Original Meaning
IN OVER TWENTY YEARS of ministry, I have taught the same subject many times. By now I can predict with almost 100 percent accuracy what questions students will ask at what point in the lectures. Paul, similarly, has been preaching the gospel for over twenty years by the time he writes Romans. He also knows that his teaching on certain topics will inevitably raise certain questions or even spark certain wrong conclusions among his hearers. As he sets his gospel before the Roman Christians, therefore, we find him repeatedly pausing in his argument to deal with questions that he knows his readers will be asking or to dismiss false conclusions he fears they may be drawing.
Nowhere in Romans is this more evident than at 3:1. Paul has just spent a chapter arguing that Jews stand in the same position before God as Gentiles do. Thus, if we have followed Paul’s argument, when he asks in 3:1, “What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision?” we are ready to answer “none.” But Paul surprises us: “Much in every way!” he emphatically responds (v. 2a). He knows his argument in chapter 2 may give the impression that all the Jews’ privileges are now revoked. He is also aware that many Gentile Christians will be eager to draw just this conclusion. Consequently, he forestalls them. He acknowledges, of course, that the Jews’ privileges give them no ultimate advantage over Gentiles in the judgment, because God will assess both Jew and Gentile on the basis of what they have done. But this does not mean that the Jews have no privileges.
“First of all” (proton) they have been “entrusted with the very words [logia] of God” (3:2b). Paul’s “first” is not followed by a “second.” Some think proton means simply “chief” or “most important.”1 But it is more likely that Paul intends to give a longer list of Jewish privileges (like those noted in 9:4–5), but he gets sidetracked by his concern to clarify the limitations on the Jews’ privilege of possessing God’s Word.
If this section begins on a relatively clear note, the same cannot be said of its remainder. Verses 3–8 are some of the most difficult to interpret in the entire letter. The main problem is to sort out the different “speakers” that Paul uses to make his points. Clearly he is asking questions that reflect some kind of view in opposition to his own, and he responds to these questions. But it is not at all clear which are the opponent’s questions and which are Paul’s answers.
Critical to our view of the paragraph as a whole is the identity of the people who ask in verse 5 about “our unrighteousness.” Are they people who are generally wondering about the fairness of God in judging people when their sin enhances God’s glory? Or are they Jews wondering how God can be “righteous” when he judges the sins of the Jews?
It is probably the latter. Paul seems to be grappling here with the common Jewish belief that God’s “righteousness,” his “covenant faithfulness,” gave the Jews virtual immunity from judgment. In response, Paul affirms that the marvelous blessing of knowing God’s Word (v. 2) is a double-edged sword. For God’s Word promises blessing for obedience, but it also warns about the curse that will fall on disobedience. God remains faithful (v. 3) and righteous (v. 5) in all his dealings. But Jews must understand that the ultimate standard of righteousness is his own holy character, and that holy character requires him to respond to sin with wrath (v. 6).
But the Jewish objector is still not satisfied, arguing it is unfair for God to condemn Jews for acts that enhance his glory (v. 7). Paul responds with a counterquestion intended to show the absurdity of such an objection (v. 8): Should we then take the view that any act is justified so long as it brings good in the end?
With the main lines of the argument in place, we can now focus on several of the details that still require comment. In verse 3, the Jews’ “lack of faith” [apistia] is probably, in light of the contrast with God’s “faithfulness” (pistis), not so much their failure to believe as their failure to be true to their covenant obligations. God, through his law, had imposed on Israel requirements they needed to fulfill in order to maintain the covenant relationship. But Israel as a whole failed to keep these commands. How would God respond? Would he cease to be faithful because Israel has not been faithful? With an emphatic negation characteristic of the diatribe style and of Romans, Paul rejects any such idea—“Not at all!” (me genoito; see also 3:6, 31; 6:2, 15; 7:7, 13; 9:14; 11:1, 11).
The failure of Israel, Paul insists, in no way diminishes God’s commitment to hold up his end of the covenant arrangement (v. 4a). God will always be “true” even if every person has become a “liar.” The context shows that “true” is another way of asserting God’s faithfulness. This use of the word is rooted in the Old Testament, where the Greek aletheia translates ʾemeth.
At the end of verse 4, Paul adds a quotation from Psalm 51:4 to explain the nature of God’s faithfulness. David wrote this psalm after he had been caught in his sin with Bathsheba. His words quoted express the purpose of his confession of sin: that God might be shown to be right and just in punishing him.2 In Psalm 51:4, God’s being in the right denotes the fairness of his judgment. Paul is hinting that his concept of God’s faithfulness (Rom. 3:3–4a) is broader than the usual Jewish view. Jews in Paul’s day tended to think of God’s faithfulness as oriented positively toward themselves: God would do good things for his people. But, Paul reminds them, God is also faithful when he punishes the sin of his people—as David himself acknowledges.
