30 since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.
30 since [it is true] there is one God [God does not operate on multiple ways of salvation] who will [logical progression] justify the circumcised [the Jew] by faith and the uncircumcised [the Gentile] through [the—faith is the only way] faith.
There is only one principle whereby God saves people (by faith) because God remains the same in the way He does things. Since God is one (monotheistic), He must be consistent with Himself. He operates the same way with both Jew and Gentile. Since God is one, He is the God of redemption by faith to all. There is no special group, such as the Jews, that has exclusive salvation.
The future tense of the word “justification” indicates change of status when one places his or her faith in Christ’s work. The future here is not at the final judgment but logical progression indicating permanent purpose of how God works.
PRINCIPLE:
Because God is one, He has only one way to save man.
APPLICATION:
If we do not accept God’s way of saving man, we impugn His character. The law cannot save us; morality cannot, either. We are always saved by faith in God’s provision of the death of Christ for our sins. That is the only way.
Ac 4:12, Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
Jn 14:6, Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
One of my Bible Study students is fixated on the words, “by,” and “through,” and insists this indicates that the circumcised and the uncircumcised are justified in different ways. Kindly comment.
Andrea,
The two prepositions in question are (ἐκ—διά). The syntactic force of ἐκ may read as a preposition of means or of source. Δια is a preposition with the syntactic force of means. ἐκ (springing out of) is the usual preposition of source and διά is the preposition of means normally. Most scholars make the two prepositions equivalent in this passage. The difference may be explained by the fact that the true Jew has already a germinating faith from the completion of which justification arises as fruit from a tree. The Jews are justified out of (ἐκ) the faith which their father Abraham had, and which they are supposed to have in him. The Gentiles must enter that door and pass through it in order to be justified. δια [dia] can carry the ideas of intermediate agency or attendant circumstance
The idea if these prepositions are probably stylistic and refer to the same idea so that distinctions are obliterated, Jews are still circumcised and Gentiles uncircumcised, but these continuing distinctions are rendered of no significant account. They neither affect our relationship with God nor hinder our fellowship with one another. At the foot of Christ’s cross and through faith in him, they are all at the same level and brothers in Christ.
God expects only one response to his offer of salvation—not works but faith. Paul makes that explicit in verse 30—God will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. There is no longer any salvific advantage in circumcision. It is now faith and faith alone that leads to justification. Circumcision is now one of the many “works” that fail to suffice. In the old covenant, it functioned as the sign of the covenant people. But now considering Christ, it has lost that function and been replaced by faith.
Here Paul calls attention to the other main symbol of Jewish exclusivism, circumcision, and declares that within the grace system it makes no difference whatever (see 2:25–29). Both the circumcised (the Jews) and the uncircumcised (the Gentiles) are justified in the same way, i.e., by a common faith in a common Redeemer. Now that Christ has come, the Gentiles are specifically said to have the (same) faith as the Jews (πίστις [pistis] with the definite article).
Paul carries on with the sentence he began at the end of the previous verse. “Since” gives the logical ground for seeing Yahweh as the God of the Gentiles: “if indeed (as we all agree) God is one.” Paul is not saying that all the circumcised are justified, but that all the circumcised who are justified are justified in this way. And the same God will justify the uncircumcised (“the uncircumcision”) through that same faith. Faith in the second usage has the article (“through the faith. Paul is saying emphatically that there is no real difference. What God requires of the Jew is faith. What God requires of the Gentile is faith. Faith is the only way.