|
|
|
[navbar.htm]
A study of Romans: The Righteousness of God #10 "The Advantage of Being Jewish"
Romans 3:1-8 (NNAS): "What, then, is the something plus which belongs to a Jew? Or what special advantage belongs to those who have been circumcised? Much in every way. In the first place, there is this advantage-that the Jews have been entrusted with the oracles of God. Yes, you say, but what if some of them were unfaithful to them? Surely you are not going to argue that their infidelity invalidates the fidelity of God? God forbid! Let God be shown to be true, though every man be shown to be a liar, as it stands written: "In order that you may be seen to be in the right in your arguments, and that you may win your case when you enter into judgment." But, you say, if our unrighteousness merely provides proof of God's righteousness, what are we to say? Surely you are not going to try to argue that God is unrighteous to unleash the Wrath upon you? (I am using human arguments:) God forbid! For, if that were so, how shall God judge the world? But, you say, if the fact that I am false merely provides a further opportunity to demonstrate the fact that God is true, to his greater glory, why should I still be condemned as a sinner? Are you going to argue-just as some slanderously allege that we suggest-that we should do evil that good may come of it? Anyone can see that statements like that merit nothing but condemnation."
Romans 3:1-8 (NIV) "What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? {2} Much in every way! First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God. {3} What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God's faithfulness? {4} Not at all! Let God be true, and every man 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 deserved."
I have a friend who says, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that Jesus Christ is coming back to earth. The bad news is, boy, is He mad!”
Now the apostle Paul was not using the ‘good news, bad news’ idiom of our times in Romans 3, but this chapter certainly can be described as containing some good news and some bad news. The bad news is not introduced in chapter 3, but in chapter 1. The bad news is that everyone fails to meet God’s requirements for righteousness, and thus, all fall under divine condemnation. In chapter 3, Paul forcefully concludes his argument that no one can satisfy the requirements of God, summing up and resting his case in verses 9-20.
Unlike the news reports which we read and view on TV, there is a positive side. Although man cannot produce sufficient righteousness to please God, God has provided a righteousness which is available to all men on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ. This is the good news of the gospel which Paul presents in the last half of chapter 3. So it is in this chapter that we gratefully move from the bad news of condemnation to the good news of justification.
The Jews have already been condemned by Paul in chapters 1 and 2. Paul taught that all mankind is worthy of God’s righteous wrath, because all men have seen irrefutable evidence of God’s “eternal power and divine nature,” through His creation. This revelation they have rejected and perverted. As a result, God gave men over to various forms of sin (1:18-32).
The Jews were even more guilty than the Gentiles, because they had been given the Law, the revelation of God’s character and of His standards for man’s conduct. They professed to adhere to this Law, teaching and judging others by it, but they did not practice it themselves (2:1-24). Paul taught that the Law does not profit the Jew if he does not practice it, and neither does God penalize the Gentile who lives by it (even though he does not possess it). Circumcision too is of no benefit to the Jew unless he keeps the Law, just as uncircumcision is no liability to the Law-abiding Gentile (1:25-29). In Romans 3:1-8, Paul shows that instead of acknowledging their sin and repenting, the Jews acknowledged their sin but protested against God’s way of dealing with it. This section is a series of questions and answers, all of which arise out of Paul’s indictment in the previous verses. The questions are those which Paul articulates, but they are clearly the questions which his Jewish readers would have raised.
No doubt these are questions which Paul heard many times as he taught in the synagogues of his day. But in this epistle, his readers cannot respond as they would if Paul were speaking to them in person. Consequently, Paul raises their questions for them. These “condemning questions” reveal the depth of the unbelief and rebellion of many of the Jews and serve as further evidence that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” including the Jews.
Paul’s purpose in writing these verses is to add a third “knockout punch” to his two previous indictments of the self-righteous Jews as sinners, along with the Gentiles. There is, however, a much broader application of these verses.
Paul’s words in our text provide us with principles which are vital to our Christian walk, principles which should cause us to rejoice in God’s grace and in the certainty that He will accomplish what He has purposed and promised to do.
The questions which Paul has raised here, and the attitudes which underlie them, expose some very dangerous and detrimental perspectives. False teachers seek to convince saints to hold and to practice these perverted perspectives. Some saints actually believe these perspectives to be both true and biblical. Thus, this text contains both encouragement and admonition.
We will begin our study by making overall observations about our text which lead to some conclusions concerning the structure of the passage. Next we will consider our text verse-by-verse and then the interpretation of the text in its context. Finally, we will seek to discern the application of this text to Paul’s original audience and to us as well. Observations(1) The context of our passage is God’s condemnation of all men as sinners. Paul has already demonstrated that mankind in general (1:18-32), and the Jews in particular (2:1-29), are sinners, guilty before God and deserving of His wrath. In the verses which follow our text (3:9-20), Paul will further document man’s universal fallenness and then sum up his indictment. In Paul’s own words, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Paul’s words in our text are not a digression; they are an intensification of his indictment of the self-righteous, especially of the Jews. The principle subject of Romans 3:1-8 is sin and divine condemnation.
(2) Paul uses questions as his primary tool for exposing the sin of the Jews in these verses. As I understand Paul’s words here, the questions he asks are more prominent than the answers he gives. It is the questions which reveal the rebellious and distorted thinking of Paul’s opponents. His answers are very brief and to the point. The questions Paul articulates in verses 1-8 are those which are raised in the minds of his Jewish readers by his teaching in chapters 1 and 2.
