου in Galatians were accepted, the meaning of the phrase in Romans would not have been settled. Paul could scarcely assume that the Christians in Rome would be familiar with what he had written to the Galatians. That Paul was capable of using the same expression in different senses on different occasions is clear enough.

     We turn now at last to Romans. The first occurrence of ἔργα νόμου is in 3:20: διότι ἐξ ἔργων νόμου οὐ δικαιωθήσεται πᾶσα σὰρξ ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ, διὰ γὰρ νόμου ἐπίγνωσις ἁμαρτίας. Dunn explains ἔργα νόμου here as meaning quite specifically those observances like circumcision and keeping of the food laws ‘which marked the Jews off from the other nations as distinctively God’s people’.

     But there are several compelling reasons why this explanation must be rejected.

     1. It fails to take account of the fact that 3:20 stands in relation to the whole argument from 1:18 on. When Dunn says of 3:20, ‘The concluding summary of the first main stage of the argument must refer back to what Paul had been attacking for the last chapter and a half, particularly Jewish pride in the law, and especially in circumcision as the most fundamental distinctive marker of the people of the law’, he has lost sight of Paul’s argument. He should have referred back not just one and a half chapters, but right back to 1:18 where this section begins. Paul’s concern from 1:18 on has surely been to lead up to the conclusion expressed in 3:20a and then restated in the opening lines of the next section in 3:23 (RV: ‘For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God’), namely, that all human beings are sinners (Jesus Christ alone excepted) whose only possibility of being righteous before God is by God’s free gift accepted in faith; and his concern in 2:1–3:19 is not primarily to polemicize against Jews (Dunn speaks of ‘Paul’s polemic here’), but rather to draw out the full meaning of 1:18–32 by demonstrating that there are no exceptions to its sweeping judgment—even the Jews who might not without reason think of themselves as superior to the pagan world around are no exception.

     2. It is surely ruled out by the presence of the latter part of 3:20. The force of γάρ at the beginning of διὰ γὰρ νόμου ἐπίγνωσις ἁμαρτίας is ignored by Dunn, though he correctly translates it by ‘for’. It indicates that this sentence is added as support for what has just been said. But, while a statement that the effect of the law is actually to show up human sin does indeed support what has been said in the first part of the verse, if in that first part ‘the works of the law’ means obedience to the law generally, it is difficult to see how it is support for it, if ‘the works of the law’ has Dunn’s ‘restricted sense’, and his explanation would involve supposing an awkward change in the way the law is being thought of between the two parts of the verse.

     3. It involves taking the plural ἔργα νόμου in a quite different sense from that of the singular τὸ ἔργον τοῦ νόμου in 2:15. While this is not impossible (for Paul, we know, can use the same word in different senses), it is surely preferable, if possible, to take it in the same or a closely related sense, unless the context forbids this. I understand τὸ ἔργον τοῦ νόμου in 2:15 as ‘the work which the law requires’, and take Paul’s meaning here to be that the eschatological promise of Jeremiah 31:33 that God would write his law in the hearts of his people is being fulfilled in the Gentiles who have believed in Christ. The use of the singular ‘may be explained as intended to bring out the essential unity of the law’s requirements, the fact that the plurality of commandments is no confused and confusing conglomeration but a recognizable and intelligible whole’ (cf. the use of τὸ δικαίωμα in 8:4 and the replacement of ‘the works of God’ in John 6:28 by ‘the work of God’ in the following verse): It seems to me that 2:15 tells in favour of taking ἔργα νόμου in 3:20 in the general sense rather than in Dunn’s restricted sense. The difference then between ‘work’ in 2:15 and ‘work’ in 3:20 will simply be that in the former place it denotes the work as prescribed, in the latter the work as actually done. And if the Gentiles referred to are taken to be pagan Gentiles, it is equally impossible to give to ‘the work of the law’ anything like Dunn’s restricted sense.

     4. Dunn’s explanation is further called in question by the occurrence in Romans of such expressions as οἱ ποιηταὶ νόμου in 2:13; τὰ τοῦ νόμου ποιεῖν in 2:14; νόμον πράσσειν in 2:25; τὰ δικαιώματα τοῦ νόμου φυλάσσειν in 2:26; τὸν νόμον τελεῖν in 2:27; δουλεύειν νόμῳ θεοῦ in 7:25; τὸ δικαίωμα τοῦ νόμου πληροῦν in 8:4; and νόμον πληροῦν in 13:8. All these are, it seems to me, naturally connected with the phrase ἔργα νόμου. In none of the occurrences of these expressions in Romans is it at all feasible to see a reference to circumcision, etc. (Dunn’s proposed restricted sense of ἔργα νόμου): in 2:25 circumcision is explicitly contrasted with practising the law.

