Lonang Commentary on Romans 3

Rom. 3:1-4 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, “That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.”

The Value of Being A Jew

Paul has just spent two chapters laying out how the entire human race is under the condemnation of sin and the judgment of God – that this situation is universal, unavoidable, and no one is excused. Then, to drive the point home for Jewish readers, he states that notwithstanding the Jews have been given laws the Gentiles do not have, they are subject to the same standards as everyone else ultimately, and their Jewishness will neither save them nor cut them any slack.

Of course, the mindset of Jewish readers is inclined to believe they are God’s chosen people and treasured possession in all the world – in other words, special. So Paul assures them here that yes, they are still special, or in his words, have an advantage. Not in respect of salvation, atonement, or righteousness, but in other ways. What other ways? First, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God, that is, the holy scriptures – which for Jews means the Old Testament. And this, for the Jews, is a great honor. But in fact the entire Protestant Bible (66 books) was written or compiled by Jewish writers.

Second, the Jews were recipients of God’s special faithfulness, even though they were unfaithful. We have to keep in mind that Israel never was defined as a community of faith, nor was faith ever a necessary element in being Jewish at the individual level. Paul is speaking of Israel corporately here, since that is the way God has always dealt with the Jews. God chose them as a group, preserved them as a group, punished them as a group, and will restore and bless them as a group. He will even, when the time comes, save them spiritually as a group. More on this later.

Which means, from God’s perspective – looking down the long road of history, from the beginning of the nation until the end of time – that all the promises and blessings of God to the Jews will be completely fulfilled. But humanly speaking, only the Jews who are alive in the coming Messianic Age will ever actually see this fully realized in person. All the Jews living up until Paul’s time, and all the Jews since his time until now, have only seen glimpses. They have seen their disobedience, their punishment, and their preservation against all odds, but the full restoration and salvation they have not yet seen.

Yet, I am convinced, God has already seen it, so to Him it is not merely a prediction, but a present reality that He has already seen come true. Which must make it very hard for the Jewish people – not seeing what God has seen in His temporal transcendence (not being confined by time) – to understand how Paul can here consider them to be justified, and God to be faithful. Yet, God’s ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts. Isa. 55:8.

Rom. 3:5-8 But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come? as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just.

National Culpability, Individual Accountability

Paul next presses his argument with a rhetorical question, whether God is unrighteous to inflict His wrath. I say he is making an argument, because the rhetorical question carries an obvious answer (“of course God is not unrighteous”). But the purpose of this device is to persuade his readers of something they are not predisposed to think. Specifically, his question is tailored for Jewish readers to consider that they are deserving of God’s wrath. Because the “our unrighteousness” he speaks of in verse 5 is the unrighteousness of the Jewish people as a group, historically, not any individual unrighteousness. Nor is he here speaking of himself or his companions, Jewish believers, or any New Testament church.

But the point being made is essentially the same as before. Notwithstanding that God deals with the Jews corporately, this does nothing to diminish each individual Jew’s culpability before God. Membership in the group does not lessen personal accountability.

Paul’s final point is that no one gets a free pass to do evil, just because God may choose to use that in a way to do some good. Particularly with the Jews, whose historical sins have been preserved in writing for us to learn from their example, the preservation of that record and/or the usefulness of that example does not excuse or exculpate anyone. Thus, Paul explicitly denies he or those with him are making any such arguments to somehow lessen individual responsibility for sin. And those who falsely accuse him of making those arguments are justly condemned.

Judge of the World

Before leaving this text, perhaps a few words are in order concerning God as the Judge of the world. I stated in the Introduction that God is Law. He imbued the created order with the law of nature – really, the law of His nature – not only because He thought it was good and necessary for our sakes, but because (I suggest) He could not have done it any other way, for it is His very nature to do so. It is impossible that God could have made a creation of disorder, lawlessness or anarchy. His very nature precludes it. An ordered creation requires rules of behavior.

We are accustomed to thinking like this in the physical or scientific realm. Atoms must behave a certain way to hold together and interact with each other in a predictable and regular way. The principles, or if you will, laws, of physics, chemistry and mathematics must be regular and not random, certain and not haphazard, in order for the universe to hold together. And that’s what God is doing – He constantly holds the universe together, making sure all the physical matter behaves in a way that serves His purposes. “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Col. 1:17. “He upholds the universe by the word of his power.” Heb. 1:3.

