Romans 3

Notes

Ver. 1, 2. Nevertheless, the Jewish descendants of Abraham, who have been marked as the peculiar people of God by circumcision, have thereby their distinguished advantages; chiefly that God, as eminently present with them, has given them various types, promises, and predictions of the Messiah, and salvation through him, and granted them his inspired oracles, for their spiritual instruction and ground of faith and hope. 3. And though many of them have not believed in Christ the promised Messiah, or the gospel revelation of him, their ungrateful infidelity cannot defeat God's faithful accomplishment of his promises to Abraham and his spiritual seed. 4. Nay, though all men should prove liars and deceivers, God will always appear just and faithful; and men's rebellion against his law, and presumptuous arraignment of his conduct, will, in the issue, tend to vindicate and clearly manifest his equity and faithfulness. 5, 6. But let not carnal Jews imagine that he, the righteous Judge of the world, cannot justly punish their wickedness and unbelief in rejecting the promised Messiah, and his righteousness and salvation, since, by his overruling providence, he makes use of it as a foil to set off, enhance, and give opportunity for brighter displays of his glory. 7, 8. Let them not imagine that, if God make their unbelief, which is so contrary to his truth and to their own profession, a mean of the spread and success of the gospel, they, as some blasphemously charge us apostles and Christians with saying, may abandon themselves to their own lusts, and practise all manner of wickedness, that he may thereby take occasion to glorify his own faithfulness and infinite grace. Nothing can be more detestable, or more justly damnable, than such conduct. 9. But whatever peculiar privileges we Jews possess, we are no more able to justify ourselves before God by our own works than the worst of heathens; nay, our sins are the more aggravated, as being committed against greater light and mercies, means and obligations. And it has already been proved, by notorious facts, that both Jews and Gentiles are in themselves chargeable with, and condemned on account of, their sins before God. 10-12. And this the oracles of God, which were given to and immediately respected us Jews, harmoniously attest, representing all men in general as sinful in their nature and practice, ignorant of themselves and of God, the method of salvation, and every other spiritual object; as careless of all knowledge of and fellowship with God, and neglecters of his worship and service; as apostates from God and his Christ, his law, and everything good; and as altogether vile and useless before God; unfit and unable of themselves to do anything truly and spiritually good. 13-15. Their heart being wholly defiled with sin, all their members are ready instruments of unrighteousness. Their mouths, wherewith they ought to glorify God and edify one another, they employ to vent the most offensive, loathsome, and injurious language, flattery, falsehood, deceit, malignant slander and reproach, or even hideous oaths and curses, and bitter provocations and revilings. Their feet, which should carry them to every good work, they employ in running about to perpetrate mischief and murder. 16-18. By these means they bring calamities and destruction, temporal, spiritual, and eternal, on themselves, and all they are connected with; they are utter strangers to the true method of peace with God or their own consciences, and of promoting solid tranquillity and friendship among men; they have no serious sense or holy reverence of God's perfections or their own accountableness to him; no fear of offending him; no principle of real religion to direct their views, restrain them from evil, or influence them to good. 19. Now, whatever charges the law of God, manifested in the light of nature or revelation, lays against men, must be extended to all that are under that law, that every man be convinced in his own conscience that his works are not excusable, far less justifying, before God; and that he is chargeable with many crimes, and legally obnoxious to his righteous will. 20. And if the law, by its holy and just commandments, thus charge all men with, and convince them of, sin in their dispositions, thoughts, words, and actions, it is clearly manifest that none of them, in their present state of degeneracy, can ever be justified at the awful tribunal of an all-seeing, heart-searching, just, and holy God. 21-23. Nevertheless, this deplorable state of mankind is not desperate; for in the gospel is now clearly manifested that divine righteousness, fulfilled by the Son of God in our nature, which the moral law neither provided nor exhibited, but which has been all along represented in the typical ceremonies and the writings of the Old Testament prophets, as the designed ground of the justification of sinful men; even the righteousness of our divine Redeemer, which he wrought as our Saviour, consisting in his holiness of human nature, obedience of life, and satisfactory sufferings and death, in our stead; which, being freely offered in the gospel, to all men, and by faith received by, all who will, weak or strong, Jews or Gentiles—all of them having lost his image, and being incapable of glorifying him, recommending themselves to his favour, or procuring any title to the enjoyment of him. 24-26. And all of them have their sins pardoned, their persons accepted, and are entitled to eternal life, merely by the ever gracious and tender love of God, without any desert of their own, but only on account of that infinitely valuable eternal sacrifice which Jesus Christ endured through his infinite obedience and sufferings, which is lodged in him as an inexhaustible fund of merit to be offered to them; and which God, from his love to them, accepted as their ransom, and offers to all who will, and enables them to receive through faith in his Son.—Him, in his eternal compassion and infinite love, he delightfully set apart as a fit Mediator between God and man, and has clearly manifested and exhibited in the types and predictions of the Old Testament, in his incarnation and public ministry, and in the declarations and offers of the gospel, as a propitiatory and reconciling sacrifice, on account of which every one that believes therein may have free access to God. Herein he demonstrates the glory of his own justice, and the perfection of that righteousness of Christ which he offered freely and gladly for the sins of the whole world; and through this he was honoured in pardoning the Old Testament offences before the incarnation, as well as in now pardoning the Gentiles who had long continued in their sins, and in freely justifying every one, Jew or Gentile, who, however guilty in himself, by faith receives and depends on Jesus Christ as his only Saviour. 27, 28. And as this doctrine of justification by the free grace of God, through the willing sacrifice of Christ, leaves no room for any man to boast, as if he had either in whole or in part recommended himself to the divine favour, it ought to be openly avowed, for the honour of God and humiliation of men, as a thing most plain and evident, that whatever Jew or Gentile, greater or lesser sinner, is pardoned and accepted by God, obtains this privilege merely through the sacrifice of Christ received by faith, without any dependence on his own good dispositions or works. 29, 30. And it is no less manifest, that now God is, in every saving respect, the God of the Gentiles as well as of the Jews, and that he justifies men, whether circumcised or uncircumcised, upon the ground of the same sacrifice of his Son, and by the same instrumentality of faith. 31. And no less manifest is it, that our believing renunciation of our own works in the matter of justification, and receiving the glorious sacrifice of Christ as the only ground of our pardon and acceptance, are so far from invalidating or setting aside the moral law, that hereby we greatly confirm and approve its authority, regard it as a mean of conviction, present it with a complete magnifying fulfilment of all its demands as a covenant, and are tenderly influenced and enabled to love, regard, and cheerfully obey it as a rule of life.

