Roma 3:4

3:4 Absolutely not! Let God be proven true, and every human being ¹  shown up as a liar, ²  just as it is written: “so that you will be justified ³  in your words and will prevail when you are judged.” ⁴ 

Roma 1:20

1:20 For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, because they are understood through what has been made. So people ⁵  are without excuse.

Roma 2:1

The Condemnation of the Moralist

2:1 ⁶ Therefore ⁷  you are without excuse, ⁸  whoever you are, ⁹  when you judge someone else. ¹⁰  For on whatever grounds ¹¹  you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things.

[3:4]  ¹ tn Grk “every man”; but ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") is used in a generic sense here to stress humanity rather than masculinity.

[3:4]  ² tn Grk “Let God be true, and every man a liar.” The words “proven” and “shown up” are supplied in the translation to clarify the meaning.

[3:4]  ³ tn Grk “might be justified,” a subjunctive verb, but in this type of clause it carries the same sense as the future indicative verb in the latter part. “Will” is more idiomatic in contemporary English.

[3:4]  ⁴ tn Or “prevail when you judge.” A quotation from Ps 51:4.

[1:20]  ⁵ tn Grk “they”; the referent (people) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[2:1]  ⁶ 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).

[2:1]  ⁷ 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.

[2:1]  ⁸ tn That is, “you have nothing to say in your own defense” (so translated by TCNT).

[2:1]  ⁹ tn Grk “O man.”

[2:1]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “Therefore, you are without excuse, O man, everyone [of you] who judges.”

[2:1]  ¹¹ tn Grk “in/by (that) which.”