For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of no effect.
Parallel translations
- KJV For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect:
- BSB For if those who live by the law are heirs, faith is useless and the promise is worthless,
- NKJV For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect,
- NASB For if those who are of the Law are heirs, then faith is made void and the promise is nullified;
- NLT If God’s promise is only for those who obey the law, then faith is not necessary and the promise is pointless.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
If the inheritance depended on the law, faith and the promise would be emptied. Law and promise cannot both be the basis of salvation.
Overview
Paul reasons that if the law's adherents were the heirs, then faith would be pointless and God's promise nullified. A promise rests on God's gracious word, not on human performance. By excluding the law as the ground of inheritance, Paul preserves the freeness of grace that the gospel proclaims.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Gal 3:18–24For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no more of promise; but God has granted it to Abraham by promise.
- Heb 7:19(for the law made nothing perfect), and a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.
- Phil 3:9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;
- Gal 2:21I don’t reject the grace of God. For if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nothing!”
- Rom 3:31Do we then nullify the law through faith? May it never be! No, we establish the law.
- Rom 4:16For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to grace, to the end that the promise may be sure to all the offspring, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.
- Isa 55:11so is my word that goes out of my mouth: it will not return to me void, but it will accomplish that which I please, and it will prosper in the thing I sent it to do.
- Heb 7:28For the law appoints men as high priests who have weakness, but the word of the oath which came after the law appoints a Son forever who has been perfected.
- Num 30:12But if her husband made them null and void in the day that he heard them, then whatever proceeded out of her lips concerning her vows, or concerning the bond of her soul, shall not stand. Her husband has made them void. Yahweh will forgive her.
- Ps 119:126It is time to act, Yahweh, for they break your law.
- Gal 5:4You are alienated from Christ, you who desire to be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace.
- Num 30:15But if he shall make them null and void after that he has heard them, then he shall bear her iniquity.”
- Jer 19:7“‘“I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life: and their dead bodies will I give to be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth.
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Christ at the center
Paul unfolds the gospel in full: Christ our righteousness received by faith, the second Adam in whom many are made righteous, in whose death and resurrection we are buried and raised.
How Romans 4:14 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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