2:1 10 Therefore 11 you are without excuse, 12 whoever you are, 13 when you judge someone else. 14 For on whatever grounds 15 you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things.
4:13 For the promise 16 to Abraham or to his descendants that he would inherit the world was not fulfilled through the law, but through the righteousness that comes by faith.
1 tn Grk “Yet a little while, and.”
2 sn Frequently in Acts such a vision will tell the reader where events are headed. See Acts 10:9-16 and 16:9-10 for other accounts of visions.
3 tn BDAG 682 s.v. νύξ 1.c has “W. prep. ἐν ν. at night, in the night…Ac 18:9.”
4 tn The present imperative here (with negation) is used (as it normally is) of a general condition (BDF §335).
5 tn BDAG 384 s.v. ἐπιτίθημι 2 has “to set upon, attack, lay a hand on” here, but “assault” is a contemporary English equivalent very close to the meaning of the original.
6 tn Or “injure.”
7 tn Grk “on the one hand, heirs of God; on the other hand, fellow heirs with Christ.” Some prefer to render v. 17 as follows: “And if children, then heirs – that is, heirs of God. Also fellow heirs with Christ if indeed we suffer with him so we may also be glorified with him.” Such a translation suggests two distinct inheritances, one coming to all of God’s children, the other coming only to those who suffer with Christ. The difficulty of this view, however, is that it ignores the correlative conjunctions μέν…δέ (men…de, “on the one hand…on the other hand”): The construction strongly suggests that the inheritances cannot be separated since both explain “then heirs.” For this reason, the preferred translation puts this explanation in parentheses.
8 tn Grk “for the law of the Spirit of life.”
9 tc Most
10 sn Rom 2:1-29 presents unusual difficulties for the interpreter. There have been several major approaches to the chapter and the group(s) it refers to: (1) Rom 2:14 refers to Gentile Christians, not Gentiles who obey the Jewish law. (2) Paul in Rom 2 is presenting a hypothetical viewpoint: If anyone could obey the law, that person would be justified, but no one can. (3) The reference to “the ones who do the law” in 2:13 are those who “do” the law in the right way, on the basis of faith, not according to Jewish legalism. (4) Rom 2:13 only speaks about Christians being judged in the future, along with such texts as Rom 14:10 and 2 Cor 5:10. (5) Paul’s material in Rom 2 is drawn heavily from Diaspora Judaism, so that the treatment of the law presented here cannot be harmonized with other things Paul says about the law elsewhere (E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, 123); another who sees Rom 2 as an example of Paul’s inconsistency in his treatment of the law is H. Räisänen, Paul and the Law [WUNT], 101-9. (6) The list of blessings and curses in Deut 27–30 provide the background for Rom 2; the Gentiles of 2:14 are Gentile Christians, but the condemnation of Jews in 2:17-24 addresses the failure of Jews as a nation to keep the law as a whole (A. Ito, “Romans 2: A Deuteronomistic Reading,” JSNT 59 [1995]: 21-37).
11 tn Some interpreters (e.g., C. K. Barrett, Romans [HNTC], 43) connect the inferential Διό (dio, “therefore”) with 1:32a, treating 1:32b as a parenthetical comment by Paul.
12 tn That is, “you have nothing to say in your own defense” (so translated by TCNT).
13 tn Grk “O man.”
14 tn Grk “Therefore, you are without excuse, O man, everyone [of you] who judges.”
15 tn Grk “in/by (that) which.”
16 sn Although a singular noun, the promise is collective and does not refer only to Gen 12:7, but as D. Moo (Romans 1-8 [WEC], 279) points out, refers to multiple aspects of the promise to Abraham: multiplied descendants (Gen 12:2), possession of the land (Gen 13:15-17), and his becoming the vehicle of blessing to all people (Gen 12:13).
17 tn Grk “And when.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.
18 tn Here the Greek conjunction καί (kai) has been translated as a contrastive (“but”) due to the contrast between the two clauses.