Chapter 3

¹What advantage is there then in being a Jew, and what is the use of circumcision? ²A great deal, from every point of view. In the first place, the Jews were intrusted with the utterances of God. ³What if some of them have shown a lack of faith? Can their lack of it nullify the faithfulness of God? ⁴By no means! God must prove true, though every man be false; as the Scripture says,

“That you may be shown to be upright in what you say,

And win your case when you go into court.”

⁵But if our wrongdoing brings out the uprightness of God, what are we to say? Is it wrong in God (I am putting it in ordinary human terms) to inflict punishment? ⁶By no means, for then how could he judge the world? ⁷But, you say, if a falsehood of mine has brought great honor to God by bringing out his truthfulness, why am I tried for being a sinner? ⁸And why not say, as people abuse us for saying and charge us with saying, “Let us do evil that good may come out of it”? Such people will be condemned as they deserve!

⁹What does this mean? Are we Jews at a disadvantage? Not at all. We have already charged Jews and Greeks all alike with being under the control of sin. ¹⁰As the Scripture says,

“There is not a single man who is upright,

¹¹No one understands, no one searches for God.

¹²All have turned away, they are one and all worthless,

No one does right, not a single one!

¹³Their throats are like open graves,

They use their tongues to deceive;

The venom of asps is behind their lips,

¹⁴And their mouths are full of bitter curses.

¹⁵Their feet are swift when it comes to shedding blood,

¹⁶Ruin and wretchedness mark their paths,

¹⁷They do not know the way of peace.

¹⁸There is no reverence for God before their eyes!”

¹⁹Now we know that everything the Law says is addressed to those under its authority, so that every mouth may be shut, and the whole world be made accountable to God. ²⁰For no human being can be made upright in the sight of God by observing the Law. All that the Law can do is to make man conscious of sin. ²¹But now God’s way of uprightness has been disclosed without any reference to law, though the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it. ²²It is God’s way of uprightness and comes through having faith in Jesus Christ, and it is for all who have faith, without distinction. ²³For all men sin and come short of the glory of God, ²⁴but by his mercy they are made upright for nothing, by the deliverance secured through Christ Jesus. ²⁵For God showed him publicly dying as a sacrifice of reconciliation to be taken advantage of through faith. This was to vindicate his own justice (for in his forbearance, God passed over men’s former sins)— ²⁶to vindicate his justice at the present time, and show that he is upright himself, and that he makes those who have faith in Jesus upright also.

²⁷Then what becomes of our boasting? It is shut out. On what principle? What a man does? No, but whether a man has faith. ²⁸For we hold that a man is made upright by faith; the observance of the Law has nothing to do with it. ²⁹Does God belong to the Jews alone? Does he not belong to the heathen too? Of course he belongs to the heathen too; ³⁰there is but one God, and he will make the circumcised upright on the ground of their faith and the uncircumcised upright because of theirs.” ³¹Is this using faith to overthrow law? Far from it. This confirms the Law.