With this context in mind, we can now understand the question Paul puts on Jewish lips in verse 5. Isn’t God unfair to inflict wrath on Jews when their very unfaithfulness to the covenant led to the establishment of his righteousness in an even greater way in Christ? Behind this question is a certain Jewish view of God’s righteousness (see Bridging Contexts section). Paul dismisses such an objection by suggesting the inference that would have to follow from that line of reasoning: God could never then judge anyone, since in his providence he turns all sin into the praise of his name. Yet the Scriptures teach that “God [will] judge the world” (v. 6; see Gen. 18:25: “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”).
How verse 7 fits into the development of the argument is not clear. The introductory words in the NIV translation, “Someone might argue,” do not correspond to anything in the Greek text. They have been added to show that, in the opinion of the translators, Paul is here again quoting an objection. But some interpreters think that verse 7 carries on Paul’s own argument from verse 6. Paul has claimed that God must judge the world. But he could not do so, Paul points out, if the excuse that “God used my sin for good” were allowed. Anyone could come up with such an excuse.3 On the whole, however, with most commentators, the interpretation represented in the NIV is preferable. Verse 7, then, enunciates an objection to Paul’s logic similar to that in verse 5: It is unfair for God to condemn people whose sin leads to his glory.
Verse 8 is difficult to translate and to understand. Some scholars think that Paul continues the objection from verse 7, only to dismiss the whole line of reasoning at the end of the verse: “Their condemnation is deserved.”4 But it makes better sense of the flow if verse 8 is Paul’s own counterquestion, designed to show the absurdity of the objection in verse 7. If the objector is right, and if God should not condemn Jews when they sin because their sin enhances God’s glory, then the general inference would be that sin is justified as long as it eventually brings good. “Let us do evil that good may result” is the logical conclusion from this way of looking at sin. In a ironic twist, Paul adds a parenthesis, noting that some people (probably Jews) have accused Paul of teaching this very thing! Therefore, Paul concludes, the “condemnation” of people who argue this way “is deserved.” Jews cannot excuse their sin just because God uses it for good in his salvation-historical scheme.
Bridging Contexts
GOD’S RIGHTEOUSNESS. One reason why modern readers find it so hard to follow the argument in this section is that Paul touches the surface of a deep and fundamental issue among the Jews of his day: the nature of God’s righteousness. In the Old Testament, as we noted in the Bridging Contexts section on 1:16–17, the idea of God’s righteousness (Gk. dikaiosyne; Heb. sedeq or sedaqa) is especially often tied to his covenant with Israel. God’s righteousness, then, often refers to his commitment to uphold the covenant arrangement with Israel, and, in this sense, it seems often to be virtually equivalent to his mercy or faithfulness.
Note, for instance, Psalm 36:5–6:
Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the skies.
Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,
your justice like the great deep.
O LORD, you preserve both man and beast. (italics added)
Here God’s “righteousness” is parallel to his “love” (or “mercy” [Gk. eleos]) and “faithfulness” (Gk. aletheia) and is the basis for his positive work of “preserv[ing] both man and beast.” It is not surprising, then, that many Jews came to believe that God’s righteousness would always be “on their side,” guaranteeing their deliverance from their enemies. But then blow after blow fell on Israel. Most of the people were carried into exile by victorious foreign powers, to Assyria in the eighth century B.C. and to Babylonia in the sixth. Some Jews were eventually able to return and reestablish a national presence (see Ezra and Nehemiah), but the nation remained small and insignificant for most of its existence. Finally came the Romans, who annexed Israel into their empire.
These experiences, so contrary to the Jews’ expectations about God’s power and faithfulness to them, brought to the forefront the issue of theodicy: the justice of God. How could God allow his people to suffer under foreign tyranny? What was he doing? What were his purposes? These questions, in one way of another, drove most of the theologizing of Jews during these centuries. A central concept in all this discussion was the nature of God’s righteousness. The dominant tendency was to reaffirm the positive sense of God’s righteousness and to see it as a continuing foundation for Israel’s hope. God was allowing his people to experience setbacks and difficulties with the purpose of chastising and disciplining them. But he remained committed to Israel; his righteousness will endure forever. It is against this background that we must read Romans 3:3–8.
Paul grapples with the prevalent Jewish conviction that God’s righteousness continued to guarantee Israel immunity from judgment. In opposition to this belief, the apostle implicitly advances an alternative understanding of that righteousness. In his view, God’s dikaiosyne never had the covenant with Israel as its ultimate locus. Rather, his ultimate concern was always with his own name and glory.
To be sure, many scholars have argued that the Jewish view was essentially on target, that in the Old Testament God’s righteousness involves his relationship with Israel and is wholly positive in its effects.5 But especially John Piper has shown that Paul’s wider interpretation of God’s righteousness is, in fact, true to the Old Testament picture.6 God’s righteousness is, most basically, his commitment always to act in accordance with his own character. With respect to Israel, this means that God will uphold his promises to them. But Jewish interpreters conveniently overlooked the fact that God, in the covenant, promised both to bless Israel if they obeyed but to punish them if they disobeyed.
