Romans 3

Paul Answers an Objection

¹So what advantage does the Jew have? Or what is the benefit of circumcision?²Considerable in every way. First, they were entrusted with the very words of God.³What then? If some were unfaithful, will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness?⁴Absolutely not! Let God be true, even though everyone is a liar, as it is written: That you may be justified in your words and triumph when you judge.

⁵But if our unrighteousness highlights God’s righteousness, what are we to say? I am using a human argument: Is God unrighteous to inflict wrath?⁶Absolutely not! Otherwise, how will God judge the world?⁷But if by my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner?⁸And why not say, just as some people slanderously claim we say, “Let us do what is evil so that good may come”? Their condemnation is deserved!

The Whole World Guilty before God

⁹What then? Are we any better off? Not at all! For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin,¹⁰as it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one.

¹¹There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.

¹²All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.

¹³Their throat is an open grave; they deceive with their tongues. Vipers’ venom is under their lips.

¹⁴Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.

¹⁵Their feet are swift to shed blood;

¹⁶ruin and wretchedness are in their paths,

¹⁷and the path of peace they have not known.

¹⁸There is no fear of God before their eyes.

¹⁹Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are subject to the law, so that every mouth may be shut and the whole world may become subject to God’s judgment.²⁰For no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law.

The Righteousness of God through Faith

²¹But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the Law and the Prophets.²²The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction.²³For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;²⁴they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.²⁵God presented him as the mercy seat by his blood, through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God passed over the sins previously committed.²⁶God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus.

Boasting Excluded

²⁷Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By one of works? No, on the contrary, by a law of faith.²⁸For we conclude that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.²⁹Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too,³⁰since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.³¹Do we then nullify the law through faith? Absolutely not! On the contrary, we uphold the law.