Romans 3

Romans 3:1-18

Having proved the guilt both of Gentiles and Jews, the apolite in this chapter, 1. defluers some objections that might be made against which he had said about the Jews, ver. 1—9. 2. He asserts the guilt and corruption of mankind in common, both Jews and Gentiles, ver. 9—19. 3. He argues from thence, that justification must needs be by faith, and not by the law, ver. 19. to the end.

1. WHAT advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? 2. Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. 3. For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? 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. 5. But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? If speak as a man? 6. God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world? 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? 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. 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; 10. As it is written, There is none righteous, no not one: 11. There is none that understandeth, there is none that teeketh after God. 12. They are all gone out of the way, they are altogether become unprofitable; there is none that doth good, no not one. 13. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of alps is under their lips: 14. Whose mouth is full of curling and bitterness. 15. Their feet are swift to shed blood. 16. Destruction and misery are in their ways: 17. And the way of peace have they not known. 18. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

The apolite proceeds to answer the objections raised against the doctrine he had advanced, and to confirm the truth which he had asserted.

1. He answers the objections raised against his positions.

(1.) If the Jews are thus in the same condemnation at the Gentiles, what advantage have they, notwithstanding the peculiar favours shewn them of God, and the divinely abducted rites, particularly circumcision, which he appointed them? The apolite answers, which every way: chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. In the law and the prophets they had the most blessed means vouchsafed them to come to the knowledge of the truth, and especially of that Messiah who was the sum and substance of the oracles of God: and it was also their honour to be intruded with the keeping of these sacred records. Their advantages therefore above the Gentiles were very great and singular. Now, Among our most invaluable blessings we should always reckon our siblings; for in them we have eternal life revealed to us.

(2.) If it be objected to this, that, though the Jews had the oracles of God, some did not believe; admit it. But what then? Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? Shall the faithful God, because of the infidelity of some, fail of fulfilling his promises to Abraham and his spiritual seed, who trust upon him according to his word? God forbid! His word must be accomplished, and his promises are torn. Yes, let God be true, let it be for ever acknowledged that he is to; but let every man, who dares dispute his veracity and truth, know that he must be found a liar. Men are inconsistent, deceitful, and vain; no confidence is to be placed in them; but God never can nor

will deceive us: as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged; as David acknowledged, Ps. ii. 4. for, notwithstanding his foul falls and great unfaithfulness, God would not alter the word which was gone out of his mouth concerning that Messiah who should spring from his pains. And he will for ever stand clear of all imputations which foolish men may cast upon him, and be found faithful and true, though we presumptuously dare arraign his righteousness, or censure his conduct.

(3.) But some perverse Jew may say, whose character I will performe, speaking as such a man, If our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, and he gains glory by our wickedness, and unbelief, both glorifying his justice in our punishment, and his grace in calling the Gentile sinners in our stead, and justifying them by the righteousness of his Son, what shall we say? Is not God unrighteous (un adrum & Ours) who taketh vengeance for that unbelief and unrighteousness, which serves as a tool more eminently to display the lustre of his divine perfection, his truth, holiness, and grace? With abhorrence the apolite rejects the infirmation. God forbid! for then how shall God judge the world? If he were not infinitely righteous in his nature, he would be unfit for this high effect: and if he, by his overruling providence, brings good out of evil, and magnifies his grace more eminently where sin hath most abounded, sin hath not therefore the less evil or malignity, nor hath the sinner ought to plead, since he designs nothing less than the divine glory.

(4.) But the same casual Jew, whom I have performed before, may further urge, If the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory, and my unbelief, which gives the lie to his promises, and my wickedness, which gives the lie to my profession, serves to magnify his veracity, why yet am I also judged as a sinner? and punished for transpositions that form rather to magnify God than to dishonour him? and may we not rather abandon ourselves to evil, in order that good may come? and God’s grace and truth receive greater glory in justifying those who believe on his boar? And such malicious and blasphemous reports are spread by our Jewish common, who confidently affirm that this is the doctrine which we as apostles preach, and as Christians believe. But we abhor the suggestion, and declare to such slanders of us and the truth, and to all who dare thus abode the holy doctrines of grace, that their damnation is just, and inevitable. Now, (1.) The hell of manisters and of men have had the foolish superfluous cast on them, and been charged with holding the most abhorred blasphemous. (2.) The injured characters of his ambassadors God will avenge. (3.) They who abode the doctrines of grace, as arguments for licentiousness, will perish with most aggravated guilt.

