Beginning

God’s covenant with Abraham

4 What shall we say, then? Have we found Abraham to be our ancestor in a human, fleshly sense? ² After all, if Abraham was reckoned “in the right” on the basis of works, he has grounds to boast—but not in God’s presence!

³ So what does the Bible say? “Abraham believed God, and it was calculated in his favor, putting him in the right.” ⁴ Now when someone “works,” the “reward” they get is not calculated on the basis of generosity, but on the basis of what they are owed. ⁵ But if someone doesn’t “work,” but simply believes in the one who declares the ungodly to be in the right, that person’s faith is calculated in their favor, putting them in the right.

⁶ We see the same thing when David speaks of the blessing that comes to someone whom God calculates to be in the right apart from works:

Abraham the father of both uncircumcised and circumcised

⁹ So, then, does this blessing come on circumcised people or on uncircumcised? This is the passage we quoted: “His faith was calculated to Abraham as indicating that he was in the right.” ¹⁰ How was it calculated? When he was circumcised or when he was uncircumcised? It wasn’t when he was circumcised; it was when he was uncircumcised! ¹¹ He received circumcision as a sign and seal of the status of covenant membership, on the basis of faith, which he had when he was still uncircumcised. This was so that he could be the father of all who believe even when uncircumcised, so that the status of covenant membership can be calculated to their account as well. ¹² He is also, of course, the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who follow the steps of the faith which Abraham possessed while still uncircumcised.

Abraham is the father of all believers

¹³ The promise, you see, didn’t come to Abraham or to his family through the law—the promise, that is, that he would inherit the world. It came through the covenant justice of faith. ¹⁴ For if those who belong to the law are going to inherit, then faith is empty, and the promise has been abolished. ¹⁵ For the law stirs up God’s anger; but where there is no law, there is no lawbreaking.

¹⁶ That’s why it’s “by faith”: so that it can be in accordance with grace, and so that the promise can thereby be validated for the entire family—not simply those who are from the law, but those who share the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all, ¹⁷ just as the Bible says, “I have made you the father of many nations.” This happened in the presence of the God in whom he believed, the God who gives life to the dead and calls into existence things that do not exist.

Abraham’s faith—and ours

¹⁸ Against all hope, but still in hope, Abraham believed that he would become the father of many nations, in line with what had been said to him: “That’s what your family will be like.” ¹⁹ He didn’t become weak in faith as he considered his own body (which was already as good as dead, since he was about a hundred years old), and the lifelessness of Sarah’s womb. ²⁰ He didn’t waver in unbelief when faced with God’s promise. Instead, he grew strong in faith and gave glory to God, ²¹ being fully convinced that God had the power to accomplish what he had promised. ²² That is why “it was calculated in his favor, putting him in the right.”

²³ But it wasn’t written for him alone that “it was calculated to him.” ²⁴ It was written for us as well! It will be calculated to us, too, since we believe in the one who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, ²⁵ who was handed over because of our trespasses and raised because of our justification.

Peace and hope

5 The result is this: since we have been declared “in the right” on the basis of faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus the Messiah. ² Through him we have been allowed to approach, by faith, into this grace in which we stand; and we celebrate the hope of the glory of God.

³ That’s not all. We also celebrate in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces patience, ⁴ patience produces a well-formed character, and a character like that produces hope. ⁵ Hope, in its turn, does not make us ashamed, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the holy spirit who has been given to us.

Jesus’ death reveals God’s love and guarantees final salvation

⁶ This is all based on what the Messiah did: while we were still weak, at that very moment he died on behalf of the ungodly. ⁷ It’s a rare thing to find someone who will die on behalf of an upright person—though I suppose someone might be brave enough to die for a good person. ⁸ But this is how God demonstrates his own love for us: the Messiah died for us while we were still sinners.

⁹ How much more, in that case—since we have been declared to be in the right by his blood—are we going to be saved by him from God’s coming anger! ¹⁰ When we were enemies, you see, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son; if that’s so, how much more, having already been reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. ¹¹ And that’s not all. We even celebrate in God, through our Lord Jesus the Messiah, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.

The big picture in shorthand: Adam and the Messiah

¹² Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one human being, and death through sin, and in that way death spread to all humans, in that all sinned . . . ¹³ Sin was in the world, you see, even in the absence of the law, though sin is not calculated where there is no law. ¹⁴ But death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over the people who did not sin by breaking a command, as Adam had done—Adam, who was the imprint of the one who was to come.

¹⁵ But it isn’t “as the trespass, so also the gift.” For if many died by one person’s trespass, how much more has God’s grace, and the gift in grace through the one person Jesus the Messiah, abounded to the many? ¹⁶ And nor is it “as through the sin of the one, so also the gift.” For the judgment which followed the one trespass resulted in a negative verdict, but the free gift which followed many trespasses resulted in a positive verdict. ¹⁷ For if, by the trespass of the one, death reigned through that one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace, and of the gift of covenant membership, of “being in the right,” reign in life through the one man Jesus the Messiah?

The triumphant reign of grace

¹⁸ So, then, just as, through the trespass of one person, the result was condemnation for all people, even so, through the upright act of one person, the proper verdict is life for all people. ¹⁹ For just as through the disobedience of one person many received the status of “sinner,” so through the obedience of one person many will receive the status of being “in the right.”

²⁰ The law came in alongside, so that the trespass might be filled out to its full extent. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more; ²¹ so that, just as sin reigned in death, even so, through God’s faithful covenant justice, grace might reign to the life of the age to come, through Jesus the Messiah, our Lord.

