What Does Romans 2:11 Mean?
For there is no partiality with God.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
For there is no respect of persons with God.THE KEY
God does not receive anyone by the face they present, so status and appearance cannot tilt his regard.
THE MEANING
God’s regard does not rise with your status or fall with your outward identity. The same impartial judgment meets you and every other person; no visible distinction secures special standing before him.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that rank, pedigree, or appearance can buy you a more favorable standing before God, or place another person farther from it.
THE ROOT
προσωπολημψία
prosōpolēmpsia
GROWS FROM
πρόσωπον (prosōpon, face or person) + λαμβάνω (lambanō, receive or take)
Receiving or taking a person by the face, the visible identity or standing they present.
“partiality” in this verse is prosōpolēmpsia. The Greek compound carries the image of receiving a face: treating visible identity or standing as a reason to grant someone favor. English respect can sound like a private attitude, while the word points to partial treatment in the way a person is received.
ALSO GROWS
prosōpolēmptēs: A person who grants regard based on who stands before them.
προσωπολήμπτης
Acts 10:34 uses this related word to say that God is no respecter of persons.
prosōpolēmptéō: To favor someone on the basis of their person or standing.
προσωπολημπτέω
James 2:9 uses this verb for the act of showing partiality, making visible the action hidden inside the English phrase.
THE PATTERN
God’s regard and judgment are not tilted by a person’s visible identity or status.
For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty, the awe-inspiring, who does not lift up the face of any and does not take a bribe.Then Peter opened his mouth and said, In truth I have laid hold of this, that God lifts no one's face.My brothers, do not hold the trust of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, the Lord of weight, by receiving faces.THE THREAD
But from those who seemed to be something, whatever they once were makes no difference to me, for God does not lift a human's face. Those who seemed laid nothing upon me.Galatians uses the same face-receiving word family when it says that God accepteth no man’s person. The shared image makes the claim concrete: a face, rank, or reputation does not purchase a different reception from God.
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