Introduction
In this article I pursue two interrelated goals. First, and more narrowly, I argue that the 
in Rom 5:1 plausibly refers to Christ's 
(conventionally translated as “faith” or “faithfulness”) and not to the 
of Christ followers; and certainly not to the 
of Christ followers that is specifically “in Christ.”Footnote 1 To my knowledge no modern commentator identifies the 
in Rom 5:1 as Christ's own. Several scholars suggest it in passing, and one presents a partial argument turning on several claims of coherence with his broader reading of Paul.Footnote 2 I offer a more thorough case for the plausibility of this suggestion, especially by demonstrating how my reading of Rom 5:1 makes sense as an encapsulation of Paul's emphases in Rom 3:21–4:25.
Second, and more broadly, I exploit this exegetical issue and associated rereading of Rom 3:21–4:25 as opportunities to re-place Paul's discourse about Christ's 
within his fundamentally ethnic rhetoric in Rom 3:21–4:25. As I will illustrate below, in this passage Paul strategically explains how Gentiles have access to the power and blessings of a foreign deity, the Judean god.Footnote 3 The mechanics of this access turn on the 
of Christ himself, as well as on the prior and related 
of Abraham, which establishes a lineage that can include Gentiles without them having to adopt the divinely appointed ancestral customs of the Judeans (i.e., the law). As such, in Rom 3:21–5:1 Paul represents his Christ cult as offering Abrahamic descent to Gentiles and thus an inheritance in the Judean god's promises and blessings. In this way we can bring the study of Paul's discourses about 
, and especially the debate about 
, into conversation with the growing research on Greco-Roman cultural codes relating to “ethnicity” and the extent to which Paul's letters operate and innovate within Greco-Roman ethnic ideas and assumptions.Footnote 4 While not a main point of the article, I briefly discuss how clarifying the ethnic contours and mechanics of Christ's 
within Paul's discourse sets the table for examining how he configures the relationship between Christ's and his followers’ 
.
The 
debate obviously looms in the background of this study.Footnote 5 Briefly, a construction involving a form of 
as the head noun modified by some signifier for Jesus in the genitive case occurs seven times in the recognized seven letters of Paul: Rom 3:22, 3:26, Gal 2:16 (2x), 2:20, 3:22, Phil 3:9. To use the conventional terminology, should the reader understand them as objective genitives, with Christ as the object of 
, or as subjective genitives, with Christ as the subject of 
?Footnote 6 These seven constructions operate within passages discussing 
(conventionally translated as“righteousness of God”), 
(“righteousness” or “justice”) for people, the law, Christ's death, Abraham, Judeans, Gentiles, “sin,” the promise(s) of the Judean god, resurrection, 
(“spirit”), and other such topics around which the modern theological and historical study of Paul have revolved since their inceptions. Given these associations, many participants in the debate represent the situation as though one's entire construal of Paul's intellectual positions and assumptions turns on one's understanding of these seven genitive constructions.Footnote 7 In recent years proponents of the objective genitive have effectively reorganized and strengthened their position.Footnote 8 While exegetical arguments in favor of the opposing position incline me towards the subjective genitive view,Footnote 9 neither side has by any means achieved a consensus or decisively taken the high ground. Though I envision my descriptive study lending further support to arguments for the subjective genitive, engaging in the general debate does not constitute my primary purpose.
Before moving on, it should be noted that proponents of the objective genitive sometimes rhetorically question “where does it stop,” if the subjective genitive is granted? What restricts scholars from treating every instance of 
without a modifying pronoun as Christ's and thus eliminating any emphasis on the faith of the Christ follower?Footnote 10 Beyond the dubiousness of this consideration from a descriptive perspective, as though Paul must necessarily affirm an idea long cherished in the history of interpretation, advocating a subjective genitive approach to the seven constructions in question should not involve denying that Paul writes often of Christ devotees’ 
or of them doing whatever 
means. Paul indicates that Christ followers (should) do whatever 
means twenty-nine or more times,Footnote 11 at least twice specifying Christ as the object or focus of the verb.Footnote 12 He writes that 
characterizes Christ devotees, though when using the noun 
he qualifies it with reference to God or God's power, not Christ.Footnote 13 Unambiguous uses of 
or 
with Christ as the object are rare in Paul's letters.Footnote 14 Nevertheless, a notion of 
or 
on the part of Christ followers occurs frequently. To state the obvious and to be clear about my own working assumptions, exploring possible uses of 
as signifying Christ's 
does not involve eliminating the place of Christ followers’ 
in Paul. Simply finding arguments for the subjective genitive convincing should not itself incline the interpreter one way or the other when analyzing any single use of 
. Neither should the subjective- genitive position entail some inherent marginalizing of Christ devotees’ 
or the importance of individuals’ response to Christ in Paul's discourse.Footnote 15 Determining the meaning of any particular use of 
still requires an analysis of the linguistic and literary contexts of each.
