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Romans 3:1-8. It might easily seem, at this point, as if the Apostle’s argument had proved too much. He has shown that the mere possession of the law does not exempt the Jew from judgment, but that God requires its fulfilment; he has shown that circumcision in the flesh, seal though it be of the covenant and pledge of its promises, is only of value if it represent inward heart circumcision; he has, it may be argued, reduced the Jew to a position of entire equality with the Gentile. But the consciousness of the Jewish race must protest against such a conclusion. “Salvation is of the Jews” is a word of Christ Himself, and the Apostle is obliged to meet this instinctive protest of the ancient people of God. The whole of the difficulties it raises are more elaborately considered in chaps. 9–11; here it is only discussed so far as to make plain that it does not invalidate the arguments of chap. 2, nor bar the development of the Apostle’s theology. The advantage of the Jew is admitted; it is admitted that his unbelief may even act as a foil to God’s faithfulness, setting it in more glorious relief; but it is insisted, that if God’s character as righteous judge of the world is to be maintained—as it must be—these admissions do not exempt the Jew from that liability to judgment which has just been demonstrated. The details of the interpretation, especially in Romans 3:7 f., are somewhat perplexed.

Romans 3:1 f. τὸ περισσὸν τοῦ Ἰουδαίου is that which the Jew has “over and above” the Gentile. τίς ἡ ὠφέλεια τῆς περιτομῆς; = “What good does his circumcision do him?” πολὺ goes with τὸ περισσόν. κατὰ πάντα τρόπον: however you choose to view the position. πρῶτον μὲν suggests that such an enumeration of Jewish prerogatives might have been made here as is given at length in Romans 9:4 f. In point of fact, Paul mentions one only, in which the whole force of the Jewish objection to the arguments of chap. 2 is contained, and after disposing of it feels that he has settled the question, and passes on. The first, most weighty, and most far-reaching advantage of the Jews, is that “they were entrusted with the oracles of God”. They were made in His grace the depositaries and guardians of revelation. τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ must be regarded as the contents of revelation, having God as their author, and at the time when Paul wrote, identical with the O.T. Scriptures. In the LXX the word λόγιον occurs mainly as the equivalent of אִמְרָה, which in various passages (e.g., Psalm 119:38) has the sense of “promise”; in ordinary Greek it means “oracle,” the Divine word given at a shrine, and usually referring to the future; hence it would be natural in using it to think of the prophetic rather than the statutory element in the O.T., and this is what is required here. The O.T. as a whole, and as a revelation of God, has a forward look; it anticipates completion and excites hope; and it is not too much to say that this is suggested by describing it as τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ. The sum of it was that God had promised to His people “a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11 : see margin, R.V.), and this promise seemed threatened by the argument of the last chapter.

Romans 3:3 f. τί γάρ; For how? i.e., Well then, how stands the case? Cf. Php 1:18. εἰ ἠπίστησάν τινες = if some did disbelieve. It is not necessary to render this, with reference to ἐπιστεύθησαν in Romans 3:2, “if some proved faithless to their trust”. What is in Paul’s mind is that “the oracles of God” have had their fulfilment in Christ, and that those to whom they were entrusted have in some cases (whether few or many he does not here consider) refused their faith to that fulfilment. Surely it is no proper inference that their unbelief must make God’s faithfulness of no effect. He has kept His promise, and as far as it lay with Him has maintained the original advantage of the Jews, as depositaries and first inheritors of that promise, whatever reception they may have given to its fulfilment. Away with the thought of any reflection upon Him! When the case is stated between God and man there can only be one conclusion: let God come out (γινέσθω) true, and every man a liar; let Him be just, and every man condemned. This agrees with the words of Scripture itself in Psalms 51 (50):6, which Paul quotes exactly after the LXX: the Hebrew is distinctly different, but neither it nor the original context are regarded. ἐν τοῖς λόγοις σου is a translation of Hebrew words which mean “when Thou speakest,” i.e., apparently, when Thou pronouncest sentence upon man; here the sense must be, “that Thou mayest be pronounced just in respect of what Thou hast spoken,” i.e., the λόγια, the oracles or promises entrusted to Israel, νικήσεις: win thy case (see note on text). Burton, Moods and Tenses, §§ 198, 199. ἐν τῷ κρίνεσθαί σε: Probably the infinitive is passive: “when thou art judged”; not middle, “when thou submittest thy case to the judge”. The quotation from Psalm 115:2, πᾶς ἄνθρωπος ψεύστης, is not important: the main thing, as the formal quotation which follows shows, is the vindication of God from the charge of breach of faith with the Jews in making Christianity the fulfilment of His promises to them.

Romans 3:5 f. Here another attempt is made to invalidate the conclusion of chap. 2, that the Jew is to be judged “according to his works,” exactly like the Gentile. If the argument of Romans 3:3 f. is correct, the unbelief of the Jews actually serves to set off the faithfulness of God: it makes it all the more conspicuous; how then can it leave them exposed to judgment? This argument is generalised in Romans 3:5 and answered in Romans 3:6. “If our unrighteousness” (in the widest sense, ἀδικία being generalised from πίστις, Romans 3:3) demonstrates (cf. Romans 5:8) God’s righteousness (also in the widest sense, δικαιοσύνη being generalised from πίστις, Romans 3:3), what shall we say? i.e., what inference shall we draw? Surely not that God, He who inflicts the wrath due to unrighteousness at the last day (Romans 1:18), is Himself unrighteous, to speak as men speak. Away with the thought! If this were so, how should God judge the world? That God does judge the world at last is a fixed point both for Paul and those with whom he argues; hence every inference which conflicts with it must be summarily set aside. God could not judge at all if He were unjust; therefore, since He does judge, He is not unjust, not even in judging men whose unrighteousness may have served as a foil to His righteousness. It is not thus that the conclusions of chap. 2 can be evaded by the Jew. ὁ ἐπιφέρων τὴν ὀργήν: the “attributive participle equivalent to a relative clause, may, like a relative clause, convey a subsidiary idea of cause, purpose, condition or concession” (Burton, Moods and Tenses, § 428, who renders here: is God unrighteous, who (because He) visiteth with wrath?). κατὰ ἄνθρωπον λέγω: cf. Galatians 3:15, Romans 6:19, 1 Corinthians 9:8. There is always something apologetic in the use of such expressions. Men forget the difference between God and themselves when they contemplate such a situation as that God should be unrighteous; obviously it is not to be taken seriously. Still, in human language such suppositions are made, and Paul begs that in his lips they may not be taken for more than they really mean.

