Romans Chapter 3
Romans 3:1 “What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit [is there] of circumcision?”
Paul asks this question as if another Jew is asking. It seems that the covenant that God made with Abraham (circumcision), is no advantage at all. Paul asks, what is the reason for circumcision, if it does not benefit the Jew?
Romans 3:2 “Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.”
The non-Jew up until the time of Jesus had no chance of learning of the true God. The law was revealed to the natural Jew only at that time. The promises made were for the physical house of Israel until Jesus tore the middle wall of partition down in the temple when He gave His body on the cross for all mankind. The promise of the Messiah was to the physical house of Israel. The physical house of Israel (Jew), was the one taught in the temple, the laws of God. They were the privileged few.
“Oracles”: This Greek word is logian, a diminutive form of the common New Testament word logos, which is normally translated “word.” These are important sayings or messages, especially supernatural ones.
Here Paul uses the word to encompass the entire Old Testament, the Jews received the very words of the true God. The Jews had a great advantage in having the Old Testament, because it contained the truth about salvation and about the gospel in its basic form. When Paul said “preach the Word”, he meant the oracles of God recorded in scripture.
Romans 3:3 “For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?”
The fact that some reject the Truth does not make it any less the Truth. Some have not the faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God.
Romans 10:9-10 “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” “For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
We see in these Scriptures just what it takes to be saved.
God will fulfill all the promises He made to the nation, even if individual Jews are not able to receive them because of their unbelief.
Romans 3:4 “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.”
If all mankind were to agree that God had been unfaithful to His promises, it would only prove that all are liars and God is true.
Psalms 116:11 “I said in my haste, All men [are] liars.”
Hebrews 6:17-18 “Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed [it] by an oath:” “That by two immutable things, in which [it was] impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:”
In the last 2 scriptures of Hebrews, you see the word immutable. Immutable means unchangeable or always the same. We see above that men are liars, but it is impossible for God to lie, since He is the Truth. “Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life”. Every man and woman (one at a time), shall stand before this absolute Truth and be judged. We will be justified by Jesus Christ when we Christians stand before Him. Those who rejected Jesus as their personal Savior will be without excuse.
Romans 5-8: Paul anticipates and answers the objection that his teaching actually impugned the very holiness and purity of God’s character.
Romans 3:5 “But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? [Is] God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man)”
“Commend the righteousness of God”: By contrast, like a jeweler who displays a diamond on black velvet to make the stone appear even more beautiful. (defined: to express approval of; praise; to praise or acclaim).
“I speak as a man”: He is simply paraphrasing the weak, unbiblical logic of his opponents, the product of their natural, unregenerate minds.
We have no righteousness except that purchased for us by the Lord Jesus Christ. Because we are unrighteous, do we presume to judge God for taking vengeance on our unrighteousness? As I said before, those who do not accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and take on His righteousness are without excuse and deserve God’s vengeance.
Romans 3:6 “God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world?”
Paul’s point is that if God condoned sin, He would have no equitable, righteous basis for judgement.
One thing we can surely depend on is that God is just. God has made a way out for the unrighteous. They must accept Jesus as Savior and Lord and then they will be judged righteous, because they have taken on Jesus’ righteousness. There are only 2 types of people as far as God is concerned (those who accept Jesus and those who do not).
Romans 3:7 “For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?”
We might try to justify our sin before God, telling God that our lie makes His Truth even greater, but He will not go for that flimsy excuse.
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.”
Paul is saying, here, that some liars are going around saying, that He says do evil so that God’s good will be greater. Paul just simply says they are lying. They not only lie, but their condemnation is just.
Tragically, the apostle’s gospel message of salvation by grace through faith alone had been perverted by his opponents who argued it provided not only a license to sin, but outright encouragement to do so (see 5:20; 6:1-2).
In verses 9-20 Paul concludes his indictment of mankind with this summary: Jew and Gentile alike stand guilty before God.
