Charles Ellicott Commentary Romans 3

Continuing the subject, but with a long digression in Romans 3:3 and following. The Apostle asks, What is the real value of these apparent advantages? He is about to answer the question fully, as he does later in Romans 9:4-5; but after stating the first point, he digresses to address a difficulty raised by this, and does not return to complete what he had started. This, again, is characteristic of his ardent and keenly speculative mind. Problems such as those that he discusses evidently hold a fascination for him, and lead him, here as elsewhere, to immediately leave the current subject and eagerly enter into their discussion. A more lethargic or timid brain would be under no such temptation.

One real and solid advantage for the Jew was that he was the direct recipient of the divine revelation. His privilege is not annulled by the unfaithfulness of some of the people. It does not rest upon the precarious faithfulness of people, but upon the infallible promise of God. Yet, the ultimate triumph of that promise is not an excuse for those who have disregarded it. They will be punished just the same, and rightly. Otherwise there could be no judgment at all. The casuistical objection that sin loses its guilt if it results in God’s glory, or, in other words, that the end justifies the means, carries its own condemnation.

Chiefly.—In the first place; a "secondly," and so on, was to follow but does not, as the Apostle is drawn away to other topics (see above).

Unto them were committed.—This is paraphrastic. "Oracle" is the object, not the subject, of the sentence. It means, "They were entrusted with."

Oracles.—This is a good translation; it refers to the Scriptures of the Old Testament as containing a revelation of God.

For what if.—What follows if, and so on? Or we may take the first two words by themselves, and join the next two clauses together. How does the matter stand? If some rejected the faith, will their rejection nullify or undermine the faithfulness of God?

The Apostle considers an objection that might be brought against his argument that the divine revelation granted to them was a special privilege of the Jewish people. It might be said that they had forfeited and cancelled this privilege by their unbelief. He first reduces the objection to its proper limits: it was not all, but some, who were unbelievers. But granting that there were some who did not believe, this fact would have no power to shake the eternal promises of God.

Impossible! Rather, let God be seen to be true, though all mankind should be proved false, even as the Psalmist looked upon his own sin as serving to enhance the triumph of God’s justice. Speaking of that justice for the moment as if it could be arraigned before the bar of a still higher tribunal, he asserts its absolute and complete acquittal.

That thou mightest be justified.—Strictly, in order that, here as in the Hebrew of the Psalm. Good is, in some way inscrutable to us, brought out from evil, and this is clearly foreseen by God and forms part of His design, though in such a way as not to interfere with the free-will of man. Religion assumes that the two things, free-will and omnipotence, are reconcilable, though how they are to be reconciled seems an insoluble problem. The same difficulty applies to every system except one of blank fatalism and atheism. But the theory of fatalism, if logically carried out, would simply destroy human society.

Psalms 51:0, in which the quotation occurs, is commonly (in accordance with the heading), though perhaps wrongly, ascribed to David after his sin with Bathsheba. The effect of this sin is to throw into the strongest relief the justice of the sentence by which it is followed and punished. The original is, That thou mightest be just in thy speaking; that thou mightest be pure in thy judging. St. Paul adopts the rendering of the LXX., who make the last word passive instead of active, thus making it apply, not to the sentence given by God, but to the imaginary trial to which, by a figure of speech, that sentence itself is supposed to be submitted.

But if our unrighteousness.—A new and profound question suggests itself to the mind of the Apostle, and his keen intellect will not let it go: “If the sin (here the unbelief) of man only tends to vindicate (commends or establishes) the righteousness of God, why should that sin be punished?” The mere raising of such a question requires an apology; it is only as one human might speak about another human that he dares to express such a thought.

That, too, is an impossible objection, for if it were valid, there could not be any judgment. No sin would be punishable, for all sin would serve to emphasize the strict veracity of God in His denunciations of it, and therefore would ultimately contribute to His glory. It would thus cease to be sinful, and there would be nothing to hinder us from adopting the principle that is so slanderously attributed to us—that it is lawful to do evil that good may come. A slander it is, and any such principle with all that pertains to it—i.e., with the whole of the preceding argument—is justly condemned.