Paul Answers an Objection
1 So what advantage does the Jew have? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? 2 Considerable in every way. First, they were entrusted o with the very words of God. p 3 What then? If some were unfaithful, q will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? 4 Absolutely not! r Let God be true, even though everyone is a liar, s as it is written:
That you may be justified in your words
and triumph when you judge. ,t
5 But if our unrighteousness highlights God’s righteousness, u what are we to say? v I am using a human argument: ,w Is God unrighteous to inflict wrath? 6 Absolutely not! Otherwise, how will God judge the world? x 7 But if by my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner? y 8 And why not say, just as some people slanderously claim we say, “Let us do what is evil so that good may come”? z Their condemnation is deserved!
The Whole World Guilty before God
9 What then? Are we any better off? Not at all! For we have already charged that both Jews a and Gentiles ,b are all under sin, ,c 10 as it is written:
There is no one righteous, not even one.
11 There is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away;
all alike have become worthless.
There is no one who does what is good,
not even one. ,d
13 Their throat is an open grave;
they deceive with their tongues. ,e
Vipers’ venom is under their lips. ,f
14 Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. ,g
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 ruin and wretchedness are in their paths,
17 and the path of peace they have not known. ,h
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes. ,i
19 Now we know that whatever the law says, j it speaks to those who are subject to the law, ,k so that every mouth may be shut and the whole world may become subject to God’s judgment. ,l 20 For no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law, m because the knowledge of sin comes through the law. n
The Righteousness of God through Faith
21 But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, o attested by the Law and the Prophets. ,p 22 The righteousness of God is through faith q in Jesus Christ ,r to all who believe, s since there is no distinction. t 23 For all have sinned u and fall short of the glory of God. 24 They are justified freely by his grace v through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. w 25 God presented him as an atoning sacrifice ,x in his blood, y received through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God z passed over the sins previously committed. a 26 God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be righteous and declare righteous the one who has faith in Jesus.
Boasting Excluded
27 Where, then, is boasting? b It is excluded. By what kind of law? ,c By one of works? No, on the contrary, by a law of faith. 28 For we conclude that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. d 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? e Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30 since there is one God f who will justify the circumcised by faith g and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then nullify the law through faith? Absolutely not! h On the contrary, we uphold the law. i
3:1–4. Paul knows that his argument in chapter 2 will provoke objections. He is willing to air these objections since he is dealing with serious questions, which have immense implications for the understanding of God, of salvation, and of who belongs to God’s people.
3:5–8. Paul allows his opponent to voice the objection that Paul’s teaching turns God into an unrighteous judge and leads into libertinism. This is a direct attack on Paul’s theology, which, if it can be sustained, has two serious consequences. In the first part of this attack (3:5–6) the opponent summarizes the opinion of Paul with a seemingly blasphemous proposition. The statement “our unrighteousness highlights God’s righteousness” implies the apparently logical inference that if sinners by their unrighteousness provoke God to manifest his righteousness (God forgives sinners), then God cannot punish sinners for their unrighteousness. This argument is designed to draw out the conclusion that, if Paul is correct, God’s righteousness stands in contradiction to God’s judgment of wrath; in other words, if Paul is right, God is unjust.
3:9. In 3:9–20 Paul summarizes his conclusion from chapter 2: Jews, though having advantages, are not treated differently from the Gentiles, since both Jews (2:1–29) and Gentiles (1:18–32) are guilty of sin. They are “all under sin”; that is, both Gentiles and Jews outside of the kingdom of the Messiah are slaves of sin, evident in their present behavior as well as in their destiny in God’s judgment, in which nobody has any excuse.
3:10–18. Paul provides biblical evidence for his assertion that Jews have no advantage over Gentiles because they are sinners. In 3:10–12 he quotes Ps 14:1–3, which laments the oppression of the righteous in Israel by evildoers. In verses 13–15 Paul shifts his attention to the wrongs done to the neighbor, citing a series of eight pronouncements against enemies of the people of God. In 3:13–14 he cites Pss 5:9; 140:3; and 10:7 for sins of human speech—deadly deceit, poison, cursing, and bitterness. In 3:15–18 he cites Is 59:7–8 (Pr 1:16) and Ps 36:1 for sins of human conduct—murder, destruction, strife, and rejection of God. Isaiah 59 in particular focuses on sin within Israel, not just of the righteous in general. Paul’s quotations support his larger point, that judgment will come upon the unrighteous regardless of whether they are Gentile or Jew.
