Romans 3:5, commentary and pictures

The verse voices an objector's unbelieving question, not Paul's own doubt, asking if human wrongdoing that makes God's righteousness stand out more clearly makes God unfair to punish sin. It answers itself that God remains just in visiting wrath upon transgressors, for a good outcome never justifies wrongdoing and without just punishment He could not judge the world. It stands where all people, Jews and Gentiles alike, are proved guilty under the same law and condemned by the oracles committed to the Jews, which unbelief cannot void and by which God will judge. It lays the ground for justification by faith in Christ's blood for past sins without works, which forgives and frees the sinner yet establishes the moral law and leads to obedience rather than excusing continued transgression.

Setting and Speaker

It stands just after the condemnation of Jews of that time for boasting of godliness while dishonoring God by practiced iniquities, where it is shown that while many lived hypocritical lives some among them were true to the religion they professed. It is an objector's question put in Paul's mouth, not a difficulty in his own mind. The first part of Romans 3 is questions and answers anticipating every objection to the truths set forth in Romans 2, to make the argument more emphatic. "I speak as a man" marks human unbelief, what a Pharisee unwilling to accept that God's wrath is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness would say against God's punishment of sin, while Paul's writings like those of the prophets are given by the Holy Spirit.

It belongs to Paul's teaching in Romans 3 to Gentile Christians in A.D. 60 that the law of God is established. It agrees with Romans 7 that Paul kept the commandments and served God's law, and it must be read in the same tenor as Galatians written two years before, so it does not abolish the commandments or make them nothing. It belongs to the proof from the third chapter that all are under sin irrespective of nationality, laying the foundation for justification and life through Jesus Christ. It carries forward the same subject of who are heirs of God's promise and how alone it is obtained as Romans 9-11 on who are Israelites.

It teaches that there is no difference between Jew and Greek, for God is impartial and favors no people more than others, whether Jews, Israelites, Anglo-Saxons, Englishmen or any other nation. The Gospel call is whosoever, and claiming special blessings for one nation that He has not for others denies the Gospel of grace. The law of faith excludes boasting that one group alone has the gospel.

Wording and Logic

Human unrighteousness sets God's righteousness in clearer relief, but that clearer display gives no reason for God to refrain from condemning sin. To claim that sin excuses the sinner or makes judgment unfair because it occasions a clearer sight of God's righteousness or truth is false. If God were unjust to punish sin for that reason, He could not judge the world, and His own righteousness and right to judge would be undermined while evil would wrongly be encouraged as a means to bring about good.

Sin cannot make God unjust to judge sinners even when human unrighteousness displays His righteousness. The question raised is another form of asking whether evil may be done so that good may result, and the answer is no. A good outcome does not justify wrongdoing, and the condemnation of those who use grace to excuse wrongdoing is just.

The question whether God is unrighteous to punish when human unrighteousness serves to show His righteousness is settled by the justice of His judgment of the world. His judgment of the wicked is righteous because His rule is known and accords with righteous principles, so that people can recognize and approve His judgment by knowing that rule. The law makes sin known, and it is sin and not obedience that brings death, so keeping His law does not earn death. Executing a just penalty is not itself a transgression, and to deny that distinction would make it impossible to uphold any law except through wrongdoing.

The question is whether God is unrighteous when He visits with wrath, and the answer is No. Even judged by mere human ideas of justice, God is just when He brings wrath upon the incorrigible evildoer. In the final judgment the unrepentant sinner will be forced to admit God's constant faithfulness, kindness, tender sympathy, and equal bestowal of nature's blessings. Having met love with hatred and faithfulness with contempt and scorn and having refused the kindly and entreatingly offered eternal life, he will stand speechless and acknowledge that God is just in condemning him to eternal death.

The same reasoning appears in the excuse that because sin gave occasion for mercy and a display of love, the sinner should not be punished and may keep sinning so that grace can abound. That excuse treats human unrighteousness as commending God's righteousness in order to deny His right to punish. It is rejected because forgiveness is meant to lead to obedience, not to make continued disobedience acceptable.

God is not unrighteous when He punishes transgressors, for if punishment made God unrighteous He could not judge the world, since judgment entails punishment.

Universal Guilt Under Law

Romans 3:5 stands in the summing up that all men, whether Jews or Gentiles, so-called heathen or professed Christians, are judged by the same law and are alike guilty. The law has universal jurisdiction and condemns all, so none can get righteousness by it, although it is the statement of the righteousness of God. Since righteousness has been promised, it must be received apart from works of the law, namely in Christ in whose blood there is redemption for Jew and Gentile alike, and a man is made a doer of the law by faith alone without deeds of the law.

The verse belongs to proof by quotations from the Old Testament that Jews and Gentiles are all sinners before God, and that proof itself shows Gentiles are subject to the law written in the Old Testament and under obligation to keep it. A law condemns only those under its jurisdiction, so since that law condemns Gentiles and proves them sinners they are under it. As long as a man continues transgressing the condemning law he remains condemned and continues to be a sinner. Jews and Gentiles are amenable to the same law and stand under the same condemnation as transgressors against the oracles committed to the Jews, by which all the world is condemned. Those oracles are the lively oracles Moses received to give to all, standing in harmony with the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

The law therefore applies to Gentiles as well as Jews, and the fourth commandment is part of that law, despite the advantage the Hebrews had in receiving the oracles. Paul's argument is that God's law given to the Jews has authority over all people and makes the whole world accountable to God. If those entrusted with the oracles made them ineffective, God could not judge the world. Jews and Gentiles alike have transgressed this law and are guilty before God, and no one completely obeys God's law because of the weakness of the flesh.

The verse belongs to the proof in Romans 3:1-9 that the law proves all the world, Jews and Gentiles of all classes, to be sinners, showing the law is universal as befits the law of God as Universal Governor. The Gentiles had transgressed the moral law and therefore stood under its curse, kept from claiming the blessing of Abraham until redeemed by Christ. The verse asks whether God is unrighteous in bringing judgment because of human unrighteousness. Israel's afflictions were deserved because the people abused special privileges and disobeyed, and His rejection of them fulfilled His word rather than showing injustice, for their former conditional privileges belonged to that age while people of every nation may now receive blessings on the same terms.

Oracles and Enduring Law

The oracles entrusted to the Jews are the law, the Ten Commandments in which the Jew rested and knew God's will, the living oracles given through Moses to be passed on to others. Jewish unbelief cannot make God's faithfulness and truth of no effect, for faith there is His faithfulness and truth. Those oracles remain in force and remain the rule by which God will bring every work into judgment, for if they were made void God could not judge the world. The question how shall God judge the world proves that God will judge the world, and since judgment is by the law it proves the law in those oracles remains the rule by which God judges the world.

They remain in force as the only rule of righteousness known twenty-seven years after Christ's death. The Jews were entrusted for a time with God's law, oracles and testimony in trust, and through them they have been handed down to others, so the moral law was not given exclusively to the Jewish people. The "law" discussed in Romans 2 and 3 is the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments enjoining the Sabbath kept by the Jews in the fourth commandment and frequently called "the law" in the New Testament. That moral law summed in the Ten has always been binding on the whole world, not only on a particular class of people, and its perpetuity is affirmed as the law that caused Christ to lay down His life for sinful men.

Paul's argument in Romans 2-4 shows God's law and promises are not limited to ethnic Israel: the Jews were entrusted with the law and the oracles handed down to others, Israel means God's people including those counted as children of the promise, so a change in who belongs to Israel does not change God's moral law. The verse is among passages showing God's moral law first entrusted to Israel is established as the law of Christ by Christ and the apostles and applies to Gentiles after faith, distinguishing the enduring moral law from its former covenant obligation and from the Levitical priesthood. Those who held the narrower reading teach that the passage does not by context identify the future rule of judgment as the whole Mosaic code, since not all people are under that code.

Justification for Past Sins

Romans 3:5 stands in Paul's discussion of justification by faith for sinners under condemnation, which is received by faith and not worked out through works, since no one can work out justification for a past sin. That justification for past offenses is distinct from the obedience that comes from faith, for faith does not save without works yet works do not procure remission of past sins, nor does this justification mean faith makes the law void. The whole argument shows the whole world condemned by God's law while the gospel maintains God's justice and establishes the law through faith in Christ, not an argument that the law is abolished or that Christians need not keep it.

Justification is received through faith in Christ without works for the remission of past sins, which does not mean obedience and works are unnecessary in forming godly character. The gospel cures sin by forgiving it, while obedience prevents further sin, and both belong to salvation with distinct roles, the believer's future life being distinguished from justification and remission through faith in Christ's blood. In that justification for past offenses, understood as grace through Christ's blood for remission of sins past, faith is divided from works and works are entirely excluded, faith only and works not at all, because no one can work out justification for a past offense and human actions cannot change the past. It is God's gift leaving the person justified before Him, while character and future salvation involve later actions.

That justification by faith for past offenses does not set aside God's law, because the obedience that follows comes from a changed heart and strength given by Christ. The gospel is a remedy that freely forgives past transgression so the sinner stands free and justified, while obedience afterward is a preventive for the future life, and the justified must work out salvation with fear and trembling and not continue in sin that grace may abound, since God regards future sin with no more favor than past sin. Christ saves in both respects by forgiving past sin and by taking away the carnal mind which is enmity against God and not subject to His law, making peace with God so that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in those who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.

No one can by his own power cleanse himself or produce the righteousness God requires, and attempts at self-salvation or helping God by human means belong to bondage. Law and the faith of Christ are distinct and different, just as law and gospel are distinct, the law being the moral law forbidding stealing, adultery and idolatry. That law exposes sin and establishes guilt and gives the transgressor no relief, constantly condemning and killing but never justifying or giving life, while righteousness comes through Christ and freedom from sin means living in harmony with God's law.

God's Righteous Vengeance

God's taking vengeance does not make Him unrighteous, and mankind stands in two distinct classes with no middle ground between condemnation and justification, freedom from condemnation coming only through justification by faith in Christ. God is righteous when He takes vengeance, and that righteousness alone qualifies Him to judge the world. Judgment and its execution must be done in righteousness and therefore can never be done by sinners, since all sinners are equally worthy of death. It lies wholly outside civil or any human authority to inflict penalties for transgression of God's law, and whoever assumes authority to punish a sinner thereby claims to be without sin, as shown when Christ told the scribes and Pharisees who brought the woman taken in adultery that the sinless one should cast the first stone.

God is righteous in taking vengeance for sin, and the question whether He is unrighteous exposes the injustice implied in calling His law faulty and imperfect. If the moral law were faulty with a curse necessarily attached to it, transgression would not be morally wrong, and the fault for failure to develop perfect character and the resulting loss would rest on God as lawgiver rather than on the transgressor. Under such a supposition God would be unrighteous to punish sinners, and Christ's death would have been unnecessary because a faulty law could simply have been set aside to free its transgressors. Since God is righteous in punishing, the law whose transgression required the death of the Son of God cannot have been faulty, and to call it faulty dishonors the government of God. It would indeed make God unrighteous to punish people for keeping a law that necessarily cursed them, but the law does not condemn the innocent, for it was ordained to life so that its doers are justified, and curse and judgment apply because all have transgressed, not because the law curses its obeyers.

God's righteousness is not undermined by human sin, and He could not judge the world if His revealed law were made ineffective. The law identifies sin, establishes guilt, and provides the standard of righteousness by which people are judged.

Law Established Through Faith

Deliverance from the curse or condemnation of the law does not release anyone from obligation to the law, for faith does not make the law void. The atonement establishes rather than abolishes the moral law, which condemns the world and shows all guilty before God, while Christ's death magnifies and honors that law and provides pardon through His blood. The claims of the law will be vindicated when mercy gives way to justice, for His blood does not blot out the moral law.

The holy law condemns the guilty, while redemption comes through the blood of Christ rather than through typical sacrifices. Faith in Christ justifies the sinner before the God whose law was broken, and does not make the law void but establishes it. Its continuing authority remains as Christ pleads His blood before the mercy seat while the broken law stands against the guilty.

The law exposes people as sinners left condemned to death, and the Gospel brings pardon through Christ's blood without abolishing the condemning law. God's law condemns the whole world, making all guilty before Him and exposed to wrath, and the New Testament offers pardon on that account without dishonoring God or making His law void, not for the purpose of re-enacting the law. The moral law exposes guilt and makes clear why Christ's death was necessary, whereas the law of ceremonies was blotted out through His death.

The royal moral law remains in force and is established rather than made void, distinct from the handwriting of ordinances which Christ blotted out and took out of the way. There is thus a plain distinction between two laws, the moral law whose violation caused the death of Jesus and the handwriting of ordinances which His death blotted out. The argument does not permit continuing to transgress the law so that grace may abound, for those in Christ are dead to sin and must not live in it, since sin is transgression of the law and grace through Christ does not make the law void or excuse disobedience.

The law reveals sin and condemns the transgressor but does not justify, while the gospel saves from sin and averts the penalty when accepted, and rejecting pardon leaves the law to enforce its penalty. The law has universal jurisdiction and condemns all, so none can obtain righteousness by it, although it is the statement of God's righteousness. Since righteousness has been promised, it must be received apart from works of the law, namely in Christ, in whose blood is redemption for Jew and Gentile alike. A man is made a doer of the law by faith alone without deeds of the law, which is the mystery of the Gospel, Christ in men the hope of glory, God in Christ working His own righteousness.