Month: January 2026

Throughout this Romans series, we’ve watched Paul patiently dismantle every reason the Roman church might use to divide itself. From the opening greeting to the sweeping argument of justification by faith, Paul has made one thing unmistakably clear: no group stands higher than another at the foot of the cross.

In the previous posts, we saw how Paul exposed humanity’s shared problem—sin—and God’s shared solution—faith in Jesus Christ. Jew and Gentile alike are guilty. Jew and Gentile alike are rescued by grace through faith in Jesus. And yet, division persisted in Rome.

So Paul presses deeper.

When Heritage Becomes a Claim to Superiority

At this point in the letter, Paul anticipates the resistance of Jewish Christians who might say, “Surely we have an advantage. Look at what God has done through Abraham’s family. We were given the law. We received circumcision.”

Paul’s response is honest and humbling.

Yes—Israel gave the world the Messiah.
Yes—the Scriptures came through Abraham’s descendants.

But privilege does not cancel sin.

“What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin.” (Rom 3:9)

This echoes what we established earlier in the series: righteousness is not inherited, achieved, or protected by tradition. Sin does not respect lineage. And salvation is not triggered by religious markers.

Paul dismantles the idea that possessing or following the law makes anyone righteous. In fact, the law does the opposite—it exposes guilt. Break it once, and you stand guilty of all of it.

And this leads Paul to his most important declaration so far.

Righteousness Revealed Apart from the Law

“But now…”

These two words signal a turning point not just in Romans, but in the entire story of Scripture.

Apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed. It is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference. All have sinned. All are justified freely by grace (Romans 3:21–24).

This is the leveling of the playing field we’ve been tracking since the beginning of the series. No advantage. No boasting. No leverage.

And Paul goes even further.

Abraham Proves the Point

If circumcision truly justified someone, Abraham would have been declared righteous after circumcision.

But Scripture says otherwise.

“Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:3).

Paul emphasizes the timing. Abraham was justified before circumcision. Faith—not the sign—was decisive.

Once again, Paul eliminates every attempt to rank believers. Circumcision was a sign of covenant loyalty, not the means of salvation. Faith—pistis—was always the foundation.

And Paul hammers this relentlessly. From Romans 3:22 to 5:2, Paul references faith or belief 26 times. This is not accidental. He wants the church to feel the weight of it.

Faith as Allegiance, Not Abstraction

As we discussed earlier in this series, faith is not mere mental agreement. The Greek word pistis is better understood as allegiance—a lived loyalty that reshapes one’s life.

I highly recommend reading Gospel Allegiance by Matthew Bates on this subject.

We can “believe” many things without changing anything about how we live. But allegiance always produces action.

Faith has verbs.

This is why Paul insists that justification by faith does not lead to moral laziness. It leads to transformed loyalty. A church that truly pledges allegiance to Jesus must act like it belongs to Him.

And that action is most clearly seen in how believers treat one another.

A divided church cannot effectively proclaim a reconciling gospel.

Peace with God—and With Each Other

Romans 5 opens with the fruit of allegiance-faith: peace.

“Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).

But this peace does not stop with God. It must overflow into the community of believers. Paul acknowledges the church’s suffering—not primarily from outside persecution, but from internal strife.

And yet, Paul insists this suffering is not wasted. God uses it to form perseverance, character, and hope—not hope that one group wins, but hope that God will be faithful to unify His people.

God proves His love not by choosing sides, but by pouring out His Spirit on both Jew and Gentile.

Christ died for the ungodly—all of us.

And if we were enemies of God who are now reconciled through Christ, how can we justify remaining enemies of one another?

That question carries us into Paul’s next movement: dying to sin and living a new life together.

This blog post is part of a series of posts on Paul’s letter to the Roman Church. You can see the rest of the posts here.

1. When the Gospel Replaces Power with Peace
2. Strong, Weak, and the Call to Build One Another Up
3. Shared Story, Shared Family—Romans 9 and the People of God
4. Grafted Together — Romans 10-11 and the Gospel of Unity
5. One Gospel, Common Ground — Unity from the Very Beginning of Romans
6. Same Problem, Same Grace — How Faith Makes Us One
7. No Advantage, No Boasting — Faith That Levels the Church
8. Dead Together, Alive Together — Life in the Spirit and the “We” of Romans 8

As we established earlier in this series, Paul’s goal in Romans is not to win an argument—it is to heal a church. That healing requires radical honesty. And Romans 2 begins with exactly that.

