Study Desk

But God has a way to make people right with him without the law, and he has now shown us that way which the law and the prophets told us about.

If Abraham was made right by the things he did, he had a reason to brag. But this is not God's view,

When people work, their pay is not given as a gift, but as something earned.

But people cannot do any work that will make them right with God. So they must trust in him, who makes even evil people right in his sight. Then God accepts their faith, and that makes them right with him.

Abraham was circumcised to show that he was right with God through faith before he was circumcised. So Abraham is the father of all those who believe but are not circumcised; he is the father of all believers who are accepted as being right with God.

Abraham and his descendants received the promise that they would get the whole world. He did not receive that promise through the law, but through being right with God by his faith.

because the law can only bring God's anger. But if there is no law, there is nothing to disobey.

So people receive God's promise by having faith. This happens so the promise can be a free gift. Then all of Abraham's children can have that promise. It is not only for those who live under the law of Moses but for anyone who lives with faith like that of Abraham, who is the father of us all.

There was no hope that Abraham would have children. But Abraham believed God and continued hoping, and so he became the father of many nations. As God told him, "Your descendants also will be too many to count."

Abraham was almost a hundred years old, much past the age for having children, and Sarah could not have children. Abraham thought about all this, but his faith in God did not become weak.

but also for us. God will accept us also because we believe in the One who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.

But God shows his great love for us in this way: Christ died for us while we were still sinners.

And not only that, but now we are also very happy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we are now God's friends again.

Sin was in the world before the law of Moses, but sin is not counted against us as breaking a command when there is no law.

But from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, everyone had to die, even those who had not sinned by breaking a command, as Adam had. Adam was like the One who was coming in the future.

But God's free gift is not like Adam's sin. Many people died because of the sin of that one man. But the grace from God was much greater; many people received God's gift of life by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ.

After Adam sinned once, he was judged guilty. But the gift of God is different. God's free gift came after many sins, and it makes people right with God.

One man sinned, and so death ruled all people because of that one man. But now those people who accept God's full grace and the great gift of being made right with him will surely have true life and rule through the one man, Jesus Christ.

The law came to make sin worse. But when sin grew worse, God's grace increased.

Sin once used death to rule us, but God gave people more of his grace so that grace could rule by making people right with him. And this brings life forever through Jesus Christ our Lord.