Text- Romans 3:1-9
Title- The Faithfulness of God
Romans 3:1-8 1 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? 2 Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God. 3 What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it? 4 May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written, "THAT YOU MAY BE JUSTIFIED IN YOUR WORDS, AND PREVAIL WHEN YOU ARE JUDGED." 5 But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He? (I am speaking in human terms.) 6 May it never be! For otherwise, how will God judge the world? 7 But if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner? 8 And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), "Let us do evil that good may come "? Their condemnation is just. 9 What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin;
Verse 1- What’s the advantage of being a Jew?
Verse 2- Great benefit in every respect!
Verse 3-4- Jewish unbelief does not nullify God’s faithfulness.
Verse 5-8- Is unrighteousness somehow a good thing?
Verse 9- We are all under sin.
As a preacher I really love it when a section of scripture fits into a nice clean 3 point sermon structure. Last week my three points were- false security of heritage, false security of knowledge, and false security of religion. I didn’t have to reach for it, it was just there in the text. But unfortunately not every section of scripture is as cooperative.
The passage we will be studying today is one of those uncooperative ones. It is filled with culturally specific ideas, difficult wording, and some confusing ideas. So instead of trying to twist it to fit into an outline, I’m simply going to work through it verse by verse so we can be sure to understand what Paul is talking about.
This passage is a transitional one. He is finishing off some ideas from chapter 2 and setting up his big idea later in chapter 3.
Romans is a very unified and linear book. It is tough to just look at small chunks each week, because each chunk builds on the previous idea and connects with the following idea. We’ve already seen this over the past month.
I want to do a quick review so that we can all be up to speed on what Paul is talking about. The passage that we are going to look at today is a lot easier to understand if we keep it in context.
1:1-17- Paul gives his greeting and shares his desire to come and visit the church there soon
1:18-32- Paul begins his theological discourse by explaining that people are corrupted by their sin nature and all deserving of God’s wrath. He paints this picture of the immoral man that is in bondage to their sin.
2:1-16- He turns his attention to the moral man. The person who thinks that because they are a good person that they are going to heaven. Paul explains that they are just as guilty before God.
2:17-29- Here Paul addresses the Jewish person. Last week we talked about how the Jew thought that they were secure simple because of their heritage. Because they were born a Jew they thought they were automatically in.
They also thought that their knowledge of God’s law made them right with God. But Paul points out that their knowledge was faithless and worthless.
And these Jews thought that the religious rite of circumcision secured their place in heaven. But Paul shows how that was a false security as well.
Last week we talked about how we as Christians can fool ourselves with these same false securities. We can think that just because we are born to Christian parents that we are Christian. We can think that just because we know something about the gospel that we are saved. We can fool ourselves into thinking that because we go to church and do other religious things that we are right with God. But our security can not be in our family, or our knowledge, or our religious practices, it has to be grounded in a real faith in Jesus Christ.
So at the end of chapter 2 Paul basically tells the Jewish people that all the most important aspects of their belief system are not what saves them.
This concept would have been completely earth shattering to the Jew. To them being born a Jew meant that you were blessed, you were holier than the gentiles, you were deserving of a wealth of OT promises, and you were set.
And knowing the Law and teaching it to others was what they prided themselves in. They saw themselves as the only real light to the world. And their circumcision was their outward sign that they were a part of the in crowd.
So for Paul to suggest that those things were not the key to salvation would have caused the Jew to ask one big question. And Paul asks that question for us in chapter 3:1…
If all the things that define us as being Jewish aren’t what saves us, then what’s the advantage in being a Jew?
After chapter 2 you would expect the answer to be, none. You would expect him to say that there is no real value to being Jewish. They are just as sinful as anyone, they are just as condemned as anyone, their religious practices don’t save them, so there must not be any real value in being a Jew.
But as we see, Paul doesn’t answer in that way…V2
What is the benefit of being a Jew if it doesn’t save you? Paul says there is great benefit in every respect! First of all, they were entrusted with the very Word’s of God. Paul uses the words “first of all” but he never gets around to giving us a “second of all”. He gets sidetracked talking about other issues and never goes back to explaining why there is such a great benefit to being Jewish.
The only advantage he gives is that they have been entrusted with the oracles of God. From our knowledge of OT history I think we could fill in some of the blanks. The Jews benefited from having been chosen by God, God had preserved them and guided them, God had promised to bless all the families of the world through them, the messiah came from them. God had made some specific promises to them and it was these promises that ultimately caused them some confusion, but without a doubt there was a benefit to being Jewish.
