Faith the Ground of Acceptance

14 I have a duty to both the Greek and the barbarian, to both the cultured and the ignorant. 15 And so, for my part, I am ready to tell the good news to you also who are in Rome.

16 For I am not ashamed of the good news; it is the power of God which brings salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, but also to the Greek. 17 For in it there is a revelation of the divine righteousness resulting from faith and leading on to faith; as scripture says – “Through faith the righteous will find life.”

18 So, too, there is a revelation from heaven of the divine wrath against every form of ungodliness and wickedness on the part of those people who, by their wicked lives, are stifling the truth. 19 This is so, because what can be known about God is plain to them; for God himself has made it plain. 20 For ever since the creation of the universe God’s invisible attributes – his everlasting power and divinity – are to be seen and studied in his works, so that people have no excuse; 21 because, although they learned to know God, yet they did not offer him as God either praise or thanksgiving. Their speculations about him proved futile, and their undiscerning minds were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they showed themselves fools; 23 and they transformed the glory of the immortal God into the likeness of mortal humans, and of birds, and beasts, and reptiles.

24 Therefore God abandoned them to impurity, letting them follow the cravings of their hearts, until they dishonoured their own bodies; 25 for they had substituted a lie for the truth about God, and had reverenced and worshiped created things more than the Creator, who is to be praised for ever. Amen. 26 That, I say, is why God abandoned them to degrading passions. Even the women among them perverted the natural use of their bodies to the unnatural; 27 while the men, disregarding that for which women were intended by nature, were consumed with passion for one another. Men indulged in vile practices with men, and incurred in their own persons the inevitable penalty for their perverseness.

28 Then, as they would not keep God before their minds, God abandoned them to depraved thoughts, so that they did all kinds of shameful things. 29 They revelled in every form of wickedness, evil, greed, vice. Their lives were full of envy, murder, quarrelling, treachery, malice. 30 They became back-biters, slanderers, impious, insolent, boastful. They devised new sins. They disobeyed their parents. 31 They were undiscerning, untrustworthy, without natural affection or pity. 32 Well aware of God’s decree, that those who do such things deserve to die, not only are they guilty of them themselves, but they even applaud those who do them.

2 Therefore you have nothing to say in your own defence, whoever you are who set yourself up as a judge. In judging others you condemn yourself, for you who set yourself up as a judge do the very same things. 2 And we know that God’s judgment falls unerringly on those who do them. 3 You who judge those that do such things and yet are yourself guilty of them – do you suppose that you of all people will escape God’s judgment? 4 Or do you think lightly of his abundant kindness, patience, and forbearance, not realising that his kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 5 Hard-hearted and impenitent as you are, you are storing up for yourself wrath on the day of wrath, when God’s justice as a judge will be revealed; 6 for he will give to everyone what their actions deserve. 7 To those who, by perseverance in doing good, aim at glory, honour, and all that is imperishable, he will give immortal life; 8 while as to those who are factious, and disobedient to truth but obedient to evil, wrath and anger, distress and despair, 9 will fall on every human being who persists in wrongdoing – on the Jew first, but also on the Greek. 10 But there will be glory, honour, and peace for everyone who does right – for the Jew first, but also for the Greek, 11 since God shows no partiality. 12 All who, when they sin, are without Law will also perish without Law; while all who, when they sin, are under Law, will be judged as being under Law. 13 It is not those who hear the words of a Law that are righteous before God, but it is those who obey it that will be pronounced righteous. 14 When Gentiles, who have no Law, do instinctively what the Law requires, they, though they have no Law, are a Law to themselves; 15 for they show the demands of the Law written on their hearts; their consciences corroborating it, while in their thoughts they argue either in self-accusation or, it may be, in self-defence – 16 on the day when God passes judgment on people’s inmost lives, as the good news that I tell declares that he will do through Christ Jesus.

17 But, perhaps, you bear the name of “Jew,” and are relying on Law, and boast of belonging to God, and understand his will, 18 and, having been carefully instructed from the Law, have learned to appreciate the finer moral distinctions. 19 Perhaps you are confident that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in the dark, an instructor of the unintelligent, 20 and a teacher of the childish, because in the Law you possess the outline of all knowledge and truth. 21 Why, then, you teacher of others, don’t you teach yourself? Do you preach against stealing, and yet steal? 22 Do you forbid adultery, and yet commit adultery? Do you loathe idols, and yet plunder temples? 23 Boasting, as you do, of your Law, do you dishonour God by breaking the Law? 24 For, as scripture says – “The Gentiles insult God’s name because of you”! 25 Circumcision has its value, if you are obeying the Law. But, if you are a breaker of the Law, your circumcision is no better than uncircumcision. 26 If, then, an uncircumcised man pays regard to the requirements of the Law, won’t he, although not circumcised, be regarded by God as if he were? 27 Indeed, the person who, owing to his birth, remains uncircumcised, and yet scrupulously obeys the Law, will condemn you, who, for all your written Law and your circumcision, are yet a breaker of the Law. 28 For a man who is only a Jew outwardly is not a real Jew; nor is outward bodily circumcision real circumcision. The real Jew is the person who is a Jew in soul; 29 and the real circumcision is the circumcision of the heart, a spiritual and not a literal thing. Such a person wins praise from God, though not from people.

