Category All Articles

“Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No: but by the law of faith.
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Is He the God of the Jews only? And not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, since there is one God, who shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith.”

We know that, if God were to require our justification by the deeds of the law, we would all perish, for we are all guilty of all the law. The Jew cannot claim the Law for his salvation, for he knowingly violates its written precepts. The Gentile cannot hide from the Law for his justification; he is equally guilty and equally condemned. 

But praise be to God, who has justified sinful men, not by our deeds, but by fa...

“Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No: but by the law of faith.
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Is He the God of the Jews only? And not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, since there is one God, who shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith.”

Indeed, if all men are proven to be sinful, and every individual of us guilty before God of violating His righteous law, how does anyone have anything of which to boast? Indeed, anyone with a requirement for propitiation is excluded from boasting, for whatever ‘good’ he  might claim to his credit is sullied by the wrong he has committed.

So then, pitiful men must fall upon the grace and mercy of a loving God or suff...

Romans 3:21-26:           “But now the righteousness of God without the Law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all who believe[2] –  for there is no difference [1]; for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God – being justified freely[3] by His grace [4] through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth[5] to be a propitiation[6] through faith in His blood[7], to declare His righteousness[8] for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier[9] of him with faith in Jesus.”[10]

Paul has said many things in this short su...

Romans 3:21-26:           “But now the righteousness of God without the Law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all who believe –  for there is no difference, for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God – being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier of him with faith in Jesus.”

If Paul’s first words are true, the state of mankind is hopeless: if no one is righ...

“Now we know that whatever things the law says, it says to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

Therefore by the deeds of the Law shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the Law is the knowledge of sin.”

The Law was not given to everyone; it was given only to the children of Jacob; it applied exclusively to them. But there’s the rub: the list of judgements, ordinances, and rituals given to Israel by God through Moses could not make them ‘good’. All it could do is show them how desperately far they were from attaining perfection, and how completely impossible it would be for them to ever succeed at attaining it...

“What then? Are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have previously proved both Jews and Gentiles, that all under sin;

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

There is none who understands, there is none who seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that does good, no, not one.

Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes.’” 

Paul drives his point home to both groups in his audience, by declaring, as the Scriptures assert,...

“But if our unrighteousness commends God’s righteousness, what shall we say: is God unrighteous who brings wrath? I speak after the manner of a man.

It cannot be, since how shall God judge the world?

For if the truth of God has abounded through my lie to His glory, why am I yet also judged a sinner, and not, as we are slanderously reported, and according as certain ones affirm that we say – whose condemnation is just – “Let us commit evil that good may come.”

We have all heard the phrase, “The end justifies the means.” The essence of Paul’s statement here is that some have argued that their sinfulness had somehow shown God to be more righteous, so why should He be angry with them for it...

Knowing that the development of his argument could incite some animated responses, and be misunderstood to suggest that God somehow had rejected the people of His Abrahamic covenant, Paul continues:

Romans 3:1 – 4  “What then is the benefit of the Jew, or what is the profit of the circumcision? Much in every way; first because they were entrusted with the oracles of God. For what if some unfaithful? Shall their unfaithfulness make the faithfulness of God useless? (or powerless, or ineffective)

Certainly not! But let God be true and every man false, according as it has been written, “That you are justified (or righteous) in your words and overcome when You are judged.”

God had called a man – Abram – out of obscurity, out of idolatry, and into fellowship with Himself...

In his letter to the Romans, Paul laid out the expression of God’s love and grace towards all men in providing the atonement for man’s sin in Christ’s death on the cross. It was necessary that his audience understand that justification before God could not be found in human efforts at ‘being good’, or ‘following the rules’, because only a perfect record could be considered righteous. Instead, because no man was or ever will be perfect, God established a means by which imperfect, sinful men could be reconciled to the God they had offended by their sin, through the covering of our penalty by Christ’s death, and our access to its effects by faith in Him:

Romans 2:17-29

“Behold, you are called a Jew and rest in the law and boast in God, and knowhis will and prove (discern)...

“But according to your hardness and impenitent heart you treasure up to yourself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, Who will render to each according to his deeds; to those who with patient endurance in well-doing are seeking glory and honour and immortality: eternal life; but to those of contention, and who disobey the truth, but obey unrighteousness: indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man who performs evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Greek; but glory, honour, and peace to everyone who works good, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

For there is no respect of persons with God.

For as many as have sinned without Law shall also perish without Law, and as many as have sinned in the Law shall be judged ...