Rom 3:1-19 | Clarke | e4.org | CHAPTER III. The apostle points out the peculiar privileges of the Jews , 1-8. But shows that they, also, as well as the Gentiles, had sinned , and forfeited all right and title to God's especial favour , 9. The corrupt state of all mankind , 10-18. All the world is guilty before God, and none can be justified by the works of the law , 19, 20. God's MERCY in providing redemption for a lost world, by Jesus Christ , 21-26. This excludes boasting on the part both of Jew and Gentile; provides salvation through faith for both; and does not set aside, but establishes the law , 27-31. NOTES ON CHAP. III. Dr. Taylor observes:-"In the preceding chapter the apostle has carried his argument to the utmost length: what remains is to keep the Jew in temper, to fix his convictions, and to draw the grand conclusion. "He has shown that the Jews were more wicked than the Gentiles; that their possession of the law, circumcision, and outward profession of relation to God, were no ground of acceptance with him. This was in effect to say that the Jews had forfeited their right to the privileges of God's peculiar people, and that they were as unworthy to be continued in the Church as the Gentiles were to be taken into it; and consequently, in order to their enjoying the privileges of the Church under the Messiah, they stood in need of a fresh display of grace, which if they rejected, God would cast them out of the vineyard. The apostle was sensible that the Jew would understand what he said in this sense; and that it must be very irritating to him to hear that his law, circumcision, and all his external advantages, were utterly insufficient to procure him the favour of God. This at once stripped him of all his peculiar honours and privileges; and the apostle, who had often argued with his countrymen on these points, knew what they would be ready to say on this subject; and, therefore, introduces a dialogue between himself and a Jew, in which he gives him leave to answer and defend himself. In this dialogue the apostle undoubtedly refers to the rejection of the Jews , which he considers at large in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters. After the dialogue is finished, he resumes his argument, and proves, by their own Scriptures , that the Jews were guilty as well as other men; and that no part of mankind could have any right to the blessings of God's kingdom by any works which they had performed, but merely through the propitiatory sacrifice offered by Christ; and that this, far from destroying the law, was just the thing that the law required, and by which its claims were established. "The sum and force of the apostle's argument is this: All sorts of men, Jews as well as Gentiles , have sinned ; therefore, none of them can lay claim to the blessings of his kingdom on the ground of obedience . The Jew , therefore, stands as much in need of God's grace to give him a title to those blessings as the Gentile ; and, consequently, the Gentile has as good a title as the Jew . And, when all are in the same circumstances, it is perfectly absurd for any to pretend to engross it to themselves, exclusively of others, who are only as bad as they. "Thus the apostle solidly proves that we, Gentiles , through faith alone , have a good and firm title to all the blessings of the Gospel covenant-election, adoption, pardon, privileges, ordinances , the Holy Spirit , and the hope of eternal life ." As the nine first verses are a dialogue between the apostle and a Jew , I shall prefix the speakers to their respective questions and answers, to make the whole the more intelligible to the reader. Verse 1. JEW. What advantage then hath the Jew? Or what profit is there of circumcision? ] As if he had said: You lately allowed, ( ,) that circumcision verily profited ; but if circumcision, or our being in covenant with God, raises us no higher in the Divine favour than the Gentiles; if the virtuous among them are as acceptable as any of us ; nay, and condemn our nation too, as no longer deserving the Divine regards; pray tell me, wherein lies the superior honour of the Jew; and what benefit can arise to him from his circumcision , and being vested in the privileges of God's peculiar people?

‏ Romans 3:1-19

CHAPTER III.

The apostle points out the peculiar privileges of the Jews,

1-8.

But shows that they, also, as well as the Gentiles, had sinned,

and forfeited all right and title to God's especial favour, 9.

The corrupt state of all mankind, 10-18.

All the world is guilty before God, and none can be justified by the works of the law, 19, 20.

God's MERCY in providing redemption for a lost world, by Jesus Christ, 21-26.