     5. It is also called in question by what we find when we look at the occurrences in Romans of ἔργον and νόμος in separation. In seven out of the twelve occurrences of ἔργον without νόμου, it clearly does not refer to such things as circumcision (the other five we shall consider below). With regard to νόμος, it would surely be difficult for even the most ardent champion of ‘the new look on Romans’, after a survey of the more than seventy occurrences of νόμος in the Epistle, to deny that, when Paul uses the word νόμος, it is the law in its fundamental theological and ethical character which he normally has in mind, not the law as providing an obvious national identity-marker distinguishing Jews from Gentiles.

     6. Possibly we should see a sixth reason for rejecting Dunn’s explanation in the fact that in 14:1–15:13, a section which may perhaps reflect Paul’s knowledge of actual problems confronting the Roman Christians, it is to ‘the strong’ and not to ‘the weak’ that the main thrust of Paul’s exhortation is directed. Would one not expect it to be otherwise, if Dunn’s view were right? If Paul really was as much preoccupied with polemic against Jewish reliance on circumcision and the observance of the food-laws and the sabbath as Dunn seems to think, is it likely that he would have weighted his exhortation in this section in the way he has? (I assume that ‘the weak’ are Christians, mostly Jewish, whose faith has not yet given them the freedom enjoyed by ‘the strong’ and who still feel obliged, as believers in Christ, to observe the ceremonial law.)

     In view of what has been said above, the conclusion seems to me inevitable that Dunn’s interpretation of 3:20 must be rejected. The meaning of 3:20 is surely, as others have long recognized, that justification before God on the ground of one’s obedience to the law is not a possibility for fallen human beings, since none of them is righteous and the effect of the law is to show up their sin as sin and themselves as sinners.

(C. E. B. Cranfield, “‘The Works of the Law’ in the Epistle to the Romans;” In: C. E. B. Cranfield, On Romans: And Other New Testament Essays, [London: T&T Clark, 2002], pp. 5-8.)

C. E. B. Cranfield: (on Rom. 3:28)

     We turn next to the other occurrence in Romans of ἔργα νόμου in 3.28 (λογιζόμεθα γὰρ δικαιοῦσθαι πίστει ἄνθρωπον χωρὶς ἔργων νόμου). Dunn understands it as in 3.20, and he heads the section 3.27–31, ‘The Consequences for the Self-Understanding of the Jewish People’. Though this may fit in well with his view of Paul’s argument so far, it seems to me to be a quite unjustified limiting of Paul’s concern. How could Paul, immediately after vv. 21-26, verses which repeat the conclusion of the whole argument from 1.18 to 3.20 by the statement that all have sinned and lack the glory of God, and proclaim solemnly and directly the redemption in Christ Jesus and God’s costly forgiveness, go on merely to draw out the consequences for the self-understanding of the Jewish people? At this particular point anything less than a drawing-out of the consequences for the self-understanding of human beings as such would surely be an intolerable anticlimax. It is not just Jewish boasting which is here excluded (pace a good many commentators), but all human boasting before God. That ἔργα νόμου must have the same sense here as it has in 3.20 can hardly be denied. If any human beings at all are justified, it must be without their having obeyed the law, since all are sinners who lack the glory of God. (Verses 29 and 30 [RV ‘Or is God the God of Jews only? is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yea, of Gentiles also: if so be that God is one, and he shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith’], referring as they do to the distinction between Jews and Gentiles, might at first sight seem to be support for Dunn’s view that this section is intended as polemic against Jewish pride in such identity-markers as circumcision. But I take it that the function of those two verses is to support v. 28 by indicating that to deny its truth and to claim that men actually earn justification by their obedience to the law would be to imply something obviously false, namely, that God is not the God of all men but only of the Jews. God’s ultimate impartiality is shown by the fact that he will justify Jew and Gentile alike by or through faith, that is, by undeserved grace.)

(C. E. B. Cranfield, “‘The Works of the Law’ in the Epistle to the Romans;” In: C. E. B. Cranfield, On Romans: And Other New Testament Essays, [London: T&T Clark, 2002], pp. 8-9.)

C. E. B. Cranfield: (on Rom. 4:2, 6)

     We must now turn our attention to several places in which ἔργα occurs without νόμου but apparently with a similar sense to that of ἔργα νόμου. The first two of these are in Romans 4. With reference to 4.2 (εἰ γὰρ Ἀβραὰμ ἐξ ἔργων ἐδικαιώθη ἔχει καύχημα ἀλλ᾽ οὐ πρὸς θεόν), Dunn insists that ἐξ ἔργων ‘should not be taken as a more generalized statement than ἐξ ἔργων νόμου, as the parallel with 3.20 and the similar usage in 3.27-28 clearly indicate’, and that ‘The recurrence of the key themes, “works” and “boasting”, indicates clearly that Paul once again is thinking of the typical national confidence of his own people as to their election by God and privileged position under the law’. With reference to 4.6 (καθάπερ καὶ Δαυὶδ λέγει τὸν μακαρισμὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ᾧ ὁ θεὸς λογίζεται δικαιοσύνην χωρὶς ἔργων), he claims that what is meant by ἔργα is ‘the sort of nomistic service in which the devout Jew could boast’. But, in reply it must be said that:

