What’s the difference between the righteous man and the good man?

Explanation:

Paul writes that one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare to die. Clearly, the second clause is concessive in the sense that while one will scarcely die for a righteous person, Paul has thought of the sort of person for whom one might dare to die. ⁴ While it is not obvious how to distinguish the righteous person from the good person, there must be a distinction, given the concessive nature of the second clause. One way to explain this distinction is to notice that the righteous man is a person who is always just and impartial, but to whom one has no emotional connection. On the other hand, the good man is not only just and impartial, but is a person to whom one has a strong personal attachment.⁵ Thus, in some rare cases, one might dare to die for a good person.  

Counterargument:

Although the second clause looks concessive, we do not have to take it as such. For we know that Paul dictated this letter to Tertius (Romans 16:22), who records what Paul writes. So Paul is not writing the letter to Romans by his own hand, but dictating its contents which Tertius records for Paul. Given that Paul dictates the letter, it is possible that when Paul dictates the notion that one will rarely die for a righteous person, he realizes that in fact, sometimes people do die for good people. Now, he does not technically distinguish righteous from good people, but simply has in mind the general notion of dying for another, and he likely expected Tertius to replace his first thought with his second thought.⁶ That is, he expected Tertius to simply write that someone might dare to die for a good person, but that Christ dies for us while we were still sinners. Thus, it is not necessarily the case that Romans 5:7b is concessive, but more likely that Tertius has mistakenly recorded Paul’s intent.

Response to counterargument:

This counterargument might be convincing if Romans 5:7 repeated itself. That is, if Tertius wrote, Someone will rarely die for a good person, although someone will sometimes dare to die for a good person, we might take it that he mistakenly recorded what Paul dictated. Still, this is not what we read in Romans 5:7. Rather we read two distinct clauses, one where we learn it is rare to die for a righteous person, and one where we learn that one might dare to die for a good person. Given the differences between these clauses, there are two reasons to take Romans 5:7b as concessive. First, in Romans 5:7a Paul says it is rare to die for a righteous person, while in Romans 5:7b he says one might dare to die for a good person. Clearly there is a thoughtful difference between characterizing the one death as rare and the other as daring. Second, as has already been pointed out, the term righteous person is not the same as good person. So likely, Romans 5:7b is not a scribal mistake but concessive.

Explanation:

Paul highlights the significance of the fact that Christ died for us while we were sinners, by pointing out that one will die rarely for a righteous person, though maybe for a good person. We can detect the difference between the righteous and good person by how these terms are used in extrabiblical sources. We learn from Irenaeus that the Gnostics referred to the God of the Old Testament as righteous and the God of the New Testament as good.⁷ Now, it is important to understand that the Gnostics thought the God of the Old Testament was not the same as the God of the New Testament. For them, the God of the Old Testament was a God of judgment, while the God of the New Testament was loving and kind. With this in mind, if Paul is using the terms righteous and good to characterize two different types of people, we can detect based on how the Gnostics used the term what Paul has in mind. The righteous person is one who is just and impartial, but possibly not kind or caring. On the other hand, the good person is just, impartial, but also kind and loving.

Counterargument:

When Irenaeus explains how the Gnostics use the terms righteous and good, he presents them as terms for characterizing God. That is, the Gnostics characterize the God of the Old Testament as righteous while they characterize the God of the New Testament as good. Paul, on the other hand, uses the genitive forms of righteous and good to refer to the righteous person and the good person. Since Paul uses the terms to refer to certain persons while Irenaeus uses them to characterize the same God, it is not clear that we can use Irenaeus’s use to understand Paul’s use.

Response to counterargument:

This counterargument is not strong. That is because, whether the terms good and good are used to characterize one being or to denote two different beings, makes no difference in their respective meanings. That is to say, that Irenaeus uses the terms to characterize one being as either righteous or good is enough for us to distinguish the notion of a being who is righteous from a being who is good. A being who is characterized as righteous is a being that is impartial and just, while a being who is characterized as good is impartial, just, but also kind and caring. Likewise, a righteous man is a man who is just and impartial, while a good man is just, impartial, kind, and caring.

The weakness of this view is that it is surprising for Paul to add this corrective. That is, his main point is that Jesus died for us while we were sinners, and it takes away from this point to add the concession that one might die for a good person. At the same time, the concession adds to the authenticity of Paul’s argument.

Explanation:

Paul writes that one would rarely die for a righteous person, although one might dare to die for a good person. He says this to emphasize the unique activity of Christ, who would die not for righteous or good people but for sinners.⁸ When Paul refers to dying for a righteous and good person, he is not contrasting a righteous or good person. Rather, he uses the terms righteous and good synonymously.⁹ For his point is not about dying for righteous or good people, but to emphasize the uniqueness of Christ, who would die for sinners.

Counterargument:

While Paul’s main point in this section is to highlight the uniqueness of Christ’s sacrifice for sinners, this does not imply that the terms righteous or good are synonymous. In fact, the terms are clearly not synonymous, for if they were, the clause would not be coherent. For then Paul would be saying, One will scarcely die for a righteous person, although for a righteous person one might dare to die. Clearly, such a statement is self-contradictory, for how can it be that one will scarcely die for a righteous person, although one might dare to die for a righteous person. So, although it is true that Paul uses Romans 5:7 to highlight the uniqueness of Christ’s activity, the terms righteous and good do not mean the same thing.

It seems obvious that Paul distinguishes a righteous person from a good person in Romans 5:7. The weakness of this view is that it tries to simplify Romans 5:7 at the expense of the natural meaning of the text.