The Justice, Faithfulness, and Righteousness of God
Romans 3:1-8
Turn in your Bibles to Romans 3. Thus far in our study of Romans, Paul has been making an argument all the way from Romans 1, and he will continue until the end of Romans 3. He began with his statement of the gospel, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” Then, he defended that statement by showing the great need of the gospel for all men and women. So, in Romans 1:18-32, he addressed those who never formally received the Law of God. Those who were not Jewish and therefore never had the Scriptures. Yet Paul writes that they still received God’s revelation through creation, yet they ignored it, and that God also placed within them a conscience which they sinned against. The result was (vs 21) they did not glorify God or give Him thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened, and (vs 28) they did not acknowledge God. And the final verdict was a failing grade, and they were told that they were without excuse.
Next, in Romans 2:1-16, Paul turned to the somewhat religious who seemed to know enough about God and obedience. But these folks looked down on others who do not match their standard, and Paul also said that they committed some of the same sins as those they judged in others. And the final verdict again was a failing grade, and they, too, were told that they are without excuse. Finally, last week, Paul used the Jew as the example in Romans 2:17-29 of those who now had the actual Law of God. They knew and understood much of who God is and yet they still could not live in a way that did not condemn them. For they were disobedient to the very Law that God gave them, and their verdict was that the name of God was blasphemed among the Gentiles because of them. So now that Paul had made clear the guilt of all men and women, whether they are Jews or Gentiles, and whether they have the Law or not.
Now next week, Paul will explain the degree of that guilt (Rom 3:10-20), and then in his final words of Romans 3, he will confirm that salvation is by faith alone apart from works. So, this is one long argument for the great need of the gospel. But just before going to the explanation of our guilt, next week, Paul is going to take 8 verses (Rom 3:1-8) to do two things: one, he is going to defend the right of God to judge, specifically the Jews; and two, he is going to do is to make a defence of the gospel of the definition of the gospel which he gave back in Romans 1. So, are you ready? This will be less of a sermon and more like a Southern Seminary New Testament Theology class this morning. So, here we go!
Paul Defends God’s Right to Judge
“Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God. What then? If some did not believe, does their unbelief abolish the faithfulness of God? May it never be! Rather, let God be true and every man a liar, as it is written, ‘That You may be justified in Your words, And overcome when You are judged.’ But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is the God who inflicts wrath unrighteous? (I am speaking in human terms.) May it never be! For otherwise, how will God judge the world? But if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner? 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.”
Romans 3:1-8 (LSB)
Now, considering that final statement here by Paul that everyone’s condemnation is just. This would be considered an appalling statement in our culture today. I mean, our culture would almost want to say nobody’s condemnation is just. For everybody has an excuse, whereas God would say nobody has an excuse. And what we need to understand when we read these questions by Paul: (vs 1) Then what advantage is the Jew? (vs 3) If some did not believe, does their unbelief abolish the faithfulness of God? (vs 5) Is the God who inflicts wrath unrighteous? (vs 7) But if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner? (vs 8) And why not say, “Let us do evil that good may come”? That these are not questions that Paul is asking, but these are questions that Paul has been asked and therefore must answer.
“Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision?”
Romans 3:1 (LSB)
In other words, what is the big deal about being Jewish? Remember that Paul is dealing with the entire Old Testament, which has emphasized the great advantages of the Jews. Why did Paul have to deal with this? Well, some would have said that the Jews had been unfaithful to God, so what is the advantage of being Jewish? After all, having the oracles of God did not seem to do them much good. So, Paul says (vs 2), “First of all” (notice there is no second of all, likely comes in Romans 9). Nevertheless, Paul is content here with dealing with the fact that the Jews have been entrusted with the oracles of God.
“What then? If some did not believe, does their unbelief abolish the faithfulness of God?”
Romans 3:3 (LSB)
Paul says here that if “some” Jews did not believe. Is this putting into question the faithfulness of God? In other words, if God chose the nation of Israel, how come some do not believe? As they were saying from a Jewish standpoint, Paul, if some Jews do not believe, then some Jews are condemned. Does this not put God’s faithfulness to save the Jews in jeopardy? And I believe that we would understand the question. And the reason they are asking this is that Paul has already taught that all men and women with and without the Law were condemned. Now that the Gentile was condemned was no surprise to the Jew. Paul didn’t really need to teach Romans 1 to them, as generally the Jew had little concern for those outside of the Law anyway. Now, Romans 1 needs to be taught to us. In our Christian circles, the question comes up once in a while: What about those in the world who have never heard the gospel? Well, Romans 1 makes it clear that if they have heard the gospel or not, they are still without excuse. But typically, the Jew was not concerned about the Gentiles or us, but they are concerned with the faithfulness of God to them, and it is bothering them that some of the Jews are condemned. Verse 3, again:
“What then? If some did not believe, does their unbelief abolish the faithfulness of God? May it never be! Rather, let God be true and every man a liar.”
