ROMANS CHAPTER 3 VERSES 1-8 - MESSAGES IN ROMANS – GOD REMAINS FAITHFUL; GOOD DOES NOT COME FROM EVIL MESSAGE 8
[PART A]. INTRODUCING THE GREAT THEME OF THE CHAPTER
{{Romans 3:1 “THEN what advantage has the Jew, or what is the benefit of circumcision?
Romans 3:2 Great in every respect. First of all, they were entrusted with the oracles of God.”}}
Paul has just concluded Chapter 2, setting out the case against the Jews who failed through unbelief. The Law was despised and only token recognition was given to it. In chapter 1 the Apostle set out the case against the Gentile world so by the time you get to the start of Chapter 3, no one can be found who is righteous and that is the subject of Chapter 3.
At face value one might conclude that there is no difference whatever between Jew and Gentile, but that assumption would be wrong. To address that point, Paul then asks the question, “What advantage does the Jew have?” The second question about the benefit of circumcision, I think must relate to the covenant between God and Israel, for God has established an everlasting covenant with Israel, and that places the Jew in a very privileged class. However great privilege brings great responsibility and in that the Jew failed, but God does not deny Himself because Israel failed, but we know from all the prophetic scriptures that great blessing one day awaits Israel. Circumcision was the physical sign of the covenant for Israel.
However in the present time, (the Church age) and in Paul’s time, he asks the questions in verse 1 and answers them in verse 2. The second verse is stating that the advantages of the Jew were/are great in every respect.
I wish people who write off Israel according to some in Covenant Theology would understand that. To “disinherit” God from His earthly people is tragic and will not carry the blessing of God.
The first point Paul makes regarding the advantage the Jew had, is that nation had the oracles of God. In explaining the oracles, I think this quote from Barnes is a good one – [[The oracles - The word "oracle" among the pagan meant properly the answer or response of a god, or of some priest supposed to be inspired, to an inquiry of importance, usually expressed in a brief moralistic way, and often with great ambiguity. The place from which such a response was usually obtained was also called an oracle, as the oracle at Delphi, etc. These oracles were frequent among the pagan, and affairs of great importance were usually submitted to them. The word rendered "oracles" occurs in the New Testament but four times, Acts 7:38; Hebrews 5:12; 1 Peter 4:11; Romans 3:2.]]
It is very clear from the four usages of this word that all references are to the inspired word of God, in other words, to the delivered scriptures of the Old Testament. God entrusted these scriptures to the nation both as His code of living, and connection with the living God, but the nation failed in their entrustment. They betrayed the will and purpose of God. Let me ask, “Has the Church in general also followed the way of the Jews in despising the holy scriptures?” What I see in too many churches is a lack and neglect and a dismissal of the Old Testament scriptures. I hear the words, “The Old Testament is for the Jews. The New Testament is for the Church.”
That can not be further from the truth. When you read the New Testament every reference to the word of God or the scriptures refers to the Old Testament as we have in this very well-known verse – {{2Timothy 3:16-17 “ALL SCRIPTURE is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”}}
[PART B]. GOD IS FAITHFUL EVEN THROUGHOUT ISRAEL'S UNBELIEF
{{Romans 3:3 “What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it?
Romans 3:4 May it never be! Rather, let God be found true though every man be found a liar, as it is written, “That You might be justified in Your words and might prevail when You are judged,”}}
Some agreements lawyers make, and written into them is a clause that if one party fails to uphold the points of the contract, then the whole agreement/covenant become null and void. That is the way that man works but it does not apply to God.
Israel was in a privileged state as we saw in chapter 2 and here in the opening of chapter 3, but was utterly faithless, breaking the covenant (Law of Moses) time and time again. In man’s economy the document would have been torn up, but not so with God, for you see, He made an everlasting covenant with Abraham and that will ever stand. The faithlessness of individuals was not going to destroy the promises of God.
This very question Paul asks in verse 3. Did unbelief nullify the faithfulness of God? In other words did the unbelief of Israel abolish the covenant with them? God’s faithfulness is established in the covenant He made, and for God to walk away from that covenant, then He would be shown to be faithless, and that could never be. Paul answers that proposition immediately – MAY IT NEVER BE! In the Greek it is [(µ?` ?e´???t?)] which is “CERTAINLY NOT!” or “ABSOLUTELY NOT!” It expresses great abhorrence that such a thing is possible. It’s an expression of great aversion. “Don’t even suggest the thought!” Man destroys his faithfulness but the faithfulness of God reigns supreme. God will never be slack concerning His promises.