Romans 3:9 “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;”
“Are we better”: “We”, probably refers to the Christians in Rome who will receive this letter. Christians do not have an intrinsically superior nature to all those Paul has shown to stand under God’s condemnation.
“Under sin” means completely enslaved and dominated by sin.
Romans 3:10 “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:”
In the 23rd verse of this chapter Paul makes it very clear that all have sinned.
Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”
Psalms 14:1 “The fool hath said in his heart, [There is] no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, [there is] none that doeth good.”
The Jews could not and did not keep the law and the heathen did not even have a law to keep. Man is universally evil. All have sinned, but praise God, He sent a Savior named Jesus Christ. His righteousness is what we must have. Our righteousness is but filthy rags.
Romans 3:11 “There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.”
“None … understandeth”: Man is unable to comprehend the truth of God or grasp His standard of righteousness. Sadly, his spiritual ignorance does not result from a lack of opportunity, but is an expression of his depravity and rebellion.
“None … seeketh”: This verse clearly implies that the world’s false religions are fallen man’s attempts to escape the true God, not to seek Him. Man’s natural tendency is to seek his own interest, but his only hope is for God to seek him. It is only as a result of God’s work in the heart that anyone seeks Him.
This describes our generation perfectly. It seems there is no one seeking after God; or at least very few. If we seek God we will find Him.
Matthew 7:7 “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:”
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.”
Even the Jews who had the law were not keeping it. The priests were twisting the law around and carrying their own customs out in the temple rather than carrying out God’s law. Jesus came to save the lost world. Just as this Scripture says, no one truly deserves to be saved.
Basically meaning: “To go or choose the wrong way”, much as a soldier running the wrong way or deserting. All men are inclined to leave God’s way and pursue their own.
“None that doeth good”: Nine times (in verses 10-17), Paul uses words such as “none” and “all” to show the universality of human sin and rebellion.
Romans 3:13 “Their throat [is] an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps [is] under their lips:”
There is a similar Scripture in Psalms.
Psalms 140:3 “They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders’ poison [is] under their lips. Selah.”
We see from this that the tongue can be a very evil and hurtful instrument when it speaks from an evil heart. I believe that is what is meant by the throat being an open sepulcher. Look with me in the book of James to see some of this.
James 3:6-8 ” And the tongue [is] a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.” “For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:” “But the tongue can no man tame; [it is] an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.”
A sepulcher is a tomb or in this case, like an open grave. These were sealed not only to show respect for the deceased, but to hide the sight and stench of the body’s decay. As an unsealed tomb allows those who pass to see and smell what is inside, the unregenerate man’s open throat, that is the foul words that come from it, reveal the decay of his heart.
When we receive Jesus as our Savior, the very first member of our body that we should turn over to Jesus is our tongue. The natural tongue is very evil, if not controlled by the Spirit.
Romans 3:14 “Whose mouth [is] full of cursing and bitterness:”
What generation in all of history has been guiltier of cursing than the present? Every movie, or at least the vast majority of them, contains terrible cursing. Bitterness and strife are on every hand. Bitterness against parents is perhaps #1 on the list.
This is quoted from Psalm 10:7. It refers to wanting the worst for someone and publicly expressing that desire in caustic, derisive language.
Bitterness could be described as the open, public expression of emotional hostility against one’s enemy.
Verses 15-17 are quoted from Isaiah 59:7-8.
Romans 3:15 “Their feet [are] swift to shed blood:”
This is speaking of evil men. Of course, we know that some of the Jewish leaders of the church wanted all the Christians killed. They even thought they were doing God a favor to kill the Christians.
The next few verses are describing people without understanding. They are without the love of God within them. Their desire is to destroy and make others miserable. This really is like so many gangs in our country today. They have no desire to build, just to tear down and destroy what someone else has built. They like to make others miserable thinking with their perverted mind that seeing someone more miserable than themselves will bring them happiness. They are not peace makers. How could they fear what they do not know? They do not know God.