Framing the Discussion of EK 
in Rom 5:1
Scholars almost universally understand the 
of Rom 5:1 as a reference to the decisive “faith” of the “believer;” sometimes faith specifically “in Jesus.”Footnote 16 Every commentary of which I am aware interprets the passage thus. This understanding has become so taken-for-granted that most proceed with only a passing comment that it refers to the 
of Christ followers, which somehow effects 
for them.Footnote 17 Other commentators do not discuss this interpretive issue at all. One infers their understanding from the translation, comments on other aspects of the passage, or comments on other parts of Romans.Footnote 18 James Dunn comes closest to addressing the possibility of another understanding of the 
in 5:1, “The 
is certainly to be construed along the same lines as the same phrase in 3:26, 30 and 4:16.”Footnote 19 Dunn interprets “the same phrase in 3:26” as a reference to Christ followers’ faith with Christ as the object.Footnote 20
The fact that most commentators on Romans adopt the objective genitive would seem to explain, at least to a significant extent, the assumed status of this understanding of 
in Rom 5:1. For most commentators the 
decisive for divine blessing in Paul, especially for 
, is decidedly that of the Christ devotee. One thus rightly expects an almost automatic representation of the faith in 5:1 as Christ-follower faith; so automatic that the general lack of discussion and argument for it does not occasion surprise. What should cause surprise, however, is that commentators who adopt the subjective genitive also just as automatically, it seems, interpret the 
in 5:1 as the Christ follower's. They too indicate this with passing comments or, more indirectly, through how they handle other aspects of the passage.Footnote 21 So taken-for-granted and established is this reading of 5:1 that some opponents of the subjective genitive appeal to its 
.Footnote 22 For such advocates of the objective genitive, this use constitutes an example of Paul considering the believer's faith specifically in Christ to be decisive for 
.
The understanding of 
in Rom 5:1 as the Christ follower's has thus attained an assumed and axiomatic status. Commentators do not explain why they take its 
to refer to the faith of Christ devotees. As such, one must infer why they, at least tacitly, adopt this position. I imagine most would advance two primary considerations to support their readings if pressed about the issue. First, as mentioned above, it would be argued that elsewhere in Romans and Paul the 
decisive for effecting 
is the Christ follower's.Footnote 23 Second, it would be argued that Paul presents Abraham in Romans 4 as an example for Christ followers of 
by means of their own 
; an example of “Justification by Faith.”Footnote 24 Interpreters have thus, at least implicitly, situated the 
in 5:1 within this aggregation of interpretive positions. In the rest of the article I question this discursive situating of 5:1. After some brief comments about the subjective genitive position's relevance for my treatment of 
in 5:1, I offer a reading of 3:21–4:25 to demonstrate the plausibility of understanding the 
in 5:1 as Christ's own as well as to illustrate the ethnically-embedded significance of Paul's claims about Christ's faithfulness. I conclude by exploring further literary-contextual data rendering the proposed interpretation more plausible and by elucidating its coherence with other identifiable positions and assumptions in Paul's letters.