Leaving the state of sin through baptism

6 What are we to say, then? Shall we continue in the state of sin, so that grace may increase? ² Certainly not! We died to sin; how can we still live in it? ³ Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into the Messiah, Jesus, were baptized into his death? ⁴ That means that we were buried with him, through baptism, into death, so that, just as the Messiah was raised from the dead through the father’s glory, we too might behave with a new quality of life. ⁵ For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection.

Dead to sin, alive to God

⁶ This is what we know: our old humanity was crucified with the Messiah, so that the bodily solidarity of sin might be abolished, and that we should no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷ A person who has died, you see, has been declared free from all charges of sin.

⁸ But if we died with the Messiah, we believe that we shall live with him. ⁹ We know that the Messiah, having been raised from the dead, will never die again. Death no longer has any authority over him. ¹⁰ The death he died, you see, he died to sin, once and only once. But the life he lives, he lives to God. ¹¹ In the same way you, too, must calculate yourselves as being dead to sin, and alive to God in the Messiah, Jesus.

The call to holy living

¹² So don’t allow sin to rule in your mortal body, to make you obey its desires. ¹³ Nor should you present your limbs and organs to sin to be used for its wicked purposes. Rather, present yourselves to God, as people alive from the dead, and your limbs and organs to God, to be used for the righteous purposes of his covenant. ¹⁴ Sin won’t actually rule over you, you see, since you are not under law but under grace.

The two types of slavery

¹⁵ What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! ¹⁶ Don’t you know that if you present yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you really are slaves of the one you obey, whether that happens to be sin, which leads to death, or obedience, which leads to final vindication? ¹⁷ Thank God that, though you once were slaves to sin, you have become obedient from the heart to the pattern of teaching to which you were committed. ¹⁸ You were freed from sin, and now you have been enslaved to God’s covenant justice. ¹⁹ (I’m using a human picture because of your natural human weakness!) For just as you presented your limbs and organs as slaves to uncleanness, and to one degree of lawlessness after another, so now present your limbs and organs as slaves to covenant justice, which leads to holiness.

Where the two roads lead

²⁰ When you were slaves of sin, you see, you were free in respect of covenant justice. ²¹ What fruit did you ever have from the things of which you are now ashamed? Their destination is death. ²² But now that you have been set free from sin and enslaved to God, you have fruit for holiness. Its destination is the life of the age to come. ²³ The wages paid by sin, you see, are death; but God’s free gift is the life of the age to come, in the Messiah, Jesus our Lord.

Dying to the law

7 Surely you know, my dear family—I am, after all, talking to people who know the law!—that the law rules a person as long as that person is alive? ² The law binds a married woman to her husband during his lifetime; but if he dies, she is free from the law as regards her husband. ³ So, then, she will be called an adulteress if she goes with another man while her husband is alive; but if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress if she goes with another man.

⁴ In the same way, my dear family, you too died to the law through the body of the Messiah, so that you could belong to someone else—to the one who was raised from the dead, in fact—so that we could bear fruit for God. ⁵ For when we were living a mortal human life, the passions of sins which were through the law were at work in our limbs and organs, causing us to bear fruit for death. ⁶ But now we have been cut loose from the law; we have died to the thing in which we were held tightly. The aim is that we should now be enslaved in the new life of the spirit, not in the old life of the letter.

When the law arrived: Sinai looks back to the fall

⁷ What then shall we say? That the law is sin? Certainly not! But I would not have known sin except through the law. I would not have known covetousness if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” ⁸ But sin grabbed its opportunity through the commandment, and produced all kinds of covetousness within me.

Apart from the law, sin is dead. ⁹ I was once alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life ¹⁰ and I died. The commandment which pointed to life turned out, in my case, to bring death. ¹¹ For sin grabbed its opportunity through the commandment. It deceived me, and, through it, killed me.

¹² So, then, the law is holy; and the commandment is holy, upright and good.

Looking back on life under the law

¹³ Was it that good thing, then, that brought death to me? Certainly not! On the contrary; it was sin, in order that it might appear as sin, working through the good thing and producing death in me. This was in order that sin might become very sinful indeed, through the commandment.

¹⁴ We know, you see, that the law is spiritual. I, however, am made of flesh, sold as a slave under sin’s authority. ¹⁵ I don’t understand what I do. I don’t do what I want, you see, but I do what I hate. ¹⁶ So if I do what I don’t want to do, I am agreeing that the law is good.

¹⁷ But now it is no longer I that do it; it’s sin, living within me. ¹⁸ I know, you see, that no good thing lives in me, that is, in my human flesh. For I can will the good, but I can’t perform it. ¹⁹ For I don’t do the good thing I want to do, but I end up doing the evil thing I don’t want to do. ²⁰ So if I do what I don’t want to do, it’s no longer “I” doing it; it’s sin, living inside me.

The double “law” and the miserable “I”

²¹ This, then, is what I find about the law: when I want to do what is right, evil lies close at hand! ²² I delight in God’s law, you see, according to my inmost self; ²³ but I see another “law” in my limbs and organs, fighting a battle against the law of my mind, and taking me off into captivity in the law of sin which is in my limbs and organs.

²⁴ What a miserable person I am! Who is going to rescue me from the body of this death? ²⁵ Thank God—through Jesus our Messiah and Lord! So then, left to my own self I am enslaved to God’s law with my mind, but to sin’s law with my human flesh.