Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks
2 Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, passing judgment; for when you judge someone else, you are passing judgment against yourself; since you who are judging do the same things he does. 2 We know that God’s judgment lands impartially on those who do such things; 3 do you think that you, a mere man passing judgment on others who do such things, yet doing them yourself, will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or perhaps you despise the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience; because you don’t realize that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to turn from your sins. 5 But by your stubbornness, by your unrepentant heart, you are storing up anger for yourself on the Day of Anger, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed; 6 for he will pay back each one according to his deeds.[a] 7 To those who seek glory, honor and immortality by perseverance in doing good, he will pay back eternal life. 8 But to those who are self-seeking, who disobey the truth and obey evil, he will pay back wrath and anger.
9 Yes, he will pay back misery and anguish to every human being who does evil, to the Jew first, then to the Gentile; 10 but glory and honor and shalom to everyone who keeps doing what is good, to the Jew first, then to the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favoritism. 12 All who have sinned outside the framework of Torah will die outside the framework of Torah; and all who have sinned within the framework of Torah will be judged by Torah. 13 For it is not merely the hearers of Torah whom God considers righteous; rather, it is the doers of what Torah says who will be made righteous in God’s sight. 14 For whenever Gentiles, who have no Torah, do naturally what the Torah requires, then these, even though they don’t have Torah, for themselves are Torah! 15 For their lives show that the conduct the Torah dictates is written in their hearts.[b] Their consciences also bear witness to this, for their conflicting thoughts sometimes accuse them and sometimes defend them 16 on a day when God passes judgment on people’s inmost secrets. (According to the Good News as I proclaim it, he does this through the Messiah Yeshua.)
17 But if you call yourself a Jew and rest on Torah and boast about God 18 and know his will and give your approval to what is right, because you have been instructed from the Torah; 19 and if you have persuaded yourself that you are a guide to the blind, a light in the darkness, 20 an instructor for the spiritually unaware and a teacher of children, since in the Torah you have the embodiment of knowledge and truth; 21 then, you who teach others, don’t you teach yourself? Preaching, “Thou shalt not steal,”[c] do you steal? 22 Saying, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,”[d] do you commit adultery? Detesting idols, do you commit idolatrous acts? 23 You who take such pride in Torah, do you, by disobeying the Torah, dishonor God? — 24 as it says in the Tanakh, “For it is because of you that God’s name is blasphemed by the Goyim.”[e] 25 For circumcision is indeed of value if you do what Torah says. But if you are a transgressor of Torah, your circumcision has become uncircumcision! 26 Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the Torah, won’t his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? 27 Indeed, the man who is physically uncircumcised but obeys the Torah will stand as a judgment on you who have had a b’rit-milah and have Torah written out but violate it! 28 For the real Jew is not merely Jewish outwardly: true circumcision is not only external and physical. 29 On the contrary, the real Jew is one inwardly; and true circumcision is of the heart, spiritual not literal; so that his praise comes not from other people but from God.
3 Then what advantage has the Jew? What is the value of being circumcised? 2 Much in every way! In the first place, the Jews were entrusted with the very words of God. 3 If some of them were unfaithful, so what? Does their faithlessness cancel God’s faithfulness? 4 Heaven forbid! God would be true even if everyone were a liar! — as the Tanakh says,
“so that you, God, may be proved right in your words
and win the verdict when you are put on trial.”[f]
5 Now if our unrighteousness highlights God’s righteousness, what should we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict his anger on us? (I am speaking here the way people commonly do.) 6 Heaven forbid! Else, how could God judge the world? 7 “But,” you say, “if, through my lie, God’s truth is enhanced and brings him greater glory, why am I still judged merely for being a sinner?” 8 Indeed! Why not say (as some people slander us by claiming we do say), “Let us do evil, so that good may come of it”? Against them the judgment is a just one!
9 So are we Jews better off? Not entirely; for I have already made the charge that all people, Jews and Gentiles alike, are controlled by sin. 10 As the Tanakh puts it,
“There is no one righteous, not even one!
No one understands,
11 no one seeks God,
12 all have turned away
and at the same time become useless;
there is no one who shows kindness, not a single one![g]
13 “Their throats are open graves,
they use their tongues to deceive.[h]
Vipers’ venom is under their lips.[i]
14 Their mouths are full of curses and bitterness.[j]
15 “Their feet rush to shed blood,
16 in their ways are ruin and misery,
17 and the way of shalom they do not know.[k]
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”[l]
19 Moreover, we know that whatever the Torah says, it says to those living within the framework of the Torah, in order that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world be shown to deserve God’s adverse judgment. 20 For in his sight no one alive will be considered righteous[m] on the ground of legalistic observance of Torah commands, because what Torah really does is show people how sinful they are.
21 But now, quite apart from Torah, God’s way of making people righteous in his sight has been made clear — although the Torah and the Prophets give their witness to it as well — 22 and it is a righteousness that comes from God, through the faithfulness of Yeshua the Messiah, to all who continue trusting. For it makes no difference whether one is a Jew or a Gentile, 23 since all have sinned and come short of earning God’s praise. 24 By God’s grace, without earning it, all are granted the status of being considered righteous before him, through the act redeeming us from our enslavement to sin that was accomplished by the Messiah Yeshua. 25 God put Yeshua forward as the kapparah for sin through his faithfulness in respect to his bloody sacrificial death. This vindicated God’s righteousness; because, in his forbearance, he had passed over [with neither punishment nor remission] the sins people had committed in the past; 26 and it vindicates his righteousness in the present age by showing that he is righteous himself and is also the one who makes people righteous on the ground of Yeshua’s faithfulness.
27 So what room is left for boasting? None at all! What kind of Torah excludes it? One that has to do with legalistic observance of rules? No, rather, a Torah that has to do with trusting. 28 Therefore, we hold the view that a person comes to be considered righteous by God on the ground of trusting, which has nothing to do with legalistic observance of Torah commands.
29 Or is God the God of the Jews only? Isn’t he also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, he is indeed the God of the Gentiles; 30 because, as you will admit, God is one.[n] Therefore, he will consider righteous the circumcised on the ground of trusting and the uncircumcised through that same trusting. 31 Does it follow that we abolish Torah by this trusting? Heaven forbid! On the contrary, we confirm Torah.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.