This excludes boasting on the part both of Jew and Gentile; provides salvation through faith for both; and does not set aside, but establishes the law, 27-31.

NOTES ON CHAP. III.

Dr. Taylor observes:-"In the preceding chapter the apostle has carried his argument to the utmost length: what remains is to keep the Jew in temper, to fix his convictions, and to draw the grand conclusion.

"He has shown that the Jews were more wicked than the Gentiles; that their possession of the law, circumcision, and outward profession of relation to God, were no ground of acceptance with him. This was in effect to say that the Jews had forfeited their right to the privileges of God's peculiar people, and that they were as unworthy to be continued in the Church as the Gentiles were to be taken into it; and consequently, in order to their enjoying the privileges of the Church under the Messiah, they stood in need of a fresh display of grace, which if they rejected, God would cast them out of the vineyard. The apostle was sensible that the Jew would understand what he said in this sense; and that it must be very irritating to him to hear that his law, circumcision, and all his external advantages, were utterly insufficient to procure him the favour of God. This at once stripped him of all his peculiar honours and privileges; and the apostle, who had often argued with his countrymen on these points, knew what they would be ready to say on this subject; and, therefore, introduces a dialogue between himself and a Jew, in which he gives him leave to answer and defend himself. In this dialogue the apostle undoubtedly refers to the rejection of the Jews, which he considers at large in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters. After the dialogue is finished, he resumes his argument, and proves, by their own Scriptures, that the Jews were guilty as well as other men; and that no part of mankind could have any right to the blessings of God's kingdom by any works which they had performed, but merely through the propitiatory sacrifice offered by Christ; and that this, far from destroying the law, was just the thing that the law required, and by which its claims were established.

"The sum and force of the apostle's argument is this: All sorts of men, Jews as well as Gentiles, have sinned; therefore, none of them can lay claim to the blessings of his kingdom on the ground of obedience. The Jew, therefore, stands as much in need of God's grace to give him a title to those blessings as the Gentile; and, consequently, the Gentile has as good a title as the Jew. And, when all are in the same circumstances, it is perfectly absurd for any to pretend to engross it to themselves, exclusively of others, who are only as bad as they.

"Thus the apostle solidly proves that we, Gentiles, through faith alone, have a good and firm title to all the blessings of the Gospel covenant-election, adoption, pardon, privileges, ordinances, the Holy Spirit, and the hope of eternal life."

As the nine first verses are a dialogue between the apostle and a Jew, I shall prefix the speakers to their respective questions and answers, to make the whole the more intelligible to the reader.

Verse 1. JEW. What advantage then hath the Jew? Or what profit is there of circumcision?] As if he had said: You lately allowed, (Ro 2:25,) that circumcision verily profited; but if circumcision, or our being in covenant with God, raises us no higher in the Divine favour than the Gentiles; if the virtuous among them are as acceptable as any of us; nay, and condemn our nation too, as no longer deserving the Divine regards; pray tell me, wherein lies the superior honour of the Jew; and what benefit can arise to him from his circumcision, and being vested in the privileges of God's peculiar people?

Verse 2. APOSTLE. Much every way] The Jews, in reference to the means and motives of obedience, enjoy many advantages beyond the Gentiles; and, principally, because to them were committed the oracles of God-that revelation of his will to Moses and the prophets, containing a treasure of excellencies, with which no other part of the world has been favoured; though they have most grievously abused these privileges.

Verse 3. JEW. For what] τιγαρ, What then, if some did not believe, &c. If some of the Jewish nation have abused their privileges, and acted contrary to their obligations, shall their wickedness annul the PROMISE which God made to Abraham, that he would, by an everlasting covenant, be a God to him and to his seed after him? Ge 17:7. Shall God, therefore, by stripping the Jews of their peculiar honour, as you intimate he will, falsify his promise to the nation, because some of the Jews are bad men?

