Homer wrote:But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ for all the believing.
Note: red words not in Greek text.
Are you saying that we are justified by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ; by that substitutionary death which He died as an act of faith on behalf of those people who would believe? That would make sense of the context as would "faith in Jesus Christ". Given that neither the article "the" nor "of" or "in" are present in the Greek it seems to me the whole context demands one or the other understanding. The point Paul is making is that there is no righteousness through the keeping of The Law, or any law; we are always justified freely (and only) by His grace.
Homer i was re-reading this thread and you chimed in here and I wanted to comment, since I had tuned out of this thread/forum at this point:
I think the clear distinction I got from the Bible was not "we are not justified by Law or any law". This is my leaning i got from scripture. and its hard to tell without a literal translation or interlinear:
“we by nature Jews, and not sinners of the nations, having known also that a man is not declared righteous by works of law, if not through the faith of Jesus Christ, also we in Christ Jesus did believe, that we might be declared righteous by the faith of Christ, and not by works of law, wherefore declared righteous by works of law shall be no flesh.’” (Galatians 2:15–16, YLT)
See the disctinction? law is good. but not enough pure loving righteousness alone without a faith based relationship, like Abraham had before Mosaic Law. Law makes a person proud. So Paul talks about boasting. Law does not arrive at perfect loving righteousness apart from God, or faith in God:
“What, then, shall we say? that nations who are not pursuing righteousness did attain to righteousness, and righteousness that is of faith, and Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, at a law of righteousness did not arrive; wherefore? because—not by faith, but as by works of law; for they did stumble at the stone of stumbling, according as it hath been written, ‘Lo, I place in Sion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence; and every one who is believing thereon shall not be ashamed.’” (Romans 9:30–33, YLT)
So the stumbling stone is basically "we're not good enough on our own" without God, or faith relationship with God, his divine righteousness upon us by pleasing him by faith. Its just like the tree of life, being cut off from choosing our own way: the tree of knowledge. God would teach us knowledge, had we never sinned, but it would be based on a faith relationship. Likewise, following the law without faith is dry and dead and leaves us wanting.