(3) There is a very distinct “flow” to the questions as Paul has arranged them. These are not randomly chosen questions. Paul has arranged them to “flow” so as to make a very strong point.
(4) The questions are also arranged in such a way as to indicate the structure of the passage. The text falls into two sections, verses 1-4 and verses 5-8. There are several indications of this arrangement in our text itself. In verses 1-4, the verbs tend to be in the past tense; in verses 5-8, they are predominantly in the present tense. In verses 1-4, Paul speaks of the Jews in the third person (“they,” “them”); in verses 5-8, Paul switches to the first person (“we,” “our”). In verses 1-4, Paul asks “acceptable” questions, and the outcome is the statement of biblical principles. In verses 5-8, Paul asks questions which are really inappropriate and which reveal the sin of those who ask them. Paul finds it necessary to qualify his question (“I am speaking in human terms,” verse 5). The outcome of verses 5-8 is the realization of how evil, in attitude and application, the Jews have become, as evidenced by the perversions of God’s truth in their thinking and practice.
All of Paul’s four witnesses agreed: the Jews were guilty before God. In Romans 3:1-8, Paul summed up the argument and refuted those Jews who tried to debate with him. They raised three questions. (1) “What advantage is it to be a Jew?” Reply: Every advantage, especially possessing the Word of God. (2) “Will Jewish unbelief cancel God’s faithfulness?” Reply: Absolutely not—it establishes it. (3) “If our sin commends His righteousness, how can He judge us?” Reply: We do not do evil that good may come of it. God judges the world righteously.
Looking at the rather tragic history of the Jewish people, one is not inclined to think there has been any advantage in being a Jew. In spite of the reality that they are such a noble strain of humanity and chosen by God, their history has been a saga of slavery, hardship, warfare, persecution, slander, captivity, dispersion, and humiliation.
They were menial slaves in Egypt for some 400 years, and after God miraculously delivered them, they wandered in a barren wilderness for forty years, until an entire generation died out. When they eventually entered the land God had promised them, they had to fight to gain every square foot of it and continue to fight to protect what they gained.
After several hundred years, civil war divided the nation. The northern kingdom eventually was almost decimated by Assyria, with the remnant being taken captive to that country. Later, the southern kingdom was conquered and exiled in Babylon for seventy years, after which some were allowed to return to Palestine.
Not long after they rebuilt their homeland, they were conquered by Greece, and the despotic Antiochus Epiphanes revelled in desecrating their Temple, corrupting their sacrifices, and slaughtering their priests.
Under Roman rule they fared no better. Tens of thousands of Jewish rebels were publicly crucified, and under Herod the Great scores of male Jewish babies were slaughtered because of his insane jealousy of the Christ child. In the year a.d. 70, the Roman general Titus Vespasian carried out Caesar’s order to utterly destroy Jerusalem, its Temple, and most of its citizens.
According to Josephus, over a million Jews of all ages were mercilessly butchered, and some 100,000 of those who survived were sold into slavery or sent to Rome to die in the gladiator games. Two years previously, Gentiles in Caesarea had killed 20,000 Jews and sold many more into slavery. During that same period of time, the inhabitants of Damascus cut the throats of 10,000 Jews in a single day.
In a.d. 115 the Jews of Cyrene, Egypt, Cyprus, and Mesopotamia rebelled against Rome. When they failed, Emperor Hadrian destroyed 985 towns in Palestine and killed at least 600,000 Jewish men. Thousands more perished from starvation and disease. So many Jews were sold into slavery that the price of an able-bodied male slave dropped to that of a horse.
In the year 380 Emperor Theodosius I formulated a legal code that declared Jews to be an inferior race of human beings—a demonic idea that strongly permeated most of Europe for over a thousand years and that even persists in many parts of the world in our own day.
For some two centuries the Jews were oppressed by the Byzantine branch of the divided Roman empire. Emperor Heroclitus banished them from Jerusalem in 628 and later tried to exterminate them. Leo the Assyrian gave them the choice of converting to Christianity or being banished from the realm. When the first crusade was launched in 1096 to recapture the Holy Land from the Ottoman Turks, the crusaders slaughtered countless thousands of Jews on their way to Palestine, brutally trampling many to death under their horses’ hooves. That carnage, of course, was committed in the name of Christianity.
In 1254 King Louis IX banished all Jews from France. When many later returned to that country, Philip the Fair expelled 100,000 of them again in 1306. In 1492 the Jews were expelled from Spain even as Columbus began his first voyage across the Atlantic, and four years later they were expelled from Portugal as well. Soon most of western Europe was closed to them except for a few areas in northern Italy, Germany, and Poland.
Although the French Revolution emancipated many Jews, vicious anti-Semitism continued to dominate most of Europe and parts of Russia. Thousands of Jews were massacred in the Ukraine in 1818. In 1894, because of growing anti-Semitism in the French army a Jewish officer named Dreyfus was falsely accused of treason, and that charge was used as an excuse to purge the military of all Jews of high rank.
When a number of influential Jews began to dream of re-establishing a homeland in Palestine, the Zionist movement was born, its first congress being convened in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897. By 1914, some 90,000 Jews had settled in Palestine. In the unparalleled Nazi holocaust of the early 1940s at least 6,000,000 Jews were exterminated, this time for racial rather than religious reasons.