Last week we talked about how as Christians, being born into a Christian family doesn’t save us, but there is still great value in being born into a Christian family.
We also talked about how knowing stuff about God doesn’t equal knowing God. Knowledge of God does not save us, but knowledge of God is still an essential part in our relationship with Him.
We talked about how baptism, and communion, and church attendance don’t save a person, but there is still a great advantage to those who do those things. They are acts of obedience and worship. They have value, even though they are not the means by which we are saved.
For the Jew it was a very simple equation. God had told them that if they were Jewish, if they had the sign of the covenant, and if they kept the law, that He would bless them. The people that Paul is addressing here had all of these things. So it came down to a simple question of the faithfulness of God.
Was God being honest when He made those promises? Could God be trusted to keep His promises? Is Paul somehow suggesting that God wasn’t going to do what He said He would do? In the rest of this passage Paul deals with those questions. He explains that God is indeed faithful; it’s the rest of us who are unfaithful.
In verses 3-4 Paul explains that Jewish unbelief does not nullify God’s faithfulness. 3-4…
The Jewish people understood their relationship to God as a collective thing. They were saved as a people, as a group. It wasn’t seen as as much of an individual thing as we consider it today. God had made promises to bless the Jewish people and they held fast to those promises.
In these verses Paul is playing devil’s advocate. He asks, if the Jews fail to believe in Jesus Christ does that mean that God will nullify all the promises that He made to them? Not at all! God is always faithful, He is always going to act in a way that is just and right.
That quote in verse 4 is from Psalms 51:4, but it’s only the second half of the verse, the whole verse says…
Psalms 4-“Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.”
This is a Psalm of David. He is admitting his sin with Bathsheba. He is crying out to God for forgiveness and for cleansing. But he acknowledges that he has done evil, he has sinned, and God is perfectly justified in judging him for his sin.
So Jewish unbelief does not nullify God’s faithfulness because God is faithful even in His judgment of sin. God promised blessing to those who obey Him and judgment to those who disobey Him. He never promised to reward those who rebel against Him.
The bigger contemporary question is, “Are the Jews still God’s chosen people?”
This question is an important one for us to understand today. Because Israel has rejected the messiah, God has poured out His blessing on the gentiles. He has grafted us into the family. But where does that leave the Jewish people now? What about all the promises that God made to them in the OT?
There are some who believe that the Church has replaced Israel completely. That all of the promises that God made to Israel in the OT are now applied to the church. I have a hard time believing that.
I do believe that God has poured out His blessing on the church. I do believe that the Jews have rejected their messiah. But I firmly believe that God will still keep the promises that He made to Israel. Like this one from Zachariah…
Zechariah 12:10 10 "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.
All throughout the OT God made promises of blessings and land and descendants to Israel. Has their unfaithfulness in accepting the messiah now led to God giving those promises to someone else? The answer is… no way!
I had a professor in seminary that put it this way, “God may do more than He has promised, but He won’t do less”. God has the right to extend His blessing to all the nations of the world, but that doesn’t nullify the promises that He made to Israel.
I believe that God still has a plan for the nation of Israel. He will at some point in time redeem her and restore her. But that future hope for the salvation of the nation of Israel in no way grantees salvation for individual Jews in the present.
The problem with the Jew that Paul addresses here is that they believed that God’s unconditional promises to the nation applied to them individually for all time.
Really this isn’t a new idea. God has always been more concerned with their heart and their faithfulness and their devotion to Him, than their ability to keep the law.
Hosea 6:6 6 For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.
So Paul is not negating God’s faithfulness by teaching that salvation is by grace through faith alone.
Next in verses 5-8 Paul deals with another absurd idea. There were apparently some who tried to twist and slander the message of the gospel by suggesting that unrighteousness was somehow a good thing? 5-8…
Some thought that because our unrighteousness highlights God’s righteousness, that ultimately it was a good thing.
Let me illustrate it this way. If you have ever gone shopping for jewelry the jeweler will often place the necklace or ring, or whatever, on a black velvet cloth. Like the picture here. The purpose is to highlight the beauty and the color in the necklace. It is easier to see the detail when set against a black backdrop.
