Deeper Commentary
ROMANS CHAPTER 3
3:1 What advantage then has the Jew?
Or what is the profit of circumcision?-
Whilst accepting Paul’s Divine inspiration, I have always found the logic
of this and the next few verses to be difficult and twisted. It’s as if
Paul wishes to say something nice about the Jews to as it were keep on
board the Jews in his audience, having spoken against the significance of
natural Jewishness so strongly in 2:27-29. But what he says there isn’t
quite compensated for by the reasoning he now comes out with- or so it
seems to me. If natural descent is so irrelevant and Jewishness has been
redefined, what real advantage is there, then, in being ethnically Jewish?
“Advantage” translates a Greek word which is a superlative meaning more
‘pre-eminence’, ‘exceeding abundance’. Paul appears to say that the Jews
do have indeed such a superlative position; whereas elsewhere in this
context Paul speaks as if the Jews are as sinful as or even more sinful
than the Gentiles, and that both are “under sin” (Rom. 3:9). Both need
baptism into Christ to be the true seed of Abraham (Gal. 3:27-29). Paul’s
claim that their amazing blessing and advantage is because the Law was
given to their fathers seems to strangely contradict the Law being
elsewhere described as “weak and beggarly elements” (Gal. 4:9), “weak
through the flesh”, whose glory was nothing, as dirty garments, compared
to the excellency and surpassing wonder of Christ. I therefore suggest in
the light of all this that we may be justified in reading Paul’s words in
Rom. 3:1,2 as a kind of sarcasm: “What superlative, amazing pre-eminence
then has the Jew! Or what profit at all is there in being circumcised!
Much every way, indeed! The important thing to note is that the oracles of
God were firstly given to them…’- and then Paul builds on that point to
speak of Israel’s disobedience to those commandments, leading up to his
crescendo of convicting Jew and Gentile as desperate sinners who must
throw themselves upon God’s grace.
3:2 Much every way! First of
all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God- “Entrusted” is
Gk. pisteuo, God
had faith in Israel (3:3), in giving them the commandments. He believed in
them. The God who can know the end from the beginning allowed His emotion
of love to take such root in Him that He as it were allowed His
omniscience to be limited, just as He at times limits His omnipotence; and
He desperately believed in them. For loving someone elicits also faith and
hope in them.
3:3 For what if some were
without faith?-
Israel never adopted atheism nor did they ever inform Yahweh He was no
longer their national deity. Yet for all their professions of faith and
loyalty to the temple cult, God viewed them as unbelievers. Or it could be
that Paul’s implication is that they did not believe in Christ, in their
Saviour Messiah.
Shall their lack of faith make of
no effect the faithfulness of God?- God’s faith and hope in His people. See on Rom.
3:2. The awkward translations can make us miss the wonderful point here:
Israel’s unbelief didn’t abolish [Gk.], do away with, make of no effect
[AV], God’s faith in Israel. Here we see His love, His grace; a faith and
hope in a weak other party which can only come from very deep love. They
didn’t believe in Him, but He didn’t stop believing in them.
“Some" Jews didn't believe (Rom. 3:3); the majority, actually, but the
Father is more gentle than that. The whole tragic history of God's
relationship with Israel is a sure proof of His essentially positive
character. Right at their birth by the Red Sea, the Almighty records that
"the people feared Yahweh, and believed Yahweh, and His servant Moses"
(Ex. 14:23). No mention is made of the Egyptian idols they were still
cuddling (we don't directly learn about them until Ez. 20). Nor do we
learn that this "belief" of theirs lasted a mere three days; nor of the
fact that they rejected Moses, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.
"There was no strange god" with Israel on their journey (Dt. 32:12); but
there were (Am. 5:26). The reconciliation is that God counted as Israel as
devoted solely to Him. The Angel told Moses that the people would probably
want to come up the mountain, closer to God, when in fact in reality they
ran away when they saw the holiness of God; almost suggesting that the
Angel over-estimated their spiritual enthusiasm (Ex. 19:21-24 cp. 20:18).
Likewise the Angel told Moses that the people would hear him, "and believe
thee for ever" (Ex. 19:9). Things turned out the opposite. At this time,
God saw no iniquity in Israel (Num. 23:21).
3:4 God forbid. Yes, let God
be found true-
Paul is continually using legal language. Let God be found [in a legal
sense, through legal, forensic analysis] true [Gk.] and faithful by man’s
judgment of God. The amazing statement in 3:3- that God remains faithful
even when we are not- is hard to believe. Paul understands our internal
doubts as to the extent of God’s grace as man effectively putting God in
the dock and trying the veracity of His claims. In one of the finest
paradoxes of all, Paul will go on in Romans to use this very legal
language to describe how God the judge as it were turns it all around,
puts man, us sinners, in the dock, and justifies us the humanly
unjustifiable.
But every man a liar- In that our false accusations against the
real extent of God’s saving grace are exposed as untrue and lies.
As it is written: You must be
justified in Your words-
God comes through the trial of His grace by doubting man as justified,
declared right. And yet this very term is what Paul uses to describe how
God declares us righteous in His judgment of us. We judge God, but
in the end, God judges us.
And must prevail when You come before judgment [Gk.]- Prevail or
“overcome” is the legal word for winning a case in court. The idea is
“so that you may be victorious
when you go to court”. It is our doubts
as to the extent of God’s grace, that He abides faithful even throughout
our unfaithfulness, which is effectively our bringing God to court, to
judgment. Paul is here quoting Ps. 51:4, which were David’s words of
reflection upon his sin unto death, and God’s forgiveness of him. He
reflected that he had sinned so that God might be justified when He
is brought to judgment by us. Again we are up against an amazing grace.
