Hmm 
I would question if the Idea of those who have translated the Greek into the English have done the work thus like you say, And they have done the translation… how can we know who’s words are correct? 
In other words, the modern bible translators are thinking they might have it right.
Just a question 
I get so cross with Bible translators, such as when they translate the Greek for “Valley of Hinnom” as “Hell”. Good grief. One might as well translate the Greek for “Mount of Olives” as “Heaven”, the Greek for Calvary as “Purgatory”, and the Greek for Jerusalem as “Limbo”. Talk about making-up anything you want and calling it “translation”. 
According to the US Foreign Language Institute, it would take around 1100 hours - to learn contemporary Greek. See effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty. And probably a similar amount of time - for Koine Greek. That’s for western English students. Of course, if you mastered a language with a different alphabet (i.e. Russian), or one with a different mindset (i.e. Mandarin with characters, or Arabic, with right to left writing), the task becomes much easier. 
Geoffrey, I think that there may be some truth to your statement. There seems to be a lot of “speaking in tongues” going on in Paul’s writings. However, the Bible says that “all that may be known of God can be clearly seen in the creation.” To me, this means that what the Bible teaches are the self-evident truths of life. Jesus does not fulfill the laws of God for us. We fulfill the laws of God when we “take up the cross” and follow Him, doing exactly as He did, willingly giving our lives for others, forgiving one another, teaching etc. etc. …basically obeying God’s commands. Abraham not only believed, he followed as well by leaving Ur of the Chaldees as God commanded him to do.
People often say there is me, myself and I. I say there is me, myself( the person I should be, the Christ-like son of God) and I AM ( God guiding me to be myself).
That’s right LLC. His faith was followed by righteousness. A real righteousness. Not an IMPUTED one.
If there is dispute over Romans 4 perhaps Paul’s passion in Philippians 3:1-14 will shed some light…
Paul strives to rest fully in Christ’s righteousness alone and those who strive to establish their own righteousness through the law he calls dogs. Paul must have felt there was no reasoning with those who thought they obtained any notable righteousness of there own in this life, they are blind guides. Paul more honestly called himself the chief of sinners, even as a Christian. Someone was said that the closer we get to God this side of glory simply exposes to us how sinful we really are. So those who imagine that they are justified before God by self-reformation really are blind to their own sin when contrasted with the dazzling holiness of God.
The best Biblical model to understand these things is to recognize that God is dealing with humanity’s sin problem is two punches. In the first punch Christ has atoned for all mankind’s sin, once for all, forgiving and justifying all mankind completely apart from our will. This is the doctrine that we and our sinfulness are hidden in Christ from Holy God’s wrath. That fact that Christ’s work of atonement is complete apart from our will is obvious because we killed him with evil intent, while he meant it for good. Those who persist in rejecting that our legal standing before God is righteous apart from our will should be warned. Christ was killed by the Pharisees for forgiving sin and claiming to be God. Are you still killing Christ by rejecting that he forgave all from the cross? In the second punch Christ now begins his work of transformation. His ultimate goal is the perfect glorification of all mankind. However, no one leaves this life anything else but a sinner still. Yet since we are positionally rightousness before God through the cross, holy Christ is also able to indwell and empower believers to take practical steps toward righteousness. Paul and James make it clear that BOTH these things go hand in hand. One cannot exist without the other. Redeemed mankind is safely hidden in Christ and protected from condemnation. Believing mankind is also indwelt by the power of Christ for real transformational change toward righteous living.
For the record, Jeff, is your position the same as the Protestant doctrine of imputed righteousness? Or do you disagree with that perspective? If so, how? Just curious.
Imputed righteousness - as Wiki defines it:
What the Bible teaches is that we cannot earn our salvation by works. We are saved by grace through faith but this grace and faith enable us to love. For we are not justified by faith alone.
Protestants think that the righteousness of Christ is imputed or applied to the individual at the moment of belief in Christ. Further they would say that an individual is placed ‘in Christ’ at the moment of faith and regeneration. Evangelism for this model of thinking is to exhort people to trust Christ so that they can be safely found ‘in Christ’ and to get their names added to the Lamb’s Book of Life. Discipleship then is to help the new believer gain ground in righteous living.
I think that the righteousness of Christ is already applied to all mankind, believing and unbelieving, and that all mankind is already positionally and legally righteous before God. Further I would say that all mankind is already safely ‘in Christ’ with all mankind’s names already written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. The unbeliever is the one who has no knowledge of Christ’s righteousness given to them or the one who rejects the idea we are already righteous in Christ completely apart from our will and work. Evangelism for this model of thinking is to exhort people to trust that Christ has already paid for our sin and that we are already forgiven at the cross and that our names are already in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Those who reject this good news can only be clinging to some form of self-righteousness… as we see. The individual who believes is one who has had a heart changed by God to turn from the insecurity of a self-righteous salvation to the security of a salvation founded on Christ’s righteousness. The new believers eyes have been opened to understand that they have always been loved by God, even as a sinner. Discipleship then is to build on the foundation that we are unconditionally loved by God and to please him from a heart of thankfulness.
