Privileged Recipient of Divine Favor
Romans 4:6-8
“just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”” -Romans 4:6–8
Paul introduces another testimony from Scripture and another way of thinking about God’s imputing righteousness to men, David’s negative clause from Psalm 32:1-2:
“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.”
God justifies men by not imputing his sin to his account. Instead he for-gives his lawless deeds by covering them.
The word forgiven is the Greek work, apheimi, which means to release from legal or moral obligation or consequence.The word covered is the Greek word, epikalypto, which means to put out to sight.
Righteousness then is the remission of sins, something not earned by works but given gratuitously by God.
This is what it means to be blessed (makarios), meaning privileged recipient of divine favor.1
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William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 611.