Although in our society anti-Semitism is seldom expressed so openly, Jews in many parts of the world still suffer for no other reason than their Jewishness. From the purely historical perspective, therefore, Jews have been among the most continuously and harshly disadvantaged people of all time.
Not only have Jews historically had little social or political security, but in Romans 2:17-20 Paul declares that, although they are God’s specially chosen and blessed people, Jews do not even have guaranteed spiritual security—either by physical lineage or religious heritage. Being born a descendant of Abraham, knowing God’s law and being circumcised did not assure them a place in heaven. In fact, rather than protecting Jews from God’s judgment, those blessings made them all the more accountable for obedience to the Lord.
After having demolished the false securities on which most Jews relied, Paul anticipated the strong objections his Jewish readers would make. The truths he sets forth in the book of Romans he had taught many times before in many places, and he knew what the most common objections in Rome would be.
Paul had confronted Jewish objectors from the beginning of his ministry when Paul took the four Jewish Christians into the Temple to fulfill a vow for example. The leaders seized him and cried out to the crowd that had gathered, “Men of Israel, come to our aid! This is the man who preaches to all men everywhere against our people, and the Law and this place” (Acts 21:28).
It was because Paul had a reputation for teaching such things that the Christian elders in Jerusalem persuaded him to take the men into the Temple for purification, thinking such an act would convince the leaders that Paul had not forsaken the teaching of Moses (see vv. 21-24).
In his defense before King Agrippa, Paul said, I did not prove disobedient to the heavenly vision, but kept declaring both to those of Damascus first, and also at Jerusalem and then throughout all the region of Judea, and even to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance. For this reason some Jews seized me in the temple and tried to put me to death. And so, having obtained help from God, I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, stating nothing but what the Prophets and Moses said was going to take place. (Acts 26:19-22)
The apostle did not teach that Jewish heritage and the Mosaic law ceremonies were not important. Because they were God-given, they had tremendous importance. But they were not in Paul’s day, and had never been, the means of satisfying the divine standard of righteousness. They offered Jews great spiritual advantages, but they did not provide spiritual security.
After his conversion, Paul continued to worship in the Temple when he was in Jerusalem and faithfully practiced the moral teachings of the Mosaic law. He personally circumcised Timothy who was Jewish on his mother’s side, as a concession to the Jews in the region of Galatia (Acts 16:1-3). He even continued to follow many of the ceremonial customs and the rabbinical patterns in order not to give undue offense to legalistic Jews, as noted in Acts 21:24-26.
But the essence of his preaching was that none of those outward acts have any saving benefit and that a person can become right with God only through trust in His Son Jesus Christ through baptism for remission of sins. It was that truth of salvation only by God’s grace working through man’s faith that the unbelieving Jews found intolerable, because it exposed the worthlessness of their traditions and the hypocrisy of their ostentatious devotion to God.
Self-righteous, self-satisfied Jews could not stand any attack on their supposed Abrahamic security and their man-made legalism. The apostle had learned from all these experiences that unbelieving Jews would always accuse him of teaching against God’s chosen people, against God’s promises to His people, and against God’s purity. It is therefore those three objections that he confronts in Romans 3:1-8.
Here Paul is arguing in the closest and the most difficult way. It will make it easier to understand if we remember that he is carrying on an argument with an imaginary objector. The argument stated in full would run something like this.
The objector: The result of all that you have been saying is that there is no difference between Gentile and Jew and that they are in exactly the same position. Do you really mean that?
Paul: By no means.
The objector: What, then, is the difference?
Paul: For one thing, the Jew possesses what the Gentile never so directly possessed-the commandments of God.
The objector: Granted! But what if some of the Jews disobeyed these commandments and were unfaithful to God and came under his condemnation? You have just said that God gave the Jews a special position and a special promise. Now you go on to say that at least some of them are under the condemnation of God. Does that mean that God has broken his promise and shown himself to be unjust and unreliable?
Paul: Far from it! What it does show is that there is no favouritism with God and that he punishes sin wherever he sees it. The very fact that he condemns the unfaithful Jews is the best possible proof of his absolute justice. He might have been expected to overlook the sins of this special people of his but he does not.
The objector: Very well then! All you have done is to succeed in showing that my disobedience has given God an opportunity to demonstrate his righteousness. My infidelity has given God a marvellous opportunity to demonstrate his fidelity. My sin is, therefore, an excellent thing! It has given God a chance to show how good he is! I may have done evil, but good has come of it! You can't surely condemn a man for giving God a chance to show his justice!
Paul: An argument like that is beneath contempt! You have only to state it to see how intolerable it is! When we disentangle this passage in this way, we see that there are in it certain basic thoughts of Paul in regard to the Jews.
(i) To the end of the day he believed the Jews to be in a special position in regard to God. That, in fact, is what they believed themselves. The difference was that Paul believed that their special position was one of special responsibility; the Jew believed it to be one of special privilege. What did Paul say that the Jew had been specially entrusted with? The oracles of God. What does he mean by that? The word he uses is logia, the regular word in the Greek Old Testament for a special statement or pronouncement of God. Here it means The Ten Commandments. God entrusted the Jews with Commandments, not privileges. He said to them, "You are a special people; therefore you must live a special life." He did not say, "You are a special people; therefore you can do what you like." He did say, "You are a special people; therefore you must do what I like." When Lord Dunsany came in safety through the 1914-18 war he tells us that he said to himself, "In some strange way I am still alive. I wonder what God means me to do with a life so specially spared?" That thought never struck the Jews. They never could grasp the fact that God's special choice was for special duty.
