Chapter 3

Romans: -1- -2- -3- -4- -5- -6- -7- -8- -9- -10- -11- -12- -13- -14- -15- -16-

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3:1 What, then, is the advantage of being Judean? Or what is the usefulness of circumcision? 2 Much in every way. First and foremost, they were entrusted with the words God has spoken. 3 So what if some did not believe? Does their unbelief negate the faith of God? 4 It does not happen! • Let God be True and every man a liar and a fake, as it is written, “That You may be justified inside Your words, and will prevail inside Your judgment” (Psalm 51:4).

5 More than that, if our injustice and hurt supports God’s just approval, what will we say? Is God unjust in bringing pain-filled opposition upon? (I speak according to human thinking.) 6 It does not happen! Otherwise how will God judge the world-cosmos? 7 Even more, if the truth of God abounded to His glory inside of my falseness, why am I still judged as a sinner, as one always falling short? 8 (It is not as we are slandered and as some claim that we say, “Let us do evil things so that good things might come.” Their judgment is just.)

9 What then? Are we better? Not at all. For we have already charged both Judeans and Greeks to be all under sin [to be all disconnected from God]. • 10 As it is written, “None is righteous, not even one. 11 There is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. 12 All have fallen away; together they have become useless. There is none who does good; not so much as one. 13 Their throat is a grave pried open; with their tongues they constantly lie and deceive; the poison of vipers is under their lips. 14 Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; 15 their feet are swift to shed blood. 16 Ruin and misery are in their ways; 17 and the path of peace they have not known. 18 There is no fear of God in their sight.” [f]

• 19 We know, moreover, that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are inside the law, that every mouth might be closed, and the entire world-cosmos brought under judgment before God. 20 Therefore, no flesh will be declared justly innocent inside His presence out from works of law, • for through law comes the recognition, the personal acknowledgement of sin, of a broken relationship with God.

21 Now, however, God’s just approval [g] has been made visible completely separate from law, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; • 22 the just approval of God coming through the faith of Jesus Christ into all those who believe. Indeed, there is no separation, no present disconnection from God. • 23 For all have sinned and failed to meet the glory of God— 24 now being declared justly innocent [h], utterly without sin or any falling short of God, by His grace and favor through the redemption, the winning back, that is inside of Christ Jesus, • 25 whom God set forth (i) as propitiation [j] through faith inside of His blood, the demonstration and proof of His just approval through the bearing of all prior sins inside the carrying of God, 26 towards the demonstration and proof of His just approval in the present time, that He might be just in Himself as well as declaring justly innocent the one coming out from the faith of Jesus.

27 Where then is boasting in self-rightness? It has been excluded. Through what law? That of works? NO, but through the law of faith. • 28 For this reason, we reckon, give account, declare it to be so, that a man or a woman is to be declared justly innocent through faith completely separate from works of law. 29 Is God the God of Judeans only, and not also of all the ethnic families? Yes, He is God also of the ethnic peoples. 30 For God is the One who will declare those who are circumcised to be justly innocent out from faith, just as He declares the uncircumcised to be justly innocent through the same faith. 31 Do we nullify the law, then, through our faith? It does not happen! Rather, we establish the purpose of the law.

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Gospel Comments	Notes
• Life: God has a Story that is the outward flow of His Life, and His Story drives everything. It is a Story of contention over Word (see Genesis 3:1), does God speak the Truth – or does He not? We have always accused God of lying by not receiving His Word as already fulfilled. God will prove us wrong. • Ruling Verse 5: Paul continues to take us straight into Romans 3:19, the only Way through which we can know the Salvation of God. We are proven liars; we are proven FAKE. What more is there to say? Shut your mouth about yourself, for you are entirely GUILTY. • Ruling Verse 5: God is not bringing us into death as any “end” of ourselves, for He has already executed us in all our GUILT. Yet we must know that we CANNOT save ourselves so that we might know ourselves ONLY inside of Jesus. • Ruling Verse 5: The first command of the Gospel is that you would shut up about yourself as if you exist separate from Jesus. You are already guilty; God has already executed you. The old is gone; union with Christ Jesus is the only life you are. • Speak Christ: God made us like Himself; we must speak. God must bring us to Another; God must give us a Life, a Story now entwined with ours that we might speak Jesus our Life. • Definition: God did not place the tree of knowing good and evil that we might eat of it. God did not give the law so that we might “try” to keep it. If we “kept” the law better than Saul of Tarsus, we would still be putting Jesus to death. God gave the law to prove to us that we FAIL to connect with God, that we might run, like David, into Jesus, our Savior and only Life. • Ruling Verse 6: It is impossible to share Life with God through Jesus, which is Salvation, except we live in no consciousness of sins, no thought of any disconnect ever. Jesus as our only Way is how we know Jesus as our only Life. • Definition: Just approval is God’s view of our just innocence, which is True ONLY by the express declaration of God. Just innocence means that by all the requirements of divine law, we are without sin, brand new inside of Jesus. • Ruling Verse 6: Propitiation means the continuous resolution of all differences between God and us, that we might walk together as one. The Blood is that propitiation, the great Value of Jesus that we might share Life with God our Father. • Definition: The purpose of the law is to persuade you to shut up about yourself as if you exist separate from union with Christ. Your problem is that you CANNOT shut up, for God made you like Himself, the One who loves Jesus so much that He also cannot stop speaking. • Speak Christ: There is one solution only – that we should speak Christ our life, Jesus sharing all with us, and we just like Him. People call it Narcissism in Paul, when he says, “I live, yet not I, but Christ.” To speak Christ made personal as me, however, is the ONLY Way not to speak the boasting of self. Those who speak against themselves are boasting in self. Those who speak Christ my Life, honor the Father.	f. References for verses 10-18: Psalm 14:1-3; Psalm 53:1-3; Ecclesiastes 7:20; Psalm 5:9; Psalm 140:3; Psalm 10:7; Proverbs 1:16; Isaiah 59:7-8; Psalm 36:1. g. This is the Greek word dikaiosuné, typically translated “righteousness.” But God is Life and Love, He does not live inside of right versus wrong, neither is Paul placing God into such a definition. Rather, the word means God’s just approval of us. h. “Justified” is not a wrong translation of the Greek, but I feel that “declared justly innocent” best conveys God’s complete meaning. i. I have brought the Greek word into English, pro-tithemi, set forth purpose – always coming out from the core being of God j. The Greek hilasmos is found in eight New Testament verses, but in four different forms. We gain its meaning ONLY from the context. It means “resolution,” that Jesus resolves all ongoing differences between us and God and between one another. Yet because His shed blood is the context of that resolution , then “propitiation” is a good choice - If we do not force pagan concepts upon the word.