Similarly, there must be laws of biology in order for life to exist. But not merely in a physical sense. Mankind, being inherently a part of the created order, is subject in all ways to these same principles – not merely the physical laws of the universe, but also all behavioral laws for human beings. It is impossible that God could have made people to live in disorder, lawlessness or anarchy. Meaning that He not only sustains us physically, but also sustains us behaviorally. God hasn’t merely laid down laws of human behavior, He also actively enforces those laws, that is, He governs us. “For the LORD is our judge; the LORD is our lawgiver; the LORD is our king; he will save us.” Isa. 33:22. We are expected to conform our behaviors to His laws.

And law enforcement, of course, would be nothing without judgment. Not merely keeping people in line, as it were, but providing a reckoning. It is not for nothing that Isaiah characterizes God as personally embodying the three branches of civil government – legislative (lawgiver), executive (king) and judicial (judge). For in addition to God embodying and personifying law, He is the same with respect to government, for it is His nature. GOD IS GOVERNMENT.

Therefore, it is impossible that God could have made us, or our world, any other way. Government, and especially judgment, are an inherent part of the universe, and therefore an inherent part of us. If God were to withhold His judgment of any people, whether Jew or Gentile, it would be contrary to His nature as God, and is unthinkable.

Rom. 3:9-18 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

There Are No Holy Men

At this point Paul sums up his entire argument so far. First, that no person is righteous in himself before God. Second, that in this there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles. And there are no exceptions.

I suspect the reason Paul quotes so many verses from the Psalms and O.T. prophets is that, especially for Jewish readers who may be familiar with them, none of this should come as a surprise. This is not a stray thought, a minor point, or a doctrine built from a single verse. There is abundant evidence from multiple sources showing that this is a major theme of the scriptures, which any careful reader should have been able to discern. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, not to express any new ideas, but to show the common sense of the subject.

Thus, Paul is not making a new argument here. He is arguing from first principles – the nature of the creation, the nature of law, the nature of mankind, etc. He is reaching a conclusion that is not new, but has always been true from the beginning. And he is saying that nothing which has happened since the beginning of the world, or at least since the Fall of mankind, such as the formation of Israel or the giving of the Law, has changed any of these first principles or how they operate. This is the nature of the world, and the sin condition in which we all find ourselves. To anyone paying attention to the scriptures, all of this should be perfectly obvious.

And what is perfectly obvious in my mind is that this idea – that no one is righteous – is equally true of all human beings before and after being redeemed in Christ. In other words, forgiveness of sins does not mean that anyone ever actually stops sinning in this mortal life. Accordingly, there is no such thing as a holy man, or holy person, even among the people of God. Certainly the Levitical priests were no more holy than any other Jew, and the Jews were not holy either, merely being chosen by ancestry, not faith. For both the Levites and priests were also chosen strictly on the basis of a bloodline (Levi and Aaron, respectively), with no requirement, indication, or profession of faith.

Neither is there any indication anywhere in the New Testament that any individual Christian, male or female, Jew or Greek, preacher, teacher, apostle, prophet, evangelist, healer or performer of miracles, is any more holy (or less prone to sinful behavior) compared to any other believer. For all the righteousness that any person may claim is exclusively imputed by Christ, not the result of works certainly, but also not the result of any church office, spiritual gift, or claimed authority. For before God, every believer is equally sinful even after receiving the salvation of Christ, and the only time anyone stops sinning is when they die.

It is therefore universally inappropriate to refer to anyone in any church as a holy man. Would it not also be improper to refer to any preacher as reverend, as someone deserving special reverence? To refer to any theologian, past or present, as a divine? On what possible basis would that ever be justified? Similarly, to refer to any Christian clergy or cleric as a priest, for there is no priest in the Church but Christ alone as high priest. Are not all such uses of terminology to be avoided? Even Jesus said, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” Mk. 10:18. And again, “call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.” Mat. 23:9.

It strikes me as ironic that the Christians of today think such things are excused based on our standing with God compared to the Jews, which is exactly the same as the Jews of yesteryear thinking their behaviors were excused based on their standing with God compared to the Gentiles. Which only reinforces the point: None is righteous, no, not one. What goes around, comes around.

Rom. 3:19-20 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Law and Accountability

In the context of the last two and a half chapters, it is abundantly clear that both Jews and Gentiles are under the same universal condemnation of sin, every person on earth will be subject to God’s judgment, and the same universal standards of sin and morality will be applied by God to every person. Thus the phrase, whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, merely means that whether a person is a Jew (and therefore under the Mosaic laws), or a Gentile (who is not subject to the Mosaic laws), whichever law applies to you, the result is the same. You will be held accountable by God, and there is no use complaining about it.