Verse 4. APOSTLE. God forbid] μηγενοιτο, Let it not be, far from it, by no means. Yea, let God be true, but every man a liar, &c. We must ever maintain that God is true, and that if, in any case, his promise appear to fail, it is because the condition on which it was given has not been complied with; which is the sense of what is written, Ps 51:4: I acknowledge my sin, and condemn myself that the truth of thy promise (2Sa 7:15, 16) to establish my house and throne for ever, may be vindicated when thou shalt execute that dreadful threatening, (2Sa 12:10,) that the sword shall never depart from my house, which I own I have brought upon myself by my own iniquity. Should any man say that the promise of God had failed toward him, let him examine his heart and his ways, and he will find that he has departed out of that way in which alone God could, consistently with his holiness and truth, fulfil the promise.

Verse 5. JEW. But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God] May we not suppose that our unrighteousness may serve to commend and illustrate the mercy of God in keeping and fulfilling to us the promise which he made to our forefathers? The more wicked we are, the more his faithfulness to his ancient promise is to be admired. And if so, would not God appear unjust in taking vengeance and casting us off?

I speak as a man] I feel for the situation both of myself and my countrymen, and it is natural for one to speak as I do.

Verse 6. APOSTLE. God forbid] μηγενοιτο, by no means. God cannot be unjust; were he unjust, he could not be qualified to judge the world, nor inflict that punishment on the unfaithful Jews, to which I refer.

Verse 7. JEW. For if the truth of God, &c.] But to resume my reasoning (Ro 3:5:) If the faithfulness of God in keeping his promise made to our fathers is, through our unfaithfulness, made far more glorious than it otherwise would have been, why should we then be blamed for that which must redound so much to the honour of God?

Verse 8. APOSTLE. And not rather, &c.] And why do you not say, seeing you assume this ground, that in all cases we should do wickedly, because God, by freely pardoning, can so glorify his own grace? This is a most impious sentiment, but it follows from your reasoning; it has, indeed, been most injuriously laid to the charge of us apostles, who preach the doctrine of free pardon, through faith, without the merit of works; but this is so manifest a perversion of the truth that a just punishment may be expected to fall on the propagators of such a slander.

Verse 9. JEW. What then?] After all, have not we Jews a better claim to the privileges of the kingdom of God than the Gentiles have?

APOSTLE. No, in no wise] For I have already proved that both Jews and Gentiles are under the guilt of sin; that they are equally unworthy of the blessings of the Messiah's kingdom; and that they must both, equally, owe their salvation to the mere mercy of God. From this, to the end of the 26th verse, the apostle proceeds to prove his assertion, that both Jews and Gentiles were all under sin; and, that he might enforce the conviction upon the heart of the Jew, he quotes his own Scriptures, which he acknowledged had been given by the inspiration of GOD, and consequently true.

Verse 10. As it is written] See Ps 14:1-3; from which this and the two following verses are taken.

There is none righteous] This is true, not only of the Jews, but of the Gentiles; of every soul of man, considered in his natural and practical state, previously to his receiving the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no righteous principle in them, and, consequently, no righteous act can be expected from them; see on Ro 3:12. God himself is represented as looking down from heaven to see if there were any that feared and sought after him; and yet he, who cannot be deceived, could find none! And therefore we may safely conclude there was none to be found.

Verse 12. They are all gone out of the way] παντεςεξεκλιναν, they have all diverged from the right way, they have either abandoned or corrupted the worship of God: the Jews, in forsaking the law and the prophets, and the Gentiles, in acting contrary to the law which God had written on their hearts. And the departure of both from the truth proves the evil propensity of human nature in general.

They are together become unprofitable] ηχρειωθησαν. They are useless, good for nothing; or, as the Hebrew has it, neelachu, they are putrid: he views the whole mass of mankind as slain and thrown together, to putrefy in heaps. This is what is termed the corruption of human nature; they are infected and infectious. What need of the mercy of God to save from such a state of degeneracy!

