This is the God to whom you owe your being in Christ Jesus, whom God has made our 'Wisdom,' that is, our righteousness and consecration and redemption;
but now we are done with the Law, we have died to what once held us, so that we can serve in a new way, not under the written code as of old but in the Spirit.
Once convinced of this, then, I estimate no one by what is external; even though I once estimated Christ by what is external, I no longer estimate him thus.
in his own flesh he put an end to the feud of the Law with its code of commands, so as to make peace by the creation of a new Man in himself out of both parties,
I in them and thou in me — that they may be made perfectly one, so that the world may recognize that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.
For in Christ God reconciled the world to himself instead of counting men's trespasses against them; and he entrusted me with the message of his reconciliation.
Salute Andronicus and Junias, fellow-countrymen and fellow-prisoners of mine; they are men of note among the apostles, and they have been in Christ longer than I have.