Romans 3

== Romans 3:1==
1What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?
Since Paul has been talking about the Jews and physical circumcision and how they are not as important as the Jews consider them to be, Paul then asks this question.
== Romans 3:2==
2Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.
This is the ultimate purpose of the Jews. They have the advantage when it comes to the gospel because God spoke to them in a way that He did not speak to any other nation. Through the Old Law they had the knowledge of the coming Messiah and should have been ready to receive Him and full salvation (which one cannot have under the OT). The Jewish people were called out of the world to be a special people to be the vehicle for the coming of Jesus Christ, the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham that through his seed all the nations of the world would be blessed. 
They should have KNOWN.
== Romans 3:3==
3For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?
Just because some (a majority) of the Jews did not believe what God told them in the OT did not make the faith system ineffectual. Regardless of the faith of the Jews, God still kept His promises. Through Abraham’s seed, the Messiah came, and all of the nations of the world were blessed by Him.
== Romans 3:4==
4God 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.
Paul answers his own question. Even if every single person were a liar, if every Jew lived without faith, God is still true to His word, His promises. God is righteous in what He has said (His promises) and when judged of men, no man can call God a liar (doesn’t keep his promises).
== Romans 3:5==
5But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man)
Paul, speaking as one who does not reason from the scriptures, asks if by our not living a righteous life, we still show the righteousness of God, is God just then for taking vengeance on us? How fair is that?
== Romans 3:6==
6God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world?
Paul then responds to this silly question by pointing out that such reasoning is foolish because God, as Creator, must judge the world. God uses everything, evil and good, to His glory. Even Satan and his demons, by possessing others, showed the power and glory of God through Christ and the Apostles who cast them out.
== Romans 3:7==
7For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?
If Paul is lying, but this caused the truth of God to be more fruitful, how is it fair that Paul is condemned a sinner? (He is making the often used argument that the ends justify the means in mock debate against himself.)
== Romans 3:8==
8And 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.
More of the same devil’s advocate reasoning here. Do the ends justify the means? Some had slandered Paul and other Christians by saying this is actually what they teach, when in fact they don’t.
== Romans 3:9==
9What 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;
A VERY IMPORTANT VERSE!!!
Paul, being a Jew (remember the question in 3:1), then asks if the Jew is better than the Gentile. He then says no. Paul has proved that both Jew and Gentile (two types of people) are under sin. This is not a reference to individuals, but to types/groups of people. You must pay attention to this or you will misinterpret the rest of the point Paul is making.
== Romans 3:10-18==
10As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: 11There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. 12They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. 13Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: 14Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: 15Their feet are swift to shed blood: 16Destruction and misery are in their ways: 17And the way of peace have they not known: 18There is no fear of God before their eyes.
This is a quote from at least 7 Psalms (5, 10, 14, 36, 51, 53, 140) as well as Isaiah 59  and Ecclesiastes 7v20. Paul uses it to refer to both groups of people to show that neither is better than the other. That is the context of the passage. Taken out of its context one might conclude that every person on the planet for all time is a sinner, but that would be contradictory to a number of passages.
# Christ was righteous and does not fit any of this quote.
# There are a number of people to whom these verses do not apply that I know of personally, but more importantly that we read about in the NT.
# The point is that neither Jew nor Gentile (neither type of people) had the capacity to be justified because there was nothing in existence that could justify them once they were lost. Christ had to come before that could happen.
If you take it beyond this context, you are shoving meaning into the passage that Paul did not intend.
== Romans 3:19==
19Now 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.
Here is the reference again to that Old Law and it sums up Paul’s point. The Mosaical Law ultimately taught the Jews (remember chapter 2) that they could not be justified by that law. We see this taught later in Romans 8:3 and again throughout the book of Hebrews (e.g. Heb.10:1-4). Since a man could not be justified by the law of Moses, all of those who otherwise might have been justified by it were instead guilty.
This point does not include those who did not need to be justified (infants, mentally retarded, never sinned – e.g. Christ) so does not address them. To say that it does apply to all men without qualification means that it applies to Christ. If it applies to Christ then he is guilty of sin. If Christ is guilty of sin, then our faith is in vain.
== Romans 3:20==
20Therefore 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 of Moses only taught about sin and the need for salvation. It did not teach one how to be saved.
== Romans 3:21==
21But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
Another key verse here. The law and the prophets, again this is a reference to the Old Testament. God’s righteousness is made visible to men outside of the law of Moses. The Old Testament (the law and the prophets), however, testified of the coming of this righteousness (which he speaks of below). Again, you must understand that “THE law” is a reference to the OT and, unqualified, is never used to refer to anything else in any of Paul’s letters. If you don’t get this, stop reading. There is no point in going on.
