Romans 3:1-8: "So What's So Special About Being Jewish?"

Paul has just finished a harsh critique on the Jewish people. At this point the Jews were probably angry and devastated at the crushing blows Paul had thrown at their heritage, Law and rituals. Paul will now answer many questions he felt the Jewish people would be asking at this point.

He quickly gets to the point in verse one and asks, "Then what advantage has the Jew?" Although their Jewish heritage did not automatically grant salvation, "it bestowed many privileges that Gentiles did not have. Later in the epistle, Paul tells his readers, doubtlessly with tears in his eyes as he wrote, 'For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethen, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh" (Rom. 9:3-5). What Paul had said in the previous section did not take away from the tremendous blessing God had bestowed upon His chosen people. Paul's goal was to get them to understand that they did not properly understand salvation and how it is attained. It was clear that throughout history the Jews had been given a special place in God's eyes. They had been given his holy law, many covenants including Christ coming from their lineage, and they had been delivered and protected like no other nation.

Paul gives the reason that they "were entrusted with the oracles of God". The Scriptures is what is meant by oracles, which now carries w/ it a mystic or cultic connotation. The Jews must understand how privileged and fortunate they were to receive the "very words of the one and only true God, referring to the entire Old Testament" according to MacArthur. Today we get the advantage of being able to look back at the entire and completed canon. However, what an exciting time to know you were being given and were asked to preserve the very words of God for all of history. What an amazing honor that must have been. However, as time passed, the Jews began to neglect the scriptures for their own traditions and rabbinical interpretations. MacArthur explains, "The religious leaders of Jesus' day prided themselves as being experts in the Scriptures. But when the Sadducees tried to maneuver Jesus into a corner by asking a hypothetical question about marriage in heaven, He rebuked them by saying, "Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures, or the power of God?" (Mark 12:24). Unfortunately the very thing that brought pride and honor to the Jews, was the very thing they began to neglect and substitute their own laws for. This was the very thing Paul was trying to explain to them. He wanted them to understand that even the things that you boast in and take pride in you don't honor and respect, and will definitely not obtain salvation through. Again, Paul was trying to let them know that He very much loved and cared for the uniqueness of the Jewish people (for he was one himself), but he had to be harsh with them to help them understand the delusion they were under.

Paul then looks to answer another objection that he felt would come up. "What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it?" God had made many promises and covenants with Israel all throughout the Old Testament. Paul now looks to uphold God's integrity and character, showing the Jewish people that His promises are in and will remain true. MacArthur summarizes, "Paul's answer reflected both the explicit and implicit teaching of the Jewish Scriptures themselves. God had never promised that any individual Jew, no matter how pure his physical lineage from Abraham, or from any of the other great saints of the Old Testament, could claim security in God's promises apart from repentance and personal faith in God, resulting in obedience from the heart. Isaiah 55:6-7 provides a good illustration of an invitation to such obedient faith: "Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." What Paul was trying to say to the Jews was that God can never go back on His promises or on His covenants because of His very nature. Therefore, the problem must be with them, not God. Paul exclaims,"May it never be!" in regards to the question if God was not faithful to His promises. This is a very strong expression with great emphasis placed on the holiness of God. Paul goes on to explain, "Let God be found true, though every man be found a liar." Paul puts the responsibility back on the Jews. God's promises to the Jewish people were reliant upon their repentance and all of His promises were conditional. Throughout the Old Testament you will often find God's promises followed by a warning if certain actions were not carried out. It has often been said that God's promise to Israel has been replaced by the church. This is a "workaround" in the eyes of those who want to uphold God's integrity as Paul is doing. However, this is not necessary to prove God's character. MacArthur helps us understand this: "Though certainly not intentionally, the idea in covenant theology that the church has replaced Israel in god's plan of redemption assumes God's faithlessness in keeping His unconditional promises to Israel. Because of Israel's rejection of Jesus Christ as her Messiah, God has postponed the fulfillment of His promise to redeem and restore Israel as a nation. But He has not (and because of His holy nature He could not) reneged on that promise. His prediction, for example, that He will one day "pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced" (Zech. 12:10) could not possibly apply to the church. And because such a renewal has never happened in the history of Israel, either the prediction is false or it is yet to be fulfilled."

The idea is that Paul is screaming out to them to understand that God is faithful, and one day He will do as He has promised. However, from verse 3 we can see that God's promise is conditional, and because some did not believe that will not attain salvation. No personal salvation was ever promised to an individual Jew. MacArthur again, "The national salvation of Israel is as inevitable as God's promises are irrevocable. But that future certainty gives individual Jews no more present guarantee of being saved than the most pagan Gentile." This will be talked about further in Ch.9.

Lastly, Paul answers the argument that he is attacking God's purity. Paul writes, "But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He?" Paul does a wonderful job of thinking through his statements from every perspective. If a reader of this letter truly listened all the way through, all their objections would be satisfied. MacArthur makes this statement easier to understand, "If God is glorified by the sins of Israel, being shown faithful Himself despite the unfaithfulness of His chosen people, then sin glorifies God. In other words, Paul, you are saying that God is like a merchant who displays a piece of expensive gold jewelry on a piece of black velvet so the contrast makes the gold appear even more elegant and beautiful. You are charging God with using man's sin to bring glory to Himself, and that is blasphemy. You are impugning the righteous purity of God. Not only that, but if man's unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say about God's judgment? If what you say is true, why does God punish sin? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He?"

Paul makes sure we understood that this is what might be going through the human mind while his objections are being read as he adds his parenthetical comment "I am speaking in human terms". Again, Paul answers this with the emphatic, "may it never be!" God would of course never condone sin to glorify Himself. This is clearly not spoken of in Scripture. God hates sin and the sins of His people, for it was sin that put His Son on the cross. Paul continues on and reiterates his point in slightly different terms, "But if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner? And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say), 'Let us do evil that good may come'?" Again, Paul faces the charges that he feel may be brought up, and in fact some that had been said by others against him. These charges were that if God is more glorified when I sin, why not keep on sinning? Paul was being accused with his gospel of grace to sin without license. Paul tries to crush these erroneous statements, and explain that this goes against everything God has said throughout history, and everything that he has preached to his Jewish people.

Paul leaves this section with one last indictment, that anyone who would believe in the statement that they should just sin more, so God would be more glorified, "their condemnation is just." He was making it clear to the Jews that in no way anything he was saying licensed sinning. In fact, everything Paul fought for was holiness and purity before a holy God. He was merely trying to get the Jews to understand that the self righteousness they were seeking would not help them attain salvation. He was trying to get the to see that Christ was the only one with perfect righteousness to overcome the wrath of God for those who believe.