In Ch. 1 and 2 Paul estab­lishes that the gen­eral con­di­tion of mankind — both Jews and Gen­tiles — is pretty bleak. There is a hor­ri­ble sin prob­lem in both camps (we have seen ear­lier that the lan­guage of the Bible is not all-inclusive). He then concludes:

Rom 3:19 Now we know that what­ever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law [i.e. Jews], so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held account­able to God. 20 For no human being will be jus­ti­fied in his sight by works of the law, since through the law comes knowl­edge of sin.

The term used for “world” is the Greek ?????? (kos­mos) refer­ring to peo­ple (Jn. 3:16), not the whole of cre­ation — in the above verses it par­tic­u­lary refers to the Jew­ish peo­ple who are guilty because of break­ing the law of God.

If you doubt it, let us read it again:

“the law says it speaks to those who are under the law

SO THAT

every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held account­able to God

FOR

no human being will be jus­ti­fied in his sight by works of the law”

Gen­tiles never had the law Paul talks about.

The ref­er­ence is clearly to those Jews who while try­ing to become jus­ti­fied by keep­ing the law of God were guilty of break­ing it. Paul then continues:

Rom 3:21 But now the right­eous­ness of God has been man­i­fested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear wit­ness to it, 22 the right­eous­ness of God through faith IN Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no dis­tinc­tion; 23 since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 they are jus­ti­fied by his grace as a gift, through the redemp­tion which is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put for­ward as an expi­a­tion by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s right­eous­ness, because in his divine for­bear­ance he had passed over for­mer sins; 26 it was to prove at the present time that he him­self is right­eous and that he jus­ti­fies him who has faith IN Jesus.

First of all, there was right­eous­ness before the laws of Moses were given, so right­eous­ness doesn’t come because one keeps the laws. How­ever, the one who is right­eous WILL keep the laws — because he is right­eous and not that he may become right­eous through keep­ing them.

The NRSV foot­note says the fol­low­ing on v. 22:

“through the faith OF Jesus Christ”;

and on v. 26:

“who has the faith OF Jesus”.

If you can accept this trans­la­tion (which is more con­sis­tent than trans­lat­ing it as “in” — why trans­late it as “in” when other times it is trans­lated as “of”: the same con­struct is used when refer­ring to the faith OF Abra­ham), then Paul’s mes­sage is really sim­ple. We need to have the faith OF Jesus. What was the faith OF Jesus? Paul explains in the chap­ter that follows:

Rom 4:16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guar­an­teed to all his descen­dants — not only to the adher­ents of the law but also to those who SHARE THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM, for he is the father of us all

You see, we all need to have the faith OF Abra­ham in order to inherit the promise. His faith is the very faith Jesus him­self also had: that God promised the land to Abraham’s descen­dants, and that in his seed all fam­i­lies of the earth shall be blessed.

If we trans­late the given term in the above-mentioned pas­sages as “faith IN Jesus”, then Jesus is the object of faith, and our faith has no rel­e­vance to Abraham’s. How­ever, if we trans­late it as “faith OF Jesus”, then he is set up as an exam­ple to be fol­lowed by all who call him Lord.

1John 2:6 he who says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

This pas­sage clearly sup­ports the lat­ter (OF) trans­la­tion.