Romans 3:3-4a (LSB)
Paul here is defending God’s faithfulness. He says the failure of the Jews cannot in any way affect the purposes or the faithfulness of God. Yet their failure makes no difference to God’s promises for the Jew, for the promises will be fulfilled, yet the Jew who does not believe and trust in God will not enjoy the blessings of those promises. Now, understand that some promises of God are what we often call “unconditional promises,” and they do not depend upon the faithfulness of men. In fact, if they did, there would never be any kind of salvation. Certain promises that were given to Israel, that one day a King would come from the tribe of Judah. In other words, that Christ would come from Judah had nothing to do with the faith of the Jewish people. In fact, most of the promises of God have been fulfilled despite the stubbornness of the Jewish nation. But the point Paul is making is that though God called the nation of Israel for a special purpose, the salvation of every Jewish person was never a promise of God, as many people from Israel have died in their sins, and many will die in their sins.
And Paul’s words here are incredible (vs 4), “Let God be true and every man a liar,” reinforces the truth that even if every man is lost, God is true. In fact, if every man—including Jews and Gentiles—does not believe, God is still faithful and true. Let God be true and every man a liar. In other words, God is not dependent on us. God’s faithfulness is everlasting, even if everyone goes to hell, as God will do everything He has said he will do. And then Paul will do something interesting here. He will give a quote (vs 4b), “That You may be justified in Your words, And overcome when You are judged.” This is from Psalm 51:4 at the time when David had sinned with Bathsheba.
“Against You, You only, I have sinned
And done what is evil in Your sight,
So that You are justified when You speak
And pure when You judge.”
Psalm 51:4 (LSB)
In this psalm, David comes to the place where he realizes that God, not David, is absolutely right. That when all the facts are revealed, God will be justified. That when it was revealed that David had sinned, God was just to punish him. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says here that:
“Not only does the failure of the Jew not nullify the purpose of God, the failure of the Jews indeed seems to put out into greater relief and into greater prominence the justice and the righteousness and the truth of God’s way.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
For despite the failure of the Jews, God’s purposes still go on. Therefore, it is the failure of the Jews that actually emphasizes the righteousness and faithfulness of God: (vs 3) some Jews are unbelieving, but this does not nullify God’s faithfulness; (vs 4) even if no one believes, God is faithful; and (Ps 51) David says if I have sinned and God judges me, then God is faithful to His Word, the same thing here if God judges Israel.
“But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is the God who inflicts wrath unrighteous? (I am speaking in human terms).”
Romans 3:5 (LSB)
Verse 5, if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, should not God then be gracious to us? And, if so, on what grounds does God punish? Do you see the argument coming against Paul? That if the sin of the people magnifies the righteousness of God, should God not be thankful for our sin that it showcases His great righteousness? In other words, black sin versus white purity. This would be like our children saying to us, if my misbehaviour deepens your patience and character, why do you discipline me? Have you ever tried that one on your Mom and Dad kids? Might not be a good idea! And we sort of laugh at this kind of logic, but we also know that this merely demonstrates the foolishness of our thinking. For in reality, our reason for our sinning, and possibly our rationalization for that sin, really makes little difference to God, as God will always be righteous despite our foolish actions and foolish thinking. And so, Paul does not mess with this.
“May it never be! For otherwise, how will God judge the world?”
Romans 3:6 (LSB)
And of course, the shocker for the Jew here is that they believed that God would judge the world, but not Israel, as they would agree that the Gentile should be judged. Yet, if the unrighteousness of the Jew cannot be judged by God, then how can God judge everyone else? For the unrighteousness of the Gentiles makes the righteousness of God stand out in the same way as that of the Jews. See, the whole premise here from Paul’s opposition is that God does not have the right to judge the Jew; that’s the bottom line around their silly question. And Paul’s argument is, if that were true, then God does not have the right to judge the world either?
See, this whole argument is that God does not have the right to judge. Yet don’t think this is so crazy, as we are right there in our culture. As no man is really accountable for his sin, for human thinking is that even if I am a liar, a child molester, some kind of conniver or manipulator, a cheater in my marriage, a drunkard, drug addict, I watch a little pornography, I’m selfish; you must still love me God, or You are not the faithful God that I believe you are. Do you see how foolish our minds work? God, You are obligated to love us. This is similar to someone sitting in the courtroom who has committed some kind of crime and thinking to himself, judge, jury, you must be merciful to me. You must be faithful to me, after all, I am a Canadian citizen. Just as we might think in our minds, Lord, I know I have done some wrong things, but You must save me, if You are any kind of loving and faithful God, You must save me.
“But if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner?”
Romans 3:7 (LSB)
Though I am a liar, Lord, You must save me. And especially if my sin has made the truth of God stand out more abundantly, then why am I being judged as a sinner? And then Paul will get to the gist of their argument.