God uses our sin, our doubt of His forgiveness, in order to declare
Himself yet more righteous when He is put in the dock to answer against
our false charges: ‘Is He really able to forgive me that? Will He
really not hold this eternally against me? Will I really be
saved, sinner that I am? Can God really accept me after what I have
done, all I have failed to do as I should, all I have not been...?’. These
are the kinds of questions with which we accuse God. Effectively the case
against God’s grace is that He will not actually forgive, justify
and save weak sinners. And He gloriously wins the case against us. And He
even uses our sin, as He used David’s (who becomes a figure of us all), in
order to prove this to us and to the world. And so, in a matchless
logical tour de force, Paul triumphs in 3:5: “Our unrighteousness
commends the righteousness of God”, just as David sinned so that God’s
righteousness would be declared.
3:5 But if our unrighteousness commends the righteousness of God- see on
Rom. 3:4 “And overcome...”. God commends His love to us in that when we
were still sinners, Christ died for us, the just for unjust (Rom. 5:8).
Thus on all sides we have God’s saving love commended to us- by our own
unrighteousness on the one hand, and by God’s self-commendation of His
desire to save us through giving His Son to die for us, taking the
initiative whilst we were as yet unborn and still from His perspective
“sinners”. The Greek for “commend” means literally to place beside, e.g.
Lk. 9:32 “the men that stood with him”. God and man come to stand
together in that court room. Our unrighteousness and His righteousness
stand together. The accused [God] comes to stand together with the
accusers [our doubts, sinful man]; and then the roles change, God becomes
the accuser and we become the accused, and He through His love comes to
again stand with us, having condemned and yet then justified us. Truly,
even under inspiration, Paul is lost for words: “What shall we say?”.
David recognized that God works through our sinfulness- he is effectively
saying in Ps. 51:4: 'I sinned so that You might be justified...'. These
words are quoted in Rom. 3:4,5 in the context of Paul's exultation that " our unrighteousness
commends the righteousness of God" - in just the same way as David's did!
Because God displays His righteousness every time He justifies a repentant
sinner, He is in a sense making Himself yet more righteous. We must see
things from God's perspective, from the standpoint of giving glory to
God's righteous attributes. If we do this, then we can see through the
ugliness of sin, and come to terms with our transgressions the more
effectively. And Paul quotes David's sin with Bathsheba as our supreme
example in this. We along with all the righteous ought to “shout for joy”
that David really was forgiven (Ps. 32:11)- for there is such hope for us
now. David is our example. And yet the intensity of David’s repentance
must be ours. He hung his head as one in whose mouth there were no more
arguments, hoping only in the Lord’s grace (Ps. 38:14 RVmg.). Notice too
how Ps. 51:1 “Have mercy on me, O God…” is quoted by the publican in Lk.
18:13. He felt that David’s prayer and situation was to be his. And he is
held up as the example for each of us.
What shall we say? Is God
unrighteous who visits with anger? (I speak after the manner of men)-
“Visits with anger” is another legal term, ‘to judicially afflict’. God
would not be and is not wrong to press the case against our sin to its
final term- vengeance, wrath, as will be seen at the final judgment. Would
He be wrong to do this to us? Of course not.
3:6
God
forbid. For then how shall God judge the world?-
God will indeed take vengeance, press the legal case
to its ultimate end, in condemning the unbelieving world. The judgment
against sin cannot be minimized just because we know that it will not in
fact be meted out upon those who believe in Christ- see on Rom. 3:5. I
prefer to translate this verse as an exclamation: “Because how much [i.e.
‘how severely!’] shall God judge the world!”.
3:7 But if the Truth of God- the profound truth of Rom. 3:4, that God is
willing and eager to save sinners, to remain faithful when we are
unfaithful (3:3).
Through my lie abounded to His glory- this is the same idea as in
3:5, that our unrighteousness actually commends the righteousness of God.
Every man is a liar, a false accuser of God’s grace (3:4) in that we all
doubt the reality of God’s saving grace for me personally. And Paul
focuses on himself- he along with every man is one of those liars. Yet his
doubt, his false accusation of God’s saving grace, only abounds unto God’s
glory, in that God will and is finally justified in all this by forgiving,
justifying and saving us.
Why am I also still judged as a sinner?- A reference to how his
opponents judged him as a sinner. But as he elsewhere says, we are to pay
no attention to how men judge us, because the only judgment worth anything
is God’s (1 Cor. 4:3). If we are judged and justified by God, so what how
men judge us?
3:8
And why not do evil that good may
come? (As some people slanderously charge us with saying-
Paul’s opponents
repeated the gossip [“we be slanderously reported”] and fabricated primary
evidence that they had actually heard Paul say [“and... affirm”] that
therefore we should sin so that blessing would come from God. Note the
legal language again- they were as it were putting Paul in the dock and
making affirmations against him. Vilification is something which every
preacher and teacher of the Gospel has to put up with, and we shouldn’t be
surprised when we encounter it. Paul speaks of such slanderers and word
twisters in very tough terms: “Whose damnation is just”. This of course is
in the context of his having just pointed out that the legal condemnation
of the unbelieving world is just and right. He perceived his critics
within the ecclesia as actually being in the unbelieving world. He also
sees their damnation as a present thing- human behaviour is played out
before the judgment seat of God right now. It’s not that He is unaware of
it and will only consider it at the future judgment seat. Slanderous words
and fabricated evidence against God’s children is seen as an ‘affirmation’
made in the Divine court- and it will be judged with damnation.
Their condemnation is just)- To God, slanderers and false teachers
within the ecclesia already are given their condemnation (Rom. 3:8). "The
Lord shall judge the people... God judgeth (present tense) the righteous,
and God is angry with the wicked every day... he will whet his sword; he
hath bent his bow, and made it ready. He hath also prepared for him the
instruments of death; he ordaineth his arrows" (Ps. 7:8,11-13). God is now
judging men, and preparing their final reward. For the wicked, the arrow
is prepared in the bow, the sword is sharpened- all waiting for the final
day in which the present judgments will be executed.