(ii) All through his writings there are three basic facts in Paul's mind about the Jews. They occur in embryo here; and they are in fact the three thoughts that it takes this whole letter to work out. We must note that he does not place all the Jews under the one condemnation. He puts it in this way: "What if some of them were unfaithful?"
(a) He was quite sure that God was justified in condemning the Jews. They had their special place and their special promises; and that very fact made their condemnation all the greater. Responsibility is always the obverse of privilege. The more opportunity a man has to do right, the greater his condemnation if he does wrong.
(b) But not all them were unfaithful. Paul never forgot the faithful remnant; and he was quite sure that that faithful remnant-however small it was in numbers-was the true Jewish race. The others had lost their privileges and were under condemnation. They were no longer Jews at all. The remnant was the real nation.
(c) Paul was always sure that God's rejection of Israel was not final. Because of this rejection, a door was opened to the Gentiles; and, in the end, the Gentiles would bring the Jews back within the fold, and Gentile and Jew would be one in Christ. The tragedy of the Jew was that the great task of world evangelization that he might have had, and was designed to have, was refused by him. It was therefore given to the Gentiles, and God's plan was, as it were, reversed, and it was not, as it should have been, the Jew who evangelized the Gentile, but the Gentile who evangelized the Jew-a process which is still going on.
Further, this passage contains two great universal human truths. (i) The root of all sin is disobedience. The root of the Jew's sin was disobedience to the known law of God. As Milton wrote, it was "man's first disobedience" which was responsible for paradise lost. When pride sets up the will of man against the will of God, there is sin. If there were no disobedience, there would be no sin.
(ii) Once a man has sinned, he displays an amazing ingenuity in justifying his sin. Here we come across an argument that reappears again and again in religious thought, the argument that sin gives God a chance to show at once his justice and his mercy and is therefore a good thing. It is a twisted argument. One might as well argue-it would, in fact, be the same argument-that it is a good thing to break a person's heart, because it gives him a chance to show how much he loves you. When a man sins, the need is not for ingenuity to justify his sin, but for humility to confess it in penitence and in shame.
(3:1-8) Introduction: Paul has said there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, between a religionist and other men (Romans 1-3). All men stand before God guilty of sin and condemned. Now at this point Paul imagines the religionist seeing exactly what he is saying. The religionist also sees the tremendous weight of Paul’s argument; therefore, he strains to counter Paul with three arguments, arguments often made by Christian religionists and church members who profess Christ and attend church only enough to salve their consciences. 1. What profit is there in being a religionist -2)? 2. Does unbelief void God’s promises—make God a liar (v.3-4)? 3. Is God unjust if He takes vengeance (v.5-8)?
(3:1-2) Religionists—Word of God—Jew: the question is, "What profit is there in being a Jew or a religionist? What do you do with the Jew who is Abraham’s seed? The promise of God to Abraham was that his seed (the Jewish nation) would be the children of God. If a man is born a Jew (born into a Jewish family) and he professes to be a Jew, a follower of God, is he not acceptable to God (Romans 2:17-29; cp. Romans 2:1-29)? If not, then what profit is there in being a professing Jew, a follower of God? You are saying there is no advantage in being a Jew or a child of Abraham."
Paul’s accusers continually charged him with teaching that the Lord’s calling of Israel to be His special people was meaningless. If that were so, the apostle blasphemed the very character and integrity of God.
Paul knew the questions that some Jews in Rome would ask after they read or hear about the first part of his letter. “If our Jewish heritage, our knowing and teaching the Mosaic law and our following Jewish rituals such as circumcision do not make a Jew righteous before God,” they would wonder, “then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision?”
Many Scripture passages would have come to their
minds. Just before God presented Israel with the Ten Commandments, He told them,
“You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6). Moses
wrote of Israel, “Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the highest
heavens, the earth and all that is in it. Yet on your fathers did the Lord set
His affection to love them, and He chose their descendants after them, even you
above all peoples” (Deut. 10:14-15). In the same book Moses wrote, “You are a
holy people to the
Because of those and countless other Old Testament passages that testify to Israel’s unique calling and blessing, many Jews concluded that, in itself, being Jewish made them acceptable to God. But as Paul has pointed out, being physical descendants of Abraham did not qualify them as his spiritual descendants. If they did not have the mark of God’s Spirit within their hearts, the outward mark of circumcision in their flesh was worthless (Rom. 2:17-29).
Nevertheless, Paul continues, the advantage of being Jewish was great in every respect. Although it did not bring 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 brethren, 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” (9:3-5).
The Jews as a people had been adopted by God as His children, with whom He had made several exclusive covenants. He had given them His holy law and promised that through their lineage the Savior of the world would come. The Jewish people were indeed special in God’s eyes. They were blessed, protected, and delivered as no other nation on earth.
But most Jews paid little attention to the negative side of God’s revelation to them. He proclaimed of Israel, “You only have I chosen among all the families of the earth:’ but immediately went on to say, “therefore, I will punish you for all your iniquities” (Amos 3:2). With high privilege also came high responsibility.
In the parable of the wedding feast, Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to a feast given by a king to celebrate his son’s marriage. Several times he sent messengers to the invited guests telling them that the feast was ready but each time they ignored the invitation. Some of them even beat and killed the messengers. The enraged king sent his soldiers to destroy the murderers and set their cities on fire. The king then sent other messengers to invite everyone in the kingdom to the feast, regardless of rank or wealth (Matt. 22:1-9).
