Chapter 3
Opens with questions. If Jews are held to a higher standard because of their knowledge, then why would anyone want to be a Jew? So Paul continues addressing this part of his letter to the Jewish Christians at Rome. He continues to "undermine" their pride of heritage.
2022 - Or maybe it should be phrased, if it is a matter of the heart, and not of physical circumcision, then why would anyone even want to be a Jew, why would anyone be proud they were a Jew, why would anyone want the prejudice against them that Jews always draw?
First reason, because the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. The Jews have the OT and they have been entrusted with its preservation for millennia!
There is something here...something important...
This verse:
5 But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) [Rom 3:5 ESV]
So...If, when we do something wrong, and God forgives it, therefore showing to all the world that He is a righteous God, why would He punish us for "helping" Him to show how good he is?
Paul says this is a "non-starter" argument, because if you take this position, then God could never judge the world at all. But God is the world's judge, and judges always judge wrongdoing, even if some good to someone comes of it. It is not logical to say that we do something wrong on purpose so that God's grace in forgiving us can be made greater. Because committing an offense against God can never be seen as a way to honor God. It is a ridiculous notion. Ok...that seems to be on the right track to what Paul is saying.
2023 - Oh my...here it is yet again. This is the Bill Burr Argument yet again. This time Paul himself addresses it, and points out the internal contradiction of the original question. The question itself first builds a false picture of God, and then says that false picture of God shows him to be false.
2025 - A strawman argument!!! A known fallacy, not a brilliant insight!!! The question itself stipulates what God must be in order for US to accept him! This god the questioner sets up is NOT the God of the Bible, because nowhere does God say there will be no suffering. The God of the Bible says accept his Son, and spend eternity in heaven, because IN HEAVEN there will be no suffering, no wrong, no accidents. And this offer from the God revealed by the Bible, is the BEST Offer you're every going to get!!!
A loving God would not allow suffering.
There is suffering.
Therefore God is not a loving God.
(Therefore I will not worship him).
The fallacy is in the first line. You are defining a God that exists only in your mind. I believe in the God of the Bible. The God in whom I believe created a perfect world. Adam disobeyed and corrupted what had been perfect. God could have destroyed him and stopped history. But instead he found a way to cure the problem. He sacrificed his own Son to pay for the sin that corrupts the world. If we accept his Son, we spend eternity with God, in another place, and place uncorrupted and incorruptible by sin. In THAT place, and that place alone, my God does not allow suffering.
Sin causes death.
People in heaven are immortal.
Therefore, people in heaven do not sin.
Ok...let me see if I can get this down. Look at vs 5: If we sin, and God forgives our sin, then our failures show how merciful he is. So really, our sins serve to demonstrate what a wonderful merciful God we have. If our sins therefore proclaim how good God is, then how can he judge us for our sins??? So not quite BB, but look how similar! Burr starts with "If God made us this way, how can he blame us for being this way?" Paul's hypothetical is "If God is shown merciful by our sin, how can he blame us for making Him look good?" Paul's answer is that if this were the right way to look at things, it would be impossible for God to judge the world. Look at where the logic goes...If God's forgiveness of sin makes Him look better, and we say therefore we ought to honor him by doing what he hates so that he can forgive it, then we would have a world whee the absolute worst sins you could commit would the most honoring to God. The worse the sin he forgives, the more merciful he is shown to be. This kind of reinforcement system not only ENCOURAGE sin, but encourages the worse sins we can come up with! It makes the worst of sinners, the most heinous of sinners, the ones who bring the most glory to God. NO ONE would want the world to work that way! So can we make a similar counter to the BB argument? The BB question comes down to "Why did he make us flawed?" Did he make us imperfectly so that he can show his mercy by forgiving us...and therefore is it fair for him to judge us for our flaws since he himself created us with flaws. I think Burr's question is different. What the BB question implies, without saying it, is that the reason we sin is that God created us imperfectly! THAT IS THE HIDDEN ASSUMPTION!!!! And if God DID create us imperfectly, then Burr is right and he is unjust to condemn us. So the key is that God DID NOT create us imperfectly, but he DID gives us freedom to choose right or wrong, and history most certainly proves that we prefer wrong. So either God could create us in a way that we would NEVER sin, in which case he could never NEED to condemn us, or he could create us with freedom of choice, and then judge us for rebelling using the very gift he freely gave us. By giving us free will He proved that he is not a heavenly tyrant directing every thought and choice we make! Free will proves that he wants us to see, as he does, that goodness, righteousness and mercy are the GOOD way and he wants us to be able to CHOOSE that on our own rather than to hard wire it into us. If we had no freedom of choice, then God WOULD be responsible for our sins. That is not the world God created, and we all KNOW this all the way to the core. Slap Bill Burr for no reason and see if he blames God...or the one that slapped him!
Then these two verses:
7 But if through my lie God's truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? 8 And why not do evil that good may come?--as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just. [Rom 3:7-8 ESV]
These seem to be Paul's version of what I wrote above. Claiming to glorify God by disobeying God is a ridiculous way to look at this.
BUT, this is different from Bill Burr saying that if God has made all the choices already then how can he blame us for what we do. I thought these verses were addressing the Bill Burr position, but that is not what they are doing.
Read the MSB notes as to the quotations of vvs 10-18. There, it says these verses are Paul's summary condemnation of all men, everywhere, in all times. There are many MSB notes on the individual phrases.