3 What is the advantage, then, of being a Jew? Or what is the good of circumcision? 2 Great in every way. First of all, because the Jews were entrusted with God’s utterances. 3 What follows then? Some, no doubt, showed a want of faith; but will their want of faith make God break faith? Heaven forbid! 4 God must prove true, though everyone prove a liar! As scripture says of God – “That you may be pronounced righteous in what you say, and gain your cause when people would judge you.”

5 But what if our wrongdoing makes God’s righteousness all the clearer? Will God be wrong in inflicting punishment? (I can but speak as a person.) Heaven forbid! 6 Otherwise how can God judge the world?

7 But, if my falsehood redounds to the glory of God, by making his truthfulness more apparent, why am I like others, still condemned as a sinner? 8 Why should we not say – as some people slanderously assert that we do say – “Let us do evil that good may come”? The condemnation of such people is indeed just!

9 What follows, then? Are we Jews in any way superior to others? Not at all. Our indictment against both Jews and Greeks was that all alike were in subjection to sin. 10 As scripture says –

“There is not even one who is righteous,

11 not one who understands,

not one who is searching for God!

12 They have all gone astray;

they have one and all become depraved;

there is no one who is doing good – no, not one!”

13 “Their throats are like opened graves;

they deceive with their tongues.”

“The venom of snakes lies behind their lips,”

14 “And their mouths are full of bitter curses.”

15 “Swift are their feet to shed blood.

16 Distress and trouble dog their steps,

17 and the path of peace they do not know.”

18 “The fear of God is not before their eyes.”

Titleless Section Break

19 Now we know that everything said in the Law is addressed to those who are under its authority, in order that every mouth may be closed, and to bring the whole world under God’s judgment. 20 For no human being will be pronounced righteous before God as the result of obedience to Law; for it is Law that shows what sin is.

21 But now, quite apart from Law, the divine righteousness stands revealed, and to it the Law and the prophets bear witness – 22 the divine righteousness which is bestowed, through faith in Jesus Christ, on all, without distinction, who believe in him. 23 For all have sinned, and all fall short of God’s glorious ideal, 24 but, in his loving kindness, are being freely pronounced righteous through the deliverance found in Christ Jesus. 25 For God set him before the world, to be, by the shedding of his blood, a means of reconciliation through faith. And this God did to prove his righteousness, and because, in his forbearance, he had passed over the sins that people had previously committed; 26 as a proof, I repeat, at the present time, of his own righteousness, that he might be righteous in our eyes, and might pronounce righteous the person who takes their stand on faith in Jesus.

27 What, then, becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what sort of Law? A Law requiring obedience? No, a Law requiring faith.

28 For we conclude that a person is pronounced righteous on the ground of faith, quite apart from obedience to Law. 29 Or can it be that God is the God only of the Jews? Isn’t he also the God of the Gentiles? 30 Yes, of the Gentiles also, since there is only one God, and he will pronounce those who are circumcised righteous as the result of faith, and also those who are uncircumcised on their showing the same faith.

31 Do we, then, use this faith to abolish Law? Heaven forbid! No, we establish Law.

4 What then, it may be asked, are we to say about Abraham, the ancestor of our nation? 2 If he was pronounced righteous as the result of obedience, then he has something to boast of. Yes, but not before God. 3 For what are the words of scripture? “Abraham had faith in God, and his faith was regarded by God as righteousness.” 4 Now wages are regarded as due to the person who works, not as a favour, but as a debt; 5 while, as for the person who does not rely on their obedience, but has faith in him who can pronounce the godless righteous, their faith is regarded by God as righteousness.