     (i) ‘him that justifieth the ungodly’ in v. 5 strongly suggests that Abraham’s lack of works is thought of as having a moral content;

     (ii) the quotation of Psalm 32 in vv. 7 and 8 supports taking ‘works’ in a general, rather than in Dunn’s ‘restricted’, sense, since it identifies being justified apart from works with having sins forgiven;

     (iii) vv. 14 and 15 would seem also to weigh against taking ἔργα in Dunn’s narrow sense, since the point of those verses seems to be that the possibility of justification through the law is not open, since all are sinners incapable of fulfilling its requirements; and

     (iv) the position of chapter 4 in the ongoing argument of Romans requires that ἔργα here should be taken in the general sense, if what we have said in connection with 3.20 and 28 was correct.

(C. E. B. Cranfield, “‘The Works of the Law’ in the Epistle to the Romans;” In: C. E. B. Cranfield, On Romans: And Other New Testament Essays, [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2002], pp. 9-10.)

Douglas J. Moo:

…Dunn’s proposal suffers from some serious drawbacks. First, while Rom. 2 certainly has a great deal to say about Jewish complacency because of a misunderstanding of the covenant, it must be questioned whether we can confine Paul’s polemic to this one issue. Dunn consistently downplays the role that transgression of the law — not just adherence to certain ethnic identity markers — plays in Paul’s argument. Again and again, Paul insists in 2:1-29 that it is not dependence on the law or circumcision as such that renders the Jews liable to judgment, but their disobedience of the law. Transgressions of the law are the reason why the Jews cannot presume on the covenant for salvation. And these transgressions are said to involve the “same things” that Gentiles do (2:2-3) — clearly making it a matter not of “inner” Jewish issues but of sin against God generally. It is this larger and more basic problem of transgression of the law that informs Paul’s conclusion to this section in 3:20: “no human being will be justified by works of the law.” The “works” mentioned here must, as Dunn says, be the “works” Paul has spoken of in chap. 2. But it is not circumcision — let alone other “identity markers” that are not even mentioned in Rom. 1-3 — that the Jew “does” in Rom. 2; it is, generally, what is demanded by the law, the “precepts” (v. 26; cf. vv. 22-23, 25, 27). Therefore, 3:20 must deny not the adequacy of Jewish identity to justify, but the adequacy of Jewish works to justify. Belonging to the Jewish people does not justify because no Jew does the law sufficiently to give to that identity salvific power. It is this root anthropological issue — human inability — that informs 3:20, and justifies its application to the circumstance of any person.

(Douglas J. Moo, The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Epistle to the Romans, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1996], p. 214.)

Brendan Byrne, S.J.:

On the other hand, “works of the law” ought not be restricted solely to those particular observances of the law (esp. circumcision, food laws, calendar observance) that served, in a sociological sense, as “identity markers” of Judaism over against the Gentiles (so esp. Dunn, Romans 1.153-54 [though later publications show a somewhat broader perspective]; see Reference); see further, Westerholm, Israel’s Law 116-21; Fitzmyer 337-39.

(Brendan Byrne, S.J., Sacra Pagina Series: Volume 6: Romans, [Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1996], on Rom. 3:20, p. 121.)

Leon Morris:

     20. The consequences is that no one will be accepted before God on account of his observance of the law, a truth Paul expresses in words reminiscent of Psalm 143:2. No law gives automatic acceptance by God.[fn. 89a: J. D. G. Dunn says, “The ‘works of the law’ must be a shorthand way of referring to that in which the typical Jew placed his confidence, the law-observance which documented his membership of the covenant, his righteousness as a loyal member of the covenant” (NTS, 31 [1985], p. 528). Dunn stresses the importance of sociological factors and draws attention to the way Paul homes in on circumcision and food laws. It is, of course, true that such matters were important to Jews and marked them off from other people groups. But it may be doubted whether this aspect of Paul’s thought explains the present passage. Paul is arguing that all are sinners, Gentiles and Jews alike, and while it is true that “works of law” will not save the Jews, it is also true that “works of law” (interpret the expression as widely as you will) will not save the Gentile.]

(Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1992], on Rom. 3:20, p. 171.)

Thomas R. Schreiner:

     In evaluating this view one should note at the outset that Paul certainly resisted the notion that the people of God should be restricted to the Jews and those who observed Jewish cultural distinctives.[fn. 13: Seifrid (1994: 77-85) observes rightly, however, that to pose the issue solely in terms of nationalism is misleading since national and religious identity were intertwined in Judaism. He goes on to say that the divisions between the righteous and unrighteous within Judaism (e.g., at Qumran and in the Psalms of Solomon) demonstrate that moral superiority was attached to practicing "works of law.”] Nonetheless, to argue that ἔργα νόμου focuses on “identity markers” or “badges” that separated Jews from Gentiles is unconvincing (Cranfield 1991; Stuhlmacher 1992: 264; Thielman 1994a: 178).[fn. 14: Cf. also Cosgrove 1987a: 655; Stott 1994: 103. Neusner (1995) argues that Dunn fundamentally misunderstands Judaism from its own perspective, for in Judaism Israel was viewed as a supernatural entity open to all peoples, not a sociological entity.] Romans 3:19-20 functions as the conclusion for all of 1:18-3:18. In chapter 2 Paul criticizes the Jews for thinking that the law and circumcision will protect them from wrath. But Paul never says that the reason they will be judged is because they wanted to impose circumcision or food laws on Gentiles. Instead, the consistent thesis throughout chapter 2 (cf. 2:1-3, 8-9, 12, 21-24, 25, 27) is that the Jews will be judged for failing to keep the law. The same theme is pounded home in 3:9-18: it is the sin of the Jews (and Gentiles) that makes them liable to judgment. Thus verse 20 should be understood to say that righteousness by works of law is excluded because no one is able to keep the law. I have already noted that this explains most naturally the relationship between the two clauses in verse 20. By reversing the order of the two clauses the point at hand is illustrated. Since sin is revealed through the law (v. 20b), it follows that righteousness is not by works of law.[fn. 15: Segal (1990: 174-83, 201-10) maintains that what distinguished Paul from his Jewish contemporaries was not necessarily his teaching on justification, for the Qumran community articulated a similar doctrine of justification in some respects. Paul was distinct in that he opposed justification by faith to keeping the Torah.]

     Another piece of evidence against the sociological explanation of works of law is telling. In Rom. 3:27-4:8 a close relationship exists between ἔργα νόμου and έργα. Most scholars acknowledge that έργα in Paul denotes works in a general sense. Paul has this general sense of ἔργα in mind when referring to David and Abraham. For instance, in 4:6-8 David hardly confesses the sin of imposing circumcision and food laws on Gentiles, or of failing to observe these practices in his own life. But if in Paul ἔργα is a general designation for the whole law, and if ἔργα νόμου is parallel to ἔργα in 3:27-4:8, then works of law most naturally denotes the whole law.[fn. 17: Another line of evidence in favor of this view is put forth by Marshall (1996). He argues that the later writings in the Pauline corpus—Ephesians and the Pastoral Epistles—oppose grace and works fundamentally. This disjunction between grace and works in these later letters calls into question the idea that Paul criticized works of law primarily for their social function. When Paul (or one of the earliest Pauline interpreters, according to Marshall) in his later writings returns to the issue of “works,” he contrasts works with grace in a comprehensive way. This antithesis suggests that such a contrast was in his mind in the earlier letters as well.] Indeed, the linkage between 3:27-28 and 4:1-8 suggests that there is not even a focus on “identity markers,” but that “works of law” is a general designation for all the works commanded in the Mosaic law, so that “works of law” refers to the actions or deeds required by the Mosaic law (cf. Fitzmyer 1993c: 338; cf. Byrne 1996: 120-21).

     Finally, the use of the parallel expression מַעֲשֵׂי תוֹרָה (maʻăśê tôrāh, works of the law) in 4QFlor 1.7 refers to the whole law, for there is no contextual indication of any limitation or focus upon part of the law. The similar phrase בַּתּוֹרָה מַעֲשָׂיו (battôrāh maʻăśāyw, in his works of the law; 1QS 5.21; 6.18) also broadly designates the whole law. 1QS 5.8 clarifies this, for the adherents pledge to “return to the law of Moses according to all that he commanded.” Fitzmyer (1993b: 20-23; cf. Seifrid 1994: 81) concludes from these and other texts in the Qumran literature (cf. 1QpHab 7.11; 8.1; 12.4-5; 11QTemplea 56.3-4; 4QMMT) that “works of law” in Paul must refer to the whole law. Dunn’s claim (1992b: 103-4; 1997), therefore, that the Qumran material supports his more limited and focused understanding of the term is unpersuasive.[fn. 19: Dunn (1990: 208-13, 237-41) acknowledges that “works of law” refers to the whole law; he simply thinks that the focus is on works that distinguish Jews from Gentiles, but this admission is not integrated appropriately in his exegesis. For other terms that are similar to “works of law” see “works of righteousness” in 1QH 9(1).26 and 12(4).31, and “works of the commandments” in 2 Bar. 57.2. The works of Reinmuth (1985), Schnabel (1985), and Niebuhr (1987) strengthen the case for the thesis that the Jews contemplated the law as a whole, and, if anything, focused on keeping the moral norms of the law since observing circumcision and food laws was assumed.]