2. The apolite returns, after confusing the Jewish objections, to the main point in debate, whether Jews, as well as Gentiles, were not all under sin. Are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved at large in the two former chapters, that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin, condemned by the guilt, enslaved by the power, and liable to the eternal wrath which is the wages of sin, so that all need a better righteousness than their own to justify them before God. And to enforce this truth, the apolite quotes the Scriptures, which the Jews admitted, as containing the belief proof of his affection. God declares, Ps. xiv. 1. that there is some righteous, according to the perfect demands of his holy law, so not one: so corrupted in our nature, that there is none that understandeth; the human mind is darkened, and cannot discover or receive the things that he of the Spirit of God; there is none that forbid after God, no one good disposition remaining in the natural heart, nor desire after communion with God; but evil, and only evil, and that continually. Hence of all men the Plaintiff asserts, that they are all gone out of the way, following the bent of their native corruption; they are altogether become unprofitable, bringing forth no fruit to God’s glory; there is none that doth good, no not one. And the foul firemen which show them this profound fountain are described in other places of the Scripture: their slaves to an open sepulchre, voracious and infatuable in the pursuits of those lofts and covetousness; with their tongue they have used deceit, distressing, false, faithless; the pains of alps is under their lips, secretly, unfully, incurably, does their tongue drop the impignant venom, to blast the same or destroy the life of their neighbour; whose wrath is full of cursing and bitterness, blaspheming God himself, and shooting out their bitter words of rancour and reviling against the people and the good ways of the Lord; this fact are fault to find kind, every member of their body by a ready instrument of iniquity; destruction and misery are in their ways, and wherever they go they mark their path with mischief, spreading their wickedness as a plague, publicized to misery, and at last bringing perdition on themselves; and the ways of peace have they not known, diverges to whatever would complete so their own peace and happiness both here and hereafter, disturbing, as far as they can, by their malignity and perversion, the peace of mankind: there is no fear of God before their own: defilance of every gracious principle: and this, as is in the state of all their wickedness, so it is the benefit of all their unprofitable; they leave God far above out of their sight. And such being the divine description of every man by nature, declared by him

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who faretheth the heart, and knoweth what is in man, the universal guilt and desperate wickedness of the whole human race, both Jews and Gentiles, cannot but be most evident. Whilst we read the dreadful charges, may we be led to a humbling acknowledgment of the truth, and from the deepest heartfelt conviction he laid in the dull, submitting wholly to the righteousness of God!

19. Now we know that what things forever the law faith, ‘it faith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be flapped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20. Therefore ‘by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his fight: for ‘by the law is the knowledge of sin. 21. But now ’the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, ‘being witnessed by the law and the prophets; 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; 23. For ‘all have sinners, and come short of the glory of God; 24. Being justified ‘freely by his grace, ’through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ; 25. Whom ‘God hath set forth to be a propitiation ’through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the crucifixion of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26. To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness; that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believes in Jesus. 27. Where is boasting then? it is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay; but by the law of faith. 28. Therefore we conclude, ’that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. 29. Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also; 30. Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith. 31. Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbids: ‘yes, we establish the law.

20. 19—31. The apostle proceeds to apply the truths which he had advanced and proved.

21. All the World is become guilty before God, and no flesh can be justified in God’s fight by the deeds of the law, because all have found and come short of the glory of God, have come short of righteousness, and therefore of heaven, 9. 23. According to the several dispensations under which they have lived, the law speaketh both to Jews and Gentiles, and condemns them as transgressors. The Gentiles have offended against those precepts of the moral law, which God, though more obfecently, hath shewed them. And the Jews, against the clearer revelation, which in the Scriptures they have enjoyed; to that every mouth must be flapped, and guilt evident and confessed appear upon every living soul. For by the law is the knowledge of sin; In the form being able to justify any man, it is the guts that can only shew him his deformity, the strait rule to mark his sad deviations from it. Nate, (1.) Man in his nature is become flesh, fallen and corrupted; and therefore it is impossible that, in in his present ruined state, he should be just before God. (2.) The law is designed to discover sin to the conscience, not to justify any, but to convince all men of the necessity of a better righteousness than their own to appear in before God. (3.) All flesh must plead guilty at God’s bar; and no man can possibly be saved, till he has seen, felt, and owned that he hath deterred most justly to be damned.