== Romans 3:22==
22Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:
This is what that righteousness that was made manifest is. It is the system of faith given by Jesus Christ, the gospel. Paul’s conclusion of this sub-point, the final answer to the question posed in verse 1, is a comparison of the Old Testament to the New Testament. Under the Old, there was only condemnation. Under the New, justification (not just declaration, but a real transition from sinful to sinless) through Christ.
This righteousness is to all and on all who believe. This is Paul’s way of referring to Christians. (Yes, I know that only the word believe is in this verse, but that does not mean only faith is what Paul is referring to. It is an appellation, not a statement of instruction.)
Paul is introducing a third group of people into the discussion, a group that can include the other two groups, but makes any connection to those other two groups void. This group is “believers” otherwise known as Christians.
== Romans 3:23==
23For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
This “all” applies back to “all them that believe” in context. It does not apply to all men of all types in all times. 
Paul is essentially saying that all Christians are by definition people who have sinned and were in need of salvation. He says more about this class in the next verse.
If it applies to all men without qualification, then it also applies to Christ, and again, our faith is in vain.
== Romans 3:24==
24Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
All them that believe are being (present perfect – continually being justified) justified freely by his grace (which I believe to be Christ and His teachings) through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Thus, verse 23 cannot refer to all types of people for all time else together the verses teach universalism (that all men are saved and no one is going to be eternally damned). Many people read vs. 23 out of context, sadly, even in the church of Christ.
== Romans 3:25==
25Whom 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;
God set Jesus to be the propitiation (appeasement of, or the fulfillment of a requirement). This is the grace part, the cause and effective source of salvation.
Through faith. This is the the medium through which grace (Christ, the propitiation) works to affect salvation. Of course as I have affirmed repeatedly, a specific kind of faith is required, an obedient faith. Paul has already affirmed this earlier in the letter.In his blood – ultimately it is the blood of Christ that cleanses us. We’ll talk about this more as the letter progresses. When do we come into contact with the blood of Christ? This is the most important question because it IS the blood of Christ, specifically, that cleanses him.
Essentially God is proved to be a keeper of His promises in that true forgiveness of sins has come in Christ.The forbearance is that God didn’t destroy the Jews (Numbers 14) or all of man (Genesis 6) when He would be perfectly just in doing so as the one who created them.
== Romans 3:26 ==
26To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
This, I suppose, is the belief only person’s second form of justification, the declaration. But this declaration is in relationship to God who cannot be otherwise. God is shown to be just, a keeper of His promises through Abraham’s seed in Christ. He actively (not just a declaration) justifies, or makes righteous those who continually believe in Jesus.
We’ll talk more about the kind of belief as Paul brings it up. But just because belief is the only thing stated in this one single verse, does not mean that faith is the only thing that makes one righteous. Paul has already affirmed this early with his talk of works and doing good, but he’ll talk more about it through the letter.
== Romans 3:27==
27Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.
Now, then, we get to one of those passages so many of you are so confused about. The Jews boasted about being given the law of Moses. We see it time and again throughout the gospel accounts and Acts. But Paul said that the new law, the law of faith, (note that it is still a law, and one must keep a law or be, by definition a sinner 1 John 3:4), the faith system delivered by Jesus made their boasting about the law of Moses, the law that required perfect keeping (works) to be justified, null and void.
== Romans 3:28==
28Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
His conclusion is that men are justified by the faith system given to us by Christ, not by the deeds of the Old Mosaical Law. Read in any other way, this verse is stripped out of its context and useless.
== Romans 3:29==
29Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also:
Herein is the great mystery of how God would fulfill His promise to Abraham. God is not just the God of the Jews, but of both types of people, Jews and non-Jews. All men can be justified by the faith system Christ delivered. And they do so outside of (without recourse to) the law of Moses
Hence he concludes that the Judiazers are wrong to teach that one must be circumcised and follow the law of Moses FIRST before they can become a Christian.
== Romans 3:30==
30Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.
Both Jews and Gentiles are justified by means of, through the agency of the faith system, the new law.
== Romans 3:31==
31Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.
Do we then make the Mosaical Law void through this system of faith, the New Testament, the gospel? No, the New Testament establishes the truth of everything God promised and prophesied throughout the Old Testament. The New is the end reason for and the fulfillment of the Old. It is what the Old was bringing mankind to.
Again, if you do not understand the idea that “THE law” without qualification is the law of Moses in the book of Romans, then stop. You won’t get the meaning of the rest of the letter.
If you don’t see this contrast of Old Law/Testament vs. New Law/Testament, then stop. Paul is going to make a number of similar comparisons throughout the book and they all hinge on this pivotal point. The imperfection, shadow/type, and limitations of the Old vs. the perfection, reality/antitype, and full ability of the New is laid out in every other comparison made throughout the letter.
In Truth and Love.Category:Apocalyptic
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