WWUTT 1187 By No Means? (Romans 3:4-8)

Justification by Faith and Paul’s Quick-Fire Objections

Paul was an expert debater, and he could anticipate his opponents' arguments before they made them. As he's laying out his doctrine of justification by faith in his letter to the Romans, he responds to potential arguments when we understand the text.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. We're back to our study in Romans 3, picking up where we left off yesterday, but I'm going to start out by reading these first eight verses. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome,.

Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God?

By no means. Let God be true, though everyone were a liar, as it is written, that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged. 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. By no means. For then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie God's truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner?

And why not do evil that good may come? As some people slanderously charge us with saying, their condemnation is just. You can kind of tell from just the few verses we're looking at today, Paul is kind of firing off a series of responses to arguments that would be raised against the doctrine of justification that he's been unfolding over the course of this letter.

And we have the statement in verse four that we're looking at today. As a matter of fact, this statement comes up twice in our section today, where Paul says in verse three, what if some were unfaithful?

Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? And then verse four, we have this statement by no means. In the Greek, this is my Genoita. It is the strongest statement of opposition that Paul can make.

And he's anticipating the arguments that are being made against this doctrine of justification because he's been here before. He's done this many times. He's gone into the synagogues in the respective cities that he's visited to preach the gospel and plant churches.

The synagogue was the first place that he went. And the Jews would argue against Paul's statement that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone, not by our works. Well, by many of the things that Paul preached, the Jews would argue and debate against him.

So he knows the arguments, even though he's not standing in front of the Romans here to hear them make the arguments against him. If there would be anybody that would stand up and make those arguments, or maybe Paul is even equipping the Romans to be able to respond to those arguments, should the Judaizers try to come against them and lead them astray, it could be either way.

He's either anticipating those who would argue against him, or he's equipping the Romans to be able to respond to those arguments when they will face them. But like I said, he's argued against these types before.

He knows exactly what the argument is. And some of the statements that are made against what he and the other apostles have been preaching, some of the statements made in opposition against them have just been straight up slander.

It's like there are those who are trying to say, well, Paul and his guys, they've been teaching this. And then you have the statement in verse eight, no, that's slander. If they've been accusing us of teaching that, that's slander, because that's not at all what we've been teaching.

God’s Faithfulness to His Covenant Promises

But Paul is going kind of rapidly through these responses here in just these eight verses. Some of the arguments he makes here, he fleshes out later on, like where he's talking about why not just do evil, that good may come.

He just quickly responds to it here. But then he unfolds the argument even more when you get to Romans chapter six, and we see that come up a couple of times here. So let's come back to this statement here in verse four, this mygenoita, by no means statement in verse four.

This is, of course, in response to what was said in verse three, and that's where we ended yesterday. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means.

Let God be true, though everyone were a liar. In other words, God is the one who speaks truth. We're the ones who lie. People lie. God is always true. He is true and he is faithful to himself above all.

And as he has sworn by himself, so he will do. He will fulfill specifically his promise to save the Jews, even though the Jews were unfaithful and they refused to trust in God, to obey God, to keep the commandments that he gave to them, even though they were unfaithful.

He remains faithful to them and he will fulfill his covenant promises with them, especially when it comes to saving the Jews. Now, that doesn't mean that every single Jew will be saved. But as we do see, even over the course of the New Testament, Jews come to faith in Jesus Christ.

So the promise of God to save the Jews is being fulfilled in Christ, not in a land promise, not that they're going to receive some sort of an earthly kingdom that's already come and gone. And as it says in Hebrews chapter 11, even the earthly kingdom promise was a type or a shadow that was pointing to something greater.

And that was the heavenly kingdom promise. Even those who were the faithful in the Old Testament outlined there in Hebrews chapter 11, they anticipated something greater than an earthly kingdom as well.

And if they if it was an earthly kingdom that they had been promised, then they would have had the opportunity to enter into that kingdom. But they did not. I'll quote to you exactly from Hebrews 11, verses 13 through 16.

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. So you can make the same argument from Hebrews 11, 13, as you could from what Paul is saying here in Romans three.

If they did not receive the land that God had promised them, does that mean that God was unfaithful to his promise? No, because what they were anticipating was not an earthly kingdom anyway. Verse 14, for people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city, not a city that is on earth, but a heavenly city, the heavenly Jerusalem.

That is what we are looking toward, not something that's going to happen here on planet earth, not some sort of land grant that we are owed, but we are looking toward the heavenly spiritual kingdom, the imperishable kingdom that is even greater than anything that is here on earth, which we receive in Christ Jesus.

And Paul is saying here that God is faithful to his promises to save the Jews. That's being accomplished in Christ. It's not accomplished by granting them a piece of land on earth. That promise has already been given.

It's already been fulfilled. And then it was rejected when the Jews rejected God and the land that he had given that he had given to them. He drove them out of that land. He exiled them to their enemies and gave them the opportunity even to return.