Relevance of the Subjective Genitive
A subjective-genitive understanding of 
necessarily undercuts arguments that Rom 5:1 must have the faith of Christ followers in view because Paul only emphasizes their faith, especially when it comes to 
for them. It establishes at least seven instances of 
in Paul that designate non Christ-devotee 
. Furthermore, it enshrines Christ's 
in the midst of three passages classically viewed as revealing the dynamics of 
and 
for Christ followers in Paul (Rom 3:21–26; Gal 2:11–21; Phil 3:8–11).Footnote 25 Thus the references to God righteousing a person, a person being righteoused, and having a righteousness 
(Rom 3:22; Gal 2:16; Phil 3:9) or 
(Rom 3:26; Gal 2:16) all indicate the instrumentality of the faithfulness of Christ in these 
and 
events.Footnote 26 The subjective genitive also shows Paul associating the faithfulness of Christ with the benefits of the Judean god that he discusses in non-righteousness terminology: Christ living “in” Paul and what this means for his life now (Gal 2:20) and the promise being given to the trusting ones (Gal 3:22). Adopting the subjective genitive position thus destabilizes the idea that Paul singularly emphasizes Christ devotees’ 
(in Christ) in connection with God's enacting righteousness and related eschatological blessings for them. It thus also removes any related reasons for not reexamining Rom 5:1's 
.
Selective Reading of Rom 3:21–4:25 and its Ethnically-Embedded
A selective reading of Rom 3:21–4:25 can demonstrate the plausibility of re-understanding 
in 5:1 as an instance of 
in Paul that, while lacking a modifying pronoun, refers to Christ's 
. My selective reading will, furthermore, illustrate how Paul deploys his claims about Christ's 
within ethnic rhetoric about the Judean god and his benefits for Gentiles that are available through Paul's Christ-cult. One need not accept all the details of this reading for the purposes of my argument, but rather its general orientation. A key aspect of this reading involves recognizing that Paul's relevant discourse about Christ, 
(“law”), 
(“works/deeds [of the law]”), 
, and 
concerns not abstract divine blessings, power, benefits, and “salvation,” but rather the power, benefits, and “salvation” of the Judean god. For Paul in Romans, participation in this god's blessings is a privilege of his people, the descendants of Abraham.Footnote 27 As I will illustrate below, Paul's discourse about 
, and 
occurs precisely in passages where he takes positions about the Judean god's eschatological blessings, who participates in those blessings, and how the Judean god includes non-Judeans among the descendants of Abraham and thus among those who inherit and enjoy his ethnically-coded blessings.Footnote 28
In Rom 3:21–26 Paul begins to unpack the positive content of what he hints at in 1:1–5 and 1:16–17. He addresses how the impartial Judean god can enact his saving righteousness and merciful faithfulness to Gentiles mastered by their passions (1:18–32) and to Judeans who are also “under sin” alongside Gentiles (3:9).Footnote 29 Paul takes a position about how the Judean god can do this apart from the law, such that he is righteousing Gentiles and including them in his eschatological rescue outside the law – the law that itself was supposedly this god's means of righteousing his people and causing them to participate in ultimate blessings.Footnote 30 Crucially, Paul asserts that the Judean god's saving righteousness is both revealed apart from the law and “testified to by the law and the prophets” (3:21b). Instead of being revealed through the law, this 
is revealed 
the faithfulness of Jesus Christ into/for (
) all the ones who are faithful (3:22) and it results in “everyone” being righteoused (3:24a), though they all sinned (3:23).Footnote 31 It is also revealed 
(conventionally translated as “through the redemption”) that is in (or by) Christ Jesus and 
the faithfulness 
his blood.Footnote 32 The Judean god is thus both righteous and the righteouser of the one who is “out of” (
) the faithfulness of Jesus (
; 3:26). As I will clarify below, Paul's language that God righteouses 
operates within certain notions of ethnicity and patrilineal-descent. 
