Every human being is a sinner
3
📚What advantage, then, has the Jew? Or what value is there in circumcision?3:1 This question arises because Paul has said that the Jew is no better than other people, that he is not saved by his religion and ceremonies, and that God condemns him for his sin just as He does sinners who are not Jews. What use then was there in God separating the Jews from all other people and giving them special laws and ceremonies?⚜
2 📚Much every way. Chiefly, because to them were committed the oracles of God.
3:2 See also Rom 9:4-5. More than any other people in those times the Jews had wonderful opportunities to hear God’s truth and to believe and serve the one true God. That was the greatest value in being a Jew.⚜
3 📚For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make God’s faithfulness without effect?
3:3 It was not God’s fault if the Jews did not seize the opportunities they had and remained disobedient and unbelieving. He remained faithful (2 Tim 2:13). And He will yet fulfill all His promises to Israel as a nation (chapter 11).⚜
4 📚Absolutely not! For let God be true, but every man a liar. As it is written,
“That you might be justified in your words,
and might overcome when you are judged”.
5 📚But if our unrighteousness proves the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust in bringing wrath on men (I speak as a man)? 6 📚Absolutely not! For then how would God judge the world? 7 📚For if through my lie the truth of God is enhanced for his glory, why am I still judged as a sinner?
3:5-7 Some of them even dared to say that their unbelief and evil ways made God’s faithfulness and righteousness appear more glorious. So, they seemed to say, they were doing God a favor and He should not condemn them!⚜
8 📚And why not rather say (as we are being slanderously reported as saying, and as some affirm that we say) “Let us do evil that good may come”? Their condemnation is just.
3:8 Some even slandered Paul by saying the above idea was a part of his teaching! But they were only trying to lessen their guilt and escape Paul’s words about judgment. Paul says God is perfectly just in sending such people to hell.⚜
9 📚What then? Are we better than they? No, not at all. For we have previously made the accusation that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin.
3:9 Paul means this: Are Jews with all their advantages and opportunities and God-given laws and ceremonies any better than those peoples who did not have them? The answer is obvious – no. Now we might ask, “are we Christians by nature better than others?” and the answer is the same – absolutely not. All are sinners – Jews and Gentiles, to whatever religion or nation or caste they may belong. Rich and poor, educated and uneducated, the wise and the foolish, those who practice their religion and those who do not, all, all have sinned.
10 📚As it is written,
There is none righteous, no, not one.
11 📚There is none who understands,
there is none who seeks for God.
12 📚They have all turned out of the way.
They are together become worthless.
There is none who does good,
no, not one.
13 📚Their throat is an open grave.
With their tongues they have
practiced deceit.
The poison of vipers is under
their lips.
14 📚Their mouth is full of cursing
and bitterness.
15 📚Their feet are swift
to shed blood.
16 Destruction and misery are
in their ways,
17 📚and the way of peace they have
not known.
18 📚There is no fear of God 📖
before their eyes.
3:10-18 Now Paul proves that his teaching is in harmony with God’s revelation in the Old Testament. See how he begins – “It is written”. This is what should concern us more than anything else – what does God say in the Bible? – Rom 4:3.⚜
19 📚Now we know that whatever the Law says, it says to those who are under the Law 📖, so that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20 📚Therefore by the deeds of the Law no flesh will be justified 📖 in his sight, for by the Law 📖 is the knowledge of sin.
The gospel man needs
21 📚But 📖 now the righteousness of God apart from Law is revealed, being testified by the Law and the Prophets, 22 📚even the righteousness of God, which is through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all those who believe. For there is no difference: 23 📚For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God,
3:23 God has done such marvelous and costly things to provide righteousness for all people because all are in great need of it. Some may be worse sinners than others, but all are sinners, all fall short of God’s requirements, and so God says there is “no difference” (vs 9,22). One person may be in a pit, another on top of a hill, but neither can reach up and touch the stars.⚜
24 📚and are justified 📖 freely by his grace through the redemption 📖 that is in Christ Jesus. 25 📚 Him God has set forth to be a propitiation 📖 through faith in his blood, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance God passed over the sins done in the past. 26 📚To demonstrate, I say, at this time his righteousness, so that he might be just, and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus.
3:25-26 These are key verses in Romans and, indeed, in the whole Bible. Before Christ came and took away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, God forgave those who repented and trusted in Him. He did not condemn them to hell, because He knew what He would later do through Christ. But at the time it did not seem that He, the righteous Judge of the universe, was just and righteous in forgiving people instead of punishing them – His law condemned them, yet He let them escape. Now by sending His own Son to be a sacrifice for sin He has fully demonstrated His justice.
But was it just and righteous to cause Christ to suffer the punishment others deserved? Yes, because Christ is God (Rom 1:4; 9:5; John 1:1, 14; Phil 2:6), and He suffered and died voluntarily (John 10:17-18). In Christ God Himself was taking people’s sins on Himself and suffering for them. See the note at Heb 10:4.⚜
27 📚Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith.
3:27 Eph 2:8-10. If people could achieve salvation by works, heaven would be filled with boasters singing their own praises (compare Rom 2:17; Luke 18:11-12). But as it is they who are there will praise God alone (1 Cor 1:29-31; Eph 1:6, 12; Rev 7:9-10).⚜
28 📚Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the Law. 29 📚Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, 30 📚since it is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith, and the uncircumcised through faith.
3:29-30 There is only one true God, so the Jews should not expect that He will save them in one way and Gentiles in some other way. God has only one way of saving anyone and that way is through faith in Christ.⚜
31 📚Do we then, through faith, put an end to the Law? Absolutely not 📖! Rather, we uphold the Law.
3:31 Compare Matt 5:17-18. To say that keeping the law cannot save anyone from their sins is not to do away with the law. It is to put the law in its rightful place as that which reveals sin and condemns it.⚜