“You have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else.”

Paul dismantles moral superiority by reminding the church that judging others while also being guilty of sin is nothing less than self-condemnation. Both Jewish and Gentile believers are guilty.

“There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” (Rom 3:22-23)

As we’ve already seen, the gospel places everyone under the same authority: God’s judgment is real, impartial, and unavoidable. No ethnic group receives special treatment. No religious heritage grants immunity.

Unity begins with shared accountability.

When Religion Becomes a Stumbling Block

Paul then turns specifically to the Jewish believers, not to shame them, but to expose how privilege can distort faith.

They claim to guide others but fail to guide themselves. They condemn others while committing the same sins. And Paul quotes Isaiah to drive the point home:

“God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” (Rom 2:24; Isa 52:5)

In other words, disunity does not remain internal. It distorts the witness of Jesus.

Circumcision, Paul explains, has value only if the law is kept perfectly. Break the law, and circumcision becomes meaningless. Meanwhile, Gentiles who obey God without the law stand as a rebuke to those who boast in it.

True covenant identity, Paul insists, is not external. It is a matter of the heart—transformed by the Spirit of the Living God.

And as we’ve already noted in previous posts, the Spirit does not discriminate. He falls on Jews (Acts 2) and Gentiles (Acts 10) alike.

Same Spirit.
Same standing.
Same grace.

All Under Sin are Offered Rescue

Romans 3 brings Paul’s argument to a crescendo. Quoting Israel’s own worship songs—the Psalms—Paul reminds the church of what they already confess weekly: no one is righteous.

Without Christ, sin reigns.

The law reveals sin, but it cannot rescue from it. And then Paul delivers the turning point that reshapes everything:

“But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Rom 3:21-24)

God’s righteousness has been revealed apart from the law. It is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

As we’ve emphasized throughout this series, justification is like aligning margins. God does not erase differences of culture or conscience—but He equalizes standing before Him.

All have sinned.
All are justified freely.
All stand by grace.

Abraham and the End of Boasting

Paul seals his argument by returning to Abraham—the shared patriarch of Jews and Gentiles alike.

Abraham was justified by faith before circumcision. Before the law. Before ethnic boundary markers.

Circumcision was a sign of commitment, not the source of righteousness.

If Abraham was made right by faith alone, then imposing law observance as a requirement for righteousness undermines the very story Israel treasures.

Abraham is the father of many nations. And those who share his faith share his promise.

Peace, Hope, and the Spirit We Share

Paul closes this section by returning to what justification produces: peace with God, access to grace, and hope that does not disappoint.

Why does hope endure?

Because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit—the same Spirit given to all who believe.

Same problem.
Same solution.
Same Spirit.

And therefore, one people—called not to erase differences, but to live in unity shaped by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Paul’s words to the Galatian believers summarizes this point well.

^“May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation. Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule—to the Israel of God.” (Gal 6:14-16) 

This blog post is part of a series of posts on Paul’s letter to the Roman Church. You can see the rest of the posts here.

1. When the Gospel Replaces Power with Peace
2. Strong, Weak, and the Call to Build One Another Up
3. Shared Story, Shared Family—Romans 9 and the People of God
4. Grafted Together — Romans 10-11 and the Gospel of Unity
5. One Gospel, Common Ground — Unity from the Very Beginning of Romans
6. Same Problem, Same Grace — How Faith Makes Us One
7. No Advantage, No Boasting — Faith That Levels the Church
8. Dead Together, Alive Together — Life in the Spirit and the “We” of Romans 8

In the previous posts in this series, we’ve worked carefully through Paul’s argument that the Roman church shares one story and belongs to one family. Jew and Gentile alike have been grafted into God’s covenant faithfulness through Jesus Christ. There is no “better group,” no privileged side of the aisle—only mercy received and grace extended.

That foundational truth leads us to a necessary conclusion:

Our shared story and our shared righteousness in Christ give us no right to divide from other brothers and sisters in Christ.

We are all made righteous by Christ.
We are all sinners and broken.
And none of us get to impose our will on others.

Paul is not promoting uniformity. He is promoting unity.

