Roma 2:1

The Condemnation of the Moralist

2:1 ¹ Therefore ²  you are without excuse, ³  whoever you are, ⁴  when you judge someone else. ⁵  For on whatever grounds ⁶  you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things.

Roma 3:19

3:19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under ⁷  the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

Roma 8:9

8:9 You, however, are not in ⁸  the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, this person does not belong to him.

Roma 11:11

11:11 I ask then, they did not stumble into an irrevocable fall, ⁹  did they? Absolutely not! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make Israel ¹⁰  jealous.

Roma 12:1

Consecration of the Believer’s Life

12:1 Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, ¹¹  by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice – alive, holy, and pleasing to God ¹²  – which is your reasonable service.

Roma 15:24

15:24 when I go to Spain. For I hope to visit you when I pass through and that you will help me ¹³  on my journey there, after I have enjoyed your company for a while.

[2:1]  ¹ sn Rom 2:1-29 presents unusual difficulties for the interpreter. There have been several major approaches to the chapter and the group(s) it refers to: (1) Rom 2:14 refers to Gentile Christians, not Gentiles who obey the Jewish law. (2) Paul in Rom 2 is presenting a hypothetical viewpoint: If anyone could obey the law, that person would be justified, but no one can. (3) The reference to “the ones who do the law” in 2:13 are those who “do” the law in the right way, on the basis of faith, not according to Jewish legalism. (4) Rom 2:13 only speaks about Christians being judged in the future, along with such texts as Rom 14:10 and 2 Cor 5:10. (5) Paul’s material in Rom 2 is drawn heavily from Diaspora Judaism, so that the treatment of the law presented here cannot be harmonized with other things Paul says about the law elsewhere (E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, 123); another who sees Rom 2 as an example of Paul’s inconsistency in his treatment of the law is H. Räisänen, Paul and the Law [WUNT], 101-9. (6) The list of blessings and curses in Deut 27–30 provide the background for Rom 2; the Gentiles of 2:14 are Gentile Christians, but the condemnation of Jews in 2:17-24 addresses the failure of Jews as a nation to keep the law as a whole (A. Ito, “Romans 2: A Deuteronomistic Reading,” JSNT 59 [1995]: 21-37).

[2:1]  ² tn Some interpreters (e.g., C. K. Barrett, Romans [HNTC], 43) connect the inferential Διό (dio, “therefore”) with 1:32a, treating 1:32b as a parenthetical comment by Paul.

[2:1]  ³ tn That is, “you have nothing to say in your own defense” (so translated by TCNT).

[2:1]  ⁴ tn Grk “O man.”

[2:1]  ⁵ tn Grk “Therefore, you are without excuse, O man, everyone [of you] who judges.”

[2:1]  ⁶ tn Grk “in/by (that) which.”

[3:19]  ⁷ tn Grk “in,” “in connection with.”

[8:9]  ⁸ tn Or “are not controlled by the flesh but by the Spirit.”

[11:11]  ⁹ tn Grk “that they might fall.”

[11:11]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “them”; the referent (Israel, cf. 11:7) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[12:1]  ¹¹ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.

[12:1]  ¹² tn The participle and two adjectives “alive, holy, and pleasing to God” are taken as predicates in relation to “sacrifice,” making the exhortation more emphatic. See ExSyn 618-19.

[12:1]  sn Taken as predicate adjectives, the terms alive, holy, and pleasing are showing how unusual is the sacrifice that believers can now offer, for OT sacrifices were dead. As has often been quipped about this text, “The problem with living sacrifices is that they keep crawling off the altar.”

[15:24]  ¹³ tn Grk “and to be helped by you.” The passive construction was changed to an active one in the translation.