Romans 3:3,4 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

For what if some And they a considerable number, of those who once possessed these invaluable treasures; did not believe Them, or did not duly consider what they speculatively believed, and so rejected the gospel to which they were intended to lead; shall their unbelief make without effect Shall it disannul; the faith of God His faithful promises made to Abraham and his seed, especially of sending the Messiah, and of effecting our redemption by him? Shall it destroy his fidelity to his promises, and prevent his fulfilling them to them that do believe? God, having promised to give to Abraham and his seed the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and to be their God, the Jews affirmed that if they were cast off from being his people, and driven out of Canaan for not believing on Jesus, the faithfulness of God in performing his promises would be destroyed. Probably the apostles, in their discourses to the Jews, had, if not expressly affirmed, yet obscurely intimated, that for crucifying Jesus they would be punished in that manner. God forbid That we should insinuate any thing that can be justly considered as derogatory to God's faithfulness: yea, let God be true Let the blessed God be acknowledged true to his covenant and his promises, though every man should be esteemed a liar, and unfit to have any confidence reposed in him; or, though every Jew should disbelieve, and be cast off on that account. To understand this more fully, we must recollect, that the performance of the promises to the natural seed of Abraham, is, in the original covenant, tacitly made to depend on their faith and obedience, Genesis 18:19, and that it is explicitly made to depend on that condition in the renewal of the covenant, Deuteronomy 28:1-14. Besides, on that occasion, God expressly threatened to expel the natural seed from Canaan, and scatter them among the heathen, if they became unbelieving and disobedient, Leviticus 26:33; Deuteronomy 28:64. The rejection, therefore, and expulsion of the Jews from Canaan, for their unbelief, being a fulfilling of the threatenings of the covenant, established the faithfulness of God, instead of destroying it. As it is written, Psalms 51:4, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings Εν τοις λογοις σου in thy words; and mightest overcome Be pronounced holy and just, and clear of all imputation of unrighteousness; when thou art judged When any presume insolently to arraign the equity of thy conduct, or, when thy proceedings are narrowly examined by right reason. The original expression, however, εν τω κρινεσθαι σε, it seems, should rather be rendered, when thou judgest, a translation agreeable to the place whence the quotation is made. God's words referred to, in which David justified God, or acknowledged him to be just, are those threatenings which Nathan, by God's order, denounced against him, on account of his crimes of adultery and murder, 2 Samuel 12:9-12. And God judged, or punished David, when he executed these threatenings on him and his posterity; and David acknowledged God to be just, or clear, in doing this, by receiving the deserved punishment in humility, resignation, and meekness. And the apostle seems to have quoted David's confession, that God's punishing him in the manner threatened by Nathan, was no breach of the promises he had made to him and his posterity, because it showed the Jews that God's promises, like his threatenings, were all conditional, and that, consistently with his promises to Abraham and to his seed, God might reject the Israelites, and drive them out of Canaan, they having forfeited their right to be accounted the seed of Abraham, the father of the faithful, by their infidelity; and the Gentiles, by imitating his faith, being now received for God's children.