02.07. III. Every Mouth Stopped (3:1-20).
III. Every Mouth Stopped (Rom 3:1-20).
1. What advantage then hath the Jew? (Rom 3:1-2). Paul, in the question and answer given here, is dealing with an imaginary objector, as he often does in his writings. This objector, replying to the sweeping indictment against the Jew in Rom 2:1-29, asks what, then, is the use of being a Jew; what profit is there of circumcision?
If it does not save, what is the use of it? To this the answer is Much every way: first of all, that they were intrusted with the oracles of God (R. V.). That was surely a great honour.
2. For what if some did not believe? (Rom 3:3-4). The King James Version is decidedly weak here. The American Revision reads: For what if some were without faith? shall their want of faith make of none effect the faithfulness of God? God forbid: yea, let God be found true, but every man a liar. The 1911 Bible is even better: For what if some did not believe? shall their faithlessness destroy God’s faithfulness? God forbid! nay, let God be true, though every man be false; as it is written, That Thou mightest be justified in Thy sayings, and mightest overcome when Thou art judged. This citation from Psa 51:1-19 voices the sentiment of every true child of God: Let God be justified at all events! The ways of Jehovah are right ways! He is faithful!
3. Is God unrighteous? (Rom 3:5). This from the objector: as Paul explains, I speak as a man. The issue raised is this: If God’s righteousness is made manifest by men’s unrighteousness, then God does wrong in taking vengeance. The answer is ready: God forbid! for then how shall God judge the world? This is a reference, doubtless, to Gen 18:25, where Abraham puts the question to Jehovah, Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? What an unspeakable calamity it would be if God should ever do wrong! Let God be found true!
4. Why yet am I also judged? (Rom 3:7-8). Again, the objector. His point now is that if the truth (i. e., the truthfulness) of God has been made more manifest and glorious by the untruthfulness of men, then men ought not to be condemned, but commended instead. And in that case it would be better to go on in evil for the Lord’s sake! Indeed, some had slanderously reported that Paul himself advocated this course of conduct: Let us do evil that good may come. This principle of Jesuitism the apostle vehemently repudiates. Paul now with one stroke brings the whole objection to its logically absurd conclusion. If sin enhances the glory of God, and therefore is no longer guilt, why, the more we sin, the brighter this grace. Let us do all the evil we can, for the more evil the more praise to His name! Some had affirmed that this is the apostle’s own doctrine. In their righteous condemnation of it they condemn themselves in the claim that God cannot punish sin, because it promotes His glory, for this claim is the very essence of the hateful sentiment. And thus he has come around in most skilful fashion to the assertion with which he began against the Jew: ‘Thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself’ (2:1). He joins with them in repudiating the godless maxim, but he does not go with them in holding it. They ‘slanderously report’ him who say he does (Stifler).
5. What then? (Rom 3:9-20). The argument of the first main division is brought to a conclusion in this paragraph, and the whole world is declared guilty. The query of Rom 3:9, What then? are we better than they? is probably a wrong reading. The marginal rendering in the 1911 Bible is better, What then? do we excuse ourselves? The meaning of the question is evidently this: What then? Have we an excuse? Is there any excuse left? Is there any escape from the final verdict of universal guilt? This, at any rate, is the question answered in the verses that follow: No, in no wise! for we have before accused both Jews and Greeks, that they are all under sin (Rom 3:9). He does not say, with the King James Version, that he has proved this: he has only laid it to their charge (R. V and he is now about to bring forth the proof. For this he goes to the Scripture:
(1) There is none righteous, no, not one! (Rom 3:10-12). The first proof, to the end of Rom 3:12, is taken from Psa 14:1-7, Psa 53:1-6. It is God’s Word, and there is not so much as a single exception to the sweeping declaration. In the whole human race, not even one solitary individual can stand before God in his own merit. Not one! None righteous; none that understandeth; none that seeketh after God; all turned aside; they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not so much as ONE! So much for human character. Now what of human conduct?
(2) Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness (Rom 3:13-14). This terrible count is taken from Psa 5:9; Psa 140:3; and Psa 10:7, and it deals with man’s mouth, as to what he speaks. This is an important part of conduct. But there is another part. How does man act? What does he do? Let us go on.
(3) Their feet are swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in their ways: and the way of peace have they not known (Rom 3:15-17; compare Pro 1:16; Pro 6:17; Isa 59:7-8). Man’s actions, then, are no better in God’s sight than his words. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God (Rom 8:8). Long, long ago, the end of all flesh came before Him. O, what a need for the gospel! How utterly hopeless are we without it!
(4) There is no fear of God before their eyes (Rom 3:18; compare Psa 36:1). Here is given the reason for it all. It was because there was no fear of God before their eyes that men departed so far from Him. It was the same with the Jew as with the Gentile: When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful (Rom 1:21).
Now we have come to the end of the indictment against the world. As for the Gentile, he was declared guilty and without excuse in chapter 1; and the law itself settled the matter for the Jew: it speaketh to them that are under the law with the result that every mouth is stopped, and the whole world is brought in guilty before God. The word “Therefore in Rom 3:20 should read Because. The meaning is that the whole world is brought in guilty because no flesh is justified by works. Judged by their own merits, as to their deeds, Gentile and Jew alike are guilty. This is the end of the matter: God has spoken, and He is the righteous Judge of all the earth. He says: Guilty! This ends the first main division of the epistle. Sin has done its deadly work, and man is lost, and undone, and guilty before God. Unless grace find a way out, there is no hope. Through the law has come only the knowledge of sin; through the law there never can come salvation. But, thanks be to God! He has found a way out! This we shall see in the next section.