That parable pictures Israel as the first and most privileged guests who were invited to celebrate the coming of God’s Son to redeem the world. But when the majority of Jews rejected Jesus as the Messiah, God opened the door to Gentiles, those whom the king’s messengers found along the highways and in the streets.
Through Isaiah, the Lord lamented of Israel, “What more was there to do for My vineyard that I have not done in it? Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes did it produce worthless ones?” (Isa. 5:4). The answer, of course, was that there was nothing more that God could have done for His people. He had bestowed on them every conceivable blessing and advantage.
Becoming more specific regarding their benefits, Paul said to his hypothetical Jewish objectors, “You were entrusted with the oracles of God.” Logion (oracles) is a diminutive of logos, which is most commonly translated word. Logion generally referred to important sayings or messages, especially supernatural utterances.
Although oracles is a legitimate
translation (see also Acts 7:38; Heb. 5:12), because of the
term’s association with pagan rites, that rendering seems unsuitable in this
context. In many pagan religions of that day, mediums and
Such a connotation could not have been further from Paul’s use of logion in this passage. His point was that the Jews were entrusted with the very words of the one and only true God, referring to the entire Old Testament (cf. Deut. 4:1-2; 6:1-2). God’s revelation of Himself and of His will had been entrusted to the Jews, and that gave them unimaginably great privilege as well as equally immense responsibility.
As the poet William Cowper wrote, They, and they only, amongst all mankind, Received the transcript of the Eternal Mind; Were trusted with His own engraven laws, And constituted guardians of His cause; Theirs were the prophets, theirs the priestly call, And theirs, by birth, the Saviour of us all.
Tragically, however, Jews had focused much attention on their privileges but little on their responsibilities. During one period of their history they misplaced and lost the written record of God’s law. Only when a copy of it was found by Hilkiah the high priest during the restoration of the Temple did Judah begin again to honor the Lord’s commandments and observe His ceremonies for a brief time under the godly King Josiah (see 2 Chron. 34:14-33).
For many centuries before the time of Paul, beginning during the Babylonian Captivity, the Jews’ reverence for her man-made rabbinical traditions and interpretations had come to far outweigh her reverence for God’s written Word.
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).
To a crowd of unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem the Lord declared, “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me” (John 5:39). In the story of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man died and went to hell. From there he cried out to Abraham to send a special messenger to tell his brothers the way of salvation. But Abraham replied, “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them” (Luke 16:29). In other words, the Old Testament contained all the truth that any Jew (or any Gentile, for that matter) needed to be saved. Jews who truly believed the Scriptures recognized Jesus as the Son of God, because He is the focus of the Old Testament as well as the New. But most Jews preferred to follow the traditions of the rabbis and elders rather than “the sacred writings which are able to give … the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15).
Belonging to a Christian church is much like it
was to be a Jew under the Old Covenant. Outward identity with those who claim to
be God’s people, even when they are genuine believers, is in itself of no
benefit to an unbeliever. But such a person does have a great advantage above
other unbelievers if in a church he is
The application of this passage concerns every man. If a man is born a Jew or a Christian (the right nationality), if a man is born into a Jewish or Christian family (the right heritage), if a man claims to be a Jew or a Christian religionist, and he is still not acceptable to God, what profit is there in being a religionist?
Paul’s answer is simple: the advantages are great. The Jew and Christian are highly privileged, especially in that God has committed His Word to them (Romans 3:2; Romans 9:4-5). They have the privilege... · of possessing God’s Word. · of reading, hearing, seeing, obeying, and living God’s Word. · of living within a society that has been affected by God’s Word.
These are enormous privileges. A man born within a nation and a family that has God’s Word has every advantage in coming to God and in living for God. In fact, such a man could have no greater privilege. His privileges are so great that he is left without excuse if he fails to live for God.
(3:3-4) Unbelief—Religionist—Salvation: the question is, "If you say some Jews do not believe and are condemned, doesn’t that void God’s promises and make God a liar?" Or to say it another way, "What if some disbelieve and reject God’s Word, will their unbelief cause God to void His Word and promises? God promised the Jews a special place and special privileges through Abraham and his seed. If some Jews do not believe God’s promises and God condemns them, isn’t He breaking His promise to Abraham and his seed? Isn’t He voiding His Word and Covenant and making Himself a liar? God’s Word could not be based on heart religion and on moral character alone. There has be to something else, something outward that shows we are religious (Jews). If we go through the rite or ritual, then God is bound to accept us. He has promised to so accept us. He is not going to break His Word."
The next objection Paul anticipated and confronted was that his teaching abrogated God’s promises to Israel. As any student of the Old Testament knows, God’s promises to His chosen people are numerous. How then, could Paul maintain that it was possible for a Jew not to be secure in those promises?
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
As in the passage from Amos 3:2 mentioned above, many of God’s greatest promises were accompanied by the severest warnings. And most of the promises were conditional, based on His people’s faith and obedience. The few unconditional promises He made were to the nation of Israel as a whole, not to individual Jews (see, e.g., Gen. 12:3; Isa. 44:1-5; Zech. 12:10).
The apostle therefore agreed in part with his accusers, saying, What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it? His opponents were perfectly right in defending the Lord’s integrity. No matter how men respond to His promises, He is absolutely faithful to keep His word.