In verse 5-6 here the idea is that our sin is the black backdrop that highlights the beauty and righteousness of God. That our unrighteousness demonstrates God’s righteousness. When we are unfaithful it gives God a chance to show His faithfulness. Some where accusing Paul of teaching that the God approves of sin or condones sin because it ultimately brings Him glory. Paul answers that charge in verse 6 by saying, “May it never be!”
If God somehow approved of our sin than He would have no basis for judging us and condemning us. God hates sin. His desire is for us to live in a right relationship with Him. He will punish sin and judge sinners based on His righteousness and justice.
So Paul successfully refutes the idea that His teaching about salvation by grace through faith somehow slanders God’s faithfulness and righteousness. He answers these objections to his teaching and reaffirms his total belief in God’s glory.
In verse 8 Paul takes it a step further by saying… “And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), "Let us do evil that good may come "? Their condemnation is just.”
Some people actually went around claiming that Paul taught that Christians should sin on purpose so that God would forgive more. This is such a twisted, perverted view of God’s grace and forgiveness.
But I can understand why some would make this charge. Paul taught that through Jesus Christ our sins were completely forgiven. He taught that all we had to do to be right with God was place our faith in Him. He taught that we had been given Christ’s righteousness, we had been covered, and we had been made new. There was absolutely no law to be kept, no ceremony to perform, no sacrifice to offer. Jesus Christ was the sacrifice. This was a radically new idea about how we approach God and how we are made right.
Those that thought that it was OK to sin were way off base. Paul simply says they deserve their condemnation. They have earned their punishment. They couldn’t be more wrong.
Finally I want to look at verse 9. This verse is kind of a transitional one. It is usually placed with the next subject that Paul talks about.
As we have seen, Paul has already gone to great lengths to explain how sinful we all are. The immoral pagan, and the moral pagan, the immoral Jew and the moral Jew, are all sinners and stand condemned by God.
In verse 9 he says, well what about us? There is some debate about who Paul is talking about. Is he referring to himself as a Jew? Probably not, he has already made the case that the Jews are under sin.
Most likely Paul is refereeing to himself as a Christian and the other believers there in Rome. Were there somehow better than those Paul condemns? Was there something about them that gave them an advantage over the pagans and the Jews? Paul says, not at all. We have already seen that both Jews and Greeks are under the bondage of sin.
In the next section of chapter 3 Paul finishes making his case. He uses OT scripture to show that everyone is sinful. He wraps things up tightly. He covers every base. He slowly builds the case that all humanity is sinful.
Hopefully we all believe it by now. I am still so amazed by those liberal theologians who claim that humanity is intrinsically good. That we have the ability to do good things on our own. That we really aren’t all that bad. I just can’t help but wonder if they have ever read this book.
Even though this passage was written to address Jewish arguments against Paul’s teaching, there are still some important lessons for us to learn from it.
1. We are sinful. Every human being stands accountable to God for their own sin.
2. Our sin isn’t a good thing. God has the ability to take something that was intended for evil and use it for good, but in the process He will punish the person with the evil intentions.
3. God is faithful. He will keep His promises to Israel. That is important to us even though we aren’t Jews because it gives us the ability to have complete and total confidence that God will keep His promises to us too.
4. Everyone is sinful. Did I already mention that one? The total, complete, pervasive depravity of man is the point that Paul is trying to make in these chapters, if we miss that we’ve missed the whole point.
What a blessing it is to know that we worship such a faithful, loving, gracious God. That even though we are sinful and rebellious, He still calls us, forgives us, and makes us His own. God’s promises are sure. He promises to give us new life if we will simply place our faith in Jesus Christ.
Jesus came to deal with this problem of sin that Paul has been talking about. Jesus came to be our sacrifice. He came to take the punishment that we deserve. He came to give us new life and freedom from our bondage to sin.
Right before He went to the cross, Jesus had one last meal with His disciples. At that meal He explained to them that he was giving his body and his blood for the forgiveness of sins. He asked the disciples to remember His sacrifice every time they ate and drank.
Today as we take the bread and the cup let’s all take a moment to remember the sacrifice that Christ made for us. Let’s all reflect on our own salvation and how He has changed us. Let’s give Him the thanks and the praise that He deserves.
As the elements are being passed out take a few minutes to let God know how grateful you are that He provided a way for us to be free from our slavery to sin.
1 Corinthians 11:23-25 23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me."
25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me."
