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§7 Israel’s Faithlessness and God’s Faithfulness (Rom. 3:1–8)

The logical follow-up to the preceding section is the question, “What advantage, then, is there is being a Jew?” (v. 1). Although ultimately Jews have no advantage, if we understand Paul rightly, they operate in the short run with a favorable handicap, for “they have been entrusted with the very words of God” (v. 2). God’s revelation does not happen just anywhere. Humanity cannot conjure up God whenever and wherever it will. God must be known where he makes himself known—within Israel. “Salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22). Paul does not say, however, that God gave his words to Israel, but that God entrusted them to Israel. This shifts the emphasis from ownership to stewardship, from possession of the law to responsibility to it. Israel’s knowledge of God was, of course, for its benefit, but it was not limited to Israel. Israel was not to be a dam but a sluiceway, “a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth” (Isa. 49:6).

The diatribe style again structures these verses, in which Paul raises two objections. The first objection concerns whether the advantage of Jews in salvation history has been annulled by the argument of chapter 2. The objection is discussed by a question (v. 1) and answer (v. 2), and by a second question (v. 3) and answer (v. 4). Verses 5–8 consider the second objection, whether the doctrine of justification makes God arbitrary and unjust and spells havoc for morality in general. This objection is also discussed with questions and an answer. The questions, which quite likely repeat questions posed to the apostle in the mission field, are presented in verses 5–7, again (for the first time since 1:16) in the first person. The defense comes in the final dictum, “Their condemnation is deserved” (v. 8). The abrupt diatribe may leave the reader somewhat dissatisfied, especially in verses 5–8, where Paul broaches questions which he cannot fully discuss until chapters 6 and 9–11.

3:1–2 / Two questions are posed in verse 1: What advantage is there in being a Jew, and what value is there in circumcision? Paul desists from further discussion of circumcision in favor of the larger issue of the advantage of being a Jew. There is a “relentless logic” to Paul’s argument (so Achtemeier, Romans, pp. 54ff.). In light of what was said in 2:25–29 the reader might conclude that there is no advantage in being a Jew. If circumcision is of value only if practiced (2:25; 1 Cor. 7:19), and if true Jewishness is internal and not external (2:28–29), then Jews are evidently no different from other people, and their supposed advantage is but a pure illusion.

But that is a mistaken conclusion. With regard to salvation there is, to be sure, no advantage, for Paul will shortly conclude that on the basis of a moral righteousness “Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin” (3:9), and that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (3:23). But there is a decided advantage with regard to mission, as Paul argued in 2:17–20. Along with the sign of circumcision, the law was given to Jews to equip and obligate them as “a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark” etc. (2:19). Whereas earlier (ch. 2) Paul referred to the Jews’ advantage as the “law,” here he speaks of logia (v. 2; NIV, the very words), “oracles,” the spoken utterances of God through Moses and the prophets which constitute Holy Scripture.

We have already noted the preeminent position which Torah held in Judaism. Only to Israel had Torah been given, thus setting Israel apart from the nations. Torah was Israel’s source of wisdom, honor, and life, the pledge of God’s love. Paul’s expression for Torah here is less formal and more personal. The Jews have been entrusted with God’s self-disclosure, the very words of God (v. 2). Torah was the chief hallmark of the Jew, as Paul seems to indicate in the words First of all (v. 2). The expression may suggest that Paul intended to follow it with something else, but the Greek word, prōton, probably means here simply the “number one,” or distinguishing characteristic.

3:3–4 / If Torah was the pride of Jews, their response to it was disappointing. Torah was not a possession to be hoarded but a gift which entailed a responsibility. Calvin believed the Jews were first to be the depositories of Torah and then the dispensers of it (Romans, p. 114). But in this they failed. What if some did not have faith? asks Paul (v. 3). Does Paul understand their failure to be “disbelief” in Christ as Messiah, or “faithlessness” to the Mosaic covenant? The Greek word apistein can mean either. The former view is favored by the fact that six out of seven occurrences of apistein in the NT mean “disbelief.” Moreover, some (v. 3) may suggest Jews who did not believe in Christ as opposed to the remnant which did. But context favors the latter. The subject remains the login, the very words of the Mosaic law. Thus, the faithlessness of Israel is contrasted to the faithfulness of God (v. 3). Since Paul is still arguing that Jews are convicted by their failure to fulfill the old covenant apart from their failure to believe in Christ (which he does not formally introduce until 3:21), he probably intended verse 3 as faithlessness to the old covenant. Nevertheless, faithlessness to the old covenant tended to lead to disbelief in Christ; hence it may be well not to make too much of the distinction.