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
Later in the epistle Paul strongly affirms that
God has not rejected His people Israel (Rom. 11:1). A few verses later he
declares, “For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery,
lest you be wise in your own
The mistake of Paul’s accusers was in believing that God’s unconditional promises to Israel applied to all individual Jews at all times. But as Paul shows earlier in 9:6-7, when he writes: “But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; neither are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but: ‘through Isaac your descendants will be named.’”
The accusers were right in contending that God
cannot break His word. If the blessings of a promise failed to materialize it
was because His people did not believe and obey the conditions of
the promise. But an even deeper truth was that, contrary to the thinking of most
Jews, salvation was never offered by God on the basis of the heritage,
ceremony, good works, or any basis other than that of faith. Paul therefore asks
rhetorically, “The
Answering his own question, he exclaims, May it never be! The phrase me genoito (may it never be) was the strongest negative Greek expression and usually carried the connotation of impossibility. “Of course God cannot be unfaithful in His promises or in any other way,” Paul was saying.
Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar. If every human being who ever lived declared that God is faithless, God would be found true and every man who testified against Him would be found a liar.
Summoning Scripture as he regularly did, Paul quotes from the great penitential psalm of David, Israel’s most illustrious and beloved king, from whose throne the Messiah Himself would some day reign. As it is written,“That Thou mightest be justified in Thy words, and mightest prevail when Thou art judged” (see Ps. 51:4). Because God is perfect and is Himself the measure of goodness and truth, His Word is its own verification and His judgment its own justification. It is utter folly to suppose that the Lord of heaven and earth might not prevail against the sinful, perverted judgment that either man or Satan could make against Him.
The application of this question concerns every religionist. The thinking religionist poses the same objection and question: "If you say some religionists do not believe and are condemned, doesn’t that void God’s Word and make God a liar? God’s Word promises the religious person special privileges and the hope of eternal life. If we do that and God still condemns us, is He not voiding His Word and becoming a liar?" Þ God forbid.
Þ God will be faithful. His Word and promise of salvation will stand even if every man lies about believing and lies about giving his heart to serve Jesus.
Þ God will prove His Word: He will be justified and proven faithful in what He has said. He will still save any person who gives his heart to Jesus and obeys Jesus.
Þ In fact, God will overcome; He will prove His Word another way. He will judge all who make a false profession and who judge Him and His Word, who accuse Him of being unfaithful and voiding His Word. David himself said that God would judge the unfaithful or disobedient man (Psalm 51:4). David had sinned greatly, not keeping the commandments of God, so God judged David and charged him with sin. David did the right thing: he confessed his sin and repented and began to live righteously. But David did something else: he declared that God’s charge and judgment against him were just, that God was perfectly justified. And God was, for God is always just, and He is always justified in what He says and does.
The point is twofold. 1. God is not unfaithful. God never breaks or voids His Word when He rejects the religionist. The religionist who possesses God’s Word and belongs to a church but does not obey God’s Word is not acceptable to God. It is righteousness God is after, not religion. God is not after an outward religion, but an inward righteousness. God wants a heart that will not only possess the Bible, but will keep His commandments. God is after a spiritual rebirth, a new creation, a man who has been truly born again. God wants a heart and life that are focused upon Christ and that keep the commandments of Christ.
The only man who is acceptable to God is the man who has given his heart and life to Christ through baptism for remission of sins and who lives righteously, trusting God to accept His faith in Christ. (Cp. Romans 2:28-29.)
2. God never voids His Word or promises; He never has and never will be a liar. God has promised salvation and eternal life to men. Even if there should never be a single person who believed God’s promise, His promise would still stand. He would still save any person who did what He said.
The problem is in doing what God says, in coming to God as He dictates. God demands that men give their hearts and lives to His Son, Jesus Christ. God demands that men live for Christ, worship and obey Him. But this is too hard for men. They want an easier salvation. They want to be able to do something, get it over with, and then be free to live as they wish, giving God some attention here and there. Therefore, men prefer to be saved by being religious: being baptized, joining a church, buying a Bible, and then being free to go about their own lives. But this is not enough for God; it is not doing everything that God says; it is not giving one’s heart and life to live for Jesus Christ by obeying, worshipping, and serving Him.
Therefore, God... · charges the religionist with sin. · judges and condemns the religionist. Now note another fact. God fulfills His Word by judging the religionists. God has told men how to live and what would happen if they failed. Therefore, He is "justified in His sayings" by following through and by judging the religionists. Þ God will not void and break His Word. He will fulfill it all. Þ God is justified in fulfilling His Word by doing exactly what He said, that is, in accepting men only as He said and in judging men if they do not come to Him as He commands.
(3:5-8) Love—Justice: the question is, "Is God unjust if He takes vengeance? If my unbelief and sin give God a chance to overcome (Romans 3:4) and to show His justice, then my sin brings greater glory to Him. It gives Him a chance to fulfill His Word. How can He punish me for that? Is He not unjust in inflicting punishment?"
The third objection Paul anticipated was that his teaching attacked the very purity and holiness of God. The argument of his accusers would have been something like this: 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 what God strictly forbids actually brings Him glory. 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?
Again lest his readers conclude that he was expressing his own thinking, Paul immediately adds the parenthetical explanation that he was speaking in human terms, that is, according to the human logic of the natural mind. He was saying, in effect, “Don’t think for a minute that I believe such perverted nonsense. I am only paraphrasing the charges that are often made against me.”
