Read Romans 3 here (text coming …) or at Bible Gateway.
The Greek Testament has no Hebrew paragraph divisions. This is my outline of chapter three:
1:18-5:21, Justification and the righteousness of God;
1:18-3:19, The unrighteousness of man;
3:1-8, The unrighteousness of man demonstrates the righteousness of God (God is just to inflict wrath on unrighteousness);
3:9-19, All men are unrighteous and are under sin;
3:20-31, The Law cannot solve the problem of unrighteousness;
3:20, No man can be justified by obeying the Law;
3:21-26, The righteousness of God (justification) is given freely through faith in Jesus Christ;
3:27-30, Men are justified by faith apart from deeds of the Law so that they cannot boast;
3:31, However we do not void the Law because we have faith, but we establish the Law;
Rom 1:16-3:31 Chiastic Structure:
Paul explains man’s fundamental problem, that because of an inherent sin nature, all men are under sin and guilty before God, the Jew first and also the Gentile. That guilt requires the death penalty. The giving of the Law to Moses addressed this problem in that what was righteous before God was carefully laid out. However, after the Jews had 1500 years of attempting to keep the Law, one truth became obvious, that no man can come from his inherent nature of unrighteousness, to a nature of righteousness, by keeping the words of the Law, because every man (but one) has proven himself to guilty of breaking the Law. The one exception is the Man, Jesus Christ.
The following is quoted from Rom 3:21-26 , with its easy to understand explanation.
But now the righteousness of God apart from the Law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,
But now a way to attain to God’s righteous nature, apart from obeying the Law, has been shown, and this way the Law and the Prophets have declared.
… even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.
And that way is through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe (the Jew first, and also the Gentile).
For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
There is no difference between the Jew and the Gentile on this point, for all have sinned, all have fallen short.
… being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
All, the Jew first and also the Gentile, can be pronounced ‘not guilty’ as a free gift of His grace (that is, not by earning it as a result of perfect obedience to the Law) because of Christ Jesus who redeemed us.
… whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood,
Propitiation is the act of gaining or regaining the favor or goodwill of someone or something, according to Webster’s; so that God’s favor, rather than His condemnation, was gained by the blood of Jesus shed on the cross.
… through faith,
And we access this propitiation by believing in it.
… to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
And this free gift of propitation by His grace demonstrates God’s righteousness, in showing that He is not only just Himself, but also that He makes just (not guilty) every one who has faith in Jesus.
Each of these abstract concepts of guilt, redemption, justification, grace, faith, and belief, we have previously encountered in the Hebrew Testament, which explained them. The links take you to their context, and the Hebrew Root Word parables previously encountered.
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