Romans 3:1-2. What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way; chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.
If it be so that, after all, no outward rite or birth privileges can bestow grace, what advantage did the Jews possess? «Why!» says Paul, «they had this very great privilege, ‘that unto them were committed the oracles of God.'» It is no small blessing to have a revelation from Jehovah, and to have the means of knowing what that revelation really is.
Romans 3:3. For what if some did not believe.?
Many of the seed of Israel did not believe the revelation that was made to them; yet the privilege of hearing it was just as great, even though they slighted it.
Romans 3:3-5. Shall their unbelief made the faith of God without effect? God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged. But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance?
Vengeance on a sin which is nevertheless made to turn to his glory?
Romans 3:5-7. (I speak as a man) God forbid.: for then how shall God judge the world? for if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner?
Yet I shall be. If God shall overrule my sin to his own glory, that will make no difference to my responsibility. If I have lied, if I have done wrong in say way, I must be judged and condemned on that account, whatever may be the ultimate result of my sin.
Romans 3:8. And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say), Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.
If any man dares to say that, «Since God turns even evil into good, and by the forgiveness of sin brings glory to himself, ‘Let us do evil that good may come,'» he is wrestling truth to his own destruction, and his « damnation is just.»
Romans 3:9. What then? are we better than they?
Are Jews better than Gentiles? Or, are Gentiles better than Jews?
Romans 3:9. No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
Nobody can read the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and follow it by reading the second, without seeing how completely Paul has proved «that they are all under sin.»
Romans 3:10. As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
There is not, and there never has been, one of the human race, save our Lord, who also is God, who ever continued to live a righteous life. Adam commenced righteously, but how soon he fell; and all his descendants have both commenced and continued to be sinners: «There is none righteous, no, not one.»
Romans 3:11. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
That is, none do so by nature; those who seek after God are led to do so by a work of grace upon their hearts. Otherwise, men are blind, they do not see the right path; they are willful, and do not seek after God.
Romans 3:12. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
This is God's verdict upon the whole human race. He has the best opportunity of seeing them, and he has the best capacity for judging them; and this is what he says of all men as they are by nature, «There is none that doeth good, no, not one.»
Romans 3:13. Their throat is an open sepulcher;
A reeking mass of corruption;
Romans 3:13. With their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
They are pleased to say a bad word of their neighbor; they are eager to repeat any slander that they hear, and they are not unwilling even to invent it themselves.
Romans 3:14-15. Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood:
And when, by fear of the laws of the land, they are prevented from carrying out their evil purposes, yet their anger is itself murder in intent; and into what human heart has not that sin glanced?
Romans 3:16-19. Destruction and misery are in their ways: and the way of peace have they not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what tidings soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law:
All these passages, which Paul has put together in this dreadful mosaic, are taken from the Old Testament, so they apply to the Jews; and he had already proved, in the first chapter, the intolerable vice of the Gentiles, so that now he has shown that both Jews and Gentiles are guilty.
Romans 3:19. That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
The nineteenth-century world as well as the world of the first century, all the world, in all time, has «become guilty before God.»
Romans 3:20. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight:
Talk not, therefore, of righteousness by your own works. Dream not of meriting eternal life by any attempt to keep the law; for this is the declaration of God's Holy Spirit, «By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: «
Romans 3:20. For by the law is the knowledge of sin.
The law is a looking-glass; you see your spots as you gaze into it. But no man ever washed his face in a looking-glass; it shows the spots, but it cannot remove them. The law is the indicator and the revealer of sin; but it has no power whatever to put away sin.
Romans 3:21-24. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference; for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
That is a very wonderful verse, every word of it is full of meaning. «Justified»; that is, accounted just, made to be righteous in the sight of God. «Justified freely»; without any merit or purchase money. «Freely by laic grace»; not an act of justice, but an act of mercy has made sinners just in the sight of God. «Through the redemption»; there is the foundation of it all, we are redeemed by precious blood: «Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.»
Romans 3:25-27. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then?
Boasting is sure to be somewhere handy, ready to creep in if it can, for we are all prone to it; it is the common sin of our race: «Where is boasting then?»
Romans 3:27. It is excluded. By what law?
It is shut out; but by what law is it shut out?
Romans 3:27. Of works?
No; for, whenever we think that we have been performing any good works, we begin to boast at once.
Romans 3:27. Nay: but by the law of faith.
For if we are saved by believing, if we are justified freely by God's grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, then there is no room for boasting.
Romans 3:28. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
«We conclude» we are shut up to this belief, «that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.»
Romans 3:29. Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also:
He saved Abraham by faith, and he saves us by faith. The same saving principle is applicable to all parts of the human race.
Romans 3:30-31. Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith. Do we then malice void the law through faith?
Some will be sure to say so; but it is not true.
Romans 3:31. God forbid: yea, we establish the law.
There is no one who so much loves the law of God, and delights in it after the inward man, as the one who is justified by faith. There is nothing that so honours the law as «the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ.» It establishes for ever the law, even as Christ said to his disciples, «Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.»