is the one descended from the faithfulness of Jesus or the one who has his origin in the faithfulness of Jesus.Footnote 33 As Romans 4, Romans 8, and especially Galatians 3–4 make clear, Paul represents Christ establishing a way for Gentiles to be adopted into Abraham's lineage and thus to inherit the promises and blessings of Abraham's god. Thus, among many things, in Rom 3:21–26 Paul represents Christ's faithfulness (3:22, 25, 26) as the way the Judean god's saving righteousness is revealed such that he can surprisingly righteous even Gentiles apart from the law; as opposed to unleashing his just wrath against them because of their accumulated sins. Paul portrays Christ as a decisive figure whose actions cause others to participate in the Judean god's eschatological blessings apart from and in seeming contradiction to his own law – but in a way somehow testified to by the law and the prophets.Footnote 34
Though a new rhetorical unit may commence at Rom 3:27, within the logic of the letter 3:27–4:2 relates directly to the preceding section. I will note several points for the purposes of my limited and selective reading of 3:21–4:25. First, however one divides 3:27–4:2, the passage explicitly demonstrates the preceding discussion's embeddedness within issues of Gentile access to the blessings of the Judean god for Paul. He moves seamlessly between positions about 
, and 
and also questions about that god's impartiality, how he righteouses Judeans and Gentiles, and how/whether to conceive of the Judean god as also the god of Gentiles in some way. Second, by excluding 
in 3:27 and 4:2 Paul does not simply proscribe generalized boasting in one's own achievements.Footnote 35 He characterizes the Judean of 2:17–24 as a boaster in God and in the law (2:17, 23). Paul levels this charge in the midst of his explication of the Judean god's impartiality (2:1–3:20). Though Judeans occupy a privileged position, especially since their god gave them the law and will continue his faithfulness to them (3:1–3), both Judeans and Gentiles are 
(“under sin”; 3:9) and God will judge them both. Given the actualization of the Judean god's eschatological saving righteousness in the faithfulness of Christ, Judeans’ boast in the law and a special eschatological relationship with their god singularly defined by the law is excluded. This god, instead, righteouses by Christ's faithfulness. Third, just as in 3:21–26, here Paul represents Christ's faithfulness as the decisive factor in the Judean god's righteousing of Gentiles (and Judeans): 
(3:28), 
and 
(3:30).Footnote 36
In Rom 3:31 Paul returns to a point he raised in 3:21 and frames the representation of Abraham he will give in Romans 4: 
(see traslation below). Paul claims that his position that the Judean god now righteouses people apart from the law (i.e., that the Judean boasting of 2:17–24 and 3:27 are excluded), despite seeming to contradict the law, is actually authorized by the law itself. The following strategic sketch of Abraham in Romans 4 serves to validate Paul's claim of authorization by the sacred books of the Judeans. Examining how Paul depicts Abraham thus not only clarifies the issues Paul addresses in 3:21–31, but also illuminates the immediate context of 5:1 and its 
. As indicated above, interpreters have traditionally concluded that Paul presents Abraham in Romans 4 as a proto-example for Christ followers of justification by faith and not works.Footnote 37 But does Paul in fact fashion Abraham this way in Romans 4?
What then shall we say? Have we found Justification by the Christ devotee's faith to be the structuring issue of our letter thus far? In Rom 3:21–31 Paul articulates Gentile inclusion in the Judean god's blessings through the faithfulness of Christ and dissociates the law from this god's righteousing of Gentiles. He dismisses Judean boasting associated with the law (2:17, 23; 3:27–30) and motions towards reconfiguring the interrelated significance of circumcision, the law, and even Judean-ness itself when it comes to eschatological judgment (2:25–29). These immediate literary contextual emphases and Paul's assertion in 3:31 that the law validates his positions orient the reader to expect a representation of the law itself establishing how the Judean god may righteous people (especially Gentiles) apart from the law, specifically involving how the faithfulness of one person may cause others to be righteoused. My reading of Romans 4 will demonstrate how Paul strategically explicates the significance of Abraham there precisely in this expected way. Paul depicts him not as a proto-example for Christ followers of “Justification by Faith,” but rather as the patriarchic head of a lineage specifically based upon and defined by his law-dissociated faithfulness. Abraham appears in Romans 4 as an ancestral representative figure who obtained and inherited his god's promises and thus brought about the inclusion of others, his descendants, in these ethnic promises. Given space constraints and the purpose of my selective reading of 3:21–4:25, the following comments suffice to illustrate both this approach to Abraham in Romans 4 and its relevance to understanding how Paul writes of 
in 5:1.
“What then shall we say? Have we found Abraham (to be) our forefather according to the flesh?” (Rom 4:1).Footnote 38 Is the nature of Abraham's paternity 
? For Paul this relates directly to the following conditional, “For if Abraham was righteoused from works, then he has a reason for boasting” (4:2a). Configuring Abraham's paternity as 
and Abraham being righteouesed from works (of the law) are two sides of the same coin for Paul.Footnote 39 The nature of Abraham's paternity and how he was righteoused determine the scope of his promise-inheriting descendants. Within the logic of Paul's meaning-making about Gentile Christ-initiates, Abraham, and the Judean god, if the law defines Abraham's paternity and thus those descended from him, then Paul's claims about Gentile inclusion apart from the law oppose the law-defined promises and inheritance between the Judean god and his people. Advocating Gentile inclusion apart from the law and, instead, through Christ's faithfulness would position Paul's gospel against the authority of the Judeans’ sacred writings. Paul could not legitimate his positions about Christ, Christ's faithfulness, the law, and Gentile inclusion (and thus his Christ-cult for Gentiles) from this prestigious locus of authorization. Paul thus orients his representation of Abraham with questions about the law's relevance for how Abraham was righteoused and the nature of his paternity.
