people of the law’,14 he has lost sight of Paul’s argument. He should have referred back not just one and a half chapters, but right back to 1:18 where this section begins. Paul’s concern from 1:18 on has surely been to lead up to the conclusion expressed in 3:20a and then restated in the opening lines of the next section in 3:23 (RV: ‘For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God’), namely, that all human beings are sinners (Jesus Christ alone excepted) whose only possibility of being
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