3:9- see on Rom. 2:4.
What then? Are we better than they?- RV “in better case”, do we have a
better legal case than them? The “they” could be the Gentiles- as if Paul
is saying that we Jews have no better case than the Gentiles. In this case
our retranslation of Rom. 3:1 see there would be the more justified- for
Paul would be saying that actually Jews have no real advantage over
Gentiles. But the “they” contextually would more comfortably refer to the
unbelieving world (3:6). We have no better case than them, because both
Jew and Gentile are all sinners.
No, in no way. For we before laid to the charge both of Jews and Gentiles- To legally
accuse, RV “laid to the charge”. It is in fact God who does the accusing;
but Paul for a moment sees us as on His side, accusing all humanity,
ourselves included, of sin.
That they are all under sin-Paul alludes here when he says that “I
am carnal, sold under sin” (Rom. 7:14). And yet he also draws the contrast
between being “under the law” and now after baptism being “under grace”
(Rom. 6:14). Paul sees himself from outside himself when he says that he
has legally accused all men of being sinners- and he includes himself in
that mass of humanity. Repeatedly, he wishes to emphasize that he too is a
sinner and not, as the teacher, somehow separate from sinful humanity. He
sets a great example to every teacher and preacher in the ecclesia. For he
previously warned against the human tendency to assume that what happens
to all men will somehow not happen to me (Rom. 2:2,3).
Paul speaks of both Jew and Gentile as being “under the power of sin”
(Rom. 3:9 RSV) – which in itself suggests that he saw “sin” personified as
a power. If sin is indeed personified by the Bible writers – what real
objection can there be to the idea of this personification being at times
referred to as ‘Satan’, the adversary? It has been argued that Paul was
well aware of the concept of dualism which the Jews had picked up in
Babylonian captivity, i.e. the idea that there is a ‘Satan’ god opposed to
the true God; but he reapplies those terms to the conflict he so often
describes between flesh and spirit, which goes on within the human mind.
3:10 The quotation from Ps. 14:1-3; 53:1-3 is about the fools who say in
their heart that there is no God. Yet Paul applies this to every one of
us, himself included. What he’s doing here is similar to what he does at
the end of Romans 1- he speaks of the grossest sins such as sexual
perversion and reasons that we are all in essence guilty and condemned as
serious sinners before God. Here he quotes passages which speak of
effective atheism and applies them to us all, himself included- even
though atheism was abhorrent to the Jews, and Paul may have seemed the
last person to be an atheist. But the ‘atheism’ of Ps. 14:1 occurs within
the psychological thought processes of the human mind- the fool says in
his heart that there is no God. In the context of Romans, Paul is arguing
that we call God a liar when we disbelieve His offer of justification and
salvation. To deny this is to effectively say in our hearts that there is
no God. If God is, then He is a Saviour God. To deny that He will save me
is effectively to say He doesn’t exist; for a God who won’t save me may as
well not exist. Far too many people claim some level of belief in God’s
existence, but in their hearts deny Him, in that they personally doubt
whether His promised salvation is really true for me.
3:10
As it is written: There is none
righteous, no, not one- The “none righteous” connects with the fact
that the Gospel is for both Jew and Gentile (:9). The Jews were not “the
righteous”, as Judaism loved to claim, because there is no single
righteous person except the Lord Jesus. ‘Righteousness’ is a major concept
in Judaism. “The righteous” is a term often used about faithful Jews. But
Paul is saying that not one of them is righteous. All stand in need
therefore of God’s imputed righteousness, which is given by faith in the
Lord Jesus and location within Him. The source passage of the quotation in
Ps. 14:1-3 is saying that from God’s viewpoint, He sees none righteous-
even though Judaism declared their saints “righteous”, this was not God’s
judgment. We note that Paul is quoting rather freely from the Septuagint;
quotation and interpretation are so often combined in Paul, as was the
custom of the rabbis. The context of Psalm 14 appears to be of
thanksgiving for salvation by grace, a salvation that was not deserved,
seeing all men are sinners. And this of course is exactly Paul’s context.
3:11 There are none that understand- In the context, understands, perceives,
the reality that God will really save me. But not understanding is
paralleled with sinning; ‘understanding’ in Hebrew thought referred to
relationship. Thus to sleep with a woman was to ‘know’ her. This is not a
lament over all the misguided theology and wrong interpretations of the
Bible; rather is it a lament that sin has damaged the relationship of
every man with his God.
There are none that seek God- Translating the Hebraism for ‘to
worship’. Nobody really grasps the reality of personal salvation and falls
to the ground in worship as they should. If we would only let ourselves go
and realize that His desire to save me is greater than my failure, that my
sin is no barrier to His grace- we would be the most ecstatic and
profoundly devoted worshippers of Him. But actually nobody really is like
this, for their faith is not total and therefore their worship cannot be
either, whatever outward appearance of ecstasy and profound expressions it
may appear to have, in lyrics and music.
3:12 They have all turned
aside, they are together become unprofitable- although quoting still from Ps. 14:1-3, the idea
is very similar to “we like sheep have gone astray” (Is. 53:6). We sin
because of our group mentality, the influence of others is so strong upon
us, we sin because we are sheep who follow the rest of the flock rather
than stand alone against sin. Peer pressure is simply far stronger than we
can ever imagine. In the context, Paul is reading “all” and “together” as
meaning that both Jew and Gentile have alike gone astray, united and
undivided in their joint sinfulness, no matter how they may culturally
differ in the flesh.
There is none that does good, no,
not so much as one-
The Greek word essentially means profitable, useful. The contrast is with
how we are all become “unprofitable”- none is profitable to God. It’s not
that nobody ever does any good deed; rather the idea is that we are like
the vine tree, not useful of ourselves to God (Ez. 15:2-6) unless He
justifies us and makes us useful in His service.