The Bible does not use the word ‘imputed’. But given the earlier definitions certainly the righteousness of Christ is ‘imputed’ or given apart from our actions and certainly not ‘infused’ over time. All mankind is already positionally 100% righteous in God’s sight and now Christ works to transform us into his likeness and in glory all sin will be erased and we will also be practically 100% righteous. However, the ‘transformation’ in practical righteousness does happen over time, yet no one reaches perfection in this life, or frankly even comes close. How ridiculous a thought. My own dear dad is a not a believer and insists that he or at least some people are perfect or near perfect. Because he rejects the atonement and the idea of positional righteousness he has had to blind his eyes to his own sin to justify himself and keep up with verses like Matthew 5:48.
Please don’t miss my point and start another argument about my use of the words ‘positional’ and ‘practical’ for I already understand that being 100% ‘positionally’ righteous before God is also very ‘practical’, especially for a sinner like myself. And whatever terms you might use to describe these facts I trust that everyone reading this post has their eyes open sufficiently to confess that they still struggle with sin and still sin, but that one day in glory all our sin will be forever removed instantly by the grace of God alone. I am looking forward to it and also to being there with you! 
Bringing it back to the initial post title we also see that in all these things whether our ‘positional’ or our ‘practical’ standing, God himself is the actor and agent of change in our lives… praise his name! I will certainly agree with Paidon on this point… one cannot put God into someone’s life and not see change, just like one cannot throw gas and a match onto wood and not start a fire. Our strong disagreement appears to be that I believe God has handled all the legal paperwork first at the cross to declare his ownership and intentions over the dead wood before he begins his work of change in our lives.
The point Paul is making in Romans 4 is concerning Abraham and using him as representative of our simply believing God and sums up using Abraham in Romans 4:23-5:1:
Now it was not written because of him only, that it is reckoned to him, but because of us also, to whom it is about to be reckoned, who are believing on Him Who rouses Jesus our Lord from among the dead." Who was given up because of our offenses, and was roused because of our justifying."
(Rom 4:23-25) Rom 5:1 Being, then, justified by faith, we may be having peace toward God, through our Lord, Jesus Christ,
If you don’t see the simplicity of God reckoning righteousness to Abraham merely by Abraham believing God and God reckoning righteousness to us who merely believe God, then you simply are not chosen to be believing . . . yet.
Paul doesn’t say a word about “striving to rest fully in Christ’s righteousness alone.” He does speak of the Pharisees striving to establish their own righteousness through the law. But I am not speaking about the latter when I speak of practical righteousness in our lives. Jesus died to save his people from their SIN (according to the angel who spoke to Joseph, telling him to call his name “Jesus” (Saviour). To be saved from sin is not tantamount to being forgiven for past sin; it is to be saved from the practice of sin in our ongoing lives.
To keep emphasizing “how sinful we really are” is a cop-out. Those who keep saying that seem to imply that since we are all such horrible sinners, there’s no chance of being righteous in this life, and so we may as well not try. We just need to rest in Christ’s righteousness and not to worry about our sinful natures. Nothing can be done about them.
I remember one professing Christian who visited us, and who declared, “I sin every day!” He said it in such a way that he seemed proud of it.
Let’s face it. If we do not believe that salvation is an ongoing process, and that we are being saved FROM wrongdoing and saved TO righteousness—that such is the very purpose of Christ’s death on our behalf, then we have missed the whole point of salvation.
Why would Jesus give his life on our behalf just so that we would be COUNTED righteous. Why couldn’t God count us righteous without Christ’s magnificent sacrifice? But after Christ’s death, God raised Him from the dead and He became the life-giving Spirit. He now indwells his people, and with their coöperation continues to save them from sin throughout their lives and to lead them into lives of righteousness.
The idea that we are all nasty sinners, and can never be righteous in this life does not fit with John’s statement in 1 John 3:6-10. Indeed, John said that anyone who makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, and that such a person has never known Christ.
No one who remains in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one begotten of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been begotten of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
So what do you think the apostle John would have said to the teaching of our day that we all continue to be rotten sinners who can never be actually righteous—that we can only be positionally righteous, that is, that God attributes Christ’s righteousness to us though we continue in sin. Would he have said that such a teaching is of the devil?
Again Paul says in Philippians 3:7-12…
So Paidon, what then is the difference between a righteousness through the law and the practical righteousness that you propose. Obedience is not the requirement to be justified, but rather obedience is fruit of a heart changed by God.