Ver. 2. Much every way—as exhibited ch. 2. 17-20; and afterwards enlarged ch. 9. 4, 5.—Chiefly: primarily.—Oracles: words of the mouth. The Scriptures are so called to signify that they are altogether the very words which God spake, and not merely a paraphrase or meaning of what he revealed. C.

Ver. 4. Yea, let God be true, &c. 'Yea, let God be (found) true (faithful to his promise), though every man (here, every child of Abraham) be found a liar'—unfaithful to the covenant.—When thou art judged, When God is judged, his promises and faithfulness being called in question. C.

Ver. 5. I speak as a man. I object in the irreverent and cavilling language of infidels, not as adopting their principles. C.

Ver. 6. How shall he judge in righteousness, if, according to the objection, ver. 5, he himself were found unrighteous? C.

Ver. 7. 'For if the truth (faithfulness of God in his promise to Abraham and his seed) hath abounded (been extended to myriads of Gentiles) through my lie (through the unfaithfulness and disobedience of the Jews), how am I (a Jew) judged as a sinner,' seeing I have been the means of magnifying the grace of God? C.

Ver. 8. As we. The apostle here speaks in his own person, and in conjunction with the Christian church, whose doctrine of justification by faith was, and still is, equally slandered by Jews and Gentiles; and his words furnish an answer to the preceding objection of the Jew, by showing that they are the legitimate but shocking consequence of his perverse reasoning in the preceding verse.—Whose damnation is just. That is, not necessarily of our calumniators, who may ignorantly think what they say, but of those who say, 'Let us do evil that good may come.' C.

Ver. 9. Are we (the Jews) better than they? Better than the Gentiles, in virtue of our national and ecclesiastical privileges? ch. 2. 17-20. The most eminent commentators consider this a return to the question in the first verse; and Bloomfield considers it another objection. Is it not rather the conclusive appeal of the apostle himself, as if he had said, 'Are we better than they,' by a perfect improvement of our greater advantages? C.

Ver. 20. In the present fallen state of man, the law's office is not, and indeed could not be, to effect justification; its office is humbler, but still essential—it is to convince man of sin, to show him his guilt and his helplessness, and thus, as a monitor and teacher, to lead him to Jesus. P.

Ver. 27. By the law of faith. Literally, 'by law of faith;' not by a law requiring faith, as if the gospel were a law, or, as it has been called, a new law, a remedial or mitigated law. For if the gospel were in any sense a law, then faith would, in that sense, be a 'deed of law.' But 'by deeds of law shall no flesh be justified.' The meaning must therefore be sought in a form of speech common in the Scriptures—common in all languages—the antanaclasis, or allusion to a preceding word. See, for example, Jn. 1. 10; 4. 31, 32, where the word 'world' in the one, and 'meat' in the other, is changed from the literal sense in the first occurrence to the figurative in the second. So Paul calls 'faith' a law, not because it literally is so, but because law was considered by the Jews as the ground of their salvation. But if salvation were by obedience to law, whatever that law might be, boasting could not be excluded. Boasting, however, is excluded, because Jews and Gentiles have alike been found under sin. Salvation by faith, then, is the only principle that can exclude boasting; for there can be no merit in believing a testimony and trusting to another. See Glassii Philol. Sac., Amstel. 1711, p. 929; and Carson on Figurative Language, p. 80. C.

Ver. 31. We establish the law in its condemning power, ver. 19, which the Jews, in their own case, never did, and also in its utmost moral requirements, when we show that by faith we receive that perfect righteousness by which the law was fulfilled by Christ. C.

Reflections.—It is an invaluable privilege to enjoy the word and ordinances of God, and yet very dangerous to rest in them. It is impossible to defeat the purposes or promises of God. The faithful shall obtain salvation, and the unfaithful fail. It is very common for ministers, especially if faithful, to be virulently reproached. And just is their eternal undoing who abuse the doctrines of grace to encourage themselves in licentiousness. How universal and fearful is the depravity of mankind! It discovers itself in unnumbered forms of thoughts, words, and actions, in things dishonourable to God, and injurious to men. The divine law makes fearful work upon men's consciences when it charges all their sins home upon them. And it is absurd to expect happiness by that law which so deeply accuses us of crimes.—But how amazing is it that Jesus' sacrifice, and salvation through it, should be prepared for, offered and given to, such monsters of guilt, Jews or Gentiles! And yet it is exactly suited to our need, fully manifested and attested in Scripture; and highly and delightfully all the perfections of God, particularly his justice and mercy, are glorified in our redemption thereby. Yea, the reign of his grace, through Jesus' glorious sacrifice received by faith, effectually humbles our pride, establishes God's relation to us, honours his law, and promotes our holiness of heart and life.