To intensify the disclaimer, Paul says again, “May it never be! Obviously God does not encourage or condone sin in order to glorify Himself, for otherwise how will God judge the world?”
If Jews understood anything about the nature of God it was that He is a perfect judge. From the earliest part of the Old Testament He is called “the Judge of all the earth” (Gen. 18:25). The psalmists repeatedly refer to Him as a judge (see, e.g., Pss. 50:6; 58:11; 94:2). A major theme of virtually all the prophets is that of God’s judgment—past as well as present, imminent as well as in the distant future. Paul’s very obvious point is that God would have no basis for equitable, righteous, pure judgment if He condoned sin.
In verses 7 and 8 the apostle reiterates the false charges against him in somewhat different terms. “You claim that I say, ‘If through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged a sinner?’”
That was clearly a charge of antinomianism (disregard of God’s law) of the worst sort. The critics were accusing Paul of teaching that the more wicked a person is, the more he glorifies God; the more faithless a person is, the more faithful he makes God appear; the more a person lies, the more he exalts God’s truthfulness.
Those were not hypothetical misrepresentations, as Paul makes clear in his next statement: “And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say), ‘Let us do evil that good may come’?” Paul’s enemies obviously had repeatedly charged that his gospel of salvation by grace through faith alone not only undermined God’s law but granted license to sin with impunity. In effect, they accused him of saying that, in God’s eyes, sin is as acceptable as righteousness, if not more so.
Although the scribes and Pharisees were themselves sinful and hypocritical to the core, they loved to condemn others for breaking the Mosaic law and the rabbinical traditions even in the smallest degree. Their religion was legalism personified, and the idea of divine grace was therefore anathema to them, because it completely undermined the works righteousness in which their hope was founded.
The same legalism characterized the Judaizers, supposed Jewish converts to Christianity who insisted that Christians had to maintain all the Mosaic laws and ceremonies. Their charges against Paul’s gospel of grace were virtually identical to those of the scribes and Pharisees. The apostle therefore was attacked in much the same way both from within and without the church. It is therefore probable that Paul was addressing his arguments both to the Jewish leaders without and to the Judaizers within.
One of the most obvious characteristics of fallen human nature is its amazing ability to rationalize sin. Even small children are clever at giving a good reason for doing a wrong thing. That, essentially, was what Paul’s opponents charged him with doing—rationalizing sin on the basis that it glorified God.
Later in the epistle Paul deals in detail with this same issue. After saying that “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,” he quickly counters the false conclusion he knew many people would jump to. “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase? May it never be!” (Rom. 5:20-6:2). With all the forcefulness he could muster, the apostle denounced the charge that he condoned any kind of sin. Least of all would he presume to justify sin by the spurious and vile argument that it brought glory to God.
It is possible, of course, that some of Paul’s accusers wrongly associated his teachings with that of libertines in the church, such as those who were a blotch on the church at Corinth. Jude wrote of “certain persons [who had] crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 4).
For a professed Christian to live in continual, unrepentant sin is a certain mark that he is not saved. To be a Christian is to be under the lordship of Jesus Christ and genuinely desire to serve Him. As Jude makes indisputably clear, the person who tries to justify his sin by presuming on God’s grace is ungodly and denies Christ (v. 4).
Paul’s final response to his slanderous critics was short but pointed. Although he was not the least guilty of teaching antinomianism, he fully concurred that for those who do teach it, their condemnation is just.
The answer is fourfold. 1. God forbid (me genoito): away with such a thought! No! Never!
2. God is moral; therefore, He must judge the world. He would not be moral and just if He did not judge the world.
3. Such an argument is contradictory. Think about it. "If my sin and disobedience give God a chance to demonstrate His righteousness, why then am I called a sinner for that? My sin is really a good thing. It gives God a chance to show how good He is. I may sin, yes, but only good has come out of it. When God accepts me as I am, a sinner, God has a chance to show how gloriously merciful He is. You can’t condemn me for giving God a chance to show His mercy."
4. The damnation of persons who argue this point is just; it is not unjust. Such arguments are common among every generation of men, but the arguments are gross deceptions. A man exclaims: "A God of love cannot take vengeance. He is too good and loving. He will be denying His very nature of love if He judges me."
What this argument fails to see is that genuine love is just. Love expressed unjustly is not love; it is license and indulgence. God’s love is perfect, absolutely unbiased and impartial. It is shed upon all (John 3:16; 1 John 2:2). It is not license and indulgence; neither can it be, not in its perfection. Neither can it allow license and indulgence.
God’s love is completely and perfectly just. It demands justice. In no respect can it be unjust by failing to judge. Neither can God be accused of being unloving when He executes justice (Romans 2:2-16).
God’s love is just; God’s justice is the demonstration of perfect love. The cross was where God exacted His perfect justice upon His Son, and it is the perfect example of the glorious truth. The cross is the perfect demonstration of both the love and the justice of God.
The cross is the perfect demonstration of God’s love and justice. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).
"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (2 Cor. 5:21).
"Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Galatians 3:13).
"Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour" (Ephes. 5:2).
"Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed" (1 Peter 2:24).
"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the sinful nature, but quickened by the Spirit" (1 Peter 3:18).
Men shall be judged and condemned if they have rejected the love and salvation of God provided in His Son, Jesus Christ. "For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works" (Matthew 16:27).
"When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats" (Matthew 25:31-32).
"For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad" (2 Cor. 5:10).
"And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear" (1 Peter 1:17).