3:19–20. Paul concludes his indictment of sinners; 3:19 confirms that Paul has also been addressing Jews in the preceding series of quotations. It is Jews who are “subject to the law.” Since 1:18 Paul has silenced “every mouth” by proving that the whole world is accountable to God. He established in 1:18–32 the sinfulness of the Gentiles, which needed no further proof. He established the sinfulness of Jews in 2:1–3:18, against the objections of a Jewish dialogue partner, whom he sought to silence with phenomenological and biblical evidence.
3:21. Paul describes how God “now”—when Jesus the Messiah has come—has demonstrated his righteousness as a result of Jesus’s atoning death (3:21–31). Faith in Jesus Christ creates the universal people of God, consisting of Jews, the ethnic descendants of Abraham, and of Gentiles, whom God wanted to bless through Abraham (4:1–25). Jews and Gentiles who entrust themselves to Jesus Christ have peace with God, the hope of sharing the glory of God, the love of God, and the Holy Spirit (5:1–11). God’s triumph over sin in and through Jesus Christ solves the problem of the power of sin, which, since the fall of Adam, has brought condemnation and death (5:12–21).
3:22. Paul explains the revelation of the saving righteousness of God in verses 22–26. The means of salvation is not the “works of the law” (3:20, 28) but “faith in,” or “the faithfulness of” (see the CSB footnote), Jesus the messianic Savior. Some interpret the Greek phrase “faith of Jesus Christ” in terms of the “faithfulness” that Jesus himself had; in other words, Jesus was faithful to accomplish the work that God had given him. Others interpret it in terms of Jesus Christ as the source or object of faith; that is, Paul writes about the faith given by Jesus Christ or with Jesus as its object.
3:23–24. The availability of salvation is universal (“all”), without distinction between idolatrous polytheists and pious or impious Jews. The target of salvation is sinners (3:23), people whose behavior suppresses God’s truth and ignores God’s will, people who have lost the glory of living in God’s presence (a reference to Adam’s fall). The nature of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ is justification, God’s acquittal and redemption of the sinner who faced condemnation on the day of judgment but who now is declared righteous and thus set right with God and free from sin (3:24). The manner of salvation is that of an unmerited gift. The motivation of salvation is God’s grace, the undeserved love of God.
3:25–26. The locale of salvation is the cross, where Jesus Christ became the new place of God’s atoning presence. The Greek term hilastērion (“atoning sacrifice”) is best understood against its background in the OT, where it designates the mercy seat on the ark of the covenant, on which blood was sprinkled on the Day of Atonement (Lv 16; cf. the reference to “blood” in 3:25). Jesus’s death redeems the unrighteous from God’s wrath, cleanses sinners from sin, and breaks the power of sin. Because Jesus is the sinless sacrifice and dies in the place of sinners, sinners live. The phrase “God presented him” describes Jesus’s death as a public manifestation of God’s grace (3:26). Jesus died in public, in full view of the citizens of Jerusalem.
3:27–28. In 3:27, Paul returns to the theme of Jewish boasting. He asserts that this boasting is excluded. Jewish privileges do not nullify the full acceptance of Gentiles into God’s people. In 3:28 Paul asserts that the works of the law are not determinative for justification. In other words, both Jews, with their privileged position as recipients of the law, and Gentiles, who lack that privilege, are made right with God and set free from sin through the work of God’s Messiah alone. [Justification by Faith]
3:29–30. Paul gives a theological argument for his conviction. God’s final solution to the problem of the reality of sin among Gentiles and among Jews is not justification through obedience to the law, because then only Jews could be saved (since only Jews possess the law). The truth is that “there is one God” (3:30). This formulation reflects the basic confession of Jewish monotheism (Dt 6:4). Since there is only one God, and God is impartial, there can be only one means of justifying sinners. This is what Paul has argued in 3:21–26, read in the context of 1:18–3:20: members of God’s covenant people (the circumcised Jews) are justified before God by faith in Jesus Christ, and idolatrous polytheists (the uncircumcised pagans) are justified through that same faith.
3:31. Paul asks whether his assertions nullify the law. He assures that this is not so (“Absolutely not!”). He does not abolish the law; rather, he “uphold[s]” the law. Later passages show what Paul means: those who accept by faith the revelation of God’s saving righteousness in Jesus Christ keep the law, which contains God’s holy, just, and good commandments (7:12). Believers in Jesus Christ encounter the law no longer as the law of sin and death (as sinners who face eternal condemnation) but as the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (as people who have received the Spirit of the new covenant and who have been given new hearts of obedience) (8:2–4).