“And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), ‘Let us do evil that good may come’?”
Romans 3:8a (LSB)
Basically, the more I sin, the more that God’s truth and righteousness stand out. Why? Because our sin produces more marvellously than ever the grace of God, therefore God ought not punish sin. And Paul’s conclusion is, end (vs 8), your condemnation is just. Do we see what is happening here? This the grave danger of manipulating the promises of God without realizing the fullness of God and His Word and the righteousness of God. And therefore, His right and necessity to judge mankind. This is, as some have said, taking verses out of context and making our message heard and not God’s message heard. Those who play games with the Word of God and try to gain from it on a surface level. Those who are flippant with God’s Word. So, Paul defends God’s right to judge. Well, I wish to leave you with some lessons this morning from this very unique passage. Some of them come directly from the passage, and some indirectly.
- Churches today and churches in the New Testament have always had their share of doctrinal struggles that need to be carefully defined.
This is good to understand that even in New Testament times, Paul had to deal with truth and doctrine, as it would seem that until the Lord returns, we will always be carefully defining our faith. It will mean that our faith will always come in opposition to the world, but it will also mean that we must carefully define our faith within the church, because even within the church, there is often humanistic thinking that very much will oppose God’s Word.
We, as elders, have been carefully working through our statement of faith. And we realize that it is not a divinely inspired document as the Word of God is, but we trust that we have structured it after the principles of the Bible. Some of the statements needed to be redefined. I mean at one time, churches did not need to say that God created the world in six days, but at some point—because of the influence of the culture and because of the wrong thinking in the church—it needed to be clearly stated. And who would have thought we would need a statement that a marriage is between a man and a woman? And I even hesitate to have to address this, as the Bible is very clear, yet some churches have tried to use the Word of God to say that a homosexual marriage relationship is okay. We disagree, so we need to make that clear.
And there is a good reason why we, as a church, have a statement of faith, so people know up front where we stand and what we believe. And not only have them in a statement, but also to teach them and not quit talking about them. It has been said that when choosing a good Bible school, it is not only beneficial to see what a school holds to in their doctrinal statement, but also what it is they are passionately teaching. So yes, churches today and churches in the New Testament have always had their share of doctrinal struggles that need to be carefully defined.
- People will always distort the Scriptures without a knowledge of the entire Bible.
And I would see this both within the church and outside of the church, as confusion may come when those within the church focus entirely on one truth. But teach it at the expense of another, we can never do that, for we must be faithful to the whole of Scripture and teach what each passage clearly says. But also, if you are speaking with an unbeliever, they may come up with numerous thoughts of opposition to the Bible. But they are often just sarcastic or will ridicule God or His Word. And these are likely just symptoms of unbelief; in other words, they do not want to see the truth nor the true condition of their own heart. However, sometimes they may bring good questions that we should answer, and in this case, it is always good to start with something that you are absolutely certain about, in other words, start with the known. And we can learn here from the defence of Paul. He said that nothing could ever change the faithfulness of God, for God is always faithful and God is ever righteous. Now, we may not be able to explain everything, but I trust that we could confidently tell somebody this truth, that God is always faithful and God is ever righteous.
Now, admittedly, a question like (vs 8) which asks, “And why not say, ‘Let us do evil that good may come’?” That question is morally impossible, and it really requires no answer. I mean, come on, let us do evil that good may come? There may be some things that we can explain and should, and often it is things that the conscience of people may already be bothering them, but sometimes a lengthy explanation almost lessens the seriousness of the truth. If someone asked me about the rightness of say an abortion, especially when they already know that we believe that we were created by God and that life is given by God, or the rightness of pornography, or the justification for being unfaithful in a marriage, we may want to just give a condescending stare at that point. No, don’t do that, or we become the guys of Romans 2:1-16. But some things do not have to be overly explained. True, secular counsellors try to find out “why” we did something to lessen the sin, yet we also may lessen the sin by talking about it over and over again. Good to give a clear answer when you can, and let the individual ponder it themselves.
- We must be careful when we share our opinions about things that we do not fully understand, especially about God and His ways.
We might describe those who opposed Paul this morning as flippant or disrespectful. Yet we might say something like, now I don’t see why God does not do such and such. I like what Lloyd-Jones says here, “You don’t see? Then maybe it is time to be careful about giving your opinion.” And I believe we understand the difference between that and a good, honest question, but we should never speak in a way that ever questions the goodness of God, or the faithfulness of God, or the righteousness of God, or anything that we know is true about God. And this must be our practise when we read the Bible. To skim over things that we do not like and only focus on those things we love, all we end up with is a distorted view of the complete truth about God. Someone once said that a good way of testing a proper view that we may hold is this, is this view humbling to us and glorifying to God? Yet if our view brings recognition for our cleverness and seems to question God, it is not a proper view.
