Day 36–Romans 3
Passage for the Day
1 What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? 2 Much in every way! First of all, the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God.
3 What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? 4 Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written:
“So that you may be proved right when you speak
and prevail when you judge.”
5 But if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) 6 Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? 7 Someone might argue, “If my falsehood enhances God’s truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?” 8 Why not say—as we are being slanderously reported as saying and as some claim that we say—”Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is just!
9 What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. 10 As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”
13 ”Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.”
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
14 ”Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
15 ”Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 ruin and misery mark their ways,
17 and the way of peace they do not know.”
18 ”There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.
21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the “law” that requires faith. 28 For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from observing the law. 29 Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30 since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 31 Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.
Points of interest:
· For the next five days, we’ll be reading from the New Testament letters of Paul, our friend from the Acts passages. As we saw in those Acts passages, Paul did quite a bit of traveling around the Mediterranean world. He would come to a town, share the story of Jesus, start a church among those who were interested, and then move on to the next town rather quickly. Often, he would use letters to answer questions that came up after he left. This letter to the Romans is instead a letter of introduction; Paul is planning on visiting Rome, and he sends this letter ahead to explain who he is and what he believes.
· ‘What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew?’—this is a question the early church was immensely interested in. Now that they’ve discovered that salvation and the Holy Spirit are available to the Gentiles, it has opened up a pretty big question: What was that 2000-year-old covenant with the Israelites all about then? Was everything the Israelites went through meaningless? Has God changed his mind? Has he abandoned the Israelites? Not only Jews would be interested in the answers to these questions; they had implications for God’s trustworthiness in general. If God backed out of his agreement with the Jews, how can we trust him to fulfill his current promises to the Gentiles?
· ‘Much in every way!’—the Jews have not been cheated, by any means. From the time of Abraham to the time of Jesus, God gave more attention to the Jews, speaking to them and showing them his ways. They had much more information about who God is, and many more examples of how to relate to God.
· ‘Let us do evil that good may result’—people are exaggerating Paul’s message about God’s grace to discredit it or mock it. If our mistakes and failures are chances for God to show his mercy and power, shouldn’t we fail as often as possible? That way God can show just how powerful and forgiving God is. I think their point is that if you depend on grace and faith instead of on the rules, you encourage bad behavior. While Paul later goes on to answer this concern further, he starts by saying that the line of thinking is an absurd distortion of what grace is all about. Sin and death aren’t enjoyable; they’re things people want and need to be rescued from. So, if you want to use grace as an excuse to sin more, go right ahead, Paul is saying: you’ll just be making yourself miserable.
· ‘Do we have any advantage? Not at all!’—this seems an awful lot like a contradiction. Having just said that the Jews have many advantages of every kind, he now says that they have none of any kind. What on earth does Paul mean? I think what he’s saying is that the Jews possess the advantage of knowing more about God and having more access to God—both good things—but that it doesn’t necessarily make them better, happier, more faithful people. In fact, much of the history of the Jews tells the story of their consistent rejection of God. It’s not God, but the Jews, who were unfaithful to their covenant.
· ‘As it is written’—what follows is a medley of quotes from the Psalms, with a little Isaiah thrown in. The message is clear: people are predisposed to mistreat God, others, and even themselves.
· ‘whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law’—it might have been tempting for the Jews to assume that the medley above referred to those bad people on the outside. Paul says, ‘Of course not. You can only break a law if you’re in its jurisdiction.’ The law he’s referring to here is the terms of the covenant between God and Israel. So, these terrible lawbreakers can’t be the Gentiles—it’s not their law, after all—but must actually be the Jews.
· ‘all are justified freely’—to be justified means to be made right, to be set straight. God is willing and able to straighten out anything crooked in our lives.
· ‘Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded’—the Jews might be tempted to think highly of themselves because of their special relationship with God. The fact that they’ve disregarded much of what God has told them undercuts their ability to boast in that way. Everyone is equal before God.
· ‘there is only one God’—Paul is citing the most important, most famous commandment in the law: ‘Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength’ (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). I think he’s doing a little teasing of these fans of the law: ‘Have you read the law about there being only one God?’ God is the same God, for Jews and for Gentiles. That’s what the law says.
· ‘Rather, we uphold the law’—the same commandment from the note above goes on to say, ‘These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts’ (Deuteronomy 6:6). Jesus’ death and resurrection, and the subsequent pouring out of the Holy Spirit on Jews and Gentiles alike, fulfills this very law.
Taking it home:
· For you: Think for a moment about who you would like to be—the ideal you, the person that you want to be in your own eyes, the eyes of others, and maybe even the eyes of God. Now think for a moment about the person you actually are. Are there some things you really dislike about yourself, things you get frustrated by, a consistent area that you continually feel doesn’t go well for you? What would it mean for you to know that Jesus fully accepts you in spite of all the things that you wish were different? How would it change how you relate to God? How you think about yourself? Ask God to help you know what it feels like to be ‘justified freely.’
· For your six: Pray that your six would be open to receiving God’s grace, and that it would positively affect how they live life, offering them a deep sense of freedom and joy.
· For America: Whether at a national, state or local level, America is a country comprised of all sorts of different groups of people, and each of these groups can spend a fair amount of time trying to prove how they are better than the rest. Pray for a stop to this rivalry and boasting. Pray that all of the different camps would have radical humility, letting go of their sense of superiority and learning to peacefully interact with one another.
April 6th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
I think, for me, there is a great freedom in knowing that the law has been fulfilled, that I am fully justified by Jesus’ sacrifice. Much more than a safety net, this freedom allows me to stand taller, to have more faith, and to radically seek opportunities. The freedom, for me, is not the ability to freely sin but to freely live.