(Thomas R. Schreiner, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Romans, [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008], on Rom. 3:20, pp. 171-173.)

D. A. Carson:

…covenantal nomism is not only reductionistic, it is misleading, and this for two reasons.

     First, deploying this one neat formula across literature so diverse engenders an assumption that there is more uniformity in the literature than there is. In Philo, for instance, there is no real notion of being “saved” in any of the traditional senses. In Sanders’s usage, the “getting in” of covenantal nomism is bound up with how the community becomes the people of God. Philo is really not interested in this (though he does hold that Israel has a special relationship with God): his focus is on the individual’s pilgrimage toward God. Compare the “getting in” and “staying in” here, with whatever they mean in the Tannaitic literature, in Josephus, in the apocalypses: Sanders’s formula is rather difficult to falsify, precisely because it is so plastic that it hides more than it reveals, and engenders false assumptions that lose the flavor, emphases, priorities, and frames of reference, of these diverse literary corpora.

     Second, and more importantly, Sanders has erected the structure of covenantal nomism as his alternative to merit theology. At one level, of course, he has a point. Earlier analyses of the literature of Second Temple Judaism often found merit theology everywhere, and Sanders, as we have seen, is right to warn against a simple arithmetical tit-for-tat notion of payback. Even where some of the apocalypses use the language of weighing deeds in the balance and the like, it is possible to understand the relevant passages as reflecting a holistic assessment of an entire life and its direction. Nevertheless, covenantal nomism as a category is not really an alternative to merit theology, and therefore it is no real response to it. Over against merit theology stands grace (whether the word itself is used or not). By putting over against merit theology not grace but covenant theology, Sanders has managed to have a structure that preserves grace in the “getting in” while preserving works (and frequently some form or other of merit theology) in the “staying in.” In other words, it is as if Sanders is saying, “See, we don’t have merit theology here; we have covenantal nomism” – but the covenantal nomism he constructs is so flexible that it includes and baptizes a great deal of merit theology.

     In fact, both poles – “getting in” and “staying in” – need nuancing. We have seen that the first pole is more stable in this literature than the second: the assumption is that Israel is God’s people by grace. Well and good. But does this refer to the entire people at the moment of their initial calling? What about the entry of the individual, especially when what the individual is entering is a special community, as at Qumran? And what happens when the election-category of “getting in” becomes more commonly a source of boasting than a source of gratitude and obligation (a problem that already surfaces in the Hebrew prophets)? But the “staying in” pole is even more problematic. If Gathercole is right, the emphasis on “getting in” and “staying in” may unwittingly downplay the importance of eschatological judgment, and avoid questions about the role of works in that judgment in the various Jewish soteriologies. But even what “staying in” means is almost infinitely flexible. Is all of this obedience or law-keeping cast as a matter of faithful conformity to God’s gracious revelation, such conformity enabled and empowered by God’s help? Or is it sometimes cast as the human contribution to the entire scheme, such that it is entirely appropriate to conclude that a Judith, for instance, earns her reward, or that the Tannaitic literature includes a large stream of works-righteousness (even while it includes other and competing streams), or that 2 Enoch and 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, on almost any calculation, portray kinds of merit theology that are difficult to escape, or that the martyrs in 4 Maccabees exercise at least some atoning function by their death, and not merely an exemplary function? In other words, does it not appear that covenantal nomism has become a rubric so embracing that it includes within its capacious soul huge tracts of works-righteousness or merit theology? True, the literature is so diverse that what expressions such as “works-righteousness” and “merit theology” might mean needs teasing out in each case, just as covenantal nomism needs teasing out. But it appears that the category of covenantal nomism cannot itself accomplish what Sanders wants it to accomplish, viz. serve as an explanatory bulwark against all suggestions that some of this literature embraces works-righteousness and merit theology, precisely because covenantal nomism embraces the same phenomena. Sanders has to some extent constructed a “heads I win, tails you lose” argument: it is rhetorically effective, but not a fair reflection of the diverse literature.

(D. A. Carson, “Summaries and Conclusions;” In: Justification and Variegated Nomism: Volume 1 – The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism, eds. D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, Mark A. Seifrid, [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001], pp. 544-545.)

Cf. D. A. Carson:

     Examination of Sanders’s covenantal nomism leads one to the conclusion that the New Testament documents, not least Paul, must not be read against this reconstructed background – or, at least, must not be read exclusively against this background. It is too doctrinaire, too unsupported by the sources themselves, too reductionistic, too monopolistic. The danger is that of the “parallelomania” about which Sandmel warned us, by which texts are domesticated as they are held hostage to the ostensible background called forth by appealing to certain other antecedent texts.

