This week’s lesson covers Romans 10 and 11, with a focus especially on chapter 11. It’s important to read both chapters in their entirety in order to continue to follow Paul’s line of thinking. These two chapters have been, and remain, the focal point of much discussion. One point, however, comes clear through them all, and that is God’s love for humanity and His great desire to see all humanity saved.

As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. . . . For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy . . . and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion (Rom. 9:13, 15).

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit (Romans 8:1).

Few chapters in the Bible have created more controversy than has Romans 7. Concerning the issues involved, The SDA Bible Commentary says: “The meaning of vs. 14–25 has been one of the most discussed problems in the whole epistle. The main questions have been as to whether the description of such intense moral struggle could be autobiographical, and, if so, whether the passage refers to Paul’s experience before or after his conversion.

Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace (Romans 6:14).

Paul has established the point that justification, or acceptance with God, comes only through faith in Jesus Christ, for His righteousness alone is enough to give us the right standing with our Lord. Building on that great truth, Paul now expounds more on this theme. Showing that salvation has to be by faith and not by works, not even for someone as “righteous” as Abraham, Paul in a sense steps back, looks at the big picture—at what caused sin and suffering and death and how the solution is found in Christ and what He’s done for the human race.

Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law” (Romans 3:31).

In the plan of salvation, each of us is the criminal. The substitute, Jesus, has a perfect record, and He stands in the court in our stead, His righteousness accepted in place of our unrighteousness. Hence, we are justified before God, not because of our works but because of Jesus, whose righteousness becomes ours when we accept it “by faith.” Hence the term “justification by faith.” No matter our past, when we accept Jesus, we stand before God in His righteousness, the only righteousness that can save us.

Unless a person acknowledges that he or she is unrighteous, that person will sense no need for justification (God’s declaration of a sinner as righteous in His eyes). Therefore, for Paul, the first step in justification is that a person recognize himself or herself as a helpless, hopeless sinner.

The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