3:13 Their throat is an open
tomb, with their tongues they have used deceit, the poison of asps is
under their lips- The connection is
surely with how Paul has said that all men, himself included, are liars
(3:4,7). Yet the lie he had there in view was the lie that God will not
save me, will not and cannot justify me as He has promised. And in this we
falsely accuse God, putting Him in the dock. Paul talks of this in the
harshest of language here, as if we are poison spitters, the seed of the
serpent, in how we speak against God. This is a theme with Paul- to use
exaggerated and extreme language about our disbelief and sinfulness.
Because of God's abhorrence of sin, sins of ignorance were still counted
as offences against God, requiring atonement. This should really humble
us- if we are sensitive to this fact. It therefore follows that we
should lift up our voice for understanding of God's ways, for ignorant sin
is still sin to Him- even though His judgment of us may possibly take into
account our level of appreciation. In this context we should also be aware
that God remembers unforgiven sin. Over time we can forget that we cursed
our wife on 6.6.96 or whenever and never bowed down in repentance. But He
doesn’t. The haziness of our memories can work as a kind of
pseudo-atonement for us. With Him there is no distinction between past and
present and future. The sin remains before Him. By the law comes the
knowledge of sin to men, but this doesn’t mean they aren’t culpable
for those sins before God (Rom. 3:20; 7:7)- for sins of ignorance still
needed atonement. “Sin is not imputed when there is no law” (Rom. 3:13)
most likely means, in this light, that it is not imputed by those who do
the sin. But God still notices… We only have to consider the passion
of Peter's appeal to Israel in Acts 3:17-19: "I wot that through ignorance
ye did it, as did your rulers... repent ye therefore”. His Jewish
hearers would immediately have spotted the allusion back to the Mosaic
protocol about what to do when you and your rulers realized you'd
committed sins of ignorance. But the sacrifice required was now not an
animal- it was the sacrifice of a broken heart and a baptism into Jesus.
It should be noted that verses 13-18 are quoting from the Septuagint of
Psalm 14- they aren’t found in the Hebrew text. Time and again the
inspired New Testament writers quote from the LXX rather than the Hebrew
Masoretic text, often preferring the LXX over the MT, and in this case
accepting the LXX addition of verses which the MT omits. It’s hard to
gauge the wider significance of this. The LXX versions of the genealogies
in Genesis would, e.g., not support the contention that the Genesis 1
creation occurred 4000 years before the birth of Christ.
3:14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness- This and Rom.
3:16 especially could be appropriate to the descriptions of the rejected
at the day of judgment. The idea being that we are all rejected, for we
are all sinners; but by grace, the believers in Christ have been declared
righteous. We seem to have Paul declaring the sinfulness of humanity in
the most graphic terms he can- quoting verses which immediately trigger
the reaction: “But that’s not quite true of me. I may be a sinner, but I
don’t do that”, e.g. cursing and blaspheming all day long. I think
this is intentional; for Paul writes very sensitive to his audience’s
likely reaction. It’s similar to how he speaks about the grossest moral
sins such as sexual perversion in chapter 1, and then proceeds to count us
all guilty in essence. It’s a powerful device to try to highlight to us
all the extent of human sinfulness.
3:15 Their feet are swift to shed
blood- Paul may be quoting this and applying it to us all in
the sense that he gave full weight to the Lord’s teaching that the hateful
thought is as bad as murder. Or he may be wishing to shock us with the
extent of our sinful position (see on Rom. 3:14).
Eliphaz thought there were only a few very sinful people in the world (Job
15:35); but His words are quoted by the Spirit in Is. 59:4 concerning the
whole nation of Israel; and this in turn is quoted in Rom. 3:15-17
concerning the whole human race. This same path of progressive realization
of our sinfulness must be trodden by each faithful individual, as well as
on a communal level.
3:16 Destruction- Gk. ‘a dashing to pieces’, perhaps an allusion to
how the stone of Messiah’s second coming would dash the kingdoms of men to
pieces at His return (Dan. 2:45; Rev. 2:27). But sinners are going now in
way of such destruction. Damnation begins now- in the way of life people
chose to live.
And misery are in their ways- The wretchedness of the condemned.
But remember Paul is applying this to us all, as apart from Christ we are
all sinners, even now living out our future condemnation. Yet Paul uses
the very word about himself in Rom. 7:24: “O wretched [s.w. miserable] man
that I am…”, going on to exalt that Christ has saved him from that
position, that misery, the misery of the condemned sinner. What is true of
all humanity is true of Paul too- he repeatedly emphasizes his own
personal share in the condemned human situation.
3:17 And the way of peace have they not known- Remember that Paul is
writing to Christians who have known God’s ways, convicting them that they
with him are, naturally speaking, condemned and the most wretched of
sinners. “Peace” in Paul’s thought nearly always refers to peace with God
through forgiveness and salvation in Christ. It is this which they have
not known all the time they refuse to really believe that they have been
forgiven and justified in Christ.
3:18 There is no fear of God before their eyes- Again, the
language appropriate to the most hardened, atheistic blasphemer is being
applied to all men, including Paul and all in Christ. This is Paul’s
attempt to shock us into a deeper realization of how serious our position
is as sinners. He has already convicted us of in essence being no better
than sexual perverts in chapter 1; he has applied the language of atheists
to us in Rom. 1:28; 3:10. And now he as it were crowns it all by quoting a
description of the very dregs of human society, who live with no fear of
God, and applying it to us- we who fear His judgment and condemnation in
our faithlessness that His grace is enough to save us. It’s a paradox- if
we fear God’s judgment, not believing in His grace, then we are
categorized along with those who have no fear of God.
Although I have argued that Paul is quoting from the LXX of Psalm 14 here
in Rom. 3:13-18, it would seem that this verse is also quoting Ps. 36:1:
“The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no
fear of God before his eyes”. This has a strange appropriacy. David says
that the sin of the wicked is speaking within his David’s heart.
This is the same spirit in which Paul is applying the descriptions of the
very worst of humanity and admitting that in essence, this is what is
going on within his heart and within the heart of every man. Truly,
bad man only do what good mean dream of.
3:19
Now we know that whatever things
the law said, it speaks to them that are under the law; that every mouth
may be stopped-
“The law” here seems to
be used in the Rabbinic sense of ‘the OT scriptures’. There seems no sense
if Paul is saying that the Law, the Scriptures he has just quoted, speak
only to those “under the law”, and that therefore the whole world is
condemned and guilty before God. I think we have to read in some ellipses
here; the Message seems to get it right: “This makes it clear, doesn't it,
that whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about
others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first
place!”. This would be continuing the theme of 2:2,3- that we are not to
give in to the human tendency to assume that the consequences for all men
because of sin will somehow not come upon us personally. See also on Rom.
2:21.
Those verses Paul has just quoted, speaking of the worst of sinners, apply
to us all (3:9,10). Paul realizes we are prone to respond that no, that’s
not quite me… I’m not that bad. And so he has warned: “Whatever is
written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but
to us” [The Message]. The intention is that “every mouth may be
stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God”. The Greek for
“stopped”, according to Vine, refers to “the effect of overwhelming
evidence upon an accused party in court”. It is the speechlessness of the
rejected of which the Lord speaks in Mt. 22:12. Each of us should so know
our sinfulness that we really feel as if we are standing at the judgment
seat of Christ and have been condemned. We, along with all the world,
“become guilty”, become sentenced [Gk.] before His judgment seat, right
now. Only by having some sense of this will we be able to have any emotion
of relief, joy, gratitude, praise, exaltation etc. at the wonder of having
been declared right, accepted, by God’s grace in Christ.
We can however interpret “the law” as the Law of Moses. Its’ purpose was
“so that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty
before God” (Rom. 3:19). Paul is quoting here from Ps. 63:11: “the mouth
of them that speak lies shall be stopped”. He’s reasoning that because
we’re all sinners, we’re all liars- for untruth is the essence of sin. We
are not being true to ourselves, to God, to His word, to our brethren… we
profess covenant relationship with God, to be His people, and yet we fail
to keep the terms of that covenant. And the Law of Moses convicted all
God’s people of this, and in this way led them to the need for Christ. Yet
Is. 52:15 prophesied that the crucified Jesus would result in men shutting
their mouths. The righteousness and perfection displayed there in one Man,
the very human Lord Jesus, has the same effect upon us as the Law of
Moses- we shut our mouths, convicted of sin.
And all the world- Rom. 3:19 (A.V.mg.) defines "all the world" as
those "subject to the judgment of God" - which is only the responsible.
The Lord Jesus took away the sin “of the world”, but the Jews died in
their sins; “the world” whose sins were taken away is therefore the world
of believers. "Every knee shall bow to me... every tongue shall confess...
so then every one of us shall give account" (Rom. 14:11,12) is another
example- 'all men', 'every man' means 'every one of us the responsible'.
"The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men"
(Tit. 2:11)- certainly not to every human being that has ever lived; but
to the "all men" of the new creation. For not "all men" will be saved. The
Lord tasted death "for every man" (Heb. 2:9)- for every one who has a
representative part in His sacrifice through baptism. Christ "reconciled
the world" in that He obtained forgiveness for us (2 Cor. 5:19)- we are
"the world" which was reconciled, we are the "all things" purged by His
blood (Heb. 9:22). 1 Cor. 4:9 seems to make a difference between "the
world" and "men", as if Paul is using "the world" here as meaning 'the
world of believers'. The Lord was "a ransom for all" (1 Tim. 2:6),
although it was only us, the redeemed, who were ransomed by Him out of
sin's slavery (Lk. 1:68; Tit. 2:14; 1 Pet. 1:18; Rom. 8:13; Rev. 5:9;
14:3,4). The “all flesh” upon whom the Spirit was poured out in the first
century was clearly enough a reference to those who believed and were
baptized (Acts 2:17).
May be brought under the judgment of God- Sodom being a type of
latter day events, it is not surprising that Scripture provides a wealth
of detail concerning Sodom. The Genesis record summarizes what we glean
from later revelation by saying that "the men of Sodom were wicked and
sinners before the Lord exceedingly" (Gen. 13:13). "Before the Lord"
recalls the earth being "corrupt before God" prior to the flood (Gen.
6:11), another clear type of the last days. Indeed their sin being "before
the Lord" may hint that Lot (or Abraham?) had preached God's requirements
to them, and therefore they were consciously disobeying Him. Thus Rom.
3:19 speaks of the world becoming "guilty before God" (AV) by reason of
their having the opportunity to know God's word (cp. Rom. 2:12,13).
3:20 Because
by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight; for
through the law comes the knowledge of sin-
“Because” is AV "Therefore". Because we are convicted sinners facing
condemnation, no good works we do in other areas can change the outcome
nor displace the sins we have already committed. ‘Just’ one sin brings
death, as evidenced by the sin of Adam and Eve. “Guilty before God” in
3:19 is reflected by “[not] justified in His sight” in 3:20. Because we
are already standing dumbstruck and declared guilty before Him, we cannot
be now declared right, it can’t all be made OK, by doing some other good
works according to that same system of law parts of which we broke. If you
murder your neighbour and stand in court condemned for it, you can’t put
it all right by then doing the good deed of mowing your other neighbour’s
lawn and taking his garbage to the dump. Indeed, trying to obey “the law”
in one aspect isn’t going to declare us right when that same system of law
condemns us. The only possible way to ‘get right’ would be to somehow get
to the judge through another paradigm than obedience or disobedience to
the law. And this is exactly what Paul is building up to. For the Judge of
all the earth Himself thought up such a way. Seeing that “by the law is
the knowledge of sin”, or as 1 Cor. 15:56 puts it “the strength of sin is
the law”, a way simply has to be found for our salvation which doesn’t
depend upon our obedience or disobedience to the law.