I am in agreement with Paidion. I would add that we ourselves become righteous by ever more participating in the Uncreated Energies of the Holy Trinity (II Peter 1:3-4). In other words, we do not become righteous all by our lonesomes. Instead, we obey God and in so doing He makes us righteous with His own righteousness. We participate in His righteousness. We struggle against our sinful passions and fight to be holy. When sin knocks us down, we get back up and continue the fight against our sinful inclinations.
I don’t want to wait until Heaven to be righteous. I want to start being righteous now, howsoever imperfectly I attain unto it. It’s better to be 1% righteous than not at all. It’s better to be 2% righteous than 1%. Etc. Let us strive by God’s grace for 100% righteousness. I, along with Paidion, find repellent the easy-going “Well, we’re all sinners who sin every day, so why even try to not sin?” Yes, I have unfortunately ran into that sort of thing. Example: A Southern Baptist woman whose whole theology orbited Unconditional Eternal Security. “Salvation” meant “not going to Hell when you die.” If you sincerely said the Sinner’s Prayer howsoever long ago, and howsoever wicked a life you lived, you were a “saved sinner”. The only other type of person was an “unsaved sinner”. Any suggestion that perhaps we should strive for righteousness (beyond going to church one hour on Sunday mornings) was rejected with scorn: “That’s works righteousness!” and even as a sign that you weren’t saved. I remember conversations about recently departed people that centered on the question if anyone remembered him ever having said the Sinner’s Prayer. It meant the difference between Heaven and Hell. Ugh. I’d rather be an atheist than believe in such a foul doctrine.
I’m not accusing anyone here of believing that. I’m simply saying that I’ve encountered it, and it’s not pretty.
The real question is not regarding the striving for right living which I think most Christians would agree. The question is in regard to our standing and justification before God. I am saying that apart from any moral righteousness in myself through faith I am already 100% righteous in God’s sight because I am found safely hidden in Christ. This is the heart of grace and the heart of the Christian gospel that Paidon rejects and perhaps Geoffrey as well. So even if Paidon or Geoffrey or any genius manages to attain a level of 99.99% righteousness in this life it is NOTHING compared to being found 100% righteous in Christ. For what assurance, what sonship, what Abba Father is found on the lips of an almost righteous man? No assurance, no sonship, no Abba Father. There is NOTHING but praise for his own attainments. Christians instead praise Christ our righteousness!
Jeff, you are a swell guy and I hate to have to say things contrary to you.
Yes, I reject the notion that I (or anyone else in history save for Christ and the Theotokos) am “already 100% righteous in God’s sight because I am found safely hidden in Christ”. That sort of thinking reminds me of the Southern Baptist woman I referred to above:
She said that all good works were “filthy rags” (referencing Isaiah 64:6). Someone who spent his life feeding the hungry and caring for the sick was on the exact same plane as someone who spent his life torturing, killing, and oppressing. Both (assuming they had never said the Sinner’s Prayer) were “unsaved sinners” on their way to Hell. When God looked at them, all He saw were sinners who deserved to go to Hell.
She said that when God looked at a “saved sinner”, He literally was unable to see anything other than “Jesus’s shed blood”. Even at the moment that a “saved sinner” plunged a knife into an innocent victim’s chest, God looked at the murderer and was pleased to see only Jesus’s blood. I know it boggles the mind, but she thought that the Omniscient One literally didn’t know when a “saved sinner” sinned! The all-seeing God couldn’t see what everyone else can see! (This of course raises humorous questions. Supposing the knife victim was also a “saved sinner”, God must have been confounded as to how he got into Heaven! God: “I have literally no idea what caused this man’s death!”)
She said it was a waste of time feeding the hungry because “What benefit was it to go to Hell with a full stomach?”
She said that the only thing we should be doing is going around asking people, “Are you saved?” and pestering them to sincerely say the Sinner’s Prayer. Anyone who rejected this (which she called “the Gospel”) she would smugly dismiss and say, “Won’t they be sorry [when they find themselves in Hell]?”
She said that when a loved one was on his death-bed, we should add to his troubles by telling him he was about to go to Hell unless he said the Sinner’s Prayer. She called this “good news”.
She said that the most important thing parents could do for their children was to play head games with them, starting when they are toddlers. (“Mikey, you don’t want to be burned and tortured forever, screaming in pain in Hell, after you die? You’d rather go to Heaven when you die, right? Sure you do!”) Try to get them in an emotional state such that next Sunday when the preacher gives the altar call, they go up there and say the Sinner’s Prayer (preferably while squeezing out some tears, though the tears aren’t mandatory). Voila! Now he is a “saved sinner” and going straight to Heaven when he dies.
She said that a kind and humble man who spent his life helping others, but who never said the Sinner’s Prayer, would go straight to Hell. On the other hand, a man who at age 4 said the Sinner’s Prayer and spent his adult life in crimes of unspeakable magnitude would go straight to Heaven.
