testified of Abraham that his faith was
imputed to him for righteousness. And as he was justified and
received the blessing by reason of his faith, so also his children
and descendants were justified and received the blessing through the
same faith in that seed for whose sake the blessing had been promised
to all the world. For in his dealings with the Jews and with the
whole world, God always promised his grace and the forgiveness of
sins (and that means to be blessed of God) even when there was as yet
no Law by which they might pretend to become righteous, and before
Moses was born.

3. Therefore the Law, being given to this people only after the lapse
of so long a period, could not have been given to them for
justification; otherwise it would have been given earlier. Or if it
had been necessary for righteousness, then Abraham and his children
up to that date could not have been justified at all. Indeed God
designed that the Law should be given so long after Abraham.
Undoubtedly he would have been able to give it to the fathers much
earlier if he had seen fit to do so. Apparently he desired thereby to
teach that the Law was not given to the end that God's grace and
blessing should be acquired through it, but that these come from the
pure mercy of God which was promised and bestowed so long before upon
Abraham and those who believed.

4. Therefore Paul concludes: How could the Law produce righteousness
for those who lived before Moses, since Moses was the first through
whom the Law was given; and since even before his time there were
holy people and people who were saved? Whence did they derive their
righteousness? Certainly not from the fact that they had offered
sacrifice at Jerusalem, but from the fact that they believed the Word
in which God promised to bless them through the coming seed, Christ.
Hence, those also who lived afterwards could not have been justified
by the Law; for they did not receive the grace of God in a different
way from that in which those who went before had received it. God did
not annul or revoke by the Law the promise of blessing which he had
made and freely bestowed without the Law.

5. Here some might desire to show their wisdom and say to Paul:
Although the fathers did not have the Law of Moses, they had the same
Word of God which teaches the ten commandments and which was
implanted in the human heart from the beginning of the world, whence
also it is called the law of nature or the