SIL Translator’s Notes on Romans 3:28

3:28a

For:
This conjunction introduces an explanation of what Paul said earlier.

maintain: Here this word means “consider to be true.” Paul said here that Christians are convinced that God justified them because they believed in Jesus and not because of what they have done. Here are other ways to translate this word:

consider (NET Bible)
-or-
believe

a man is justified by faith: This clause indicates that when someone believes in Jesus, God declares that that person is righteous.

This clause is passive. Some languages must use an active clause here. For example:

God⌋ justifies someone when he believes ⌊in Jesus

a man: Here the phrase a man refers to any person. For example:

a person (New Jerusalem Bible)

is justified: The words is justified indicates that God declares that a person is acceptable to him. When people believe in Jesus, God declares them to be right with him. See how you translated this word in 2:13 (where the Berean Standard Bible translates it as “declared righteous”) or 3:24.

faith: This word refers to believing in Jesus as Lord and Savior. In some languages a verb must be used. For example:

believing ⌊in Jesus

3:28b

apart from works of the law: This phrase means “without regard to doing what the law of Moses requires people to do.” God does not justify people because they follow the law of Moses. Here are other ways to translate this phrase:

not by doing what the Law tells him to do (New Jerusalem Bible)
-or-
not through obeying the law (New Century Version)
-or-
without any regard to following the law ⌊of Moses

See how you translated works of the law in 3:20.

© 2020 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.

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