As we can see from this poor woman’s “theology” (or whatever one should call it), she would have been thoroughly baffled by any notion of universalism. To her, the entire point of the Bible was to try to get people to escape Hell by saying the Sinner’s Prayer. If there was no Hell to escape from, then for her Christianity would be entirely without a point.
Fortunately, being exposed to the above sort of blasphemies did not turn me into an atheist. Thank God I became Eastern Orthodox instead.
You said I lot of ‘she said’, but lets get her foolish comments out of the picture for a moment. Please don’t cloud the discussion with quotes from this crazy lady. You are talking to me. What problem do you have with what I said?
We’re talking about these words you typed: “I am saying that apart from any moral righteousness in myself through faith I am already 100% righteous in God’s sight because I am found safely hidden in Christ. This is the heart of grace and the heart of the Christian gospel that Paidon rejects and perhaps Geoffrey as well.”
I most fundamentally disagree because it is contrary to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, which provides the true interpretation and context of the scriptures. Anything contrary to the Gospel as taught in the Church’s liturgy in its fullness I recognize as heresy.
I do not see your sort of interpretation until modern times (i. e., within the last 500 years). I do not see it starting from the days of the Apostolic Fathers (who wrote in the late 1st century and early 2nd century), nor ever in Roman Catholicism, nor ever in Eastern Orthodoxy. I see it only amongst (some) Protestants of the last 500 years. This is an innovation.
Surely even from a common sense point of view, the Apostolic Fathers (St. Clement of Rome in the late 1st century, St.Ignatios of Antioch who died circa A. D. 110, St. Hermas of the Seventy, St. Polycarp the martyr of Smyrna, etc.) would understand Paul better than modern western Europeans and Americans? Would it not be absurd even on its surface to say that they missed “the heart of grace and the heart of the Christian gospel”?
I cannot imagine any of the saints of the Orthodox Church (starting with the days of the Bible and coming down to the present) regarding anyone who said that he was “already 100% righteous in God’s sight” as anything other than the victim of prelest (spiritual delusion).
This also impugns God’s omniscience. Do you think He really does not know when a believer sins? Or perhaps I misunderstand you?
My understanding is that your statement derives from certain strains of contemporary Protestantism, which descend from Calvinism, which originated in Calvin’s reading of Augustine of Hippo, who gave novel interpretations to the letters of St. Paul. Augustine’s thought is foreign to the Orthodox Church, and Augustine himself (as far as I know) never wrote anything like “I am saying that apart from any moral righteousness in myself through faith I am already 100% righteous in God’s sight because I am found safely hidden in Christ. This is the heart of grace and the heart of the Christian gospel.”
Paidion,
If Paul thought we could walk righteously, why does he call himself a wretched man? And what is it that rescues him out of this body of death? Grace!
“God deals graciously with all our offenses.” If we weren’t offensive, God would not need to deal graciously with us.
yet I am observing a different law in my members, warring with the law of my mind, and leading me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." A wretched man am I! What will rescue me out of this body of death? Grace! I thank God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Consequently, then, I myself, with the mind, indeed, am slaving for God’s law, yet with the flesh for Sin’s law."
(Rom 7:23-25)
It is interesting also that Paul says we ARE reckoned righteous who merely believe God. Paul doesn’t say we are reckoned righteous if we believe God and DO good works.
There is a difference of understanding, between the Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions - regarding justification. The technical theological term is justification, as found in the Wiki article aten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justification_(theology).
First, a definition from the article:
I tried to replicated this simple table - from Wiki. Because it illustrates some simple points
Tradition… Process or Event…Type of Action…Permanence…Justification & Sanctification
Roman Catholic…Process…Synergism… Can be lost via mortal sin…Part of the same process
Lutheran…Event…Divine monergism…Can be lost via loss of faith…Distinct from and prior to sanctification
Methodist…Event …Synergism… Can be lost via loss of faith…Dependent upon continued sanctification
Orthodox…Process…Synergism…Can be lost via mortal sin… Part of the same process (theosis)
Reformed/Calvinist…Event …Divine monergism… Cannot be lost…Both are a result of union with Christ
We notice a difference between event and process:
Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, do have differ takes on Justification. But they see it as a** process**.
Protestantism looks at Justification as an event.
Here’s some footnotes to define terms - from the table: How does everyone address or answer these questions?
This video will help prep you, for these questions. 
or
FWIW, if we stress the love of God and our love for God and neighbor, we’ll be much closer to what counts. I suggest that THAT is the heart of the gospel, the heart of the universe, the heart of eternal life.
I find it hard to bear witness to St. Paul, much easier to witness to Jesus Christ.
Love alone is credible - Balthasar