1Therefore you are without excuse, O man, whoever you are who judge. For in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you who judge practice the same things. 2We know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. 3Do you think this, O man who judges those who practice such things, and do the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? 4Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and patience, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? 5But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the righteous judgment of God, 6who “will pay back to everyone according to their works:” 7to those who by perseverance in well-doing seek for glory, honor, and incorruptibility, eternal life; 8but to those who are self-seeking and don’t obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, will be wrath, indignation, 9oppression, and anguish on every soul of man who does evil, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
10But glory, honor, and peace go to every man who does good, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. 11For there is no partiality with God. 12For as many as have sinned without the law will also perish without the law. As many as have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13For it isn’t the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified 14(for when Gentiles who don’t have the law do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the law, are a law to themselves, 15in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience testifying with them, and their thoughts among themselves accusing or else excusing them) 16in the day when God will judge the secrets of men, according to my Good News, by Jesus Christ.
17Indeed you bear the name of a Jew, rest on the law, glory in God, 18know his will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law, 19and are confident that you yourself are a guide of the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 20a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of babies, having in the law the form of knowledge and of the truth. 21You therefore who teach another, don’t you teach yourself? You who preach that a man shouldn’t steal, do you steal? 22You who say a man shouldn’t commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23You who glory in the law, do you dishonor God by disobeying the law? 24For “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” just as it is written. 25For circumcision indeed profits, if you are a doer of the law, but if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. 26If therefore the uncircumcised keep the ordinances of the law, won’t his uncircumcision be accounted as circumcision? 27Won’t those who are physically uncircumcised, but fulfill the law, judge you, who with the letter and circumcision are a transgressor of the law? 28For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; 29but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men, but from God.
In Romans 1-8 Paul teaches two things. First, no one, whether Gentile (1:18-32) or Jew (2:1-3:8), will be justified—delivered from eternal condemnation in hell—by works of law, i.e., by how well he or she keeps the law commandments of one’s applicable law code. This is because this way of getting to heaven (the law system) requires perfect obedience, which none of us has, since all have sinned. (This is the point of 1:18-3:20.)
Paul’s second and main point is that the only way a sinner can be saved is by the grace system, rather than the law system: “You are not under law but under grace” (6:14). This way of grace is made possible only by the death of Jesus, whereby He turned God’s wrath away from us by taking it upon Himself, a process the Bible calls “ propitiation” (3:21-26). The benefits of His death are applied to any believing sinner by means of sincere belief in its saving power. Thus we are justified by grace through faith apart from how well we respond to the law code that applies to us (3:28), as confirmed by the testimony of both Abraham and David (4:1-25).
The practical result of knowing we are justified through faith in Jesus is assurance of salvation (5:1-11). This assurance is reinforced by knowing that Christ’s cross is much more powerful than even the most universally catastrophic sin (5:12-21). Far from giving us an excuse to keep on sinning, this saving grace of Jesus—especially the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit—empowers us to live a life of sanctified obedience (6:1-8:39), an obedience that springs from faith (1:5). Some instructions on this life of obedience are given in chapters 12-16. To silence any Jews who may object that God’s rejection of them is not fair, Romans 9-11 explains that regarding salvation, God chose the Jews not to guarantee their individual salvation but to serve His purpose of bringing the Savior of all peoples into the world. Jews and Gentiles alike are saved in the same way, i.e., through faith in the one Messiah.