Romans 3:7 f. These verses are extremely difficult, and are interpreted variously according to the force assigned to the τί ἔτι κἀγὼ of Romans 3:7. Who or what supplies the contrast to this emphatic “I also”? Some commentators, Gifford, for instance, find it in God, and God’s interest in the judgment. If my lie sets in relief the truth of God, and so magnifies His glory, is not that enough? Why, after God has had this satisfaction from my sin, “why further am I also on my side brought to judgment as a sinner?” It is a serious, if not a final objection to this, that it merely repeats the argument of Romans 3:5, which the Apostle has already refuted. Its very generality, too—for any man, as Gifford himself says, may thus protest against being judged,—lessens its relevance: for Paul is discussing not human evasions of God’s judgment, but Jewish objections to his previous arguments. Lipsius finds the contrast to κἀγὼ in the Gentile world. A Jew is the speaker, or at all events the Apostle speaks in the character of one: “if my unbelief does magnify His faithfulness, is not that all that is required? Why am I, too, like the rest of the world, whose relation to God is so different, and whose judgment is so necessary, still brought into judgment?” This would be legitimate enough, probably, if it were not for what follows. But the slander of Romans 3:8, which forms part of the same question as τί ἔτι κἀγὼ κ.τ.λ., and to which reference is made again in chap. Romans 6:1; Romans 6:15, had not the Jews, but the Apostle in his Christian character, for its object; hence it seems preferable to take the κἀγὼ as referring strictly to himself. That Paul would come into judgment, in spite of the fact that his faithlessness in becoming a Christian had only set off the faithfulness of God to Israel, no unbelieving Jew questioned: and Paul turns this conviction of theirs (with which, of course, he agrees, so far as it asserts that he will be judged) against themselves. If he, for his part, cannot evade judgment, on the ground that his sin (as they think it) has been a foil to God’s righteousness, no more can they on their part: they and he are in one position, and must be judged together: to condemn him is to expose themselves to condemnation; that is his point. The argument of Romans 3:7 is both an argumentum ad hominem and an argumentum ad rem: Paul borrows from his opponents the premises that he himself is to be judged as a sinner, and that his lie has set off God’s truth: there is enough in these premises to serve his purpose, which is to show that these two propositions which do not exclude each other in his case do not do so in their case either. But, of course, he would interpret the second in a very different way from them. The question is continued in Romans 3:8, though the construction is changed by the introduction of the parentheses with καθὼς and the attachment to λέγειν ὅτι of the clause which would naturally have gone with τί μή; If judgment could be evaded by sinning to the glory of God, so Paul argues, he and other Christians like him might naturally act on the principle which slander imputed to them—that of doing evil that good might come. No doubt the slander was of Jewish origin. The doctrine that righteousness is a gift of God, not to be won by works of law, but by faith in Jesus Christ, can always be misrepresented as immoral: “sin the more, it will only the more magnify grace” Paul does not stoop to discuss it. The judgment that comes on those who by such perversions of reason and conscience seek to evade all judgment is just. This is all he has to say.

Romans 3:9-20. In these verses the Apostle completes his proof of the universality of sin, and of the liability of all men, without exception, to judgment. The τί οὖν of Romans 3:9 brings back the argument from the digression of Romans 3:1-8. In those verses he has shown that the historical prerogative of the Jews, as the race entrusted with the oracles of God, real and great as it is, does not exempt them from the universal rule that God will reward every man according to his works (Romans 2:6): here, according to the most probable interpretation of προεχόμεθα, he puts himself in the place of his fellow-countrymen, and imagines them asking, “Are we surpassed? Is it the Gentiles who have the advantage of us, instead of our having the advantage of them?”

Romans 3:9. Τί οὖν; What then? i.e., how, then, are we to understand the situation? It is necessary to take these words by themselves, and make προεχόμεθα a separate question: the answer to τί could not be οὐ, but must be οὐδέν. The meaning of προεχόμεθα has been much discussed. The active προέχειν means to excel or surpass. Many have taken προεχόμεθα as middle in the same sense: So the Vulg. praecellimus eos? and the A.V. “Are we better than they?” But this use, except in interpreters of this verse, cannot be proved. The ordinary meaning of the middle would be “to put forward on one’s own account, as an excuse, or defence”. This is the rendering in the margin of the R.V. “Do we excuse ourselves?” If τί οὖν προεχόμεθα could be taken together, it might certainly be rendered, What then is our plea? but it is impossible to take προεχόμεθα in this sense without an object, and impossible, as already explained, to make this combination. The only alternative is to regard προεχόμεθα as passive: What then? are we excelled? This is the meaning adopted in the R.V. “Are we in worse case than they?” It is supported by Lightfoot. Wetstein quotes one example from Plut. de Stoic. contrad., 1038 D.: τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς πᾶσι προσήκει, κατʼ οὐδὲν προεχομένοις ὑπὸ τοῦ Διός: “who are in nothing surpassed by Zeus”. The word would thus express the surprise of the Jew at seeing his prerogatives disappear; “if this line of argument be carried further,” he may be supposed to say, “the relative positions of Jew and Gentile will turn out to be the very reverse of what we have believed”. This is the idea which is negatived in οὐ πάντως. Strictly speaking, the οὐ should modify πάντως, and the meaning be “not in every respect”: in some respects (for instance, the one referred to in Romans 3:2), a certain superiority would still belong to the Jew. But to allude to this seems irrelevant, and there is no difficulty in taking the words to mean, “No: not in any way”. See Winer, p. 693 f. “We are not surpassed at all, we who are Jews, for we have already brought against Jews and Greeks alike the charge of being all under sin.” ὑπὸ ἁμαρτίαν, cf. Romans 7:14, Galatians 3:22. The idea is that of being under the power of sin, as well as simply sinful: men are both guilty and unable to escape from that condition.