Now, before I give the final lesson, I need to give some explanation. There is a belief called “antinomianism.” It means this, that because of the truth of grace in the Bible, the Christian is not under any kind of obligation to obey God. This might come from such passages as Romans 3:28, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.” And of course, this passage is true, as Paul explains that the Law condemns and shows us our sin, which ultimately will bring us to Christ. In fact, we talked about this a few weeks ago as we looked at Romans 4:5, “But to the one who does not work, but believes upon Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” Notice the words, “does not work … “he is justified … his faith is counted as righteousness.” That is extremely clear, that our faith that we have in Christ gains us His righteousness.
Yet we also said that the believer who has been transformed by Christ who does believe, who has received a perfect righteousness from God. That believer’s life is then different, and in fact, his obedience to Christ becomes evidence of his true faith. Again, this is the need to consider all of Scripture, so that we understand that yes, we are saved by grace alone apart from any works. However, that salvation then produces not works that save, but works that authenticate true salvation. Therefore, the word antinomianism does not apply to the Christian, for the person who has truly come to Christ in faith, true, could never obey enough to earn his salvation, but is certainly under obligation, or a better term, might be “because of his thankfulness,” desires to serve Christ the rest of his days because of what Christ has done for him. Ligonier Ministries said that:
“Paul’s obligation to serve Christ was a voluntary, intense commitment driven by deep gratitude for receiving God’s grace … He viewed himself as a debtor obligated to preach the gospel to all people, driven by a desire to bring glory to Jesus.”
Ligonier Ministries
May that be said of you and me, who desire to glorify Christ in the areas of ministry that He has called us. Finally, lesson #4. And I want to premise this first with the second thing that Paul is doing here in this passage besides defending God’s right to judge with this.
Paul Defends His Definition of the Gospel
This is an interesting note, as we see Paul doing what we may at times have had to do. And there is a good reason for this. Which brings us to lesson #4:
- Because the gospel is due to grace alone, apart from works, it will be questioned.
This statement (vs 8), “Let us do evil that good may come,” is not coming from a perspective that truly believes that it would be good to do evil so that God would be glorified for His righteousness and His faithfulness to those who choose to sin. Here is likely the real reason this opposition is coming against Paul, and it is this: they are questioning Paul’s teaching that salvation is apart from works. And that kind of teaching would be appalling, especially to the Jew. Therefore, what is coming from this question is complete sarcasm towards Paul’s teaching. In other words, when Paul taught that salvation is apart from works, the Jewish response would be, “Hey, Paul, why don’t we just then do evil?” This would be a lingering thought, for the big question that Paul would write is later in Romans 6, where he says:
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?”
Roman 6:1 (LSB)
And remember, Paul is not addressing these questions because no one is asking them; that would make his letter irrelevant. No, he is bringing up opposition to the gospel that is being expressed, which needs to be clarified. Listen, the gospel is due to grace, irrespective of what man does. This leads to the argument brought forth in this passage. In other words, this was a charge that came against Paul because he taught that the gospel was due to grace. I am going to guess that there may have been times in your life when you have talked to someone about the gospel, and the person you are speaking with will most often say, “What do I have to do?” And you will reply to them, giving a similar statement of the gospel that Paul teaches, Romans 1:16, that the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes or by faith alone. And the Jew is especially is thinking, “What!”
But it is not just the Jew, for if you were speaking to that same friend at work and told him the gospel said this, do your best, and you will be saved,” and people would think, yep, that makes sense. So, when you get questioned about the gospel—saying that it is by faith and not works—you are in good company. Why? Because Paul’s explanation of the gospel brought up a similar question. In other words, if the gospel is explained properly, it may be open to such criticism. Paul’s teaching of the gospel exposed him to such questions; therefore, questions do not necessarily mean that you are teaching the gospel improperly. We are dealing with a gospel that makes little sense to people until they are convicted by the Holy Spirit, for the true gospel is so humbling. In other words, I do not deserve this one iota, and there is nothing I can do to earn it, as it is not about the goodness of man, but it is about the greatness and mercy of God. Therefore, we must pray that God might move in the hearts of people.
Well, next week, Paul will define and explain the guilt of mankind, saying there are none righteous, and will fully teach man’s condemnation before a righteous God and a holy God. Let’s pray. Lord, we praise You this morning that this is Your gospel. It is not the gospel of man, but the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we understand that Your ways and Your thoughts are not ours. So, make us wise to know these truths. And even in matters where we do not fully understand, may we still hold securely to Your Word. Help us to know the whole of Scripture. For the law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. So that we might be able to share the gospel with others, so that they might see the true message of salvation. So, use us, in our homes, our workplaces, our neighbourhoods, wherever you place us, that we might bring honour and glory to our great God. And all God’s people said, amen.