Dear friends Martin Luther described it as “the chief point, and the very central place of the Epistle, and of the whole Bible”. Australian biblical scholar Leon Morris went even further and called it “possibly the most important single paragraph ever written”. It’s the paragraph we locate in our Bibles as Romans 3:21-26, and it’s where we’re up to in our podcast series walking through the opening chapters of this extraordinary book. In Romans so far, Paul has been slowly building up to this point. He started by saying that his gospel is the ‘power of God for salvation’, and that it reveals the righteousness of God. But the only righteousness of God we have seen so far is his completely righteous and justified judgement against the universal rottenness of humanity. So if all of us—Jew, Greek, everybody—is under the power of sin, how can God be a righteous God and yet bring salvation to people like us? It’s the age-old and very pressing question of how perfect justice can co-exist with grace and free forgiveness. And this world-changing paragraph has the answer. I hope you find our discussion of these momentous ideas as encouraging as we did in the conversation that follows. Your brother Tony This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.twoways.news/subscribe