The Crediting of Righteousness to Abraham and the Question whether Jesus Died for Our Weaknesses or for for Our Discrete Sins Only–Romans 4:25

Correctly including character flaws in the word "paraptoma" yields a reading of Romans 4:25 which correctly includes our death to the power of sin in our members, which died with Jesus, in the justification for which he died..

Romans 4, as a whole, deals with the righteousness of Abraham, which was credited to him because of his faith that God would fulfil his promises, just as we are credited righteousness by faith. Romans 4:25 falls at the end of that explanation and makes the application from Abraham to us. In its immediate context, it states (again with the single use of paraptoma emphasized):

In hope against hope he believed, so that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been spoken, “So shall your descendants be.” Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb; yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform. Therefore it was also credited to him as righteousness. Now not for his sake only was it written that it was credited to him, but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, to us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, He who was delivered over because of our wrongdoings, and was raised because of our justification.

Romans 4:18-25 (NASB)

When the proposed change in the translation of paraptoma is made, this passage reads as follows:

In hope against hope he believed, so that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been spoken, “So shall your descendants be.” Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb; yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform. Therefore it was also credited to him as righteousness. Now not for his sake only was it written that it was credited to him, but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, to us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, He who was delivered over because of our faults/ flaws, and was raised because of our justification.

Romans 4:18-25 (NASB, modified as indicated).

This modified translation reads just as well as the original, but asserts something slightly different about the atonement. Where theological tradition tends to separate sanctification from justification, and teach that Jesus died because of, and for the forgiveness of, the corpus of all of our discrete wrong acts, this reading of Romans 4:25 suggests that he died not only for our wrong acts but also for the flaws in us, in our flesh, that predispose us to certain wrong acts. In this way, the proposed reading of Romans 4:25 agrees well with the teaching of Romans 6 that Jesus died bearing our sin, and we die with him in baptism, to put to death the power of sin in our members that used to enslave us. Thus, Jesus really was delivered over because of our flaws, and because of the consequences of those flaws–i.e., discrete sins–and he deals with the latter by putting the former to death through our faith in what he has done.