Will their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness? Not at all! (vv. 3–4). God’s character and behavior are not determined by human failure. If Israel’s history had taught anything it had taught that God is faithful despite Israel’s failure. To suggest that human faithlessness could make God faithless is to make God the object of an external and evil force. “God will not reply in kind,” (Achtemeier, Romans, p. 55). “If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself” (2 Tim. 2:13). God is not a contingent being whose actions depend on something outside himself. God is an essential being whose actions are true to his character, despite human response to it. Let God be true, and every man a liar, says Paul (v. 4)! This statement, indebted to Psalm 116:11 (“And in my dismay I said, ‘All men are liars’ ”), was judged by Calvin to “contain the primary axiom of all Christian philosophy” (Romans, p. 116). Calvin was right, but the statement means more than that. Verse 4 is not a philosophical abstraction of metaphysics and anthropology; it is a truth hammered out on the anvil of experience, a punishing truth that all are liars, and yet a liberating hope that God is true. Whatever we must concede about ourselves—and it will not be optimistic—we must confess that God is true (v. 4). Barth affirms, “HE is the Answer, the Helper, the Judge, and the Redeemer; not man” (Romans, p. 80). God is not a speculative truth, but a living and subsistent truth who helps, aids, restores, and saves. It is precisely because God is not like us that he is able to help us.

In support of this Paul includes a quotation, “So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge” (v. 4). This comes from Psalm 51:4, where David acknowledges his sin against Uriah and Bathsheba and confesses that God is true and just in his judgment of David’s covetousness, adultery, and murder. David has been a liar, but in his lie he has known God’s truth.

3:5–8 / Paul has now dealt with the first objection to his gospel, namely, that there is no value in being a Jew. He is most emphatic that there is. To the Jews God made himself known, and even their faithlessness to God has not altered God’s faithfulness to them. Verses 5–8 take up a second objection related to Paul’s doctrine of justification. This objection presupposes 1:16–17 and anticipates 3:21ff. It raises issues related to justification by faith which Paul has yet to discuss, and as a consequence he cannot fully develop his argument until after he has discussed justification by faith (see chs. 6, 9–11). Why Paul broaches the issue here is not altogether clear. It is not exactly demanded by what has preceded, although the result of verses 1–4 may have suggested it in his mind. Perhaps it was pressing on Paul’s mind from his missionary preaching. His shift to the first person (and addition of as some claim, v. 8) seems to indicate its existential urgency for him.

Paul counters the objections to his doctrine of justification by four questions in verses 5–8. The critical questions are, is God unjust in bringing his wrath on us (v. 5), and should we do evil that good may result (v. 8)? If God’s truth becomes fully apparent in the face of human wretchedness, then sin throws God’s truth into greater relief (v. 7). And if human wickedness does not thwart God’s righteousness—indeed, God uses wickedness for his righteous purposes—perhaps we should do evil so more good may come (v. 8)!

These are questions which will receive fuller treatment in 5:20–6:4, but that Paul denies them is abundantly clear. Both questions of verses 5 and 8 are prefaced by the negative particle mē, which in Greek demands a negative answer. Again in verse 6 Paul adds the emphatic mē genoito, Certainly not! The argumentation of verses 5–8 manifestly exposes the unreasonableness of the objection. If, as Paul maintains, God remains true in the face of human lying (v. 4), if God remains righteous in the face of human unrighteousness (v. 5), it does not follow that God is unjust in his judgment of human unrighteousness (v. 5) or that humans are somehow free to act however they please (v. 8). God is wholly other, God is God and not human. But that does not absolve us from being human. God’s goodness is never rivaled by human goodness; neither is God’s goodness increased by human badness (although it may be the more apparent). God is perfectly good and just; otherwise, he could not judge the world. Human evil is not worse because it grows, anymore than cancer is more deadly because it infects three vital organs instead of one. Nor is human evil less evil because God chooses to meet it with good. That would be like saying that if a master painter could make a bad painting into a good one, then the original painting was not bad after all. If our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness (v. 5) that does not change the fact that the unrighteousness is ours and the righteousness is God’s! “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth” (1 Cor. 13:6).

Paul will not whitewash human achievements or compromise God’s. Of humanity Paul speaks of unrighteousness, falsehood, sinner, evil, condemnation. His incriminations are relentless—and they are not limited to “bad” people. They are true of all people—including Paul! He speaks of our unrighteousness (v. 5), my falsehood (v. 7), I who am still condemned as a sinner (v. 7). God, however, is wholly different. God is righteousness, just, judge, truthfulness, glory, good. Only because of the vast difference between God and humanity can God judge the world (v. 6)—and judge it from a standard completely different from human judgments (see Gen. 18:25; Deut. 32:4; Job 8:3; 34:10ff.). That Paul says God will judge the world (and not only Jews as the argument might lead us to expect), indicates that he does not regard Jews in a fundamentally different light from that of humanity as a whole. God’s judgment of the world will turn the tables on human pride and judgments. In this age it is we who judge God: we argue whether God exists, or whether God is good, or why God allows this or that to happen, and sometimes we curse and deny God. But in the age to come the One who is so unlike humanity will judge humanity and the world from his nature of truth and righteousness.