(D. A. Carson, “Summaries and Conclusions;” In: Justification and Variegated Nomism: Volume 1 – The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism, eds. D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, Mark A. Seifrid, [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001], p. 548.)

Hans Küng (Roman Catholic Theologian):

“Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On the principle of works? No, but on the principle of faith. For we hold that a man is justified by faith [alone] apart from works of law” (Rom. 3.27-28; cf. Rom. 4.2, 5-6; 5.11; 9.30-32; 10.4-6; 1 Cor. 4.7; 2 Cor. 12.9). “Yet [we] know that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, [so] even we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law shall no one be justified” (Gal. 2.16; 3.6; Phil. 3.9; etc).

     Which works are excluded? The works of the Mosaic ceremonial law perhaps? No, all works are excluded, even the works of the moral law (the Ten Commandments and so forth). This is the opinion of many others, including St. Thomas in his comment on Rom. 3.28; cf. the above citation of 1 Tim. 1.8. What is true is precisely what Lyonnet remarked on this citation: “In fact all moral works on the one hand and faith alone on the other are opposed” (p. 117).

     …Thus man is justified through God’s grace alone; man achieves nothing; there is no human activity. Rather man simply submits to the justification of God; he does not do works; he believes: “In this that he believes in God who justifies, he submits to his justification and thus receives its effect” (Thomas Aquinas In Rom. 4.5). 

     That is why Paul (as also the Synoptics and John) always links justification with faith and not with love. Justification occurs through faith alone, inasmuch as no kind of work, not even a work of love, justifies man, but simply faith, trust, abandoning oneself to God, giving oneself over to God’s grace in response to God’s act, the “sese subiicere iustificatione et ita recipere eius effectum.”

(Hans Küng, Justification: The Doctrine of Karl Barth and a Catholic Reflection, [Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004], pp. 251, 252.) Preview.

Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274 A.D.):

     317. Then when he says, for we account, he shows how the Jews’ boasting is excluded by the law of faith, saying: for we apostles, being taught the truth by Christ, account a man, whomsoever he be, whether Jew or gentile, to be justified by faith: he cleansed their hearts by faith (Acts 15:9). And this without the works of the law.

     Not only without the ceremonial works, which did not confer grace but only signified it, but also without the works of the moral precepts, as stated in Titus, not because of deeds done by us in justice (Titus 3:5). This, of course, means without works prior to becoming just, but not without works following it, because, as is stated in James: faith without works (Jas 2:26), i.e., subsequent works, is dead, and, consequently, cannot justify.

(St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Romans, trans. Fr. Fabian R. Larcher, O.P., [Steubenville: Emmaus Academic, 2020], on Rom. 3:28, Chapter 3, Lecture 4, §. 317.) Preview. [bold and italics in original]

Augustine of Hippo (c. 354-430 A.D.):

     Let us see then how what Abraham was told was fulfilled, In your seed shall all the nations be blessed; from when on it was fulfilled, and what sacrifice preceded its being fulfilled. Happy nations who did not hear that, and now when they read it have believed what he believed when he heard it! Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as justice, and he was called God’s friend (Jas 2:23). That he believed God deep in his heart is a matter of faith alone. But that he took his son to sacrifice him, that undaunted he took the weapon in his right hand, that he would that instant have struck the mortal blow unless the voice had restrained him, all this is certainly a great act of faith, but also a great work. And God praised the work when he said, Because you have listened to my voice. So why does the apostle Paul say, We reckon that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law (Rom 3:28)? And elsewhere he says, And faith which works through love (Gal 5:6). How does faith work through love, and how is a man justified by faith without the works of the law? Consider carefully just how, brothers. Somebody believes, receives the sacraments of faith in bed, and is dead. He had no time to do works. What are we to say? That he was not justified? Of course we say he was justified, by believing in him who justifies the wicked (Rom 4:5). So this person is justified without having done any work. And the apostle’s judgment is borne out, where he says, We reckon that a person is justified by faith without the works of the law. The thief who was crucified with the Lord believed with his heart unto justice, confessed with his lips unto salvation (Rom 10:10). For faith which works through love, even if it has no chance of working outwardly, is all the same kept with fervor in the heart. There were some people, you see, in the law who used to boast about the works of the law, which they performed perhaps not out of love but out of fear, and they wanted to regard themselves as just and as a cut above the nations which had not performed the works of the law. But the apostle was preaching the faith to the nations, and he observed that those who came to the Lord were justified by faith in such a way that after already believing they began to do works, not that they merited the gift of believing because they had done good works. So he was quite sure of himself in declaring that a person can be justified by faith without the works of the law, implying rather that those people were not just who used to do what they did out of fear, since faith works through love in the heart, even if outwardly it does not issue in a work.

(Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 2.9 (Sermons on the Old Testament); trans. WSA III/1:181.)

Augustine of Hippo (c. 354-430 A.D.):

     Unintelligent persons, however, with regard to the apostle’s statement: “We conclude that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law,”[Rom. iii. 28] have thought him to mean that faith suffices to a man, even if he lead a bad life, and has no good works. Impossible is it that such a character should be deemed “a vessel of election” by the apostle, who, after declaring that “in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision,”[Gal. v. 6] adds at once, “but faith which worketh by love.” It is such faith which severs God’s faithful from unclean demons,—for even these “believe and tremble,”[Jas. ii. 19] as the Apostle James says; but they do not do well. Therefore they possess not the faith by which the just man lives,—the faith which works by love in such wise, that God recompenses it according to its works with eternal life. But inasmuch as we have even our good works from God, from whom likewise comes our faith and our love, therefore the selfsame great teacher of the Gentiles has designated “eternal life” itself as His gracious “gift.”[Rom. vi. 23]

(Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise on Grace and Free Will, 18; trans. NPNF1, 5:451.) See also: ccel.org.

Augustine of Hippo (c. 354-430 A.D.):

     Now he could not mean to contradict himself in saying, “The doers of the law shall be justified,”[Rom. ii. 13] as if their justification came through their works, and not through grace; since he declares that a man is justified freely by His grace without the works of the law,[Rom. iii. 24, 28] intending by the term “freely” nothing else than that works do not precede justification. For in another passage he expressly says, “If by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.”[Rom. xi. 6] But the statement that “the doers of the law shall be justified”[Rom. ii. 13] must be so understood, as that we may know that they are not otherwise doers of the law, unless they be justified, so that justification does not subsequently accrue to them as doers of the law, but justification precedes them as doers of the law. For what else does the phrase “being justified” signify than being made righteous,—by Him, of course, who justifies the ungodly man, that he may become a godly one instead? For if we were to express a certain fact by saying, “The men will be liberated,” the phrase would of course be understood as asserting that the liberation would accrue to those who were men already; but if we were to say, The men will be created, we should certainly not be understood as asserting that the creation would happen to those who were already in existence, but that they became men by the creation itself. If in like manner it were said, The doers of the law shall be honoured, we should only interpret the statement correctly if we supposed that the honour was to accrue to those who were already doers of the law: but when the allegation is, “The doers of the law shall be justified,” what else does it mean than that the just shall be justified? for of course the doers of the law are just persons. And thus it amounts to the same thing as if it were said, The doers of the law shall be created,—not those who were so already, but that they may become such; in order that the Jews who were hearers of the law might hereby understand that they wanted the grace of the Justifier, in order to be able to become its doers also. Or else the term “They shall be justified” is used in the sense of, They shall be deemed, or reckoned as just, as it is predicated of a certain man in the Gospel, “But he, willing to justify himself,”[Luke x. 29]—meaning that he wished to be thought and accounted just. In like manner, we attach one meaning to the statement, “God sanctifies His saints,” and another to the words, “Sanctified be Thy name;”[Matt. vi. 9] for in the former case we suppose the words to mean that He makes those to be saints who were not saints before, and in the latter, that the prayer would have that which is always holy in itself be also regarded as holy by men,—in a word, be feared with a hallowed awe.

(Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter, 45; trans. NPNF1, 5:102.) See also: ccel.org.

Augustine of Hippo (c. 354-430 A.D.):

     “They said therefore unto Him, What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” For He had said to them, “Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto eternal life.” “What shall we do?” they ask; by observing what, shall we be able to fulfill this precept? “Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He has sent.” This is then to eat the meat, not that which perisheth, but that which endureth unto eternal life. To what purpose dost thou make ready teeth and stomach? Believe, and thou hast eaten already. Faith is indeed distinguished from works, even as the apostle says, “that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law:”[Rom. iii. 28] there are works which appear good, without faith in Christ; but they are not good, because they are not referred to that end in which works are good; “for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”[Rom. x. 4] For that reason, He willeth not to distinguish faith from work, but declared faith itself to be work. For it is that same faith that worketh by love.[Gal. v. 6] Nor did He say, This is your work; but, “This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He has sent;” so that he who glories, may glory in the Lord.

(Augustine of Hippo, Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John, 25.12; trans. NPNF1, 7:164.) See also: ccel.org.

Theodore of Mopsuestia (c. 350-428 A.D.): 

Paul did not say we hold because he was himself uncertain. He said it in order to counter those who concluded from this that anyone who wished to could be justified simply by willing faith. Note carefully that Paul does not say simply without the law, as if we could perform virtue by wanting to, nor do we the works of the law by force. We do them because we have been led to do them by Christ.

