How can this be: there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, if for all nine chapters before this the apostle Paul has been explaining to us how much...
How can this be: there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, if for all nine chapters before this the apostle Paul has been explaining to us how differently they are called and how different each one's path to God is? It would seem that we have only just sorted everything out and understood how destructive the pursuit of righteousness is...
But this looks paradoxical only from the outside. Paul is quite consistent with his own logic here and draws a very important line: the line between human righteousness and the righteousness of God. If we exist within a hierarchy of human righteousness, it is very easy to decide that it is attainable. Just make a little effort: do not eat this, do not drink that, pray two times, three times, five times, and so on per day, give alms, and before long you may feel cleaner, better, and more correct than others. And from inside this human logic of ours it is not even possible to explain why this is wrong.
But if God is righteous in our hierarchy, we will never attain His righteousness. Divine righteousness is beyond our ideas, immeasurably greater than we are, because His righteousness is Love. Love for each one of us, such Love that through it He gives His Son to the suffering of the cross for the sake of each one of us. And then we become frightened by our wrongness before God, by our sinfulness. Then we see that we have no wedding garment, that we are unworthy even to come near Him.
But Divine righteousness is also Forgiveness, for the sake of which Christ descends into hell and leads each one of us out of it. One need only want it, only call on the name of the Lord. Simply call for help, understanding that by ourselves we can do nothing, but that all things are possible for us with Christ.
And then it does not matter where we are from, what path brought us here, whether we have lived our whole life in the church or turned to God two days ago. What matters is whether, even for a moment, here and now, we are able to become bearers of His love and His peace, whether we are able to love our neighbor and in this way let Christ act in us and through us.
