Paraphrasing as a Practice
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Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
-Romans 5:1
If you heard my sermon on Sunday, you know sometimes I stop to really take a deep look at a familiar biblical phrase to better grasp what it might be saying to me. After looking into it a bit, I then paraphrase it in my own words.
On Sunday, I dug into the phrase: “God reckoned [Abraham’s faith] to him as righteousness.” And in the readings for this coming Sunday, there is another familiar phrase that I felt warrented a closer look as I prepare to preach: “Justified by faith.” What could it mean that we are justified by faith?
In my mind, justifications are tangled up with excuses. You give a justification when you want to defend yourself from looking bad or to let yourself off the hook when you really should be repenting. So I once again consulted my Merriam Webster, and discovered there are many meanings to the word justified. One of them is making sure the margins on your typed page are even. Clearly that meaning was not what I was looking for.
Another meaning for justified is was “deserved.” I think this meaning is what has gotten in my way in the biblical context. I don’t believe we spiritually ‘deserve’ much of anything from God. Our relationship with God is not transactional. God loves us when we do well, and when we’re on the wrong path. We are always called to turn back, or repent, when we go astray, and I think God is pleased when we do. But we don’t earn good things in life by being good do-be’s. That’s what’s called the ‘prosperity gospel,’ and it is theologically unsound. So to me, justified in the passage is not about deserving God’s praise.
The meaning for justified that opened things up for me was “defended,” along with its synonyms maintained, upheld, supported, affirmed and confirmed. Our faith, our trust in God, is a practice that maintains, upholds, support, affirms and confirms our relationship with God. And when we have a rich a relationship with God, our lives are abundant. I think I can work with this meaning in creating my own paraphrase of this verse.
Before attempting to do so, I did another thing I often do to unpack biblical phrases. I consulted a variety of different English translations. There is a lot of variety in how Paul’s words have been translated from Greek into English. Words are slippery and no one translation can ever get it ‘right.’
My first stop is often with “The Message” by Eugene Peterson. The Message is more a paraphrase than an academic translation, though Peterson was certainly a scholar. Often his translations are worded to express not what the words literally say, but what he believes the message in it is supposed to be. I always get a fresh perspective from Peterson’s work, even when I don’t agree with him about the message. Here’s his version of the verse:
By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus.
Clearly Peterson is trying to talk about entering into God’s love and forgiveness as a practice - a practice of faith - a practice that makes us more fit in our relationship with God. I like the idea that our whole lives can feel ‘set right’ when we accept and embrace God’s profound love for us, and I like how it expresses that this is what God wants for us and has always wanted for us. Not sure we’ll ever ‘have it all together,’ but I think he is trying to express how much things can come together for us when we endeavor to practice following Jesus.
My least favorite contemporary translation of this verse was from the Contemporary English Version:
By faith we have been made acceptable to God. And now, thanks to our Lord Jesus Christ, we have peace with God.
I am put off by the implication this seems to give (to me, anyway) that we are only acceptable to God if we believe a certain way. With Jesus we can find our way to peace, yes, but as a more broad minded Christian, I’m not sure I buy that it’s only by following Jesus that God finds us acceptable. I think God loves Hindus and Jews and Muslims and all people of faith.
I always consult J.B. Phillips, an Anglican priest from the 20th century who is well known for his own translation of the New Testament. His translation of this verse is:
Since then it is by faith that we are justified, let us grasp the fact that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
I particularly liked his word order. Instead of passively ‘being justified’ by faith, it is by the practice of our faith that we are justified - or maintained, upheld, supported, affirmed or confirmed. And I also liked that he said that our peace with God through Christ is a given - something that’s a gift waiting for us to open, that we can grasp through our faithful practice.
After all this digging and contemplating, I was ready to paraphrase the verse for myself. As of today, my own paraphrase of Romans 5:1 might be:
With Jesus as our example, it is our practice of faith that supports us in accessing God’s peace that is beyond all understanding
The next time I dig into this verse, I’ll likely come up with a different paraphrase!
Each Sunday in the summer, we sing the Nicene Creed in a paraphrased form. The list line is: “This the faith that I have claimed.” Wrestling with Scripture and trying to understand it in your own words is a great way to more fully claim your faith.
I invite you to try paraphrasing bible passages as a spiritual practice. You can consult many different English dictionaries online, as well as a number of different biblical translations at Bible Gateway
