Study Desk

and know his will and give your approval to what is right, because you have been instructed from the Torah;

Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the Torah, won't his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision?

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.

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.)

For in his sight no one alive will be considered righteous on the ground of legalistic observance of Torah commands, because what Torah really does is show people how sinful they are.

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 —

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;

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.

Then what should we say Avraham, our forefather, obtained by his own efforts?

For what does the Tanakh say? "Avraham put his trust in God, and it was credited to his account as righteousness."

However, in the case of one who is not working but rather is trusting in him who makes ungodly people righteous, his trust is credited to him as righteousness.

Blessed is the man whose sin Adonai will not reckon against his account."

Now is this blessing for the circumcised only? Or is it also for the uncircumcised? For we say that Avraham's trust was credited to his account as righteousness ;

For the promise to Avraham and his seed that he would inherit the world did not come through legalism but through the righteousness that trust produces.

His trust did not waver when he considered his own body — which was as good as dead, since he was about a hundred years old — or when he considered that Sarah's womb was dead too.

This is why it was credited to his account as righteousness.

But the words, "it was credited to his account . . . ," were not written for him only.

Now it is a rare event when someone gives up his life even for the sake of somebody righteous, although possibly for a truly good person one might have the courage to die.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in that the Messiah died on our behalf while we were still sinners.

Therefore, since we have now come to be considered righteous by means of his bloody sacrificial death, how much more will we be delivered through him from the anger of God's judgment!