(K. Staab, ed. Pauluskommentare aus der griechischen Kirche: Aus Katenenhandschriften gesammeltund herausgegeben (Pauline Commentary from the Greek Church: Collected and Edited Catena Writings). NT Abhandlungen 15. Münster in Westfalen: Aschendorff, 1933, p. 117; trans. Gerald Bray, ed., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament VI: Romans, [Chicago/London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1998], on Rom. 3:28, pp. 104-105.)

Gaius Marius Victorinus (fl. 4th Century A.D.):

For faith itself alone grants justification and sanctification. Thus any flesh whatsoever—Jews or those from the Gentiles—is justified on the basis of faith, not works or observance of the Jewish Law.

(Marii Victorini, In Epistolam Pauli ad Galatas, Liber I, Vers. 15; PL, 8:1164-1165; trans. Marius Victorious, Marius Victorinus’ Commentary on Galatians, trans. Stephen Andrew Cooper, [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005], on Gal. 2:15-16, p. 282.)

Note: Commenting on the “works of the law” in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, Victorinus, after distinguishing between “justification” and “sanctification”: Ipsa enim fides sola iustificationem dat et sanctificationem (PL, 8:1164), goes on to note that “works of the law” includes both the moral as well as the ceremonial precepts of the Law: non ex operibus, neque observatione legis judæorum (PL, 8:1165).

Origen of Alexandria (c. 185-253 A.D.):

     9. Where then is your boasting? It is excluded. Through what law? Through that of works? No, but through the law of faith. For we hold that a man is justified through faith without works of the law. Once again, we often remind those who desire to give careful attention to the things Paul has written to observe tenaciously that distinction about which we have spoken above, namely, how [Paul] (always in a discreet manner) now assails the circumcision group, now the uncircumcision, that is, the Jews and Gentiles, respectively. For if a trifling bit should escape the reader’s attention, immediately the extremely narrow path to understanding will be thrown into disorder. 

     (2) Therefore, the Apostle had made known above what advantage the Jew possessed and what value there was in circumcision and he had taught that the oracles of God were first entrusted to them. And by these words he had seemed to be eliciting boasting from [the Jews], with which they were accustomed to raise themselves up against the Gentiles. On the other hand, in what followed he had countered that the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ is for all who believe that there is no distinction, but all have sinned, both Jews and Greeks, and lack the glory of God and are justified through the grace and redemption which is in Christ Jesus. He himself is the propitiatory through faith, and all who are of faith are justified by him. In this current passage, the Apostle, as if establishing the conclusion of his previous arguments, now says, “Where then is your boasting? It is excluded. Through what law? That of works? No, but through the law of faith. For we hold that a man is justified through faith without works of law.” He is saying that the justification of faith alone suffices, so that the one who only believes is justified, even if he has not accomplished a single work.

     (3) It is incumbent upon us, therefore, as those who are attempting to defend the harmoniousness of the Apostle’s writings and to establish that they are entirely consistent in their arrangement, that we should ask: Who has been justified by faith alone without works of the law? Thus, in my opinion, that thief who was crucified with Christ should suffice for a suitable example. He called out to him from the cross, “Lord Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom!” In the Gospels nothing else is recorded [M953] about his good works, but for the sake of this faith alone Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to you: Today you will be with me in paradise.” If it seems appropriate, let us now apply the words of the Apostle Paul to the case of this thief and say to the Jews, “Where then is your boasting?” Certainly it is excluded, but excluded not through the law of works but through the law of faith. For through faith this thief was justified without works of the law, since the Lord did not require in addition to this that he should first accomplish works, nor did he wait for him to perform some works when he had believed. But by his confession alone the one who was about to begin his journey to paradise received him as a justified traveling companion with himself. 

     (4) Moreover there is the case of that woman concerning whom it is mentioned in the Gospel according to Luke, “When she learned that Jesus was reclining in the Pharisee’s house, she brought a jar of ointment. And standing behind him at his feet and weeping, she bathed his feet with her tears and dried them with the hair of her head. And she was kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would certainly have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching his feet—that she is a sinner.’” But Jesus told him that parable of the five hundred and the fifty denarii. It was on the basis of no work of the law but for the sake of faith alone that he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven you”; and again, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.” Furthermore in many passages of the Gospel we read that the Savior has used this phrase to say that the faith of the believer is the cause of his salvation. From all of these things he is making clear that the Apostle is correct to hold that a man is justified through faith without works of law. But perhaps someone who hears these things should become lax and negligent in doing good, if in fact faith alone suffices for him to be justified. To this person we shall say that if anyone acts unjustly after justification, it is scarcely to be doubted that he has rejected the grace of justification. 

(Origen of Alexandria, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 3.9.1-4 (on Rom. 3:27-28); trans. FC, 103:225-227.) Preview.

καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria