9

1 I speak the truth as one located within the Messiah—I am not lying; my conscience attests to this within me as attested in turn by the divine spirit— 2that grief and constant pain press down on my heart. 3 I wish that I myself was accursed and cut off from the Messiah for the sake of my brothers and sisters, those who are my compatriots in terms of our human nature, 4 the Israelites. Theirs is the original historical adoption by God, the shining glory of his presence, the many covenants, the gift of the Teachings, the gift of the temple service, and the manifold promises. 5 Theirs are the great ancestors, and from them comes the Messiah in his human nature, the one who rules over everything as divine. (May he be blessed forever! “Amen.”)

14 Those who are led by God’s spirit, these people, are also sons of God. 15 You did not receive a spirit of servitude, enslaving you again to fear, but you received a spirit of adoption by means of which we cry “Abba, Father.” 16 The same spirit [as Jesus’s] testifies through the spirit that is a part of us that we are children of God. 17a And if we are children, then we are also heirs—heirs on the one hand of God, and fellow heirs on the other hand with the Messiah.

8

1 But now there is no death sentence for those who are located within the Messiah, Jesus, 2 because the “Teaching” which is the life-giving spirit flowing through the Messiah, Jesus, has liberated me from the Teachings that are in the grip of sin and of death. 3 With respect to the Teachings of Moses, which were crippled by a human nature made of flesh, God, having sent his only child in the exact form of a human nature made of flesh, and so in the very grip of sin, “as a guilt offering” [that is, as the suffering servant],[i] sentenced sin within human nature to death.

7

1 Or do you not understand brothers and sisters—for I’m talking to people who know and love the Teachings—that the Teachings of Moses only rule over a person when they’re alive? 2 So, for example, a female has been given to their spouse in marriage, obviously when that person is alive, in a binding ruling from the Teachings. But if that spouse dies, then the ruling about the marriage is irrelevant. 3 It follows that they are called out for adultery if they go off with another person while their spouse is still alive. But if their spouse dies, then they are free from the ruling, and they do not get accused of adultery if they partner with another person. 4 In just the same way, my brothers and sisters, you yourselves have died to the Teachings, within the body of the Messiah, so that you can belong to another—to the one who has been raised from amongst the very corpses, ultimately so that we can all bear fruit together for God.

6

1  Well then, what are we going to say about all this?

Objection: “Let’s sin away so that grace can overflow!”

Response: 2 “No!”

[Phoebe signals with a gesture that two points will be made.]

1.[i] We all died to sin.

2. So how can we still live in its grip?

1.

3 Do you not understand that those of us who have been baptized into Jesus the Messiah have been immersed into his death?  4 And we have been buried with him, through immersion into that death, so that just as the Messiah was raised from the dead through the action of the shining spirit flowing from the Father, we too can walk in a new life. 5 Since we have been united exactly with his death, we are also united exactly with his resurrection.

12 So then, just as sin entered into the cosmos through one person, and consequently, by means of this sin, death, even so death came to all people—because all sinned. 13 For up to the time when the Torah was given to Moses, sin was in the world.

Objection: But in the absence of the Torah we can’t recognize sin.

Response:  14Well, against this, it is clear that death nevertheless ruled from Adam until the time of Moses, even over all those who did not sin in the precise manner of Adam, who transgressed a command.

At any rate, Adam was an imprint from the template that is the one who is coming—15although the gift of the coming one is very unlike the transgression of Adam in certain key ways.

Everyone dies ultimately as a result of the transgression of that single figure, but the gift of God is vastly superior, namely, the gift of the one person, Jesus the Messiah, that overflows to everyone who dies.

5

1 Having been released then “through faith,” through the Messiah, Jesus, our divine ruler, we also have peace with God, 2 through whom we also have access, by means of that same “faith,” into this favor in which we currently stand. And here we boast in the hope of the shining glory that will ultimately be gifted to us by God. 3 Not only this though. We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering crafts endurance,

27 Speaker 1: “Where then is the figure who takes pride in his piety and boasts about it?”

Speaker 2: “He has been shut out.”

Speaker 1: “Through what kind of teaching?”

Speaker 2: “A teaching about deeds.”

Speaker 1: “No. He is excluded by a teaching about ‘faith.’ 28 For we consider that a person is delivered ‘through faith’ independently of doing the deeds prescribed by the Teachings of Moses.”

Speaker 2:  29 “But tell me, isn’t God the God of the Judeans only?”

Speaker 1: “Well, isn’t he also the God of the pagan nations?”

Speaker 2: “Yes, I admit it: he’s also the God of the pagans.”

[Phoebe indicates now with a gesture that three points are to be made:]

[1] 21 But now, independently of the Teachings of Moses, although attested to by Moses’s Writings, as well as by the Teachings of the Prophets, God’s deliverance has been set forth. 22 This great deliverance by God has been disclosed ‘through the faith’ of our Messiah, Jesus [see Habakkuk 2:4], and is understood by everyone who believes in him.

3

1 Speaker 1: “What then is the actual advantage of the Judean, and what do Judeans gain from removing their foreskins?”

2 Speaker 2: “Many things in many respects, but first of all that they have been entrusted with the deity’s very utterances.”

3 Speaker 1: “But so what? If some don’t actually trust in them, then won’t their distrust nullify the trust the deity has placed in them?”

4 Speaker 2: “Absolutely not. Let the deity be true to himself even if every single human being is false, as it is written in those Scriptures: ‘That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest be vindicated when thou art judged.’”

5 Speaker 1: “But if my injustice thereby actually highlights the justice of the deity then we can say something more, correct? Doesn’t it seem rather unfair of the deity to still pour out his judgmental anger? (Note I’m only suggesting this for the sake of the argument).”