For whatever is to be known of God is plain to them; God himself has made it plain ??20 for ever since the world was created, his invisible nature, his everlasting power and divine being, have been quite perceptible in what he has made. So they have no excuse.

That is why God has given them up to vile passions; their women have exchanged the natural function of sex for what is unnatural,

Yes, as they disdained to acknowledge God any longer, God has given them up to a reprobate instinct, for the perpetration of what is improper,

For he will render to everyone according to what he has done,

understanding his will, and with a sense of what is vital in religion; if you are instructed by the Law

Then what is the Jew's superiority? What is the good of circumcision?

But if our iniquity thus serves to bring out the justice of God, what are we to infer? That it is unfair of God to inflict his anger on us? (I speak in a merely human way.)

for no person will be acquitted in his sight on the score of obedience to law. What the Law imparts is the consciousness of sin.

Then what becomes of our boasting? It is ruled out absolutely. On what principle? On the principle of doing deeds? No, on the principle of faith.

But if so, what can we say about Abraham, our forefather by natural descent?

This, that if 'Abraham was justified on the score of what he did,' he has something to be proud of. But not to be proud of before God.

For what does scripture say? Abraham believed God and this was counted to him as righteousness.

Just as David himself describes the bliss of the man who has righteousness counted to him by God apart from what he does ??7 Blessed are they whose breaches of the Law are forgiven, whose sins are covered!

In what way? When he was a circumcised man or an uncircumcised man? Not when he was circumcised, but when he was uncircumcised.

(What the Law produces is the Wrath, not the promise of God; where there is no law, there is no transgression either.)

(as it is written, I have made you a father of many nations). Such a faith implies the presence of the God in whom he believed, a God who makes the dead live and calls into being what does not exist.

and felt convinced that He was able to do what He had promised.

Now what are we to infer from this? That we are to 'remain on in sin, so that there may be all the more grace'?

What follows, then? Are we 'to sin, because we live under grace, not under law'? Never!

Thank God, though you did serve sin, you have rendered whole-hearted obedience to what you were taught under the rule of faith;

Well, what did you gain then by it all? Nothing but what you are now ashamed of! The end of all that is death;

Surely you know, my brothers ??for I am speaking to men who know what law means ??that the law has hold over a person only during his lifetime!

but now we are done with the Law, we have died to what once held us, so that we can serve in a new way, not under the written code as of old but in the Spirit.

What follows, then? That 'the Law is equivalent to sin'? Never! Why, had it not been for the Law, I would never have known what sin meant! Thus I would never have known what it is to covet, unless the Law had said, You must not covet.

Then did what was meant for my good prove fatal to me? Never! It was sin; sin resulted in death for me by making use of this good thing. This was how sin was to be revealed in its true nature; it was to use the command to become sinful in the extreme.

I cannot understand my own actions; I do not act as I want to act; on the contrary, I do what I detest.

For in me (that is, in my flesh) no good dwells, I know; the wish is there, but not the power of doing what is right.

So this is my experience of the Law: I want to do what is right, but wrong is all I can manage;

For God has done what the Law, weakened here by the flesh, could not do; by sending his own Son in the guise of sinful flesh, to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

We were saved with this hope in view. Now when an object of hope is seen, there is no further need to hope. Who ever hopes for what he sees already?

and He who searches the human heart knows what is in the mind of the Spirit, since the Spirit pleads before God for the saints.

Now what follows from all this? If God is for us, who can be against us?

What can ever part us from Christ's love? Can anguish or calamity or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or the sword?

What! has the potter no right over the clay? Has he no right to make out of the same lump one vessel for a noble purpose and another for a menial?

What if God, though desirous to display his anger and show his might, has tolerated most patiently the objects of his anger, ripe and ready to be destroyed?

What if he means to show the wealth that lies in his glory for the objects of his mercy, whom he has made ready beforehand to receive glory ??24 that is, for us whom he has called from among the Gentiles as well as the Jews?

What are we to conclude, then? That Gentiles who never aimed at righteousness have attained righteousness, that is, righteousness by faith;

And why? Simply because Israel has relied not on faith but on what they could do. They have stumbled over the stone that makes men stumble ??33 as it is written, Here I lay a stone in Sion that will make men stumble, even a rock to trip them up; but he who believes in Him will never be disappointed.

But here is what faith-righteousness says: ??Say not in your heart, 'Who will go up to heaven?' (that is, to bring Christ down).

No, what it does say is this: ??The word is close to you, in your very mouth and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach).

But they have not all given in to the gospel of glad news? No, Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed what they heard from us?

(You see, faith must come from what is heard, and what is heard comes from word of Christ.)

God has not repudiated his People, his predestined People! Surely you know what scripture says in the passage called 'Elijah'? You know how he pleads with God against Israel:

Yet what is the divine answer? I have left myself seven thousand men who have not knelt to Baal.

Now what are we to infer from this? That Israel has failed to secure the object of its quest; the elect have secured it, and the rest have been rendered insensible to it ??8 as it is written, God has given them a spirit of torpor, eyes that see not, ears that hear not ??down to this very day.

Well, if their lapse has enriched the world, if their defection is the gain of the Gentiles, what will it mean when they all come in?

For if their exclusion means that the world is reconciled to God, what will their admission mean? Why, it will be life from the dead!

What a fathomless wealth lies in the wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable his judgments! How mysterious his methods!

Instead of being moulded to this world, have your mind renewed, and so be transformed in nature, able to make out what the will of God is, namely, what is good and acceptable to him and perfect.

Let your love be a real thing, with a loathing for evil and a bent for what is good.

And then you know what this Crisis means, you know it is high time to waken up; for Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.

Peace, then, and the building up of each other, these are what we must aim at.

You must not break down God's work for the mere sake of food! Everything may be clean, but it is wrong for a man to prove a stumbling-block by what he eats;

Certainly keep your own conviction on the matter, as between yourself and God; he is a fortunate man who has no misgivings about what he allows himself to eat.

I will not make free to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished by me in the way of securing the obedience of the Gentiles, by my words and by my deeds,