What’s remarkable is that Paul does not wait until the middle of Romans to make this case. He embeds it directly into the opening of the letter. Long before he addresses food laws, holy days, or the “weak and strong,” Paul establishes an understanding that makes division seem ridiculous from the very beginning.

The Gospel That Levels the Playing Field

As we saw in earlier posts, Romans is not a generic theological treatise. It is a pastoral letter written to a divided church. That context matters as we read Paul’s opening words.

Paul introduces himself as a servant of Christ Jesus, set apart for the gospel of God—a gospel promised beforehand through Israel’s Scriptures and fulfilled in Jesus (Romans 1:1–3). From the outset, Paul connects Jewish hope and Gentile inclusion into a single story.

Jesus is described as a descendant of David and, through the Spirit of Holiness, appointed Son of God in power by the resurrection. That phrase—Spirit of Holiness—would have resonated deeply with Jewish hearers. But “Son of God” would have rung loudly in Roman ears as well.

Caesar claimed that title.

Paul is quietly but unmistakably declaring that Jesus—not the emperor, not ethnic identity, not cultural authority—has been enthroned as Lord. And He was crowned not by military conquest, but by resurrection.

No emperor has risen from the dead.

That matters because once Jesus is confessed as Lord, no subgroup within the church gets to claim dominance. We all have a future resurrection awaiting us, thus we stand together under Christ’s Lordship.

Allegiance to Christ removes every other claim to authority.

Obedience That Comes from Faith

Paul explains that his apostleship exists to call all nations—Gentiles included—to “the obedience that comes from faith” (Romans 1:5). As we’ve seen repeatedly throughout this series, this phrase is central to Paul’s vision.

Obedience does not produce righteousness.
Faith produces obedience.

This places every believer on equal footing. Jew and Gentile. Slave and free. Torah-observant and non-observant. No one earns justification. Everyone receives it by faith.

Even Paul’s greeting reflects this unity. He blends charis (grace), a common Greek greeting, with shalom (peace), the traditional Jewish greeting. Grace and peace are not competing values—they belong together. The same is true of those who use those greetings in the church.

Before Paul corrects the church, he greets them as one people.

Mutual Encouragement, Not Spiritual Hierarchy

Paul’s desire to visit Rome is not about asserting authority. He wants to visit for the sake of mutual encouragement—shared faith strengthening one another (Romans 1:11–12).

This reinforces what we’ve already seen in earlier posts: spiritual gifts exist for mutual edification, not leverage (see Paul’s comments on 1 Corinthians 12-14 for more on this). The gospel dismantles hierarchy inside the church.

Paul even binds himself to both sides of the Roman divide, describing his obligation to Greeks and non-Greeks, the wise and the foolish (Romans 1:14). He refuses to sort the church into spiritual classes of winners and losers—right verses wrong.

That’s why Paul insists on preaching the gospel to people who already believe. Because the gospel does not merely save—it reshapes communities into the likeness of Christ.

Righteousness Revealed, Boasting Removed

Romans 1:16–17 introduces the thesis of the entire letter: the gospel reveals God’s righteousness, a righteousness received by faith from beginning to end.

As we’ve already explored in previous posts, this righteousness is not something we achieve—it is something God gives. And once righteousness is received rather than earned, boasting has nowhere to stand.

Which brings us to humanity’s shared problem.

Paul’s discussion of sin in Romans 1 is not aimed at outsiders alone. The list of sins—envy, strife, deceit, gossip, arrogance, lack of mercy—mirrors the very behavior dividing the Roman church.

The warning is clear: when believers fail to recognize what God is doing through the gospel—when unity is suppressed in favor of judgment—people experience the consequences of their own sinful divisions.

That leads directly into Paul’s confrontation in Romans 2.

This blog post is part of a series of posts on Paul’s letter to the Roman Church. You can see the rest of the posts here.

1. When the Gospel Replaces Power with Peace
2. Strong, Weak, and the Call to Build One Another Up
3. Shared Story, Shared Family—Romans 9 and the People of God
4. Grafted Together — Romans 10-11 and the Gospel of Unity
5. One Gospel, Common Ground — Unity from the Very Beginning of Romans
6. Same Problem, Same Grace — How Faith Makes Us One
7. No Advantage, No Boasting — Faith That Levels the Church
8. Dead Together, Alive Together — Life in the Spirit and the “We” of Romans 8