Matthew 6:30

6:30 And if this is how God clothes the wild grass, ¹  which is here today and tomorrow is tossed into the fire to heat the oven, ²  won’t he clothe you even more, ³  you people of little faith?

Romans 5:9-10

5:9 Much more then, because we have now been declared righteous ⁴  by his blood, ⁵  we will be saved through him from God’s wrath. ⁶  5:10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, since we have been reconciled, will we be saved by his life?

Romans 5:17

5:17 For if, by the transgression of the one man, ⁷  death reigned through the one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ!

Romans 8:32

8:32 Indeed, he who ⁸  did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things?

Romans 8:2

8:2 For the law of the life-giving Spirit ⁹  in Christ Jesus has set you ¹⁰  free from the law of sin and death.

Colossians 3:9-11

3:9 Do not lie to one another since you have put off the old man with its practices 3:10 and have been clothed with the new man ¹¹  that is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created it. 3:11 Here there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave ¹²  or free, but Christ is all and in all.

[6:30]  ¹ tn Grk “grass of the field.”

[6:30]  ² tn Grk “into the oven.” The expanded translation “into the fire to heat the oven” has been used to avoid misunderstanding; most items put into modern ovens are put there to be baked, not burned.

[6:30]  ³ sn The phrase even more is a typical form of rabbinic argumentation, from the lesser to the greater. If God cares for the little things, surely he will care for the more important things.

[5:9]  ⁴ tn Grk “having now been declared righteous.” The participle δικαιωθέντες (dikaiwqente") has been translated as a causal adverbial participle.

[5:9]  ⁵ tn Or, according to BDF §219.3, “at the price of his blood.”

[5:9]  ⁶ tn Grk “the wrath,” referring to God’s wrath as v. 10 shows.

[5:17]  ⁷ sn Here the one man refers to Adam (cf. 5:14).

[8:32]  ⁸ tn Grk “[he] who.” The relative clause continues the question of v. 31 in a way that is awkward in English. The force of v. 32 is thus: “who indeed did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – How will he not also with him give us all things?”

[8:2]  ⁹ tn Grk “for the law of the Spirit of life.”

[8:2]  ¹⁰ tc Most mss read the first person singular pronoun με (me) here (A D 1739^c 1881 Ï lat sa). The second person singular pronoun σε (se) is superior because of external support (א B {F which reads σαι} G 1506* 1739*) and internal support (it is the harder reading since ch. 7 was narrated in the first person). At the same time, it could have arisen via dittography from the final syllable of the verb preceding it (ἠλευθέρωσεν, hleuqerwsen; “has set free”). But for this to happen in such early and diverse witnesses is unlikely, especially as it depends on various scribes repeatedly overlooking either the nu or the nu-bar at the end of the verb.

[3:10]  ¹¹ sn Put off all such things. The commands in vv. 8-9 are based on two reasons given in vv. 9-10 – reasons which are expressed in terms of a metaphor about clothing oneself. Paul says that they have put off the old man and have put on the new man. Two things need to be discussed in reference to Paul’s statement. (1) What is the meaning of the clothing imagery (i.e., the “have put off” and “have been clothed”)? (2) What is the meaning of the old man and the new man? Though some commentators understand the participles “have put off” (v. 9) and “have been clothed” (v. 10) as imperatives (i.e., “put off!” and “put on!”), this use of participles is extremely rare in the NT and thus unlikely here. It is better to take them as having the semantic force of indicatives, and thus they give an explanation of what had happened to the Colossians at the time of their conversion – they had taken off the old man and put on the new when they trusted in Christ (cf. 1:4). While it is difficult to say for certain what the background to Paul’s “clothing” metaphor might be (whether it is primarily Jewish and comes from the OT, or primarily Gentile and comes from some facet of the Greco-Roman religious milieu), it is nonetheless clear, on the basis of Paul’s usage of the expression, that the old man refers to man as he is in Adam and dominated by sin (cf. Rom 6:6; Eph 4:22), while the new man refers to the Christian whose new sphere of existence is in Christ. Though the metaphor of clothing oneself primarily reflects outward actions, there is a distinct inward aspect to it, as the rest of v. 10 indicates: being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created it. Paul’s point, then, is that Christians should take off their dirty clothing (inappropriate behavior) and put on clean clothing (behavior consistent with knowing Christ) because this has already been accomplished in a positional sense at the time of their conversion (cf. Gal 3:27 with Rom 13:14).

[3:11]  ¹² tn See the note on “fellow slave” in 1:7.