3:27 Where, then, is boasting? 5 It is excluded! By what principle? 6 Of works? No, but by the principle of faith!
1 sn Gentile is a NT term for a non-Jew.
2 tn Some (e.g. C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans [ICC], 1:135-37) take the phrase φύσει (fusei, “by nature”) to go with the preceding “do not have the law,” thus: “the Gentiles who do not have the law by nature,” that is, by virtue of not being born Jewish.
3 tn Grk “do by nature the things of the law.”
4 tn The structure of vv. 21-24 is difficult. Some take these verses as the apodosis of the conditional clauses (protases) in vv. 17-20; others see vv. 17-20 as an instance of anacoluthon (a broken off or incomplete construction).
5 tn Although a number of interpreters understand the “boasting” here to refer to Jewish boasting, others (e.g. C. E. B. Cranfield, “‘The Works of the Law’ in the Epistle to the Romans,” JSNT 43 [1991]: 96) take the phrase to refer to all human boasting before God.
6 tn Grk “By what sort of law?”
7 tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
8 tn This word comes from the same root as “grace” in the following clause; it means “things graciously given,” “grace-gifts.”
9 tc Some