There is none that doeth good] In Ro 3:10 it is said, There is none righteous; here, There is none that doeth good: the first may refer to the want of a righteous principle; the second, to the necessary consequence of the absence of such a principle. If there be no righteousness within, there will be no acts of goodness without.

Verse 13. Their throat is an open sepulchre] This and all the following verses to the end of the 18th Ro 3:13-18 are found in the Septuagint, but not in the Hebrew text; and it is most evident that it was from this version that the apostle quoted, as the verses cannot be found in any other place with so near an approximation to the apostle's meaning and words. The verses in question, however, are not found in the Alexandrian MS. But they exist in the Vulgate, the AEthiopic, and the Arabic. As the most ancient copies of the Septuagint do not contain these verses, some contend that the apostle has quoted them from different parts of Scripture; and later transcribers of the Septuagint, finding that the 10th, 11th, and 12th, verses were quoted from the xivth Psalm, Ps 14:10-12 imagined that the rest were found originally there too, and so incorporated them in their copies, from the apostle's text.

Their throat is an open sepulchre-By their malicious and wicked words they bury, as it were, the reputation of all men. The whole of this verse appears to belong to their habit of lying, defamation, slandering, &c., by which they wounded, blasted, and poisoned the reputation of others.

Verse 14. Whose mouth is full of cursing, &c.] They never speak but in profane oaths, blasphemies, and malice.

Verse 15. Their feet are swift to shed blood] They make use of every means in their power to destroy the reputation and lives of the innocent.

Verse 16. Destruction and misery are in their ways] DESTRUCTION is their work, and MISERY to themselves and to the objects of their malice is the consequence of their impious and murderous conduct.

Verse 17. And the way of peace have they not known] They neither have peace in themselves, nor do they suffer others to live in quiet: they are brooders and fomenters of discord.

Verse 18. There is no fear of God before their eyes.] This completes their bad character; they are downright atheists, at least practically such. They fear not God's judgments, although his eye is upon them in their evil ways. There is not one article of what is charged against the Jews and Gentiles here that may not be found justified by the histories of both, in the most ample manner. And what was true of them in those primitive times is true of them still. With very little variation, these are the evils in which the vast mass of mankind delight and live. Look especially at men in a state of warfare; look at the nations of Europe, who enjoy most of the light of God; see what has taken place among them from 1792 to 1814; see what destruction of millions, and what misery of hundreds of millions, have been the consequence of Satanic excitement in fallen, ferocious passions! O SIN, what hast thou done! How many myriads of souls hast thou hurried, unprepared, into the eternal world! Who, among men or angels, can estimate the greatness of this calamity! this butchery of souls! What widows, what orphans, are left to deplore their sacrificed husbands and parents, and their own consequent wretchedness! And whence sprang all this? From that, whence come all wars and fightings; the evil desires of men; the lust of dominion; the insatiable thirst for money; and the desire to be sole and independent. This is the sin that ruined our first parents, expelled them from paradise, and which has descended to all their posterity; and proves fully, incontestably proves, that we are their legitimate offspring; the fallen progeny of fallen parents; children in whose ways are destruction and misery; in whose heart there is no faith; and before whose eyes there is nothing of the fear of God.

Verse 19. What things soever the law saith] That the word law, here, does not mean the pentateuch, is evident from the preceding quotations, not one of which is taken from that work. Either the term law must here mean the Jewish writings in general, or that rule of moral conduct which God had given to both Jews and Gentiles: to the former in their own Scriptures; to the latter in that law written in their hearts by his own Spirit, and acknowledged in their written codes, and in their pleadings in every civil case. Now, according to this great law, this rule of moral conduct, whether given in a written revelation, as to the Jews, or by the secret inspiration of his Spirit, as in certain cases to the Gentiles, every mouth must be stopped, and the whole world, παςοκοσμος, both Jews and Gentiles, stand convicted before God: for all mankind have sinned against this law.