At the final judgment, you will not be represented by legal counsel, no one will advocate for you or plead your case, and none of your protests, complaints or arguments will help you. In fact, I take the phrase, so that every mouth may be stopped, to mean no one will have any opportunity to plead their case before the Great White Throne, or probably to say anything at all, for we will all stand condemned with full knowledge that we are guilty. Of course, when the Book of Life is opened (Rev. 20:12,15), those who are redeemed in Christ will be pardoned and receive their reward. But no one actually escapes having to show up at the final judgment, for as Paul says, the whole world will be held accountable to God.

I do not agree with those who take verse 19 to mean the whole world is under the Mosaic law, which was clearly only ever given to the Jews, as Paul affirms. Do not take this verse out of context, but read it in accordance with chapter 2, where it is clearly stated that Gentiles do not have the Mosaic law. This verse does not support any line of thinking that the Mosaic laws can or should be enacted as the statutory laws of any modern nation. Don’t get sucked into these theological pseudo-legal traps.

Verse 20 (by works of the law no human being will be justified) is a double-edged sword. God’s laws justify no one, because justification requires perfect obedience, and no one’s obedience (other than Christ) is perfect. But in addition to that, justification isn’t the purpose of law (any law) in the first place. The purpose of all laws, whether God’s or man’s, is to define what is right and what is wrong. That is the reason why laws exist.

Human laws, of course, are every bit as imperfect and flawed as people are in general. Human laws often get things wrong, call good things bad and bad things good, and inevitably exceed the proper scope of authority God has given mankind – enforcing things that God has reserved to Himself alone to enforce. So human laws often give God’s laws a bad name, especially when those bad human laws are enacted or enforced in the name of God, which is often the case.

However, God’s laws are perfect, and are never wrong. Which makes it incumbent on every person to know what God’s laws truly are, not only to be able to follow them, but also to be able to distinguish them from human laws claiming to be in accord with God’s laws. That doesn’t mean everyone should become a lawyer or theologian – God forbid – for neither law schools nor seminaries actually teach (hey, they generally never even ask) what God’s laws are. But people have no excuse for not studying scripture for the purpose of learning what God has to say about right and wrong behavior. He’s going to judge you by that standard, so you might as well know what the rules are.

Rom. 3:21-26 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

The Only Remedy Is In Christ

Finally, at this point Paul begins to explain what the remedy is for the universal condemnation of sin that we are all under. Namely, the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. First, this redemption has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it. I will not at this time rehearse the many O.T. prophetic scriptures proclaiming the First Advent of Christ, His death, burial and resurrection, for Paul himself does not make any specific reference to them.

The main point, of course, is that the redemption in Christ Jesus is revealed apart from the law, which primarily refers to the Mosaic laws. Yes, there are many aspects of the Jewish ceremonial law that point toward Christ, or foreshadow His coming. See, Gal. 3:24 (NASB), “the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ.” And yes, even the creation itself testifies of Christ, as Paul will point out later. But the redemption in Christ does not flow from a legal requirement, it is not imparted through obedience to the law, and it is not something that can be claimed as a matter of legal right by an unbeliever. Nor does redemption flow through any covenant based on physical lineage.

Second, redemption comes from the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. This establishes a clear line of distinction between the redemption offered by Christ and God’s selection (or election) of the Jews. For as I’ve already said, being a Jew (or a member of the nation of Israel) has nothing to do with faith or belief. Strictly speaking, as God sees it, no one ever chooses to be a Jew, because Jewishness is determined at birth and no one ever chooses their parents. And it is right to say that in the case of Israel, God never chose any individual person to be a Jew, but rather He chose a bloodline back in the time of Abraham that wouldn’t even come into being with Jacob and his sons until many years later.

So as for the Jews, God did in fact choose them – they did not choose Him – and that choice on God’s part can rightly be called a predestination. But Paul, in stating that redemption in Christ is based on faith and belief, is saying that the Church is not like that – not like Israel, not based on a bloodline, and not predestined.

In fact, logically, the predestination of Israel did not and could not exist apart from the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants – in other words, God’s specially revealed covenant law. Law made the predestination of Israel possible, and without the law predestination is impossible. Since there is no specially revealed provision regarding predestination in the Church covenant, there cannot possibly be any predestination of the Church. Which is to say, God never chose who would or will be redeemed by Christ, and who will not.

