Romans Commentary Project, chapter 3

Chapter III

1 Therefore what is better of the Jew or what is the profit of circumcision?

This is a dense and confusing section, and I’ll plainly admit I’m not sure I wholly understand Paul’s language. Structurally, it’s clearly a related separate argument to the preceding polemic against the arrogant ethnic Jew, but why is it necessary to include this bit before vv. 9-20? The first few times I read through vv.1-8 I was reading them in the context of Paul’s initial question, What is the advantage of being Jewish? Yet he only gives one reason for this advantage (they were entrusted with God’s oracles) and then goes off talking about something else. I think what Paul’s really getting at in these 8 verses is not about the status of Jewishness, but more a defense of God. This serves to accent God’s faithfulness against Israel’s unfaithfulness in the present context, and anticipates the questions about the covenant that come up in later chapters. (Why would a faithful God make a covenant with a hopeless people doomed from its inception?) If this were true, God would be something like those banks that gave out absurd mortgages to the ill-qualified and unemployed—it would be a slur on his character as well as theirs. Paul will argue later that this covenant has been kept faithful by God and by Israel in the person of the Messiah, by his reconstitution of Israel, Israel itself. But writing to some recently converted ex-pagans, perhaps it makes sense here that Paul would need to shift gears from his polemic against the Jews and reaffirm the transcendent faithfulness of the one God.

2 Much according to every way. [For] first on the one hand since they were entrusted God's oracles

Oracles is logia, a cognate with logos (word, reason, argument, a dozen other meanings) yet used only. Logia is used only twice else in the N.T., once in 1 Peter, and once in Acts where Stephen, in his Jewish-history speech, mentions logia brought down from Mt. Sinai. The meaning here (presumably God’s authoritative revelations to his chosen people) isn’t as obvious to me as Paul presumes it is to his audience, nor is it spelled out why this is advantage of Judaism and circumcision. (Or rather, I think I understand why this is a marvelous advantage, but I don’t understand why Paul doesn’t spell it out fully) Entrusted is episteuthesan, which could also mean enfaithed, cognate with pistis (faith) which remains the central topic of this section. (God’s pistis.) Note that sometimes we translate belief instead of faith, but this is a section where the flavor of the word is savoring much more of loyalty than of mental assent. This becomes very important when we start to talk about whether pistis Christou means faith in the Messiah or the Messiah’s faithfulness.

3 For what? If some were unfaithful, surely not does their unfaithfulness nullify God's faithfulness?

Here the metaphor of the irresponsible mortgage-lender (I’m rather proud of that, I think it was apt) seems to be what Paul is getting at. What does it say about God if he entrusted these oracles to an unfaithful people? If he’s God, shouldn’t he know better? If some were unfaithful is ei epistesan (long eta, from the lengthened alpha, from apistos), which could also mean if certain ones were unfaithful. Nullify is katargesei, as in when Jesus denies that he has come to nullify (render ineffective, empty of power) the Torah.

4 May it not be! But let God be true, and every man false, even as it is written That you might be justified in thy words and you might be victorious in thy judging (being judged)

Again, Paul’s famous me genoito. Whatever you would say about men, let God be true/faithful. Note that the Psalm quotation here is from the famous Create in me a clean heart (Ps. 51) and that the following verses tie in to original sin (I was conceived in iniquity) where—finally—we arrive after the initial caution I gave in Ch. 1. The second half of the psalm quotation could also read you might conquer (nikeseis) instead of “be victorious” and since being judged is a dative articular infinitive with the pronoun, could conceivably refer to an acquittal/right judgment on God himself. (I’d need to look up the articular infinitive rules before I made a case for that) This section is one of the central tangles of Romans. God is faithful to his promise, but Israel’s unfaithfulness will demonstrate God’s faithfulness all the more not only because it is God’s character, but God will have his promise kept by Israel through the Messiah.

5 But if our injustice demonstrates God's righteousness, what will we say? Surely not that God is unjust which pronounces (his) wrath? I speak according to man

Back to adikia—dikaiosune language. Paul plays the fool in his “speaking according to man.” Also back to the apokalupsis language of chapter 1, where Paul states that this judgment is taking place in the now.

6 May it not be! Since how would God judge the cosmon?
God’s judgment is at least partially in a positive sense, envisioning, from the Judaic vision of the God keeping his promises to Israel by dealing with evil, the putting to rights of the oppressed and his just ordering and return to the temple. (But of course this can’t happen if you would prevent the judgment, favorable and unfavorable, from coming)

7 But if God's truth in my falsehood abounds unto his glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner?
I think, though I’d hear arguments to the contrary, that Paul is speaking as ethnic Israel here, not as the Gentile. Presumably he’s at least still tied into his question in v.1, and this makes something of a return to the idea. How am I a Jew, though being God’s elect and contributing to his glory, given the unfavorable judgment.

8 And not as we are blasphemed and as some say us to say that "Let us do evils, that the good might come?" Their judgment is just

A dense verse. The first part should be read parenthetically. Paul is saying that someone else is saying that he is saying that they ought to do evil to the increase of God’s glory. It is the blasphemer’s judgment which is just. (Endikon) Interesting that this same absurd heresy has come up several times in Christian history; God will forgive us, and it glorifies God to forgive us, so let’s give him more to forgive.