2022 - I also think we have to ask whether this practice is something that is becoming prevalent among the Jews in the church at Rome. I wonder if they are sinning, and then praising God for forgiving them for that sin...though there is no repentance.
Or...is the argument that if you are a Jew, you are chosen, and special to God, and He keeps you from sin. So if you do sin, is it ok to say that God that stepped away and let you sin? You have the oracles of God, they ought to make you righteous. And if they "slip", isn't that on God for not giving you what you need? And Paul's answer is don't be silly, of course not.
2022 - Vs 9 is a new paragraph. MSB seems to think it begins Paul's summary of his first point, that all have sinned. He has spent the previous verses showing that Jews also, though chosen, are also guilty of sin, and that they are not treated differently when they sin because they are Jews. If we "embrace" that our sin makes God more righteous by his forgiving those sins, always, rather than condemning them, then He can never judge sin, but is put into the position of almost welcoming sin - because forgiving it makes him more righteous. Is that the real solution to Bill Burr's claim? If God is in charge, and we sin, why does He get so mad - after all, forgiving us, rather than judging us, just makes Him look better? Because that puts God in a position where He must actually prefer that we DO sin, and this is not God's character, and we know it is not because He says He hates sin.
Moving on...getting bogged down and I don't think I'm really clarifying anything here.
2023 - Verse 9 makes it clear that MSB's outline is correct. First Gentiles, then Jews are shown to be equally sinners.
2022 - Vss 10-18, we are not talking about little sins. Both Jews and all others commit the sins on this list. Look how ridiculous it would be to say that God loves these sins because forgiving them displays his great mercy. No. When God forgives, He is forgiving what he hates. He hates it before he forgives it, and he hates it after.
2023 - This verse: 19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. [Rom 3:19 ESV]. We don't hear this one quoted very much, and we especially don't hear that it applies the Law to ALL mankind. I think Paul's implication here is that all are under the law, and if we apply the law as the standard for perfection, "every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world ...held accountable". If you are a Jew, the law of Moses, the religion you follow, condemns you. But also, if you are not a Jew, that same law, though not "given" to you, condemns you also, as shown in Chapter 1. Hmm...I wonder if the real point of the progression from rebellion to full on total corruption described in Chapter 1 is to show that Gentiles are informed not by the law but by creation itself as to right and wrong, as to God's will vs man's will. That even though the Law was not given them, the import of the law, the universal moral code built into all men at creation, condemns them when they rebel against it, and rebellion against the reality and rule of God as expressed in creation is worthy of God's harshest judgment. So creation informs us of God, and the Law - as expressed in the oracles of God given only to the Jews - informs us of God, leaving absolutely no one uncondemned.
This verse comes next:
21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it-- [Rom 3:21 ESV]
Paul now moves away from universal guilt and rebellion, and moves away also from the Law. Seems to be setting up a discussion of universal truth, that will apply to Jews, Greeks, barbarians and pagans, an all inclusive salvation to offset an all inclusive condemnation.
2023 - Yes...but what he is really doing is setting up the New Covenant in Christ to work as universally as the Old Covenant.
Yes, that's exactly what he does. He says the visible righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. ALL can be saved. And then comes Romans 3:23. All have sinned.
and Romans 3:24 and [all] are justified by His grace.
He condemns all, and He saves all.
We all know 23, but 24 has some pretty good things in it too:
24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, [Rom 3:24 ESV]
Therefore, nobody can brag about how their goodness, their purity, their great and fine works, have justified them before God. It wasn't a payment, it was a gift. No charge.
2023 - These verses:
"25 ...This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. [Rom 3:25-26 ESV]. The first part of this speaks to the fact that God did not go ahead and just send everyone prior to the atonement of Christ straight to hell, and only save those who came after, under the New Covenant. God "delayed sentencing" those who died before Christ in order that he might apply the extenuating circumstance of the atonement as their purchase price though it had not yet been earned. This is what it means by "passed over former sins". It does not mean those sins weren't real, nor does it mean that God didn't judge both Jews who knew the law and Gentiles who did not for any and all sins against him whether realized or not. But he WAITED to send men from Sheol to heaven or hell until the blood of Christ was offered for those who believed in him.
2025 - These verses:
The following is the REAL description of a loving God:
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. [Rom 3:23-26 ESV].
A loving God does not eschew justice by making sure even the worst of the worst never suffer, never pay. We are ALL the worst of the worst. Therefore suffering is just and right and justice is incumbent on a loving God!
And in case anyone still thinks what Paul had said in Chapter 2 about works being a "justifier", he makes sure everyone knows where he stands on that:
28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. [Rom 3:28 ESV] Keeping the law, being charitable, taking care of widows and orphans - all good works included in the law or without the law, is something apart from justification. Faith justifies. Works result!
2023 - This conclusion says that keeping the law NEVER saved anyone. The law only condemned, as the revelation of God in creation condemned all those without the law. Faith - in God under the Old, in Christ under the New and applied as the price of redemption in both Old and New - is the door to eternal salvation. It always was! So...Gentiles of old did not "need" the law to save them. They had all of nature to inspire the faith that the Jews received more directly. But they were not "in the dark".
2022 - This chapter just seems to be completely over my head this time through. I don't remember it being such a problem before. I think the problem today is that I am reading 3 as a stand alone chapter, and all my notes are telling me it goes with chapter 2. I even have that note where MSB says part of this chapter is a summary and conclusion of what went before. But today, I cannot seem to connect it back.