The usual interpretive focus on generalized faith versus works as the main point of Rom 4:2–8 notwithstanding, this section serves primarily both to introduce Abraham and Abrahamic descent from the standpoint of Gen 15:6's faithfulness and righteousness language and to dissociate Abraham's faithfulness from the law.Footnote 40 This speaks directly to the concerns with which Paul orients his discussion of Abraham in Rom 4:1–2a. In 4:9–12 Paul further reveals his focus on the nature of Abraham's paternity by representing Abraham as the head of a lineage that includes Gentiles: “And he received the sign of circumcision as an attestation of the righteousness of his uncircumcised-trust, so that (
) he may be the father of all the ones who trust while uncircumcised, so that (
) righteousness may be counted to them also” (4:11). Abrahamic paternity, which can include Gentiles as Gentiles due to the law-dissociated nature of Abraham's faithfulness, determines who will be righteoused.
Romans 4:16–17 offers another illustration of Paul's concern in this passage to establish the law-dissociated nature of Abraham's paternity for Gentiles, a paternity based upon his faithfulness. The significance of faithfulness (
) is to guarantee the promise to all Abraham's seed (
), “not only to the one from the law, but also to the one descended from the faithfulness of Abraham (
), who is father of all of us.” Of interest here, and paralleling Rom 3:26's 
, the language of 
resonates within certain ancient ethnic sensitivities for delineating descent and how descendants share in the characteristics of their ancestors.Footnote 41 Paul here defines Abraham's law-dissociated Gentile descendants as those who are “descended from the faithfulness of Abraham,” thus not only reflecting his concern in Romans 4 to construe Abraham as the patriarchic head of a lineage that can include Gentiles apart from the law, but also how Abraham's faithfulness is decisive for such inclusion. In 4:17 Paul substantiates his points in 4:16 with a marked reference to a Judean sacred writing: “just as it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations.’” This further clarifies that his concern has been to configure Abraham as the head of a lineage that includes Gentiles.
In Rom 4:23–25 Paul sums up his discussion of Abraham, his faithfulness, and its relevance to the righteousing of others. Traditionally, interpreters have taken 4:23–24 to mean that just as faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness, so also will Christ followers’ faith be counted to them as righteousness.Footnote 42 However, in line with how I have explored Romans 4 up to this point, I consider Abraham's own 
to remain in view as decisive for the righteousing in question. Interpreting 4:24's 
alongside 4:9's use of this language (
) from Gen 15:6 illustrates how Paul has 
in view as the implied subject of 
in Rom 4:24. Just as in 4:9, and the rest of Romans 4, in 4:24 Paul continues to write of Abraham's trust. In 4:23–24 Paul thus asserts that Gen 15:6's language about Abraham's trust concerns not just Abraham, but the others whom his trust will cause to be righteoused. As Hays puts it, “the pronouncement of Scripture applies not only to Abraham as an individual but also to others (‘us’) who are included vicariously in God's reckoning of righteousness.”Footnote 43 In Rom 4:23–24 Paul thus continues to sketch Abraham as a decisive representative figure whose law-dissociated trust causes others to be righteoused, specifically “the ones who trust upon the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.” In Paul's interpretive grid Gen 15:6 thus ultimately witnesses to this Gentile-including (apart from the law) significance of Abraham and his 
. As such, this speaks to Paul's claim in Rom 3:31 that his gospel upholds the law: the law itself establishes how the Judean god may righteous people, especially Gentiles, apart from the law; specifically through the faithfulness of one person causing others to be righteoused.