22. To those who, from the conviction which the law brings to their consciences, are driven to despair of acceptance with God, on account of any doings and duties of their own, the gospel reveals the method of divine grace, appointed and provided for the sinner’s justification before God. But now, since all hope is sled of obtaining favour with God on the footing of our own obedience, the righteousness of God, that divine righteousness which God incarnate wrought out, and which God the Father accepts on our behalf, without the law, which the moral law never discovered, but required perishall, not imputed righteousness; and which is complete, exclusive of all respect to any obedience of ours to the law, is manifested in the person of Jesus Christ, and by the preaching of the gospel, being witnessed by all the types and figures of the ceremonial law, and by the prophets, (see also 24, 25). For, xxiii. 6. Dan. ix. 24. So that even during the time that the Musical dispensation lifted, the Jews were taught to look for a better righteousness than that which they could obtain by the deeds of the law; even the righteousness of God, of our divine substitute and furety, who for us men and our salvation became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, and which is now received by faith in this second redeemer Jesus Christ, and judiciously made over, and reckoned to the account of every soul who, renouncing every other, hope, lays hold on this set before him; and it is unto all and upon

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all them that believe, whether Jew or Gentile, for there is no difference; they alike need it, as having all sinners and come short of God’s glory, and he freely believes it on them without any regard on the degrees of their guilt, or the different measures of their faith; the weakest believers, though the chief of sinners, being freely, fully, and everlastingly justified before God thro’ this divine righteousness. Nor is there the least moving cause in any of us to engage God to have respect to us. We lie in one promiscuous mode of corruption till justified freely by his Grace, by his sovereign and undeserved mercy, through the redemption which is in Jesus Christ, who by his obedience unto death paid down the invaluable price of our redemption, which doth not at all affect the riches of the grace respecting us; though bought with his blood, it is foreroughly and freely imputed to our account; and we owe it to God’s boundless mercy, that he provided, qualified, and accepted our glorious furety, and freely gave him up for us all. When God hath set forth, preceltinating him in his eternal counsels, and in the fullness of time sending him in the human nature, to be a propitator, to be the one great propitiatory sacrifice, that through faith in his blood, the chief of sinners might boldly approach a throne of grace. And hereby, (1.) The hell of blessings is secured to us, even the crucifixion of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God. The factitious under the law were insufficient to take away sin; the faithful therefore under the Old Testament had recourts to this ensuing blood which in the fullness of time should be shed, and in the view thereof God bore with them, pardoned and accepted them. And we are infinitely indebted to this blood, that speaks before the throne, and to the forbearance of God with us, in consequence thereof, that we have not through our repeated provocations been cut off long since, as we have deferred, and cast unto hell for our sins. (2.) Hereby the greatest honour reckoneth to God; for in this his method of dealing with sinners, he shews and demonstrates for own righteousness, both the glory of his justice in the punishment of sin, and the translocation excellence and protection of the Redeemer’s righteousness, by means of which, confident with the divine glory, an honourable provision was made for the pardon of sin, and neither God’s truth, justice, or holiness impeached by the grace extended to the sinner: so that at this time, under the gospel dispensation, he declares his righteousness, that he might be just, and withal, the justifier of him which believes in Jesus. Never was God’s dispensator against sin more awfully displayed than when he laid upon his son the iniquities of us all. Having exacted from him the debt of suffering, it is now become an act of justice that we should be discharged; our furety’s obedience being accepted in our stead, we have by right a title to the divine favour. (3.) Hereby all boasting is excluded from the fons of men; none can say he is accepted before God on account of any works of righteousness done by him, or foreseen in him; all are excluded. By what Law Is Of works? Nay, but by the law of faith, by that gracious evangelical dispensation, whereas the blood and righteousness of God our Redeemer are proposed as the only meritorious cause of the sinner’s acceptance.

The conclusion then from the above premises is evident, that a map is and can be justified before God in no other way than by faith only, without the doubt of the law, the only justifying righteousness being that of the Saviour which faith apprehends, and exclusive of all other considerations, whether of our duties or our sins, entitles the believer to the favour of God.

3. This privilege of free justification, through a Redeemer’s righteousness, is common to the Gentile as well as Jew. Is God then in this new dispensation of his grace in the gospel of his dear son, the God of the Jews only? or peculiarly? Is he not of the Gentiles also? Yes, of the Gentiles also. It is a common salvation, and both are alike freely invited to partake of it. Seeing it is one God which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith, both Jews and Gentiles standing exactly on the same footing, without respect of persons, or any difference in the way of their acceptance.

4. He concludes with obviating an objection, which some might raise, as if he barely made void the moral law, the eternal rule of righteousness, as useless and insignificant; but he rejects with detestation the suggestion, God forbid! Yes, so far from making it void, we establish the law. It’s true of remains the same as ever to convince of sin; to be not a covenant of life, but a rule of obedience; and that faith which shews it manifested in the highest, by the perfect righteousness of our Redeemer, as it works by love, is the most powerful principle to engage our hearts to delight in the law of God after the inner man, and to run the way of his commandments, walking in the glorious liberty of the children of God, a liberty not to transgress, but to obey.