Romans 4:8
Romans 4:88Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.”
Read as describing the happiness of those whose sins Jehovah forgives on the basis of Christ's ransom. The Watchtower's framework then adds the conditions under which that forgiveness is maintained — continued faithfulness, dedication, and obedience to the organisation's direction.
Read the argument Paul is making around the quotation, because it is the whole point of the chapter. Paul has just said, in verse 5, that to the one who does not work but puts faith in the God who declares the ungodly righteous, his faith is counted as righteousness. Then he quotes David: happy is the man whose sin the Lord will by no means take into account. Notice what is absent. There is no performance in the sentence. The man is happy not because his record improved but because his sin is not being counted. Paul's example is Abraham, credited with righteousness before he was circumcised and before the Law existed. This is the verse to bring to the dying-thief question. A gospel that requires time — time to learn, to dedicate, to prove faithful — cannot be given to someone with an hour left. can. So can what Jesus told the man beside him at . Compare , , .
The NWT reads "whose sin Jehovah will by no means take into account," where the Greek of Romans has kyrios. Paul is quoting , which does carry the divine name in Hebrew, so the substitution is at the defensible end of the practice. The wider caution still applies: the NWT prints "Jehovah" at many New Testament places where the Greek reads "Lord," including some where the referent is plainly Jesus, and the English makes no distinction between the two situations.