Romans 3:16 “Destruction and misery [are] in their ways:”
Man damages and destroys everything he touches, leaving a trail of pain and suffering in his wake.
Romans 3:17 “And the way of peace have they not known:”
Not the lack of an inner sense of peace, but man’s tendency toward strife and conflict, whether between individuals or nations.
Romans 3:18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Man’s true spiritual condition is nowhere more clearly seen than in the absence of a proper submission to and reverence for God. Biblical fear for God consists of:
(1) Awe of His greatness and glory, and
(2) Dread of the results of violating that holy nature.
Romans 3:19 “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.”
This is speaking of every unredeemed human being.
Just the fact the Jews had the law did not make them not guilty of sin. In fact, if anything it made them guiltier, because they had the law and did not keep it. All have sinned. All have come short of the Glory of God.
“Every mouth … stopped … guilty:” There is no defense against the guilty verdict God pronounces on the entire human race.
Romans 3:20 “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.”
The law just made it even more apparent that all have sinned and needed a Savior. We will read (in chapter 5 of Romans), that Jesus died for the ungodly. We cannot be good enough to be saved. Jesus Christ is the only person that ever lived without sin.
Romans 3:21 “But now. the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;”
Paul, having shown the impossibility of gaining righteousness by human effort, he turns to explain the righteousness that God Himself has provided.
This righteousness is unique:
(1) God is its source;
(2) It fulfills both the penalty and precept of God’s law. Christ’s death as a substitute pays the penalty exacted on those who failed to keep God’s law, and His perfect obedience to every requirement of God’s law fulfills God’s demand for comprehensive righteousness; and
(3) Because God’s righteousness is eternal, the one who receives it from Him enjoys it forever.
Doing perfectly what God’s moral law required is impossible, so that every person is cursed by that inability. By the law is knowledge of sin, therefore the law only makes sin known, it cannot save. It is our schoolmaster.
Galatians 3:24: Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster [to bring us] unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
Romans 3:22 “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:”
True saving faith is supernatural, a gracious gift of God that He produces in the heart and is the only means by which a person can appropriate true righteousness. Saving faith consists of 3 elements:
(1) Mental: the mind understands the gospel and the truth about Christ
(2) Emotional: one embraces the truthfulness of those facts with sorrow over sin and joy over God’s mercy and grace; and
(3) Volitional: the sinner submits his will to Christ and trusts in Him alone as the only hope of salvation.
Genuine faith will always produce authentic obedience.
Our righteousness is but filthy rags in ourselves. Our righteousness that is acceptable to God is the righteousness of Jesus Christ that we put on when we accept Jesus as our Savior and Lord.
Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”
This is not just the heathen, but the Jew, as well. No one can live completely free of sin. Our justification in Jesus is (justification meaning: just as if we had never sinned). We have sinned, but we are not guilty, because we have been washed in the blood of the Lamb (Jesus Christ).
These last two verses contain a parenthetical comment explaining that God can bestow His righteousness on all who believe, Jew or Gentile, because all men, without distinction, fail miserably to live up to the divine decree.
“All have sinned”: Paul has made this case beginning with (1:18 – 3:20).
Romans 3:24 “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:”
This verb (justified), and related words from the same Greek root (such as justification), occur some 30 times in Romans and are concentrated (in 2:13 – 5:1). This legal or forensic term comes from the Greek word for “righteous” and means “to declare righteous.” This verdict includes pardon from the guilt and penalty of sin, and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believer’s account. Which provides for the positive righteousness man needs to be accepted by God.
God declares a sinner righteous solely on the basis of the merits of Christ’s righteousness. God imputed a believer’s sin to Christ’s account in His sacrificial death. (Isaiah 53:4-5; 1 Peter 2:24), and He imputes Christ’s perfect obedience to God’s law to Christians.
The sinner receives this gift of God’s grace by faith alone.
Sanctification is the work of God by which He makes righteous those whom He has already justified and is distinct from justification but without exception, always follows it.
“Freely by His grace”: Justification is a gracious gift God extends to the repentant, believing sinner, wholly apart from human merit or work.