Gospel Comments

Notes

• Life: God has a Story that is the outward flow of His Life, and His Story drives everything. It is a Story of contention over Word (see Genesis 3:1), does God speak the Truth – or does He not? We have always accused God of lying by not receiving His Word as already fulfilled. God will prove us wrong.

• Ruling Verse 5: Paul continues to take us straight into Romans 3:19, the only Way through which we can know the Salvation of God. We are proven liars; we are proven FAKE. What more is there to say? Shut your mouth about yourself, for you are entirely GUILTY.

• Ruling Verse 5: God is not bringing us into death as any “end” of ourselves, for He has already executed us in all our GUILT. Yet we must know that we CANNOT save ourselves so that we might know ourselves ONLY inside of Jesus.

• Ruling Verse 5: The first command of the Gospel is that you would shut up about yourself as if you exist separate from Jesus. You are already guilty; God has already executed you. The old is gone; union with Christ Jesus is the only life you are.

• Speak Christ: God made us like Himself; we must speak. God must bring us to Another; God must give us a Life, a Story now entwined with ours that we might speak Jesus our Life.

• Definition: God did not place the tree of knowing good and evil that we might eat of it. God did not give the law so that we might “try” to keep it. If we “kept” the law better than Saul of Tarsus, we would still be putting Jesus to death. God gave the law to prove to us that we FAIL to connect with God, that we might run, like David, into Jesus, our Savior and only Life.

• Ruling Verse 6: It is impossible to share Life with God through Jesus, which is Salvation, except we live in no consciousness of sins, no thought of any disconnect ever. Jesus as our only Way is how we know Jesus as our only Life.

• Definition: Just approval is God’s view of our just innocence, which is True ONLY by the express declaration of God. Just innocence means that by all the requirements of divine law, we are without sin, brand new inside of Jesus.

• Ruling Verse 6: Propitiation means the continuous resolution of all differences between God and us, that we might walk together as one. The Blood is that propitiation, the great Value of Jesus that we might share Life with God our Father.

• Definition: The purpose of the law is to persuade you to shut up about yourself as if you exist separate from union with Christ. Your problem is that you CANNOT shut up, for God made you like Himself, the One who loves Jesus so much that He also cannot stop speaking.

• Speak Christ: There is one solution only – that we should speak Christ our life, Jesus sharing all with us, and we just like Him. People call it Narcissism in Paul, when he says, “I live, yet not I, but Christ.” To speak Christ made personal as me, however, is the ONLY Way not to speak the boasting of self. Those who speak against themselves are boasting in self. Those who speak Christ my Life, honor the Father.

f. References for verses 10-18: Psalm 14:1-3; Psalm 53:1-3; Ecclesiastes 7:20; Psalm 5:9; Psalm 140:3; Psalm 10:7; Proverbs 1:16; Isaiah 59:7-8; Psalm 36:1.

g. This is the Greek word dikaiosuné, typically translated “righteousness.” But God is Life and Love, He does not live inside of right versus wrong, neither is Paul placing God into such a definition. Rather, the word means God’s just approval of us.

h. “Justified” is not a wrong translation of the Greek, but I feel that “declared justly innocent” best conveys God’s complete meaning.

i. I have brought the Greek word into English, pro-tithemi, set forth purpose – always coming out from the core being of God

j. The Greek hilasmos is found in eight New Testament verses, but in four different forms. We gain its meaning ONLY from the context. It means “resolution,” that Jesus resolves all ongoing differences between us and God and between one another. Yet because His shed blood is the context of that resolution , then “propitiation” is a good choice - If we do not force pagan concepts upon the word.