And this was all in fulfillment of those things that had been said to the Jews way back in Deuteronomy. Moses told them to keep God's covenant. When you don't, you'll be driven off the land, but God will restore you to the land.

And all of that had taken place. All of that was done over the course of the Old Testament, from Genesis, where the promise, the first covenant was made with Abraham, that this is the land that I'm going to give your descendants, from there all the way through to Esther.

We see the covenant given, the covenant broken, the people driven off the land, the people restored to the land, and then the promised Messiah, of course, would come when we get to the New Testament. In Deuteronomy chapter 28, this is where we have the blessings and curses.

If you're obedient, you're blessed. If you're disobedient, you're cursed. In Deuteronomy 28 verse 1 begins this way, and if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord, your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord, your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

Skipping down to verse 15. But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord, your God, or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.

Skipping to verse 20, the Lord will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration and all that you undertake to do until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds because you have forsaken me.

The Lord will make the pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But now consider what God has said in Deuteronomy 30 verse 1. And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord, your God has driven you and you return to the Lord, your God, you and your children and obey his voice in all that I command you today with all your heart and with all your soul, then the Lord, your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord, your God has scattered you.

And that promise was fulfilled. It was done after the exile, after they were driven out of the land to the Babylonians, and then under the captivity of the Persians, they were allowed to return to the land and God forgave them and gave them back the land that he had driven them from, just as he had promised in the book of Deuteronomy.

The Land Promise, Modern Israel, and Repentance

So what about the occupancy of that land today? The nation that exists there today as Israel, has God not restored them to that land? No, the land that they possess today is not even remotely like the kingdom that they possessed at the time of David and Solomon.

I think the land there in Israel today, what you see is Israel on a modern map is something like 20 ,000 square miles. Under Solomon, that kingdom was more than three times that. So they have not resumed possession of that land that God had promised to the descendants of Abraham.

And they never will, because the nation of Israel, as it exists today, has not repented and has not come back to the Lord. He is not granting them that land. They don't have a temple there. And there is enough turmoil and conflict going on in the Middle East to ensure they will never gain back the land that God had promised to the descendants of Abraham, nor will they build a temple in that spot.

Keep in mind again, Deuteronomy 30, verse one, when all these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I set before you and you call them to mind and you return to the Lord, your God, you and your children and obey his voice and all that I command you today with all your heart and with all your soul, then the Lord, your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you.

And he will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord, your God has scattered you. The nation of Israel, as it exists on earth today, has never repented. They have never come back to the Lord God because they do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as the son of God.

So that nation that exists there on that spot on planet Earth, God is not present with that nation. They are they are even less fearful of God now than they were in the days before Christ. So this this is not a nation of God that exists that God's blessing is somehow upon on this day.

Now, now my saying things like that, it tends to draw the ire of certain people who will accuse me of being an anti Semite. I'm telling you, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm being faithful to the theology of the scripture of God's word.

I am not trying to discriminate against any particular group of people. That nation exists and we have a an agreement with that nation is the United States of America, and we should abide by that agreement.

So I'm not saying we should we should neglect Israel or or they should not be allowed to exist as a nation today. That's not at all my argument. All I'm saying is the nation of Israel, the modern day nation, is not somehow blessed by God to receive that land that they possess.

They don't possess the land that God had promised to the descendants of Abraham, and they have not returned in repentance to the Lord God because they do not know Jesus Christ is savior. So what we understand as being stated here in Deuteronomy 30 verses one through three, this is not saying that if you repent, I'm going to return you to the land that I had driven you from.

Rather, the way that we understand it now is if you repent of your sin and you come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord, your God will restore your fortunes, restore them how he will give you the promise that he had given to Abraham and his descendants, not for an earthly kingdom, but a heavenly one.

Once again, they desire a better country, Hebrews 1116, that is a heavenly kingdom. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. And the fact that there are Jews that are saved, if God was unfaithful to his covenant promises, no Jews would be saved.

They would be forever cursed. No Jew would ever get into the kingdom of God if God was unfaithful to his promises. But because he is faithful to his covenant, there are Jews who have come to faith in Jesus Christ.

Now, again, Paul doesn't really flesh the argument out here. He will flesh it out later on when we get to Romans chapter nine. But when we talk about Jews being saved, we're talking about true Jews, not any and every Jew, not the entire nation of Israel.

That would be kind of like a Zionistic universalism that just because a person is a Jew, then therefore they can be saved. But Paul has been stating here, and he will state again, no one is saved because they are a Jew, a descendant of Abraham.

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We're justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus that we receive by faith. It is only by grace, through faith in Christ, that we receive salvation.

And no other way. So the fact that there are Jews that are able to come to salvation in Christ verifies that God is faithful to his covenant. The Jews had broken the covenant. They had disobeyed God. They had not trusted God.

And yet God is faithful to them, to his promise that he made to them, giving them salvation through Christ. He would be totally justified in saying to them, no, I gave it to you. You rejected it. So now I'm giving it to the Gentiles.

