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.
The Jews of old had a great advantage, for they had the truth when other men had not. The voice of God spake to them clearly, when only here and there, to a few chosen ones beside, was the voice of God delivered at all.
Romans 3:3. For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?
It was a privilege to belong to the Jewish people, even though some, and many through their unbelief, did not avail themselves of the privilege.
Romans 3:4-7. 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? (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?
Here is another objection; if it be so that, somehow or other, the sin of man is over-ruled to magnify the grace of God, why am I then blameworthy? But the Apostle stamps this out as an evil Suggestion and a very moral disease.
Romans 3:8-11. 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. What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
The whole human race has sinned against the Most High, and has become alienated in mind from the great and good Creator.
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.
What can be more expressive, what can be more plain than this? The whole race estranged from God and given up to sin.
Romans 3:13-18. Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: 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.
Here is a description of all men. If some say, «Well, my feet were never swift to shed blood,» you probably have not been put into circumstances which would evoke that cruel passion. So we thought till lately: we thought we were all so civilized that we were to have war no more. Believe me, let the trumpet be sounded and cannon be heard, and there is a devil in our humanity which would not soon be awakened, and we, too. might become as fierce as any other nation. It is still true of men.
Romans 3:19-20. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
It is like a looking-glass that shows us our blots, but it does not wash them away. The law is the standard which shows us how short we are of God's glory; but it does not make up our shortcomings. It is a killing, not a saving thing. By the law, no man ever was, or ever will be, saved. By the law, we guilty ones are condemned.
Romans 3:21-22. 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-
No difference first of all in the sin; we are all guilty and all condemned no difference in the way of salvation. Whoever believes in Jesus is justified by faith in Jesus there is no difference.
Romans 3:23-26. 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: 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? It is excluded.» It is shut out. If men be saved not at all by works, but altogether by the free grace of God through the merits of Christ, then boasting hath the gate shut in its face. But by what law is boasting shut out?
Romans 3:27. Where is boasting then?
«By works?» Nay: but by the law of faith.
Romans 3:27. It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.
If we were to say God justified man on the ground of law without their perfectly keeping it, we should, make void the law; but when we teach glint God justifies men of his free grace and mercy on account of Christ's having kept the law and having fulfilled its fullest demands, we do not make void the law, but we establish the law.
This exposition consisted of readings from Psalms 110:1; Romans 2:25-29; Romans 3:1.