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16 (A)[yet] who know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.[a] 17 But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves are found to be sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin?[b] Of course not! 18 But if I am building up again those things that I tore down, then I show myself to be a transgressor.[c]

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Footnotes

  1. 2:16 No one will be justified: Ps 143:2 is reflected.
  2. 2:17 A minister of sin: literally, “a servant of sin” (cf. Rom 15:8), an agent of sin, one who promotes it. This is possibly a claim by opponents that justification on the basis of faith in Christ makes Christ an abettor of sin when Christians are found to be sinners. Paul denies the conclusion (cf. Rom 6:1–4).
  3. 2:18 To return to observance of the law as the means to salvation would entangle one not only in inevitable transgressions of it but also in the admission that it was wrong to have abandoned the law in the first place.