My reading or Romans 4 coheres with recent scholarship that similarly understands Paul to present Abraham there as a proto-type of Christ and/or an ancestral representative figure, as opposed to primarily a proto-example for Christ followers of “righteousness by faith.”Footnote 44 As such scholars likewise explain, the point of Paul emphasizing Abraham's law-dissociated paternity has to do with Paul's advocating Gentile inclusion apart from adopting Judean ancestral customs (i.e., the law). To bring the relevance of such scholarship together with the emphases of my reading of Romans 4: within Paul's meaning-making about Gentile Christ initiates and the Judean god's eschatological scheme, Abraham's law-dissociated paternity means that he can be the ancestor of both Judeans and Gentiles (e.g., 4:11–12, 16) and that, furthermore, his paternity comes from his faithfulness. Law-dissociated faithfulness defined how Abraham obtained the Judean god's promises and blessings. Such faithfulness thus ultimately defines the characteristics of his (at least Gentile) descendants who participate in the blessings of these ethnic promises.Footnote 45 Putting this understanding of Abraham in Romans 4 together with the rest of my reading of 3:21–4:25, I suggest that with this Gentile inclusive law-authorized ethnic logic in Romans 4, Paul represents Abraham as a prototype or parallel of Christ. Abraham and his faithfulness prefigure, anticipate, and provide precedent for the significance Paul attributes to Christ and his faithfulness.Footnote 46 In 3:21–4:25 Paul thus represents the law itself establishing both the law-dissociated inclusion of Gentiles and the logic of one person's faithfulness decisively effecting such ethnic results for others. In 4:25, the end of this section of Romans, Paul refocuses the hearer's attention on the decisive figure he ultimately has in mind, whose faithfulness effects the righteousing of others: “Jesus our Lord, who was handed over for (
) our transgressions and was raised for (
) our righteousness.”
Reading EK in Romans 5:1
With the above reading of Rom 3:21–4:25 in mind, I turn to 5:1 and its language about faith and righteousness: 
. However one interprets the specific force of 
in 5:1, it signals that Paul's prior discussion informs 
here.Footnote 47 Given my reading of 3:21–4:25 and its focus on the 
of Christ as the crucial factor in the righteousing of others, I propose the contextual plausibility of taking 
in 5:1 as a reference to Christ's own faithfulness. In this way Paul's opening clause in 5:1 speaks of the same decisive 
for righteousing others that he has emphasized at length in the preceding literary context: the 
of Christ; the 
of a decisive representative figure. I thus propose the following reading of 5:1: “Therefore, having been righteoused from (Christ's) faithfulness, let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”Footnote 48 This reading of 5:1, emphasizing the righteousing significance of Christ's faithfulness, also aligns with how Paul several sentences later in 5:9 discusses the righteousing of Christ followers “by his blood” (
).Footnote 49 Christ's rescuing death is, of course, exactly what many advocates of the subjective genitive consider his faithfulness to consist of.
On first glance this reading seems redundant, the very delegitimizing charge proponents of the subjective genitive have often directed against the objective genitive.Footnote 50 While it is tempting simply to note Paul's ability to construct redundant sentences or to classify the redundancy with the positively charged label “emphasis,” Matlock rightly argues that such general claims do not constitute appropriate analyses of specific passages.Footnote 51 Keeping Matlock's point in mind, several comments about my interpretation of the passage are in order. The repetition in my reading of 5:1 (i.e., through Christ's faithfulness; through our Lord Jesus Christ) does not hinder the competent reader's comprehension.Footnote 52 Neither is this simply a repetition, since the specific way Paul refers to Christ differs between the first and second clauses. Furthermore, if one prefers the subjunctive 
in the second clause of 5:1, then the two clauses fit together as follows. With 
Paul reiterates a key point of his preceding discussion in 3:21–4:25, emphasizing the decisiveness of Christ's faithfulness for the righteousing of his followers. He then immediately uses this to ground his exhortation to Christ followers and re-emphasizes the means of enacting his exhortation: “through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Redundancy and repetition thus do not mark this reading since Paul turns from reiterating the righteousing significance of Christ to exhorting Christ followers to an appropriate response. Paul has just spent 3:21–4:25 delineating Christ's representative import and how his faithfulness causes divine blessing to accrue to his followers, to “us.” Since, then, “we” have been righteoused from Christ's faithfulness, Paul can exhort “us” to, among other things, have peace with God through Christ.Footnote 53
My reading of the immediate literary context also militates against the considerations one would adduce for arguing that 
has the Christ follower's faith in view. Paul does not exclusively make righteousness for the Christ follower turn upon his or her own faith. In Romans 4 Paul does not represent Abraham as primarily an example for Christ followers of 
by means of their own faith. Given that some advocates of the objective genitive adduce the 
of 5:1 as evidence for their position, it is worth noting that even if the reader does not accept my case for Christ's faithfulness in 5:1, the language there cannot refer to the Christ follower's trust in Christ.Footnote 54 The nearest explicit contextual reference to the faith of Christ followers comes immediately prior to 5:1 in 4:24, where they trust not in Christ, but “upon the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.”
Nothing, therefore, in Rom 3:21–4:25 demands reading 
in 5:1 as the Christ devotees’ faith. Though Paul has written about the 
of Christ followers prior to this point (e.g., 3:21–22, 4:11, 24), in each case the righteousness event for the trusting people turns on the 
of the representative or ancestral figure. For example, in 3:21–22 the righteousness of God is revealed through Christ's faithfulness unto all the trusting ones (
). In 4:24 Abraham's faithfulness will be counted “to the ones who trust in the one who raised Jesus our Lord” (
). Much more can be said about the relationship between the decisive or ancestral figure's 
and that of Christ-followers in these and other passages in Paul, in particular about the ethnic associations of Paul's claims about their respective 
. For now it suffices to point out that the Christ follower's 
does not effect the righteousness event in these passages. Instead it specifies the scope of those who participate and, it seems, constitutes their characteristic and appropriating response. My reading of 5:1 that emphasizes Christ's faithfulness thus does not necessarily “marginalize,” “erase,” or “diminish” Christ followers’ 
.Footnote 55 It instead highlights that Paul sometimes situates Christ devotees’ 
in relation to Christ's own 
, thus inviting further exploration of their relationships in Paul's discourse, not collapsing of the distinction between them or “erasing” one in favor of the other.Footnote 56
Coherence of a ChristologicalFootnote 57 in Rom 5:1 with Other Passages in Paul
I conclude my case for the plausibility of reading of Rom 5:1's 
as a reference to Christ's faithfulness by briefly considering its coherence with broader contextual data in Romans as well as positions elsewhere in Paul's letters. Though also a contested issue, what is often taken as the “thesis statement” of Romans (1:16–17) introduces Paul's 
language and clarifies that it has Christ and his faithfulness in view as “The Righteous One who will live because of/from his faithfulness” (
). Paul explicates his gospel in 1:16–17 in terms of Christ's faithfulness and resurrection. This links backwards to his extended opening in 1:1–5 with its stress on the gospel of, among other things, Christ's resurrection, and forwards to how he unpacks 1:16–17 in 3:21–26.Footnote 58 Paul's Christological 
in 1:16–17 thus relates to some of his primary emphases in Romans and, furthermore, is what he elaborates upon in 3:21–31. This further supports my reading of 3:21–4:25, which emphasizes the decisive place of Christ's faithfulness in the dynamics of the revelation of the Judean god's righteousness and his righteousing of people, especially Gentiles, thus strengthening the argument for a contextual selection of Christ's faithfulness as the referent of 
in 5:1.