The first promise God gave to Abram was this – {{Genesis 12:1-2 Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go forth from your country and from your relatives and from your father’s house to the land which I will show you, and I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great, and so you shall be a blessing.”}} Shortly after God revealed this next promise – {{Genesis 12:7 The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land,”}}
The promises to Abraham were augmenting as time went on. The next great promise that followed is this one – {{Genesis 13:14-16 and the LORD said to Abram after Lot had separated from him, “Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for ALL THE LAND WHICH YOU SEE I will give it to you and to your descendants FOREVER, and I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered.”}} It is incomprehensible but the misunderstanding among men such as some (not all) of the Covenant Theology people will burn away the word “FOREVER” from the text and cut out Israel from any blessing or future blessing, using their Replacement Theology to replace God’s promises for Israel with the Church. That makes God a liar.
Then follows the huge everlasting covenant regarding the land – {{Genesis 15:18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I HAVE GIVEN THIS LAND FROM THE RIVER OF EGYPT AS FAR AS THE GREAT RIVER, THE RIVER EUPHRATES”}}
The covenant is further established in these words – {{Genesis 16:16 “Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him.” Genesis 17:1-2 Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty. Walk before Me and be blameless, and I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.”}} That will do for the present, but the covenant God established with Abraham will always hold fast, NOT dependant on the faithlessness of the Jew but established on the faithfulness of God Himself. That is what lies behind the words of Paul.
God’s promises or covenants are not nullified, for unlike man, God is not a trucebreaker. Verse 3 continues, {{“Rather, let God be found true though every man be found a liar, as it is written, “That You might be justified in Your words and might prevail when You are judged.”}} Imagine a court of law and man and God are in the dock. It is a certainty that God will be justified as faithful, but man condemned as being a liar. Those quotes to which Paul refers are these ones – {{Psalm 116:11 I said in my alarm, “All people are liars.”}} And {{Psalm 51:6 (following the LXX) – “Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.”}}
God will be justified in all His promises and all that the Lord has decreed will come to pass. Israel destroyed their end of the covenant but the covenants with Israel hold fast because God on His end of it is faithful. That is what Paul is saying here.
[PART C]. IS GOD UNRIGHTEOUS OR INCONSISTENT?
{{Romans 3:5 “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.)
Romans 3:6 May it never be for otherwise how will God judge the world?”}}
In verse 5 Paul says he speaks in human terms, or if you like, as one identifying himself as a Jew. It is important to understand that, for a Christian would never propose the fallacy in the statement in verse 5 which is, by inference, “Because we are unrighteous, then that helps to demonstrate the righteousness of God so it is okay for us to be unrighteous because God gets kudos from that. Let us keep sinning so that God gets the glory. We are helping God,” That thought is more developed in verse 8.
Paul is very quick to shoot that argument down with another of these very strong expressions – “Absolutely not! Not the remotest chance! Certainly not!” The case has no legs to stand on.
In verse 6 there is one reason given for this illogical proposition and that is, if God gets glory or standing through sin, then He could not possibly judge the world. God will judge the world in the fullness of holiness and righteousness and it can be no other way. God is not diminished by sin, or “helped” through sin. Those ideas are from the flawed human reasoning and ought not be part of a Christian’s thinking.
To explain verse 5 better, what Paul says (what others might say) is that if human sin is actually helping the righteousness of God, then it would be unfair for God to judge the very ones who are helping to establish His righteousness through their sin. The human, logical outcome of that is that God would not judge sin because He would be contradictory.
Man thinks very lightly of a God of judgement, mostly dismissing such a concept, even dismissing a god of any sort to begin with. Why do men and women want to do away with God and say they are atheists or agnostics? Yes, we may say the devil is behind it all, but why will men and women not give thought to the future, and to what follows death?
