Justice and Faith in Acts

Paul’s sermons in Acts 13 and 17 both employ language connected with the theme of justification that occupies so much attention in Romans and Galatians. Yet Paul uses the same concepts and terminology in ways that don’t seem to fit his usage in the epistles.

In Acts 13:38-39, he tells a Jewish audience that forgiveness comes through Jesus the Messiah, and that everyone who believes (pisteuo) is justified (dikaioo) from all the things that the law of Moses could not justify (dikaioo). It’s all there – justification by faith in contrast to justification by law – but it’s all sorted differently from what we (Protestants) expect. Paul’s point about the law is not about human efforts at law-keeping, but about the efficacy of the law itself as an agent of justification. What could not be done through the law of Moses is done by Jesus. Further, “justify” here does not refer to reckoning a sinner righteous. It is justification from (apo panton . . . dikaioutai), sensibly translated as “freed” in many English Bibles. Torah did not liberate from some “things”; Jesus does for those who trust Him.

That is a “traditional” use of the terminology by comparison to Paul’s usage in Acts 17. There he concludes his address to the Areopagus by speaking of a coming judgment that will be carried out in justice (dikaiosune), the proof (pistis) of which is the resurrection of Jesus (v. 31). “Faith” here is not the personal faith of an individual sinner nor the faithfulness of Jesus Himself, but the pledge of God that He intends to judge the oikoumene righteously. Jesus’ resurrection is connected to justification elsewhere (Romans 4:25), but in Romans the import is that Jesus Himself is vindicated/justified when the Father raises Him from the dead. In Acts 17, Jesus’ resurrection is evidence of a coming judgment rather than an act of judgment itself. Perhaps we are to gather that the Father’s pistis, His faithful commitment to His world and to doing justice, is evident in raising Jesus from the dead and appointing Him as judge.

In any case, though Paul uses pist– and dikai– in the same context in Acts 17, the message is not about what we call “justification by faith.” It’s about a righteous judgment, the certainty of which is confirmed by the resurrection of Jesus. We might, however, see it as a cosmic act of “justification by faith.” This faithful act of the Father is epochal. It brings an end to the age of ignorance and opens up a new age, an age in which all everywhere are called to repentance. An expression of the end of the Father’s indulgence of ignorant idolatry, the faithful raising of Jesus is a warning and pledge that judgment is coming. Here “justification by faith” means this: All will be judged in righteousness because of the faith of God in the resurrection of Jesus.