Also of note, 1:17's 
situates Christ's 
in relation to the 
of Christ followers similarly to how my reading of 3:21–4:25 delineates the relationship between their respective 
.Footnote 59 Some have also argued that Paul's 
(and related 
) language derives from and is controlled by how he treats Hab 2:4 in, for example, Rom 1:17.Footnote 60 This adds another consideration for assessing 
in 3:21–5:1, which occurs amidst Paul's discussions of Christ, faith, law, Gentiles, and righteousness. Ben Dunson puts the matter well, “
. . . serves as the glue which holds Paul's entire discourse of law, faith, and righteousness together in Romans (and Galatians).”Footnote 61 On this understanding of Hab 2:4's control of Paul's important 
language, the Christological use of Hab 2:4 in Rom 1:17 then specifies a Christological sense for 
in Rom 5:1. Though other passages in Romans, particularly 9:30–10:21, deserve discussion, for the sake of space I will now offer several comments about Galatians.Footnote 62
In Gal 3:8 Paul writes about the righteousing of Gentiles 
as something foreseen in Judean sacred writings and pre-proclaimed to Abraham in the promise that all the nations would be blessed in him. As several subjective genitive proponents have argued, 
here refers to Christ's faithfulness through which God righteouses Gentiles.Footnote 63 This passage (3:6–9) introduces and frames Paul's excursus in 3:6–14, which addresses whether the Galatian Gentile Christ followers received the spirit in association with the law or not. Paul then, in 3:15–29, further unpacks the claims he makes in 3:6–14 with a discussion of the ethnic mechanics of how Christ's faithfulness and Gentiles’ participation in Christ apart from the law can result in Abrahamic descent for Gentiles, and thus their becoming heirs according to the promise.Footnote 64 Of relevance for my discussion of Rom 3:21–4:25 and Christ's faithfulness in Rom 5:1, in Gal 3:8 Paul thus explains the righteousing of Gentiles 
in relation to Abrahamic descent and to how Judean sacred writings authorize such law-dissociated Abrahamic descent for them. One finds the same constellation of concerns and ethnic rhetoric in Paul's discussion of the righteousing of Christ followers 
in Rom 3:21–4:25, the orienting context for understanding 
in Rom 5:1. A Christological interpretation of 
in Rom 5:1 thus coheres with Paul's claims about how the Judean god righteouses Gentiles in Gal 3:8.
In Gal 3:21–29 Paul takes several positions that cohere with my proposed reading of Rom 5:1. One may note, in particular, Gal 3:24, where Paul uses similar language to Rom 5:1 about faith and how “we” are righeoused: 
. As some advocates of the subjective genitive have argued, 
here refers to Christ's faithfulness that effects the righteousing of “us.”Footnote 65 In addition to broader arguments about Paul's use of 
, Paul's discussion in this context (Gal 3:23–26) of the coming of 
in terms of the coming of Christ also points to this Christological construal of 
, 
(3:24), and 
(3:26).Footnote 66 Thus in 3:24 Paul can write that the significance of the coming of Christ is that “we might be righteoused from (Christ's) faithfulness.” Similarly to Rom 3:21–4:25, Paul here configures the significance of Christ, his faithfulness, and its relevance to righteousing others in relation to the law and, furthermore, becoming law-dissociated descendants of Abraham who, precisely as his descendants, inherit the promise.Footnote 67 In Gal 3:22 Paul situates Christ followers’ faith in relation to Christ's similarly to how my reading of Rom 3:21–5:1 elucidates such matters. The promise, which comes 
, is given to the ones who trust (
).Footnote 68 In this case Christ's faithfulness somehow effects the promise and determines how it comes to his followers, just as elsewhere the revelation of the Judean god's righteousness and his righteousing of others come 
Christ's faithfulness. At the same time, trust on the part of Christ followers delineates the scope of who receives the promise (
; 3:22). Such trust serves as, presumably, their response to what the Judean god has done for them in Christ.Footnote 69
Conclusion
While I do not claim to have offered definitive arguments for understanding Rom 5:1's 
in terms of Christ's righteousing faithfulness, I do propose that my article has established the plausibility of this reading. It makes sense in relation to both the flow of Paul's arguments in 3:21–4:25 and his ethnic logic about Christ, Gentile Christ-initiates, and Abrahamic descent. Indeed, in my reading 
effectively encapsulates Paul's major points in 3:21–4:25: righteousness for Gentiles comes through Christ's 
, the faithfulness of a representative figure who causes others to participate in the Judean god's ethnically-coded eschatological blessings apart from the law. This coheres both with how the subjective-genitive approach opens up other exegetical possibilities for Paul's 
language and with how Paul's sketch of Abraham in Romans 4 also primes the reader to be thinking of righteousness coming from the 
of a representative figure. My reading draws further support from Paul's Christological use of Hab 2:4 at the beginning of Romans to frame his 
(and 
) language, as well as from how Paul discusses righteousness coming from (
) Christ's faithfulness in Galatians. Far from marginalizing or eliminating Christ followers’ faith within Paul's writings, this article recognizes that Paul sometimes sets their faith in relation to Christ's decisive faithfulness, thus inviting further exploration of their relationship in his discourse. Finally, my discussion has emphasized the basic ethnic contours and significances of Paul's claims about Christ's 
in Rom 3:21–5:1.
