The verb rendered offered (Revised Standard Version, Moffatt “put forward”; Jerusalem Bible, Phillips “appointed”; New English Bible “designed”) may be used with the special sense of “to offer as sacrifice” or even “to display publicly” (see An American Translation* “showed … publicly”). In 1.13 it is used in the sense of “to plan.”
The phrase by his death (Jerusalem Bible “to sacrifice his life”; New English Bible “by his sacrificial death”; An American Translation* “dying”) is literally “by his blood,” but “blood” is used in this passage in the same way that it is used in a number of other places in the New Testament, that is, to indicate a violent death. (See also the comments at 5.9.) The means by which men’s sins are forgiven (see New English Bible “the means of expiating sin”) is used in the Septuagint as a translation of “the mercy seat” that was a part of the covenant box (or ark), and so may also mean “the place where sins were forgiven” (see Hebrews 9.5, the only other occurrence of this word in the New Testament). Although this noun (and its related forms) is sometimes used by pagan writers in the sense of propitiation (that is, an act to appease or placate a god), it is never used this way in the Old Testament. There God never appears as the object of this noun (that is, the one who is placated), though God does appear as the subject with sin as the object, in which case the meaning is “God expiates (that is, forgives) sins.” For this reason, the meaning of expiation (equivalent to Good News Translation the means by which men’s sins are forgiven) is a much more accurate translation than propitiation (see Moffatt and Phillips “the means of propitiation”).
The Greek phrase “through faith” fits very loosely into the overall sentence structure, though it is generally agreed that it goes with the entire thought of the passage rather than with the words “in his blood” (Good News Translation by his death). The Good News Translation indicates this by making the object of “through faith” explicit (through their faith in him), while the New English Bible and the Jerusalem Bible have placed “through faith” at the end of the sentence. As was mentioned earlier, verses 23-26 in the Greek text are one sentence, which the Good News Translation makes into several shorter sentences. And in order to show the connection between the thought that follows and the earlier thought in this verse, the Good News Bible introduces the second sentence with the words God did this. The verb to demonstrate (a noun phrase in Greek) includes in its meaning the idea of “to prove.” To demonstrate his righteousness is taken by some translations (Moffatt, Jerusalem Bible) to mean “to demonstrate his justice” (New English Bible). A major question of course, is what does Paul mean by his use of “righteousness” in this context? If it refers to God’s justice, then the thought is linked rather closely with what Paul says in verse 26, to demonstrate his righteousness. On the other hand, it is possible to understand the phrase to demonstrate his righteousness in light of what is said in the earlier part of verse 25 and so take it to mean “to demonstrate how God puts men right with himself.” Moreover, this would have the advantage not only of carrying through the thought begun in the first part of this same verse, but also of tying in with what is said at the end of verse 26, in this way God shows … that he puts right everyone who believes in Jesus.
The concepts expressed in the first part of verse 25 are not only difficult, but the relations between the ideas are quite complex. The first sentence, particularly, involves a number of different relations of meaning. God offered him is the means for the purpose clause which begins with the conjunctive phrase so that. By his death is a phrase which indicates the means for the result he should become. By which men’s sins are forgiven is another expression of means, and finally, through their faith in him expressed even an additional type of means. In order to express these relations in a fully intelligible manner one may have to semantically restructure this first sentence and to divide it into more than one sentence—for example, “God offered Christ so that he would become the one by whom men’s sins are forgiven. Christ would do this by his death. By people’s faith in Christ they would experience forgiveness,” or “God offered Christ so that because Christ died he would cause men to have their sins forgiven; they would have their sins forgiven because they had faith in Christ.”
In the second sentence of verse 25 the relations are not so complex; “God offered Christ” is merely the means to accomplish the purpose of showing how “he puts men right with himself.”
God … was patient (literally “because of God’s patience”) comes from verse 26, where it concludes the clause begun in this verse. However, for English readers it more naturally comes first in the clause, and so it is placed there by the Good News Translation (see also New English Bible “because in his forbearance he had overlooked the sins of the past”). Although it is possible that the verb rendered overlooked may instead mean “forgave” (see Phillips “by the wiping out of the sins of the past”), there seems to be very little support for that interpretation here. If Paul wanted to say that God has forgiven the sins of the past, he could easily have done so and make himself clear to his readers.
In the past may be translated in some instances as “before now,” “up until now,” or “in years that are gone.”
In selecting a word for overlooked it is important not to imply that “God paid no attention to” or that “God was completely unaware of men’s sins.” Rather, one must indicate that God chose to pay no attention to such sins—for example, “God passed on as though the people had not sinned,” “God refused to look at people’s sins,” or “God passed over sins.”
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .