Advantageous: A Survey of Romans 3:1-8

Author’s note: This blog post is part of an ongoing series about the book of Romans. To see other Romans resources, click here.

Having finally wrestled both Jews and Gentiles into orange jumpsuits, Paul is about to haul them all before God’s tribunal. He will soon deliver the summary of his most crushing verdict. But before he can do that, he has to answer a few questions that arise from his Jewish detractors. Verses 1-8 of chapter 3 form a short section, but they happen to be some of the most challenging verses in the entire book.

Dunn explains why the text is so hard: it “is something of a bridge between earlier and later parts of the letter, or like a railway junction through which many of the key ideas and themes of the epistle pass” (Dunn 1988a:130, quoted in Shreiner 156).

The questions that start this section are the questions that Jews are likely to ask: “What advantage has the Jew?” “What is the value of circumcision?” Paul, if you are right in what you said in chapter two, then it’s useless to even be a Jew! God gave us circumcision for nothing, and it is little more than a time wasting (and painful!) procedure that has no purpose. How can you possibly accuse God of this?

Many Jews would respond to these questions by saying, ‘there is a saving advantage to being a Jew and getting circumcised. Even if not every Jew is saved, yet you can significantly increase your chances of salvation if you are genetically Abrahamic, and submit to the ordeal of circumcision. There is saving value in these things!”

We assume that Paul will disagree. He’s already argued that lawful pagans are better than lawless Jews. Right when we expect him to say “there’s no benefit at all,” he does the opposite. What is the advantage or value? It is “much in every way!” To begin with, Paul says, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.

At this moment we anticipate that Paul will begin rattling off a list of Jewish benefits. The oracles of God are number one on the list…but nothing comes next. Paul will return to this theme in Romans 9:4-5, but at the moment, he is content to mention this single benefit: Jews have the law, and the law certainly promises salvation to the descendants of Abraham. So, is the matter settled? Not quite.

The problem is that some – even the majority – of the Jews are unfaithful to God. Despite having the promise of salvation that is in the law, they fail to follow God, and so they won’t be saved. Paul has just argued that this is very much possible. Despite having a promise of salvation, most Jews (at least so far) fail to receive this promise. They are unfaithful to God. This raises a new question. Could it be, then, that human unfaithfulness to God could actually result in the promise being negated, and God himself being unfaithful to fulfill it?

This may seem like a strange question, but it’s the question that Paul’s Jewish opponents are hinting at. “If you are right, Paul, then most Jews won’t receive the promise of salvation, and that means that God himself is faithless to his promises! Your God, then, isn’t the God of the Old Testament. He is a God who breaks his promises!”

But Paul answers this accusation by picking up his Old Testament and turning to Psalm 51:4. No one can be more ‘Jewish’ than David. But even David, after sinning, admits that whatever punishment God places on him, God will still be just. Admitting his sin, David confesses that God is the truly righteous one, the who can never be accused of injustice, even when condemning the wicked.

It may be difficult to follow, but Paul has accomplished a stunning change in emphasis. The Jews want to make sure that God is faithful to his promises of salvation. Paul agrees that he is – but he is subtly reminding them, from David, that God has more promises to remember than just the promises of salvation. There are also the promises of judgment. If God is truly going to fulfill his promises, he has to fulfill all of them – even the unpleasant ones. God’s failure to save all Jews isn’t a negation of his promise of salvation – it’s just a fulfillment of the less savory ‘judgment promises.’

Paul’s Jewish opponents now respond with a rhetorical question: “If our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us?” (v. 5).

The essence of the question is this: “If our depraved status exists merely to show that God is righteous in his judgment, what possible response can we give? Could it be that the God you proclaim, Paul, is unrighteous, because he inflicts wrath on those who don’t have a choice? How can God condemn us, when he is also the only one who can save us, and we don’t have the option to escape his wrath by doing good works?”

At first this question doesn’t seem to make much sense, but it is deeply logical. The person who asks this question, in fact, has a strong grasp on where Paul is going. For some of us, it takes a while for us to get from point A to point B, and then to point C, and so on. But perhaps you’ve met those people who can go from point A to point C, and you haven’t even explained point B yet, but they are so far-sighted that, as soon as you argue for point A, they can immediately see that, by implication, point C is therefore valid. 

That is what is going on with these Jewish opponents. Paul hasn’t even brought God’s grace into the discussion thus far; he is simply focusing on total depravity. The Jews, however, are quick witted. They understand that, if total depravity is true, then monergism (salvation by God’s grace alone) is the only way of salvation. If what Paul is saying is correct, then God’s grace is the only thing that can rescue a sinner, whether he is Jew or Greek. In that case, only the concepts of election and predestination make sense if God is going to save anyone. We can’t save ourselves, we can’t do works of the law, and therefore, we are all guilty apart from his grace. Maybe God is unjust, because he created people as sinners, and now destroys them for that very reason? Because they realize this, they begin to disagree with Paul, and Paul argues back against them. When we understand where Paul is going, the arguments make sense. But until we realize what is being argued over – concepts of election and predestination – we feel like two little children who are listening to arguing philosophers.

Paul’s response to this objection – to the idea that God is unrighteous to inflict wrath and destruction on sinners that he didn’t elect to salvation – is dramatic. “By no means!” He then uses an argument that may not be particularly persuasive for us, but it was powerful for the audience that he was arguing with. He says, “For then how could God judge the world?”

Before this makes sense, we need to understand the Jewish mindset. The Jews believed that gentiles really were as bad as Paul had described in chapter one. Gentiles (if God did not see fit to give them grace) were condemned to judgment, and they didn’t have a chance. Only inclusion in the Jewish covenant could rescue them. Of course, God’s justice in destroying the gentiles didn’t mean that God was unfair – it simply indicated that the gentiles really did deserve everything that they were going to get.

Paul now uses this line of thinking to his advantage. “You already agree that gentiles don’t stand a chance apart from God’s grace, right? God isn’t unjust because he condemns depraved pagans. So,’ (Paul argues) ‘what’s wrong with saying the same thing about Jews? If simply extending the same principle that you already believe, in order to cover the Jews as well – that all are depraved, and all stand in need of God’s rescuing. I’m not changing your view of God, I’m just removing the Jewish people from their pedestal, and saying that they stand under the same condemnation that gentiles stand under.’ Paul’s argument, in short, is that if the Jews really want to argue that such a God is unrighteous, because he condemns the depraved, then they are undercutting their own position – that God has a right to judge the pagan world.

At this point, the opponents reshape their argument slightly. They follow a slightly different form of thinking, in order to draw out what they see as a different problem with Paul’s theology. “But if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come?”

This argument is a derivative of one of the oldest arguments against Pauline theology, and it’s been raised for centuries. At it’s core, the idea is simple – ‘If God is glorified by judging sin, and we want God to be glorified, then why shouldn’t we sin even more, since that will lead to God being glorified more?’ Related to this is the idea that if God is glorified by our sinfulness, how could he be so unrighteousness as to condemn the very people who give him opportunity to glorify himself through their sinful deeds? Later on, in chapter 6:1, another variation of the argument will come into play – shouldn’t we sin, since God is also glorified by showing mercy on our sins?

Such an argument is too low for Paul to stoop to answer. Because it so profoundly misunderstands the goodness and righteousness of God, and the cosmic perversity of sin, Paul refuses to even give it the time of day. Some of Paul’s opponents argue that he is proclaiming such a message, but Paul dismisses their accusations as mere slander. If he, or anyone else, were ever to proclaim such ideas, ‘their condemnation is just.’ They deserve the bitterest judgment that God gives them, because they are guilty of such unworthy thoughts of God.