2:1 4 Therefore 5 you are without excuse, 6 whoever you are, 7 when you judge someone else. 8 For on whatever grounds 9 you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things.
4:6 So even David himself speaks regarding the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:
11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how fathomless his ways!
5:12 So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all people 25 because 26 all sinned –
1 tn Grk “to whom you present yourselves.”
2 tn Grk “as slaves for obedience.” See the note on the word “slave” in 1:1.
3 tn Grk “either of sin unto death, or obedience unto righteousness.”
4 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).
5 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.
6 tn That is, “you have nothing to say in your own defense” (so translated by TCNT).
7 tn Grk “O man.”
8 tn Grk “Therefore, you are without excuse, O man, everyone [of you] who judges.”
9 tn Grk “in/by (that) which.”
7 tc A large number of
10 tn Grk “do you think this,” referring to the clause in v. 3b.
11 tn Grk “O man, the one who judges.”
12 tn Grk “and do them.” The other words are supplied to bring out the contrast implied in this clause.
13 tn Grk “having died.” The participle ἀποθανόντες (apoqanonte") has been translated as a causal adverbial participle.
14 tn Grk “in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.”
16 tn Grk “slavery again to fear.”
17 tn The Greek term υἱοθεσία (Juioqesia) was originally a legal technical term for adoption as a son with full rights of inheritance. BDAG 1024 s.v. notes, “a legal t.t. of ‘adoption’ of children, in our lit., i.e. in Paul, only in a transferred sense of a transcendent filial relationship between God and humans (with the legal aspect, not gender specificity, as major semantic component).”
18 tn Or “in that.”
19 tn Grk “O man.”
20 tn Grk “On the contrary, O man, who are you to talk back to God?”
21 sn A quotation from Isa 29:16; 45:9.
22 tc ‡ Several important Alexandrian witnesses (א A B C 048) have the relative pronoun ἥν ({hn, “the faith that you have”) at this juncture, but D F G Ψ 1739 1881 Ï lat co lack it. Without the pronoun, the clause is more ambiguous (either “Keep the faith [that] you have between yourself and God” or “Do you have faith? Keep it between yourself and God”). The pronoun thus looks to be a motivated reading, created to clarify the meaning of the text. Even though it is found in the better witnesses, in this instance internal evidence should be given preference. NA27 places the word in brackets, indicating some doubt as to its authenticity.
25 tn Grk “whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel.”
26 tn Grk “as.”
28 tn Here ἀνθρώπους (anqrwpou") has been translated as a generic (“people”) since both men and women are clearly intended in this context.
29 tn The translation of the phrase ἐφ᾿ ᾧ (ef Jw) has been heavily debated. For a discussion of all the possibilities, see C. E. B. Cranfield, “On Some of the Problems in the Interpretation of Romans 5.12,” SJT 22 (1969): 324-41. Only a few of the major options can be mentioned here: (1) the phrase can be taken as a relative clause in which the pronoun refers to Adam, “death spread to all people in whom [Adam] all sinned.” (2) The phrase can be taken with consecutive (resultative) force, meaning “death spread to all people with the result that all sinned.” (3) Others take the phrase as causal in force: “death spread to all people because all sinned.”
31 tn Grk “in that.”