9 What, therefore? Are we advantaged? Not by all means. For we Jews and Hellenes are both fore-accused all to be under sin

Best evidence that 7 is meant to be read as Paul as the representative Jew. (Important to note that he does so here, because I’ll give this example as evidence for a later instance.) The we applies to both Jews and Hellenes, and is the first person plural in the verbal form, not a pronoun. Fore-accused could also be fore-charged.

10 Even as it is written that There is none just, not even one

And finally, we get to the explicit statement of Original Sin, but via Paul’s intended background of Gentile idolatry, Jewish disobedience to Torah, and God’s faithfulness/righteous judgment. V. 10 is a reworking of Psalm 14, going backwards from Ps. 14-3 (there is none who does good, not even one) and then going to v. 2, where the Psalm asks a question (The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God) The same idea is recapitulated in Psalm 53.

11 There is none understanding, there is none seeking out God

I’d read seeking out (ekzeton) more broadly than some of our Evangelical “seeker” language. That isn’t to say that it doesn’t matter that people need to search for God’s will and truth in prayer, but in a first century context it probably has more to do with questions of covenant membership and faithfulness qua covenant people than individual private holiness. (Though of course, private holiness is a characteristic of the covenant people)

12 All have turned away together they are become worthless, there is not one doing kindness, [there is not] as many as one

From Ps. 14-3 and 53-3. I don’t know what the Septuagint reads for v. 3. Not sure whether chrestoteta should be goodness or kindness; perhaps either? Clasically it should be kindness, but it looks like most of my Koine sources agree it is goodness in the N.T. and LXX. (I did look it up in the LXX, and it’s chrestoteta.) Achreo properly worthless, but with the sense of corruption or spoilage. Some manuscripts don’t have the last “there is not.”

13 Their throat is an opened grave, with their tongues they have been deceitful

Psalm 5-9, and of course a very dire insult given the uncleanliness of the dead in both the Jewish and Pagan cultures. Deceitful in the sense of making snares, ambushes, tricks. “They are founts of uncleanliness and they trap others as well.” Jesus used some of these same ideas in his critique of the Pharisees in Matt. 21 (?)

14 Whose tongue of curses and bitterness is full

Tongue/mouth are interchangeable meanings of stoma. This is not a separate bunny trail off of Paul’s definition of Original Sin, these are identifying characteristics. Whereas the holy and human image bearing man responds to the world in obedient worship, not electively, but as a consequent response, the image-defaced and sin ruled are v.11 stupid, looking in the wrong direction v. 12 emptied of their value v. 13 unclean and contagiously so, v. 14 brimming over with the opposite of “natural” blessing, thankfulness and worship—curses and bitterness. Ps. 10-7

15 Their feet being swift to shed blood

From the Isaianic discourse on iniquity. C. 59, primarily focused on injustice.

16 Ruin and misery are in their ways

Again, this is not a side road from the definition of Original Sin, but the essence of it—it heads straight for destruction.

17 And the way of shalom they do not know

An appropriate spot for the more robust Jewish vision of “peace” than the contemporary nation states truces.

18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Or against their eyes. Ps. 36-1

19 And we know that what the Torah says it says to those under Torah, that every tongue might be silent and the whole cosmon might be answerable to God

Answerable is another dik-root word, hupodikos, or under-judgment/justice to God. I think that vv. 19-20 belong partitioned with 21 and following, not with 9-18, but most Bibles make the break before v. 21 for a more dramatic effect. (Very easy to understand why!) We return here from the discussion of Original Sin in general to the problem of ethnic demarcation by works of Torah. Now that Paul has established universal guilt, he is prepared to show how God has kept his covenant and made his judgment of righteousness—justification—possible.

20 Therefore by works of Torah all flesh will not be justified before him, for through the Torah the recognizement of sin.

Paul comes back to the recognizement of sin part later, and there’s a deep story about Mt. Sinai and the law coming down into sin that we get when he gives it its full treatment. But this is just the first statement. The point is that keeping kosher and getting circumcised aren’t enough to deal with the Adamic problem, the problem of Original Sin.

21 But now without Torah God’s righteousness is shown witnessed by the Torah and the prophets.

I think it’s the NIV that here translates “but now a new way of being made righteousness apart from the law is being made known.” This passage is not, as that translation would suggest, the exposition of a system of salvation. It is the continuation of Paul’s argument about God’s dikaiosune and the first century circumcision controversy. It would be wrong to read into this passage “here’s how Paul tells us how to get saved—not by works.” Rather, the questions of belief, conversion, and baptism having been settled, Paul is telling the Roman church that God has found a way—through Jesus, in the next verse—to open up the forensic judgment of his righteousness to those without the works of Torah, just as was foretold in the Torah in the Abrahamic covenant and reiterated in the prophets. This verse is a continuation (as becomes obvious in v.27) of Paul’s question of whether or not the physical Jew has a boast over the Torah-less Gentile.

