1Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; 2through whom we also have our access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3Not only this, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance; 4and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; 5and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
6For while we were yet weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7For one will hardly die for a righteous man. Yet perhaps for a good person someone would even dare to die. 8But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
9Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we will be saved from God’s wrath through him. 10For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we will be saved by his life.
11Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. 12Therefore, as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin, so death passed to all men because all sinned. 13For until the law, sin was in the world; but sin is not charged when there is no law. 14Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those whose sins weren’t like Adam’s disobedience, who is a foreshadowing of him who was to come.
15But the free gift isn’t like the trespass. For if by the trespass of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. 16The gift is not as through one who sinned; for the judgment came by one to condemnation, but the free gift followed many trespasses to justification. 17For if by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one; so much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ.
18So then as through one trespass, all men were condemned; even so through one act of righteousness, all men were justified to life. 19For as through the one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, many will be made righteous. 20The law came in that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace abounded more exceedingly, 21that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
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.