We see an expansion now of the kingdom of God through Jesus Christ in that not only Jews can come in by faith, but also Gentiles come in by faith. If it were that God was rejecting Israel completely and cutting them out of the covenant, then not even a Jew could be saved by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

But we see that they are. So therefore, God is faithful, though they are unfaithful. Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? No, Paul says by no means. Let God be true, though everyone were a liar.

God is true. We are liars. As it is written that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged. This is taken from Psalm 51, where David prays for, I know my transgressions. My sin is ever before me against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

Another way of saying this would be that God would be vindicated. He cannot be accused of any wrongdoing. We sin, we do evil, and you can see and observe the sinfulness of man and that vindicates God.

He's righteous. We're not. So God's judgment upon any man, no one can stand and say that God is unjust for afflicting us with any kind of judgment by laying down his righteousness against us. We would not be able to accuse God of anything.

He's righteous and we are not. And when we do evil, God is vindicated in any and all of his judgments so that God may be justified in his words and he may prevail when he is judged. In other words, we cannot accuse God of wrongdoing.

We're the ones who do wrong. Paul goes on in verse five. 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.

You have that parenthetical reference there. I speak in a human way because it would be incredibly irreverent for Paul to even suggest, even hypothetically, that God is unrighteous. See, that would be to put those two words even by one another, to even put the name of God in proximity to that word unrighteousness.

That would be considered irreverent. But Paul is clarifying here. I'm speaking in a human way. I'm providing this argument for you for your benefit. If it's only by the grace of God that a Jew comes to salvation, then is it unrighteous of God to pour out his wrath on anyone who doesn't repent since they were unable to respond to him since they did not have the grace of God?

And Paul is saying here, by no means. He says it again. Second time in our reading today, my good Noita, by no means. For then, how could God judge the world? If God can't even judge the Jews to whom he gave the law, then he can't judge the world to whom he did not give the law.

If the Jews can't be judged, no one in the world can be judged. Now, as I said earlier, there are certain arguments that Paul raises here. He doesn't flesh out here, but he does so later. This is one of those that he's going to come back to again in Romans nine.

Who are you, oh man, to answer back to God? So we'll we'll get that argument even broader, a broader, yeah, broadly, more broad response to that argument coming up later on in Romans. He's kind of setting it up now.

He's making a quick response now since he's doing this quick fire thing, but he'll come back to it later on. So then verse seven, but if through my lie, God's truth abounds to his glory. Why am I still being condemned as a sinner and why not do evil?

That good may come as some people slanderously charge us with saying. So some of Paul's opponents had been saying of him that he was preaching a cheap grace, that we should just do evil. And that way we demonstrate God's grace and his forgiveness to us.

The more evil we do, the more gracious God is. If God is being praised for his grace, if we're saved by grace through faith in Christ alone, then let's just do evil all the time so that God gets the glory for his grace.

And, and Paul is saying, no, no, no, no. My good Noita, no, that is not what we're saying. And when they accuse us of preaching that they're slandering us. That is a slander because that is not at all what we're saying.

And that would be a cheap grace that that would be, uh, that would be a lie. We would be blaspheming God if we were to be preaching such a thing. So Paul says, no, that's not what we're saying. And those who are accusing us of preaching that their condemnation is just because they're lying about us.

We're not the liars they are. And so the condemnation that's going to come against them because they slander the gospel of Jesus Christ, they're going to deserve that. Let God be true though. Every man were a liar.

And again, this is an argument that Paul will flesh out later on in Romans chapter six, where he says, we're not to do sin as, as some sort of excuse for God. So his grace may abound. If you are in the grace of God, then you are no longer enslaved to your sin.

And you're walking in the righteousness of Christ. You submit your members to righteousness and no longer walk in unrighteousness. And again, those are things that we'll talk about a little bit later on as we continue our study of the book of Romans that finishes up this particular section.

And then we're going to, we're going to do the whole summary of everything that Paul has argued for from Romans 1 18, all the way up to this point, he's summarizing everything now by making sure the reader understands all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

There is none righteous. And we come to that tomorrow with Romans 3 9, let us conclude with prayer, our heavenly father, we thank you for the goodness of God that has been shown to us in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And I pray that we would be faithful to the gospel that has been presented to us that we don't try to find excuses for our sin, but we have been shown grace. And we've been forgiven our sin. So let us walk in that forgiveness, walking as if my sins are not held against me.

We rejoice in the goodness and glory of God that has been demonstrated through the cross of Jesus Christ, and we have been raised to new life. So no longer walking in the sins and the transgressions that we were in when we were dead men and women, but being alive in Christ, we are walking in newness of life.

So lead us in holiness and righteousness this day. Help us to abstain from grumbling, grumbling and complaining about our circumstances. For in this very circumstance, we have the grace of God. We rejoice in the goodness of God in any and all things through our Lord and savior Jesus Christ in his good name.

We pray. Amen.

Closing Announcements and Sign-Off

Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog, sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers and offering commentary on the church and social issues. You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com.

Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's word when we understand the text.