6 In precisely the same way David speaks of the blessing pronounced on the person who is regarded by God as righteous apart from actions – 7 “Blessed are those whose wrongdoings have been forgiven and over whose sins a veil has been drawn! 8 Blessed the man whom the Lord will never regard as sinful!” 9 Is this blessing, then, pronounced on the circumcised only or on the uncircumcised as well? We say that – “Abraham’s faith was regarded by God as righteousness.” 10 Under what circumstances, then, did this take place? After his circumcision or before it? 11 Not after, but before. And it was as a sign of this that he received the rite of circumcision – to show the righteousness due to the faith of an uncircumcised man – in order that he might be the father of all who have faith in God even when uncircumcised, so that they also may be regarded by God as righteous; 12 as well as father of the circumcised – to those who are not only circumcised, but who also follow our father Abraham in that faith which he had while still uncircumcised. 13 For the promise that he should inherit the world did not come to Abraham or his descendants through Law, but through the righteousness due to faith. 14 If those who take their stand on Law are to inherit the world, then faith is robbed of its meaning and the promise comes to nothing! 15 Law entails punishment; but, where no Law exists, no breach of it is possible. 16 That is why everything is made to depend on faith: so that everything may be God’s gift, and in order that the fulfilment of the promise may be made certain for all Abraham’s descendants – not only for those who take their stand on the Law, but also for those who take their stand on the faith of Abraham. (He is the father of us all; 17 as scripture says – “I have made you the father of many nations.”) And this they do in the sight of that God in whom Abraham had faith, and who gives life to the dead, and speaks of what does not yet exist as if it did. 18 With no ground for hope, Abraham, sustained by hope, put faith in God; in order that, in fulfilment of the words – “So many will your descendants be,” he might become “the father of many nations.” 19 Though he was nearly a hundred years old, yet his faith did not fail him, even when he thought of his own body, then utterly worn out, and remembered that Sarah was past bearing children. 20 He was not led by want of faith to doubt God’s promise. 21 On the contrary, his faith gave him strength; and he praised God, in the firm conviction that what God has promised he is also able to carry out. 22 And therefore his faith “was regarded as righteousness.” 23 Now these words – “it was regarded as righteousness” – were not written with reference to Abraham only; 24 but also with reference to us. Our faith, too, will be regarded by God in the same light, if we have faith in him who raised Jesus, our Lord, from the dead; 25 for Jesus was given up to death to atone for our offences, and was raised to life that we might be pronounced righteous.

5 Therefore, having been pronounced righteous as the result of faith, let us enjoy peace with God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. 2 It is through him that, by reason of our faith, we have obtained admission to that place in God’s favour in which we now stand. So let us exult in our hope of attaining God’s glorious ideal. 3 And not only that, but let us also exult in our troubles; 4 for we know that trouble develops endurance, and endurance strength of character, and strength of character hope, 5 and that hope never disappoints. For the love of God has filled our hearts through the Holy Spirit which was given us; 6 seeing that, while we were still powerless, Christ, in God’s good time, died on behalf of the godless. 7 Even for an upright person scarcely anyone will die. For a really good person perhaps someone might even dare to die. 8 But God puts his love for us beyond all doubt by the fact that Christ died on our behalf while we were still sinners. 9 Much more, then, now that we have been pronounced righteous by virtue of the shedding of his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. 10 For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, much more, now that we have become reconciled, will we be saved by virtue of Christ’s life. 11 And not only that, but we exult in God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, through whom we have now obtained this reconciliation.

12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and through sin came death; so, also, death spread to all humanity, because every person has sinned. 13 Even before the time of the Law there was sin in the world; but sin cannot be charged against someone where no Law exists. 14 Yet, from Adam to Moses, death reigned even over those whose sin was not a breach of a law, as Adam’s was. And Adam foreshadows the one to come. 15 But there is a contrast between Adam’s offence and God’s gracious gift. For, if by reason of the offence of the one man the whole human race died, far more were the loving kindness of God, and the gift given in the loving kindness of the one man, Jesus Christ, lavished on the whole human race. 16 There is a contrast, too, between the gift and the results of the one man’s sin. The judgment, which followed on the one man’s sin, resulted in condemnation, but God’s gracious gift, which followed on many offences, resulted in a decree of righteousness. 17 For if, by reason of the offence of the one man, death reigned through that one man, far more will those, on whom God’s loving kindness and his gift of righteousness are lavished, find life, and reign through the one man, Jesus Christ. 18 Briefly then, just as a single offence resulted for all humanity in condemnation, so, too, a single decree of righteousness resulted for all humanity in that declaration of righteousness which brings life. 19 For, as through the disobedience of the one man the whole human race was rendered sinful, so, too, through the obedience of the one, the whole human race will be rendered righteous. 20 Law was introduced in order that offences might be multiplied. But, where sins were multiplied, the loving kindness of God was lavished the more, 21 in order that, just as sin had reigned in the realm of death, so, too, might loving-kindness reign through righteousness, and result in eternal life, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.