Romans 3
3
1 So then, what more is the Jew, or what is the usefulness of circumcision?
2 Much in every way: First of all, certainly, because the eloquence of God was entrusted to them.
3 But what if some of them have not believed? Shall their unbelief nullify the faith of God? Let it not be so!
4 For God is truthful, but every man is deceitful; just as it was written: "Therefore, you are justified in your words, and you will prevail when you give judgment."
5 But if even our injustice points to the justice of God, what shall we say? Could God be unfair for inflicting wrath?
6 (I am speaking in human terms.) Let it not be so! Otherwise, how would God judge this world?
7 For if the truth of God has abounded, through my falseness, unto his glory, why should I still be judged as such a sinner?
8 And should we not do evil, so that good may result? For so we have been slandered, and so some have claimed we said; their condemnation is just.
9 What is next? Should we try to excel ahead of them? By no means! For we have accused all Jews and Greeks to be under sin,
10 just as it was written: "There is no one who is just.
11 There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks God.
12 All have gone astray; together they have become useless. There is no one who does good; there is not even one.
13 Their throat is an open sepulcher. With their tongues, they have been acting deceitfully. The venom of asps is under their lips.
14 Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood.
16 Grief and unhappiness are in their ways.
17 And the way of peace they have not known.
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes."
19 But we know that whatever the law speaks, it speaks to those who are in the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the entire world may be subject to God.
20 For in his presence no flesh shall be justified by the works of the law. For knowledge of sin is through the law.
21 But now, without the law, the justice of God, to which the law and the prophets have testified, has been made manifest.
22 And the justice of God, though the faith of Jesus Christ, is in all those and over all those who believe in him. For there is no distinction.
23 For all have sinned and all are in need of the glory of God.
24 We have been justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
25 whom God has offered as a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to reveal his justice for the remission of the former offenses,
26 and by the forbearance of God, to reveal his justice in this time, so that he himself might be both the Just One and the Justifier of anyone who is of the faith of Jesus Christ.
27 So then, where is your self-exaltation? It is excluded. Through what law? That of works? No, but rather through the law of faith.
28 For we judge a man to be justified by faith, without the works of the law.
29 Is God of the Jews only and not also of the Gentiles? On the contrary, of the Gentiles also.
30 For One is the God who justifies circumcision by faith and uncircumcision through faith.
31 Are we then destroying the law through faith? Let it not be so! Instead, we are making the law stand.
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Romans 3
3
1-2a So what difference does it make who’s a Jew and who isn’t, who has been trained in God’s ways and who hasn’t? As it turns out, it makes a lot of difference—but not the difference so many have assumed.
2b-6 First, there’s the matter of being put in charge of writing down and caring for God’s revelation, these Holy Scriptures. So, what if, in the course of doing that, some of those Jews abandoned their post? God didn’t abandon them. Do you think their faithlessness cancels out his faithfulness? Not on your life! Depend on it: God keeps his word even when the whole world is lying through its teeth. Scripture says the same:
Your words stand fast and true;
Rejection doesn’t faze you.
But if our wrongdoing only underlines and confirms God’s rightdoing, shouldn’t we be commended for helping out? Since our lies don’t even make a dent in his truth, isn’t it wrong of God to back us to the wall and hold us to our word? These questions come up. The answer to such questions is no, a most emphatic No! How else would things ever get straightened out if God didn’t do the straightening?
7-8It’s simply perverse to say, “If my lies serve to show off God’s truth all the more gloriously, why blame me? I’m doing God a favor.” Some people are actually trying to put such words in our mouths, claiming that we go around saying, “The more evil we do, the more good God does, so let’s just do it!” That’s pure slander, as I’m sure you’ll agree.
We’re All in the Same Sinking Boat
9-20So where does that put us? Do we Jews get a better break than the others? Not really. Basically, all of us, whether insiders or outsiders, start out in identical conditions, which is to say that we all start out as sinners. Scripture leaves no doubt about it:
There’s nobody living right, not even one,
nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God.
They’ve all taken the wrong turn;
they’ve all wandered down blind alleys.
No one’s living right;
I can’t find a single one.
Their throats are gaping graves,
their tongues slick as mudslides.
Every word they speak is tinged with poison.
They open their mouths and pollute the air.
They race for the honor of sinner-of-the-year,
litter the land with heartbreak and ruin,
Don’t know the first thing about living with others.
They never give God the time of day.
This makes it clear, doesn’t it, that whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first place! And it’s clear enough, isn’t it, that we’re sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else? Our involvement with God’s revelation doesn’t put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else’s sin.
God Has Set Things Right
21-24But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.
25-26God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public—to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured. This is not only clear, but it’s now—this is current history! God sets things right. He also makes it possible for us to live in his rightness.
27-28So where does that leave our proud Jewish insider claims and counterclaims? Canceled? Yes, canceled. What we’ve learned is this: God does not respond to what we do; we respond to what God does. We’ve finally figured it out. Our lives get in step with God and all others by letting him set the pace, not by proudly or anxiously trying to run the parade.
29-30And where does that leave our proud Jewish claim of having a corner on God? Also canceled. God is the God of outsider non-Jews as well as insider Jews. How could it be otherwise since there is only one God? God sets right all who welcome his action and enter into it, both those who follow our religious system and those who have never heard of our religion.
31But by shifting our focus from what we do to what God does, don’t we cancel out all our careful keeping of the rules and ways God commanded? Not at all. What happens, in fact, is that by putting that entire way of life in its proper place, we confirm it.
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.