3:21 But now apart from the
law, a righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the
law and the prophets-
“A
righteousness of God” is
a poor translation which is out of harmony with the context of 3:20 [see
there]. The idea is that the justification of God, the way God sets a
person right, without reference to the law, outside the paradigm of law-
is in fact revealed (RV “has been manifested”, already) within the Old
Testament prophets and the Law of Moses itself. The Old Testament
scriptures are described with yet another legal term- they are right now
witnessing in court, attesting. It’s as if we stood in the dock condemned
and silent before God; but then the very law which we had broken and the
Scriptures themselves take the witness box- and offer a way for us to be
declared right.
3:22 Even
the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all them that
believe. For there is no distinction-
God’s way of putting us right operates through our
faith in [RV, Gk.] Jesus Christ, which Paul will later define more
concretely in chapter 6 as baptism into His death and resurrection; for
this is what constitutes in the first instance our believing into Christ.
Whoever, any human being, who believes into Him will be counted right by
God. And therefore “all”, “any”, who believe will be saved, there is no
difference or distinction between them in terms of their being Jew or
Gentile. The same word is used in this connection in Rom. 10:12.
3:23 For all have sinned- the context suggests that the enormity of
our condemned position before God should mean that we do not uphold any
human distinctions between us, e.g. on ethnic grounds. "All" here,
as in :22, is referring in the context to 'Jew and Gentile, every human
being'. Perceiving the
enormity of our sin, how we are all in this together, and the wonder of
God’s saving grace, ought to be the most powerful inspiration to unity
known to humanity. The “all” who have sinned could refer to ‘all believers
in Christ’ which is the subject of the preceding verse 3:22; and 3:24
suggests that this same “all” are those who are justified freely by His
grace.
And all fall short of the glory of God- We have all already sinned
[aorist past tense] and we do now [present tense] fall short of God’s
glory, i.e. the complete perfection, the glory of God which was seen in
the person of His Son (2 Cor. 4:6). God declared His glory to Moses in
terms of His character (Ex. 33:18 cp. Ex. 34:4-6). We fall short of that
perfection of the Father’s character which was revealed in its fullness in
His Son. Heb. 12:15 uses the same Greek word for “come / fall short” in
warning lest any man “fail / fall short of the grace of God”. We come far
short of God’s glory, but we are not to fall short of His grace whereby
the righteousness of His Son, His glory, is counted to us and we are
thereby declared right with Him. Jewish writings such as the Apocalypse of
Moses 20.2 and 21.6 claimed that Adam “came short of the glory of God” by
his sin in Eden; Paul is clearly alluding to this and is saying that Adam
is everyman, we each are as Adam in Eden, with the tidal wave of
realization breaking upon us as to the seriousness and eternal consequence
of our so easily committed sin. It must be remembered that the Jewish
writings frequently paralleled Adam with Israel [N.T. Wright, The
Climax of the Covenant (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1991) pp. 18-40 for
documentation]. But Paul is arguing that Adam is every single human being,
not just Israel. For Adam was created well before Israel, and all
humanity are his offspring, not just Israel. The universal experience of
sinfulness therefore leads to the offer of God’s grace to all types of
human being, not just Israel; and there will be an ensuing unity between
those who believe in this grace, regardless of their ethnic background.
The Bible itself continually reflects a distinction in the mind of God
between the person and the behaviour, the sin and the sinner. When we
allow ourselves to be offended and to offend others, we have ceased to
make that differentiation. We so easily equate the person and their
behaviour, and thus they offend us. Consider how we are in the habit of
saying: “We’re all sinners”. You may think I’m being pedantic, but Rom.
3:23 says otherwise- that “all have sinned”. And there’s a slight and
subtle difference. We have committed sin, and therefore we can be called
sinners. But the Biblical focus is on the action committed rather than the
branding of the person with a label.
3:24 But are justified freely by His grace- Gk. ‘without a cause /
reason, as a gift’. We are justified, declared right in our court case,
for no reason. This declaring right is therefore by the purest grace
imaginable. The same word is used of how we should freely, without a human
reason, preach the Gospel (Mt. 10:8; 2 Cor. 11:7); our receipt of such a
“free” salvation should naturally inspire us to share it with others in
the same spirit. Any form of charging for the Gospel, getting personal
benefit or glory out of sharing it with others, is absolutely outlawed.
The free nature of the grace we have received must be reflected in our
sharing it with others in the same spirit; God’s giving to us has to be
translated in our giving to others. Sharing the Gospel isn’t, therefore,
an irksome duty, something we salve our conscience with, something we are
asked to participate in by a church leadership team; but a natural
personal outflowing of the free gift we have received.
Through the redemption that
is in Christ Jesus-
We are declared right here and now, we receive redemption in that our sins
are forgiven (Eph. 1:7); but redemption is in fact a process, culminating
in the redemption of our body at the return of Christ, the final change
from mortality to immortality in a corporeal, literal sense (s.w. Rom.
8:23), in “the day of redemption” (Eph. 4:30).
3:25 Whom God set
forth -“Whom God put forward as a place of atonement by his
blood” (NRSV margin) seems to be the right sense. The reference is to the
mercy seat, not to the sacrificed animal. Vincent comments: “The word is
used by Herodotus of exposing corpses (v. 8); by Thucydides of exposing
the bones of the dead (ii. 34)”. The sense of public display is picked up
later in the verse in the word “declare”. Crucifixion is by its very
nature a public event. There was once a doctor in Paraguay who spoke out
against human rights abuses. Local police took their revenge by torturing
his teenage son to death. The local people wanted to stage a huge protest
march, but the father disallowed them and chose another means of protest.
At the funeral, the father displayed his son’s body as it was when
retrieved from jail- naked, scarred from electric shocks, cigarette burns
and beatings. And the body was displayed not in a coffin but on the
blood-soaked prison mattress. This public display of a body was the most
powerful witness and incitement possible. And the public nature of the
display of God’s tortured son was for the same basic reason. “He was
manifested, that he might put sins away" (1 Jn. 3:5) could suggest that in
His atoning death, ‘He’ was manifested. There God set forth Jesus in His
blood, for all to see and respond to (Rom. 3:25 Gk.). There the real
essence of Jesus was publicly shown forth. And there we come to know what
love is (1 Jn. 3:16).
To be a propitiation- The Greek word hilasterion doesn’t have to
specifically mean
“mercy seat” / atonement cover, with reference to the ark's cover, even though
this is how it is translated in Hebrews 9:5 and how it is used in
the LXX. The idea is essentially a place
of atonement or the atonement victim, the sacrificed animal. Instead of
that place of blood sprinkling, obscurely hidden away on the top of the
atonement cover [on the ark of the covenant within the Most Holy Place which
the High Priest saw only once per year], God through the cross set forth
publicly, He declared, the place of atonement to be in the very publicly
displayed blood of His Son. The public nature of crucifixion therefore was
appropriate. The Son of Man had to be, therefore, “lifted up” (Jn. 3:14)
so that He could and can be believed in. Rom. 3:25 states that the Lord in
His death was "set forth to be a propitiation". Graham Jackman comments:
"Though the primary meaning of the word ‘set forth’ (protithemi)
seems to be that of ‘determining’ or ‘purposing’, another sense, albeit
not in the New Testament, is said to be that of exposing the bodies of the
dead to public view, as in a lying in state". See on Mk. 15:29.
Through faith in his blood, to
show His righteousness in the passing over of the sins done previously- See on “set forth”.
But the word also carries the sense of setting forth evidence, proof. The
legal flavour could possibly suggest that the blood of Christ, His death
upon the cross, is brought forth as a proof in the court case that
actually, we really have been declared in the right. Whilst Christ’s death
was multifactorial, it would be true to say that God could have saved us
any way He chose, without being forced, as it were, to have a begotten Son
who was publicly crucified. Maybe He did this because He so wishes us to
believe, and He wanted to commend His love in all its depth and costliness
as publicly as possible, so that we would indeed perceive and believe it.
God’s method of declaring us right deals with the sins “that are past”,
for which we stand condemned before His judgment seat with no way to make
amends; and also “at this time” (3:26), right now, we are declared
righteous by status, declared in the right, if we are believers into
Jesus.
In the forbearance of God- We shall all be saved
by the forbearance of God, hence we should not deny to others the
forbearance of God. Hence in Rom. 2:4 the same word is used, in stating
that those who condemn their brethren are despising the forbearance of
God, in that they are assuming that His forbearance can’t apply to the
person whom they have condemned. If we are saved by God’s gracious
forbearance, it’s not for us to deny this to another.
3:26 For the showing of His righteousness at this
present time-
See on Rom. 3:25.
That He might Himself be just- the whole process of justifying
sinners is achieved without infringing upon the justice and integrity of
God. Quite how… isn’t explained (although I am aware of many attempts to
explain it, but they all seem to fail). I think we are asked to accept
this on faith.
And the justifier- God’s plan of declaring us right takes care of
our past sins (Rom. 3:25), right now “at this time” declares us right, and
will justify us at the coming day of judgment.
Of him that has faith in Jesus- "Faith in Jesus" is hardly
a legal basis upon which to justify and rehabilitate a convicted criminal.
But that's how things work in God's court. And for us, that is all the
ultimately matters. The non-Christian will understandably complain. All
this makes no sense. How can a man who abused children be counted
righteous and enthused about? No justice, in a human sense, appears to
have been done. But then human 'justice' is flawed. As hurt people leave a
court room and are interviewed about their feelings concerning their
abuser, they at times will say they are satisfied that justice has been
done and seen to be done. But whilst that may provide a little cosmetic
comfort, the damage has still been done, and the clock cannot be turned
back. Human justice still fails to address the real issues. Admittedly, it
is going to be hard for a non-Christian to accept that their abuser is now
seen by God as just because of "faith in Jesus". And here we are down to
the simple reality that the believer in Christ lives in a different
culture, speaking another language and understanding things totally
differently... to the unbeliever. It's a difference as radical as that
between light and darkness. That's why believers should only marry
believers. The gap in thought and culture is so chasmic and total.
It’s rare for Paul to refer to the
Lord Jesus Christ as simply “Jesus” with no title. Perhaps he is trying to
bring out the simplicity of it all- that by believing in the very human
Jesus, a man of our nature with one of the commonest names amongst first
century Palestinian Jews, i.e. ‘Jesus’, we really can be declared right
before God.
3:27 Where then is the
glorying? It is excluded- The Jewish boasting
about obedience to the Mosaic Law of Rom. 2:17. If we are saved by grace,
any feelings of superiority are excluded. “It is excluded” is a mild way
of translating the aorist- the sense is that boasting has once for all
been cut off, ended, excluded; by the death of Christ, and by that moment
when we believed into Christ, and stood declared righteous before the
judgment seat of Christ. Paul must refer to boasting in a wrong sense, a
boasting in our works and obedience; for he uses the word quite often in
his letters of his boasting of God’s grace, and of the faithfulness of
other brethren which had been inspired by that grace (e.g. 2 Cor. 7:4,14;
8:24; 9:4; 11:10,17).