Thus, when Paul says that the redemption in Christ came apart from the law, it necessarily requires that no predestination is involved. For nothing in the new covenant in Christ has any provisions about God choosing believers – rather, the believers choose Him – and there really isn’t anything in the Church covenant having to do with law anyway. Thus, Paul is drawing a very clear distinction between the way God chose Israel and the way Christians become part of Christ’s Church. This is reiterated in the phrase that God is the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Not the individuals God chose, but the individuals who believe.

I should probably briefly mention the fact that Paul specifically notes how redemption in Christ pertains to both past and present sins. It can be fairly implied that such redemption also applies to future sins, which is confirmed by Paul’s use of the phrase once for all later in Romans.

Finally, the statement that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God applies to the totality of the descendants of Adam. Thus Mary, the mother of Jesus, was fallen and sinful, and she never was nor could be immaculately conceived (that is, sinless). What utter nonsense. But just as nonsensical is the all too common line of Seth and line of Cain teachings. Sure, Cain and Seth both had their own descendants, but Seth’s descendants were not born good, and Cain’s descendants were not born evil, compared to each other. Their descendants were all born fallen and with a sin nature, to the exact same extent and in the same degree as all other people ever born. Which includes every single person, both men and women, in the genealogy of Jesus.

Rom. 3:27-31 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

The Interaction of Faith and Law

Just because the redemption in Christ has been revealed apart from the law, does not mean it nullifies the Mosaic or any other law, nor is it antithetical to laws in general. Notice how Paul, in speaking of faith, does not cast it in terms of law vs. faith, or faith vs. law. Faith and law are not in opposition to each other, they are simply different from each other. They work different ways to accomplish different things. We commonly acknowledge that the Mosaic law is inadequate to bring salvation or to establish the Church. But in the same way, faith, belief and grace are completely and totally inadequate to create and sustain a nation or a civil government. Both faith and law are valid tools God can use to accomplish a valid purpose.

It is significant that Paul here talks about the law of faith, which many people simply gloss over as an expression used for comparison purposes. However, I suggest that there is, in fact, an actual legal rule we can call the law of faith. Come on, it’s not that hard. Justification or righteousness is imputed by faith alone. See? There it is – the law of faith. The law of sin (Rom. 7:23,25) – everyone is born a sinner. The law of sin and death (Rom. 8:2) – everyone who sins must die. The New Testament is full of such laws: the law of God, the law of Christ, the law of liberty, the law of the Spirit of life, etc.

I am not suggesting or implying that grace and redemption put Christians under the onus of law in any fashion similar to the Jewish laws. I am saying, as I believe Paul is saying, that just because faith and grace came to us apart from the Mosaic law, it does not mean that faith and grace are random, haphazard, or disorderly. Even faith and redemption operate according to known, regular and constant principles, and these are also from God. And these principles can be easily stated with a little thought. You don’t have to call them laws if you don’t want to, but because Paul calls them laws, I have the liberty to call them laws as well.

Nor am I advocating that with the inauguration of the Church, there is now a whole new set of laws for Christians to follow (regulations of worship, etc.) – far from it. In fact, I am firmly of the opinion that there are no new laws given to us anywhere in the New Testament. I’ve covered this earlier – the Church has no legislative branch. Whenever Paul or any other N.T. writer refers to a rule which is or might be a law, it is merely a restatement of the laws of nature or God’s previously revealed laws, not a newly issued law.

Think about it. The law of faith goes back to the very beginning. Consider Enoch, who lived before the great flood. Gen. 5:22-24 says that Enoch walked with God. What can that possibly mean, except that Enoch had faith? Go back even further to Abel (Gen. 4:4) – didn’t he have faith? Sure he did. Nothing new to see here. The law of sin and the law of sin and death – same thing, going back all the way to the Fall of mankind. Do you really think the law of God or the law of liberty came into being for the first time when the N.T. was written? Clearly, even in the age of grace, even in the Church age, both faith and law exist together, working together harmoniously, and are not in conflict with each other.

It should be obvious, from Paul asking whether the law is overthrown by faith, and then answering in the negative, that faith does not negate the law, nor specifically, that redemption in Christ does not negate, nullify, terminate, abolish, or even modify, the Mosaic laws. As Jesus said, in so many words, “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” Mt. 5:18. It constantly baffles me how people go out of their way to not take this scripture literally and at face value. Jesus said there won’t ever be any changes to the Mosaic law until heaven and earth pass away. That means there haven’t been any, and there won’t be any.