This is made especially clear in the “curses and blessings” of Deuteronomy 28 and the offer of life versus death in 30:11–20. Later Old Testament authors confirm that God’s righteousness can have a negative as well as positive effect on Israel. Note especially Nehemiah 9:32–33:
Now therefore, O our God, the great, mighty and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love, do not let all this hardship seem trifling in your eyes—the hardship that has come upon us, upon our kings and leaders, upon our priests and prophets, upon our fathers and all your people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until today. In all that has happened to us, you have been just; you have acted faithfully, while we did wrong.
God is just or righteous even when he punishes his people for their sin.
Paul works with this wider conception of God’s righteousness in order to explicate the situation in salvation history that has come about with the coming of Christ. The gospel in no way cancels Israel’s prerogatives (Rom. 3:1–2). But, Paul insists, we must rightly understand those prerogatives. Being entrusted with God’s Word has never meant that Israel is immune from judgment; in fact, that very Word promises judgment for disobedience. Such a judgment, in Paul’s view, has now taken place. God has brought his curses down on Israel, and, in keeping with prophetic voices within the Old Testament itself (see esp. Jer. 31:31–34), the old covenant needs to be replaced with a new one.
Contemporary Significance
STANDING ON THE PROMISES. The Jews may have misunderstood the nature of God’s faithfulness, but they were correct to believe that whatever he has promised he will do. Paul agrees: “Let God be true, and every man a liar!” God is utterly reliable. We can depend on his carrying out, to the letter, every promise he has made to us.
Now we must be careful to interpret those promises correctly. Many Christians make the mistake of thinking that every promise in the Bible is directed right to them. In fact, however, many promises are made to specific people in specific circumstances. Take, for instance, the often-quoted promise about national repentance and restoration: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chron. 7:14). I have heard Christians apply this promise to the United States, and others apply it to the church.
The latter application is certainly closer to the original meaning than the former, but both are questionable. The promise is given to the nation of Israel. It comes in the midst of Solomon’s dedication of the temple to the Lord. Now one can argue that, by analogy, the principle of this verse applies to other situations. But the point is that we cannot simply go to such promises and, ignoring the context and the original recipients, always assume that they are for us.
But there remain many promises that do apply to us: promises given to the church of Jesus Christ and to believers individually. We will look at one of the most famous of these promises later in this book: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). Paul reminds us in the present chapter that we can have utter certainty about God’s fulfilling these promises for us. In an uncertain world, here is certainty; in a world without foundations, here is a rock-solid foundation.
To be sure, our failure to believe and obey may qualify some of the promises that God makes to us. But ultimately even our failures do not diminish God’s faithfulness to us. As Paul puts it in another passage (2 Tim. 2:11–13):
Here is a trustworthy saying:
If we died with him,
we will also live with him;
if we endure,
we will also reign with him.
If we disown him,
he will also disown us;
if we are faithless,
he will remain faithful,
for he cannot disown himself.
Or, to quote the well-known hymn:
Standing on the promises that cannot fail,
When the howling storms of doubt and fear assail,
By the living Word of God I shall prevail,
Standing on the promises of God.
False security. The Jewish tendency to think that the covenant made them secure from all threat of judgment has parallels in the Christian church. I happen to believe that the genuine Christian does have security; that is, if we have truly come to know Christ, we can be absolutely certain that we will appear before him in glory.
But a belief in “eternal security,” as we sometimes call it, is open to abuse. (1) Some people may think that they are secure when they are not because they have never truly come to faith. They have “walked up the aisle,” raised their hand at an invitation, or been baptized—but they have never truly submitted to Christ as Lord. Such people are not “secure” in Christ. We need to help them understand what real conversion is and challenge each professed believer to make sure that his or her profession matches the spiritual reality.
(2) But even genuine Christians can err in this matter. God’s Word does, I believe, promise that he will infallibly bring to eternal glory those who are truly his. But that Word also makes clear that our eternal glory is contingent on a life of obedience. To be sure, some theologians try to minimize or even dismiss this latter idea. But too many texts (e.g., 8:12–13) make this point quite clear. Bringing together in one neat package God’s promise to keep us secure with the need for us to be obedient in order to enjoy that promise is not easy.
Theologians have spent much time debating over just how to do it. But our point here is a relatively simple one: Believers should not so presume on their “security” that they fail to make every effort to bring their lives into obedience to Christ. It is precisely for this reason that many contemporary theologians and preachers prefer the slogan “perseverance of the saints” to “eternal security.” For the former contains the reminder that the saints need to persevere if they expect to attain glory. We believe that God gives every aid needed for us to persevere. But we must also recognize that our commitment and dedication to the cause is also required.