No proof is necessary to show that 3:5,25 and 26

speak of God's own righteousness.  The close connection between the declared

righteousness of 3:25 and 26 and the manifested righteousness of 3:21, and

the close association of this righteousness of God with the justification of

the believer ('that He might be just and the justifier') should surely cause

us to pause lest we be found putting the law where God puts the gospel, and

the righteousness of the law where Scripture puts the righteousness of God.

If the righteousness of God is the obedience of Christ to the law

imputed to the believer, Romans 3:21 tells us that we have witnesses for it,

independent of Paul's epistles, namely, in 'the law and the prophets'.  We

get such a passage as this from Psalm 98:2:

'The Lord hath made known His salvation: His righteousness hath He

openly shewed in the sight of the heathen (nations)'.

It would be a hopeless task to attempt to prove that this 'revealed

righteousness' was the obedience of Christ to the law.  The title 'The Lord

our righteousness' (Jer. 23:6; 33:16) likewise leaves the question entirely

untouched.  The apostle evidently had some passages of 'the law and prophets'

in mind when he wrote Romans 3:21.  Perhaps he himself has quoted some.  Let

us see.  In Romans 4 we have a quotation from 'the law' as a witness to this

righteousness of God:

'For what saith the Scripture?  Abraham believed God, and it was

counted unto him for righteousness' (Rom. 4:3).

Surely this first witness can have no possible reference to obedience

to the law.  In what way was Abraham connected with the law?  In what way was

the promise in which he believed connected with the law?  Not in any way:

'For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to

Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness

of faith' (Rom. 4:13).

When we read in Romans 4:3: 'it was counted to him for righteousness',

the 'it' refers to his faith in 'the promise' of God, and not either to his

own, or Christ's obedience to the law, for as we have seen, the law can have

nothing whatever to do with it.  Paul's next witness is David:

'Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom

God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they

whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.  Blessed is

the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin' (Rom. 4:6-8).

If Paul's great doctrine of justification was based upon the imputed

obedience of Christ, could he have quoted this thirty-second Psalm.  He goes

out of his way to quote a passage which speaks of the forgiveness of sins,

and the non-imputation of sin as a description of the blessedness of the

imputation of righteousness without works.  Who is right?  Paul or the

Puritans?  Another quotation from 'the law' is found in Romans 10.  There we

have the righteousness which is of the law and that which is of faith brought

together, and the witness of 'the law' is clear: