What Does Romans 4:4 Mean in the King James?

Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.

Romans 4:4 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

THE KEY

The decisive difference is the account: work makes a reward payable as debt, while favor arrives as gift.

THE MEANING

Labor can place a reward in your account as something owed. Favor has a different source: it is what another gives, not what your labor can make payable. The verse keeps earned payment and unearned giving from collapsing into one category.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that divine favor becomes a debt God must repay once you have worked.

THE ROOT

μισθός

misthos

GROWS FROM

μισθ-

misth-

hire, wages, pay, recompense

The Greek word translated reward also carries the sense of wages or pay, keeping labor’s payable claim inside the verse. Its word family makes the contrast with favor concrete: this is what work earns and makes due.

ALSO GROWS

misthoō: to hire or engage for pay

μισθόω

This verb shows the same word family at the point where paid work begins.

misthios: a hired worker

μίσθιος

The worker is the person linked to the wages the verse names.

misthapodosia: recompense or repayment

μισθαποδοσία

This branch makes the return for work explicit as something paid back.

χάρις

charis

GROWS FROM

χαρ-

char-

favor, goodwill, gracious giving

“grace” in this verse is charis. The same word family appears in both granting a favor and giving thanks for one. Favor belongs to the movement of giving and receiving, while debt belongs to what can be claimed as owed.

ALSO GROWS

charizomai: to grant freely or give as a favor

χαρίζομαι

This verb shows favor as an act of giving, not a payment demanded by the worker.

eucharisteō: to give thanks

εὐχαριστέω

Thanks is the response to a gift received, linking this family to favor given.

charitoō: to bestow favor

χαριτόω

This branch names the extension of favor that stands opposite a wage owed.

ὀφείλημα

opheilēma

GROWS FROM

ὀφειλ-

opheil-

to owe or be under obligation

The word family keeps the sense of an unsettled obligation visible: what is owed can be claimed. Set beside favor, debt reveals the different basis on which a reward is counted.

ALSO GROWS

opheilō: to owe or be obligated

ὀφείλω

This verb names the underlying condition of owing that gives debt its force.

opheiletēs: a debtor, one who owes

ὀφειλέτης

This noun shows the person bound to the obligation the verse calls debt.

THE PATTERN

Work places payment under obligation, while favor remains something the giver gives rather than something labor can make owed.

Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning.

Leviticus 19:13 · KJVThe hired worker’s wages are treated as something owed on a deadline, the same wage-as-obligation structure named here.

Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?

Matthew 20:15 · KJVThe vineyard owner distinguishes the agreed claim from generosity he chooses to extend beyond a worker’s measure.

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

Ephesians 2:8 · KJVThe gift comes from God rather than the recipient’s own source, showing favor as something received rather than wages produced by work.

THE THREAD

But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

Romans 4:5 · KJV

The same form, ⁨λογίζεται⁩ (logizetai, is counted), appears in Romans 4:5. There the ungodly person is counted as aligned through trust, so the account in this verse opens onto a different basis than wages.

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