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 spoken words of God.³What then? If some did not believe, will their unbelief cancel God's faithfulness?⁴Absolutely not! God must be true, even if 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 use 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 is amplified to His glory, why am I also still 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? Not at all! For we have previously charged that both Jews and Gentiles 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 useless. 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 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.

God's Righteousness through Faith

²¹But now, apart from the law, God's righteousness has been revealed — attested by the Law and the Prophets²²— that is, God's righteousness 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 a propitiation through faith in His blood, 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 righteous and declare righteous 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 man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.²⁹Or is God for Jews only? Is He not also for Gentiles? Yes, for Gentiles too,³⁰since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.³¹Do we then cancel the law through faith? Absolutely not! On the contrary, we uphold the law.