What thing more then does the Iudaean have than anyone else, or what help is circumcision? A lot down the line with every turn. First in fact because the oracles of the God were trusted. Because what if some didn’t trust them? Their distrust doesn’t render the trust of the God useless, does it? Absolutely not. And let the God become true, and every human being a liar, just like it had been written, “So that You would be declared right with the things You said, and You would conquer with Your being brought to trial.” But if our wrongdoing combines with a divine state of right being, what are we saying? The God who brings passionate anger upon us is not wrong, is He? (I’m talking in line with a human being.) Absolutely not. Since how would the God decide the universe? Yet if the God’s truth overflows with this lie of mine into His reputation, what am I also still being judged like a malfunctioning person for? And not just like we are blasphemed and just like some people talk for us to say, ‘We should do the harmful things, so that the good things would come’? For which people there exists the legitimate verdict.
What then? Are we Iudaeans shielded? Not entirely, because we previously accused both Iudaeans and Greeks all to be subject to this malfunction, just like it had been written that,
“There isn’t a person who is right, not even one, there isn’t a person who gets it, there isn’t a person who searches out the God. Everyone turned away at the same time they were made useless. The person doing kindness doesn’t exist, there isn’t even one. Their voice box is a tomb having been opened, they deceived with their tongues, cobra venom is under their lips; of whom the mouth is fully loaded with curses and bitterness, their feet are keen to spill blood, fracture and grinding work are with their paths, and they haven’t experienced the path of peace. The divine fear doesn’t exist in front of their eyes.”1
Yet we instinctively know that as much as the Torah says it’s talking to those in the Torah, so that every mouth would be hedged in, and the entire universe would be brought to the God for trial since the labors of the Torah will not set right the flesh of anyone facing Him, because the knowledge of the malfunction gleaned by observation comes through the Torah.
Yet now, separate from the Torah, a divine state of right being had been made visible being testified to by the Torah and the prophets; and a divine state of right being, not through the Torah, but through the guarantee of Yeshua the Anointed as far as all those trusting. Because there isn’t a difference between Iudaean and Greek: because everyone malfunctioned and doesn’t measure up to the reputation of the God, everyone is being set right for free by His charity through being recovered by means of the Anointed, Yeshua; whom the God displayed a mercy-seat [like on the Ark of the Covenant]2 publicly, through the guarantee of Yeshua, with Yeshua’s blood for the proof of His state of right being because of the God’s dismissal of the mistakes which had happened prior to this within the God’s truce, for the evidence of His state of right being during the current period of time, as far as Him being right and setting right the person who is of the trust of Yeshua.
Where then are the bragging rights? They were shut out. Through what kind of law? Of things you have to labor for? No, but through a law of trust. Because we count a human being to be set right by trust without the labors of the Torah. Or is He just the God of the Iudaeans? Isn’t He also the God of the people groups too? Yes, He’s the God of the people groups too, since there is a single God who sets a circumcision right from trust and a foreskin through trust. Are we then making the Torah useless through this trust? Absolutely not, instead we are making it stand.3
1This citation by St. Paul is actually an amalgam or paraphrase of several passages, in particular Psalm 14:1-3, Psalm 53:2-4, Psalm 5:10, Psalm 10:7, Isaiah 59:7-8, and Psalm 36:2. It also echoes, like Romans 1, several passages from the Wisdom of Solomon, namely chapters 2, 13, and 14.
2Not in the Greek text, but added to clarify “mercy-seat” (Greek “ιλαστηριον”) which was the solid gold lid of the Ark of the Covenant which held statues of Cherubim and was sprinkled with blood once a year on the Day of Atonement.
3Like with the omission of the crucifixion and resurrection account, I have omitted the text of Romans 4 entirely. This chapter is frequently misunderstood where Protestant Christianity is concerned, and is really just St. Paul’s Biblical exposition of being made right by trusting God as opposed to one’s own achievements which he also expounds on in his letter to the Galatians. It was felt that this chapter would prove a distraction from the overall intent, and thus was omitted from this work.
No comments:
Post a Comment