22 And God’s righteousness through the faithfulness of the Messiah Jesus unto all believing. For there is no distinction.

Again, the NIV here mistranslates pisteos Iesou Christou as faith in Jesus Christ/Messiah by reading a soteriological statement into it when the syntax demands that Iesou Christou be the subjective genitive—the faithfulness of Jesus Christ/Messiah. In other words, it was the faithful work of the Messiah—trustworthy, and loyal to YHWH as Israel’s representative when Israel herself was disloyal, idolatrous, exiled, and mocked—that procures the favorable judgment of God’s righteousness for the covenant people, of which the sign of membership is belief in him. There is no distinction in that belief, no seal of the flesh, ethnic boundary, or ritual. I cannot stress how important this distinction is. It may seem like splitting hairs, but we will misread the whole rest of the book if we insist that Paul is talking about us having faith in Jesus when he means to talk about Jesus’ faithfulness in his Messianic role…and God’s faithfulness to the covenant through him.

23 For all have sinned and are fallen short of God’s glory

Quod erat demonstratum, vv. 9-18, tying together ch. 1 contra Gentiles and ch. 2 contra Jews. Husterontai (fall short) could also be lack or are in need of. The Jews do not start from the position of teachers or instructors because they possess physical covenant membership. They too are under original sin, and have not “lived up” to Torah.

24 Being justified the gift of his grace through the deliverance in the Messiah Jesus

There is a tense change from usterontai (aorist) to dikaioumenoi (present) which most translators have marked with the word “now.” Again, justified here does not mean “got converted” or “got saved.” Rather, they received God’s favorable judgment or righteousness and covenant membership without the deeds of Torah by the gift of his grace. Apolotroseos (apolutrosis in the nominative) would have for the 1^st century Jew the immediate connotation of deliverance from Egypt. It came through Greek as a slave market word, and was the classic Septuagint term to describe God’s deliverance of Israel from the bondage of Egypt…unto his covenant. En Christo here is an example of Paul’s incorporatative use of the word Christos. It could just as easily read “in Jesus’ Messiah-ship.”

25 Which God forepurposed a hilasterion through [the] faith in his blood unto the demonstration of his righteousness through the overlooking of forehappened sins

An incredible verse. There is some question whether hilasterion (originally, mercy-seat) refers to an expiation (forgiveness of a sin) or propitiation (appeasement of wrath). I don’t have the time or expertise to undertake a full lexical investigation, but I’d cast my pebble with propitiation, which would of course include the expiative force as well. This would tie in again to the whole apocalyptic key of Paul’s writing from 1.18 through the present point in the argument. God’s wrath is being revealed…but here is the propitiation of that wrath. It’s also unclear whether the faith in his blood is our faith, or Jesus’ faith/faithfulness. Unlike v.22, there isn’t a clear grammatical clue. For that reason I’m leaving it ambiguous in my translation, though I’d lean towards the precedent in 22. Forehappened is a crude literalisation of progegonoton, but “sins already committed” would be perfectly fine. First reference to the cross is in this verse.

26 In God’s forbearance, for the demonstration of his righteousness in the present time, unto his being just and justifying him faithful in Jesus.

Note the “old” covenant in Paul’s theology always did look to the present time. The pronouns are difficult to express clearly in the latter half of the verse, but they express God’s being just (dikaion) and doing the justifying (dikaiounta) of the person (just an article) who is faithful/has faith/believes in Jesus—the exact same pisteos construction as v.22, but expressing a different harmonic idea (to borrow a musical analogy) by the change in syntax to the objective genitive.

27 Where therefore boasting? It is excluded. By what of Torah? Of works? No, but rather through the Law of faith.

As you see, Paul has his argument in 2:17 while he writes this full exposition of the new dikaiosune, and it is to that question, not the question of “how does one get saved” that he addresses the argument. Excluded is exekleisthe, literally “locked out.” By what of Torah (dia poiou nomou) could come out as by what part or sort of Torah? Of the works part? But even if you translate the first instance Torah, the second needs to be Law…a Torah of Faith instead of a Torah of circumcision, etc.

28 For we are accounted to be a man justified by faith apart from works of Torah.

Apart or without. Accounted is logizometha again. Justified as earlier.

29 Or is God of the Jews alone? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, also of the Gentiles.

Sets up v. 30, which is the shema.

30 Since God is one which justifies the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

“Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.” Monotheism and Torah, two of the Jewish theological foundations are reworked here in 27-31. Using the words heis ho theos evokes the prayer quite as quickly as the words “I pledge allegiance” or “Our Father which art” or the “Lord is My Shepherd” bring their next lines to us. I’m not going to attempt an exposition of why Paul uses ek for the circumcision and dia for the uncircumcision. We’ll say he was just going for variety.

31 Therefore is the Torah nullified through faith? May it not be! Rather we stand the Torah.

Stand is histanomen, which is a very facile word. Could just as easily be uphold or confirm. Nullified is the same word as earlier, katargoumen. The Torah is not emptied of its power, the Torah is fulfilled.