By what manner of law? Of works?- Boasting in the sense of feeling superior to others hasn’t been
excluded by law, i.e. it’s not that we no longer boast because there’s a
law that says ‘You shall not boast’. It has been cut off by the law or
principle of salvation by faith rather than works. This simple reality,
that we really are saved, not by works but by faith in God’s grace through
Jesus, is so powerful that it quite naturally excludes boasting.
3:28- see on Rom. 2:26.
We reckon
therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law- The legal sense of the
word refers to the summing up of a court case. Here again, Paul assumes
the role of judge. The summary of the case is that a man is declared right
by God on account of his faith in God’s grace and the blood of Christ.
This is “without”, quite apart from, any acts of obedience to law.
3:29 Or is God the God of Jews
only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also- Paul brings out the
practical implications of the doctrine of justification by faith in God’s
grace. Seeing that all men are sinners, and the basis of salvation is our
faith in His grace through the blood of Christ- there can be no basic
division between believers. God becomes “the God” of those He has saved,
that seems to be implication- and so He isn’t the God of only the Jews.
The Roman concept of religio allowed each subject nation to have
their own gods, so long as the cult of the emperor was also worshipped.
But Rom. 3:29 states that the God of Israel was the one God of the
Gentiles too. This is in sharp distinction to the way the Romans thought
of the god of the Jews as just another national deity. Caesar was king of
many subject kings, Lord of many conquered and inferior lords. In this we
see the radical challenge of 1 Tim. 6:15,16: that Jesus Christ is the only potentate,
the Lord of Lords, the King of all Kings.
3:30 Since God is one- The belief which the Jews held most dear;
they felt that their monotheism divided them from the rest of the world.
But it is the fact that there’s only one God which binds together Jew and
Gentile believers in Christ; for that one God justifies each human being
on the same basis. The seriousness of our personal positions and the
wonder of His saving grace is such that any ethnic difference between us
becomes irrelevant.
That God is one is not just a numerical description. If there is only one
God, He therefore demands our all. Because He is the One God, He
demands all our worship; and because He is One, He therefore treats all
His people the same, regardless, e.g., of their nationality (Rom. 3:30).
All true worshippers of the one God, whether Jew or Gentile, are united in
that the one God offers salvation to them on the same basis. The fact
there is only one Lord Jesus implies the same for Him (Rom. 10:12). Paul
saw these implications in the doctrine of the unity of God. But that
doctrine needs reflecting on before we come to grasp these conclusions.
Paul, writing to those who thought they believed in the unity of God, had
to remind them that this simple fact implies the need for unity amongst us
His children, seeing He treats us all equally as a truly good Father: " If
so be that God is one... he shall justify the circumcision by faith, and
[likewise] the uncircumcision through faith" (Rom. 3:30 RV). Unity amongst
us is inspired by the fact that God seeks to be one with us, exactly
because He is Himself 'unity', one in Himself. The Rabbis have always been
at pains to point out the somewhat unusual grammar in the record of
creation in Genesis 1, which literally translated reads: "One day... a
second day... a third day", rather than 'One day... two days... three
days', as we'd expect if 'Day one' solely referred to 'firstness' in terms
of time. "The first day" (Gen. 1:5) therefore means more strictly 'the day
of unity', in that it refers to how the one God sought unity with earth. "Yom
ehad, one day, really means the day which God desired to be one with
man... the unity of God is a concern for the unity of the world".
He will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised by faith- The Greek words ek [“by”]
and dia faith [AV “through”] may simply be being used in parallel,
meaning effectively the same thing, as they are in Gal. 2:16. “The
circumcision” refers to Jewish Christians who believed; “the
uncircumcision” is perhaps also a technical term, in this context, for
believing Christian Gentiles.
3:31
Do we then make the law of no effect through faith? God forbid. No, we
establish the law- Consider where the
same word is used in the context of showing that the Law has indeed been
‘made void’ or done away: Rom. 7:2, we are “loosed” from the Law,
“delivered from the Law” (Rom. 7:6), the Law was “done away” (2 Cor.
3:11), “abolished” (2 Cor. 3:13), “done away” (2 Cor. 3:14), “abolished…
the law of commandments” (Eph. 2:15). Clearly enough, the Law is indeed
“made void”- by the death of Christ. The emphasis should therefore be on
the fact that it is not us (“we”), who made it void. We as
lawbreakers have no right to simply abrogate Divine Law, to void it
because we broke it and we want to avoid the consequences. It can only be
done by the Divine lawmaker and His Son. Our faith in Him and His saving
grace doesn’t mean that we make the law void; we by our sinfulness
and acceptance of it do in fact establish or ‘make to stand’ Divine law.
Paul is anticipating the objections of his Jewish audience- that he was
teaching that sinners could merely abrogate the Law they had broken. We
sense how on the back foot Paul was- his critics must have been
persistent, and his stress level must have been very high by constantly
seeking to anticipate their objections and parry them [did he actually
need to have done this?]. By believing in God’s grace in Christ and not
trying to get justification from keeping the Law of Moses, we are in a
strange way fulfilling the “righteousness of the law” (Rom. 8:4). It may
be that Paul here is using “law” as a reference to the Old Testament
scriptures generally, which he has been quoting so freely to prove his
point (he uses “law” like this in Rom. 3:19,21; although “law” in the
first half of 3:31 seems to refer to the Mosaic Law specifically).
"Think not that I am come to destroy (“to make void”, Darby's Translation)
the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil" (Mt.
5:17) has some kind of unconscious, hard to define link with Rom. 3:31:
"Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish
the law". The Greek words for "destroy" and "make void" are different; yet
the similarity of phrasing and reasoning is so similar. I can't pass this
off as chance, yet neither can I say there is a conscious allusion here.
There is, therefore, what I will call an 'unconscious link' here.
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