“Redemption”: The imagery behind this Greek word comes from the ancient slave market. It meant paying the necessary ransom to obtain the prisoner or slave’s release. The only adequate payment to redeem sinners from sin’s slavery and its deserved punishment was “in Christ Jesus”, and was paid to God to satisfy His justice.
Romans 3:25 “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;”
This great sacrifice was not accomplished in secret, but God publicly displayed His Son on Calvary for all to see.
“Propitiation”: Crucial to the significance of Christ’s sacrifice, this word carries the idea of appeasement or satisfaction; in this case Christ’s violent death satisfied the offended holiness and wrath of God against those for whom Christ died. The Hebrew equivalent of this word was used to describe the mercy seat, the cover to the Ark of the Covenant, where the High Priest sprinkled the blood of the slaughtered animal on the Day of Atonement to make atonement for the sins of the people. In pagan religions, it is the worshiper not the god who is responsible to appease the wrath of the offended deity. But in reality, man is incapable of satisfying God’s justice apart from Christ, except by spending eternity in hell.
“Forbearance”: means to hold back. Rather than destroying every person the moment he or she sins, God graciously holds back His judgment.
“Remission of sins”: This means neither indifference nor remission. God’s justice demands that every sin and sinner be punished. God would have been just, when Adam and Eve sinned, to destroy them, and with them, the entire human race. But in His goodness and forbearance, He withheld His judgment for a certain period of time.
2 Corinthians 5:21 “For he hath made him [to be] sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
Romans 3:26 “To declare, [I say], at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”
“To declare … His righteousness”: through the incarnation, sinless life, and substitutionary death of Christ.
The wisdom of God’s plan allowed Him to punish Jesus in the place of sinners and thereby justify those who are guilty without compromising His justice.
Romans 3:27 “Where [is] boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.”
God disdained human wisdom, not only by disallowing it as a means to knowing Him, but also by choosing to save the lowly. He does not call to salvation many whom the world would call wise, mighty and noble.
Ephesians 2:8-10 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God:” “Not of works, lest any man should boast.” “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
God’s wisdom is revealed to the foolish, weak, and common. I.e., those considered nothing by the elite, who trust in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. God clearly received all the credit and the glory for causing such lowly ones to know Him and the eternal truths of His heavenly kingdom.
No saved sinner can boast that he has achieved salvation by his intellect.
Romans 3:28 “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”
Keeping the ordinances of the law will not do away with sin and will not save anyone. Without faith, it is impossible to please God.
Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
To find out what faith can do for you and did do for many (read all of Hebrews chapter 11).
Romans 3:29 “[Is he] the God of the Jews only? [is he] not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also:”
God was the Creator of all mankind. Mankind both Jew and Gentile was made in the image of God. We are His workmanship. All He created was for the benefit of mankind. He prepared the world for man. God is God of all. We are all part of God’s family. There is one God and Father of us all.
Ephesians 4:6: “One God and Father of all, who [is] above all, and through all, and in you all.”
Romans 3:30 “Seeing [it is] one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.”
The circumcision are the Jews and the uncircumcision refers to the Gentile, and both can only be saved by faith in Jesus Christ.
John 14:6 “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
Romans 3:31 “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.”
Knowing he would be accused of antinomianism (being against the law), for arguing that a man was justified apart from keeping the law, Paul introduced here the defense he later developed (in chapters 6 and 7).
Salvation by grace through faith does not denigrate the law, but underscores its true importance:
(1) By providing a payment for the penalty of death, which the law required for failing to keep it;
(2) By fulfilling the law’s original purpose, which is to serve as a tutor to show mankind’s utter inability to obey God’s righteous demands and to drive people to Christ; and
(3) By giving believers the capacity to obey it.
The law is not done away with by Jesus, but fulfilled in Him. The law is good. The law declares the need to be righteous. Jesus makes it possible to be righteous in Him. The law showed us our great need for Jesus as our Savior.