Romans 3:10. The long series of quotations, beginning with this verse, has many points of interest. The καθὼς γέγραπται with which it is introduced, shows that the assertion of indiscriminate sinfulness which the Apostle has just made, corresponds with Scripture testimony. It is as if he had said, I can express my opinion in inspired words, and therefore it has God upon its side. The quotations themselves are taken from various parts of the O.T. without distinction; no indication is given when the writer passes from one book to another. Thus Romans 3:10-12 are from Psalm 14:1-3; Romans 3:13 gives the LXX of Psalm 5:9; Romans 3:14 corresponds best to Psalm 10:7; in Romans 3:15-17 there is a condensation of Isaiah 59:7 f.; and in Romans 3:18 we have part of the first verse of Psalms 36. No attention whatever is paid to the context. The value of the quotations for the Apostle’s purpose has been disputed. It has been pointed out that in Psalms 14, for instance, there is mention of a people of God, “a generation of the righteous,” as well as of the godless world; and that in other passages only the contemporaries of the writer, or some of them, and not all men in all times, are described. Perhaps if we admit that there is no possibility of an empirical proof of the universality of sin, it covers the truth there is in such comments. Paul does not rest his case on these words of Scripture, interpreted as modern exegetical science would interpret them. He has brought the charge of sin against all men in chap. Romans 1:17, in announcing righteousness as the gift of the Gospel; in chap. Romans 1:18-32 he has referred to the facts which bring the charge home to Gentile consciences; in chap. 2 he has come to close quarters with evasions which would naturally suggest themselves to Jews: and in both cases he has counted upon finding in conscience a sure ally. Hence we do not need to lay too heavy a burden of proof on these quotations: it is enough if they show that Scripture points with unmistakable emphasis in the direction in which the Apostle is leading his readers. And there can be no doubt that it does so. As Gifford well says on Romans 3:18 : “In the deep inner sense which St. Paul gives to the passage, ‘the generation of the righteous’ would be the first to acknowledge that they form no exception to the universal sinfulness asserted in the opening verses of the Psalm”.

Romans 3:10. Οὐκ ἔστιν δίκαιος οὐδὲ εἶς. There is something to be said for the idea that this is Paul’s thesis, rather than a quotation of Psalm 14:3. Psalm 14:3 is correctly quoted in Romans 3:12, and the Apostle would hardly quote it twice: δίκαιος, too, seems chosen to express exactly the conclusion to which he means to come in Romans 3:20. Still, the words come after καθὼς γέγραπται: hence they must be Scripture, and there is nothing they resemble so much as a free rendering of Psalm 14:3.

Romans 3:11. οὐκ ἔστιν συνίων. For the form (συνίων or συνιῶν), see Winer, p. 97. If we read ὁ συνίων the meaning is, There is no one to understand: if the article (as in the LXX) be omitted, There is no one who has sense.

Romans 3:12. ἠχρεώθησαν is the LXX rendering of נֶאֱלָחוּ, which means “to become sour,” “to turn” (of milk): one and all they have become good for nothing. χρηστότητα usually signifies kindness, and so it is rendered in 2 Corinthians 6:6, Ephesians 2:7, Colossians 3:12, Titus 3:4 (cf. Romans 2:4; Romans 11:22 : goodness): here it answers to Hebrew טוֹב and means “good”. οὐκ ἔστιν ἕως ἑνός, non est usque ad unum (Vulg.), which may be even more exactly given in the Scottish idiom: there is not the length of one.