Again we bring to the fore a word we use more and more today among Christians. It is the word “delusion”. The devil has blinded the eyes of those who will not believe so they can not understand the truth such as this one – “God is a God of wrath against sin”. People won’t believe that because blind eyes can not even appreciate the wrath of God against sin at the cross, when the Lord was made to be sin for us and then underwent the wrath of God against sin in order that we could be made acceptable before God eternally. It is easier for them to believe in spacemen or aliens, or that we came from an ape, rather than to believe in a God who will judge the world in righteousness by Christ Jesus in a coming day.
Man’s distortions of the person of God will be no excuse. God’s judgements will be just and dispensed in absolute righteousness. Mankind is devious and racked by sin. That makes all his judgements and decisions faulty in comparison with God. It is for that reason we must repent and receive the Lord Jesus Christ as personal Saviour, and then we will understand God’s perspective on righteous judgement.
[PART D]. SHOULD WE KEEP DOING EVIL THAT GOOD WILL COME OUT OF IT?
{{Romans 3:7 If through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner?
Romans 3:8 Why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say), “Let us do evil that good may come”? Their condemnation is just.”}}
Paul now develops the argument we examined above about our sin assisting God. Man believes a lie and is deluded by lies. By living those lies then the glory of God is magnified so it is inferred that by our lie, then it is a good thing because glory comes to God by my sin. I am actually helping to establish God by my sin. For that reason it would be wrong to judge me as a sinner because my sinful life promotes a good God.
How evil is all that! It is the absurd and sinful reasoning of sinful men. Maybe for some it is a sugar coated pill of contentment set against the judgement of God, but it is a false façade that will crash one day in the true reality of the wrath of God in judgement. You do not want to be there, so God gives you the opportunity to repent and hand over your life completely to Him now while you may.
Paul is outlining the stupidity of man’s illogical reasoning but there is a more serious side to all this. There were those around who were saying that Paul believed in that error and preached it. Paul was slandered in his teaching and that is no surprise whatever. Christians are slandered all the time, and the more you live for Jesus, the greater will be the slander against you.
“Let us do evil so that good will come of it!” Let us live riotous lives so God is glorified by them. The world may not use that expression but inherently believes that way. The people of our age have no fear of God before their eyes.
Christians will be misrepresented and vilified and hated by all in this world especially today by the immorally degenerate in the current world agendas of perverted sexuality. Christians will be slandered and persecuted and denied promotion and all other sort of injustices, but Christian, look up for your salvation draws close, and the Rapture is on the horizon. God is the One who will justify you, not man. Live for God, not for man. Honour God, not man.
Paul was slandered not only in this, but also in other matters he mentions in other scriptures. Do not let slander or misrepresentation defeat you for our God will justify, and condemn all the evil that is in the world.
Let us do evil that good may come! Where do we see that? We see it clearly in the government agendas. Legislate for homosexuality that good may come. Legislate abortion so that good will be the result. Legislate the sexual distortion of children in schools so that good may come. Enforce the persecution of Christians that good may come. The list is a long one.
However what does God say about it all – {{Isaiah 5:20-21 “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight!”}}
There most certainly will be a day of reckoning and Paul alludes to that in Roman 3 verse 8 where he says, “Their condemnation is just.” This is quite a strong conclusion meaning they deserve what they will get for God’s verdict will be just and without preferential treatment. God is impartial.
Some Christian ministers shy away from speaking about a just God in condemnation, because they don’t want to lose people. However the bible is strong on this teaching, so we must be also. There is a day of reckoning with God.
How many preach on this text? {{Hebrews 9:27 “Inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment.”}} I heard a church leader say once, “You should not preach on sin or hell. Just talk about the love of God.” That is a false gospel for Jesus spoke on sin and judgement many times, and there was no need for Him to die an agonising death for the judgement of sin, if the eternal realities were not graphically correct.
One day, yet in the distant future, the whole human race who ever lived will be together at the great and horrible judgement of the great white throne. Jesus Christ is the Judge who sits on the throne and His Church will be present, for where the Lord is, so is His Bride. Those who face that judgement are the lost of all ages who will be judged according to their works – {{Revelation 20:12-13 “and I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. The sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds.”}}
One critical point that must not be overlooked is that each redeemed saint faces the judgement of rewards. There is no time today to pursue this further but in closing I would ask you to place yourself in this context and ask yourself, “How do I shape up?” {{1Corinthians 3:12-15 “Now if any man builds upon the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident, for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built upon it remains, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire.”}}
ronaldf@aapt.net.au