Final thoughts Without realizing it until now, Paul has brought his Jewish opponents full circle. The Jews were quick and eager to judge the Gentiles and to condemn them as sinners. In so doing, they condemned themselves, because they failed to live according to the standard by which they had judged and condemned others (2:1-29). When it became evident that they too were condemned as sinners, they (unlike David) refused to repent.
Rather than seek to deny their sin, they chose to attempt to defend it. And rather than be judged by God, they set themselves out to put God on trial for judging them. Is it any wonder that “their condemnation is just”? Is there any doubt that the Jews, like the Gentiles, are sinners under divine condemnation?
This text does much more than vindicate Paul’s indictment of the Jews as sinners. While it does prove the Jews are sinners, it also lights the way to their salvation and restoration. And these truths, which point the way to the Jews, also point the way for those of us who are Gentiles. Let us consider some of the universal truths of this passage as we conclude.
(1) The Word of God is both a great privilege and a great responsibility. For the Jew who wanted to know what benefit there was to being a Jew, Paul would have him know that the benefits were many. But the one benefit which Paul chose to mention as the premier privilege was the gift of divine revelation. To the Jews and through the Jews, the “oracles of God” were given.
Our perception of the blessedness of this gift depends upon the value we place upon God’s Word, and ultimately upon our estimation of God Himself. What good is the revelation of a God whom we dislike, whom we have rejected? What good is the revelation of His character and of His standards for our conduct if we esteem God little, and we loathe godliness? God’s Word is a blessing to those who yearn to know more of God and who wish for His Word to search them and to reveal their sins. God’s Word is a privilege to those who would desire to know Him and to be like Him.
The Jews had the added privilege of stewardship. The Law was given to the Jews to reveal God to them, and as the means by which they might know and serve Him acceptably. But in addition to this privilege, they were given the Law, not only to possess and to practice, but to proclaim to the world. They were to be a “light to the Gentiles.” They were to use the truth, not to usurp it. The Jews chose to condemn the Gentiles but not to deliver them from judgment. Herein was one of their great failures.
If the Old Testament Scriptures were such a privilege and a responsibility for the Jews of that day, how much greater is our privilege and responsibility today? We have God’s full and final revelation (cf. Hebrews 1:1-3; 1 Peter 1:10-13; 2 Peter 1:16-21); they had only a partial and incomplete revelation. If we would know the measure of our own appreciation for the privilege of possessing the Scriptures, let us consider how well-worn the pages of our Bibles are. Do we look at the Bible only as a set of do’s and don’ts, or do we look at the Scriptures as the source and sustenance of our lives? Do we study them to know our God better so that we may serve Him more faithfully? I fear that for many of us, the Bible is viewed no differently than the Jews looked at the Scriptures in Paul’s day.
We too have been given the Scriptures as a stewardship. We are not only to possess and to practice His Word, but we are to proclaim it to those who are in bondage to sin. The paradox is this: the more we seek to hoard the Scriptures, and the blessings they offer, the more we forfeit them. The more we seek to share the grace of God with others, the more we experience it ourselves. It is not what we keep that matters so much as what we use and what we give away. The truth of God is a personal blessing, but it brings added responsibility, for “to whom much is given, much is required” (Luke 12:48).
(2) The unfaithfulness of men will never frustrate the faithfulness of God. Though every man is a liar and will fail, God is true, and He will never fail. The certainty of all God’s promises rests on His character, not on our faithfulness. God’s plans and promises are certain, because of the One who promised. No one has put it better than this: For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable (Romans 11:29).
If we are faithless, He remains faithful; for He cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13).
“I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31:6; Joshua 1:5; Hebrews 13:5).
When the Israelites worshipped the golden calf and were unfaithful to God, Moses did not appeal to God on the basis of Israel’s faithfulness. He appealed to God on the basis of His promises and His character. God cannot deny Himself, and thus when His people fail Him, He will not—indeed, He cannot—fail to do as He has promised. The certainty of the promises of Scripture rests not on the faithfulness of His people, but on the faithfulness of God. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass (1 Thessalonians 5:24).
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:23).
Therefore, let those also who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right (1 Peter 4:19).
And I saw heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True; in righteousness He judges and wages war (Revelation 19:11; see also 1:5; 3:14).
And he said to me, “These words are faithful and true” (Revelation 22:6a; cf. 21:5).
These promises and the certainty of their fulfillment are not an excuse for our failure or disobedience but a reason for our obedience. The God who promised to bless us is the same God who promised to chasten us for our sins. The principle of the reliability and trustworthiness of God’s Word, based upon God’s faithfulness, applies to those who are unsaved. God’s Word promises His judgment upon those who reject His revelation. This is just as certain as His promise to bless those who believe and obey. How many times I have heard people seek to defend their rejection of the gospel by pointing to all the “hypocrites” in the church.
Listen carefully, my unsaved friend. This text informs you that God is true though every man be a liar (or a hypocrite). If the steward who possesses the truth fails in his practice or in his proclamation of the truth, the Word of God is still true. We must receive or reject God’s Word, in spite of the failures of those who profess to believe it. The issue is not their unbelief or sin, but ours. If every television preacher were a hypocrite, the Bible would be no less true, you would be no less condemned, and your need for salvation through Jesus would be no less urgent. God is true, “though every man be a liar.”
This should also be an encouragement to those of us who wish to proclaim the gospel but who know that we are hypocrites (as we all are, to some degree). Who among us lives in perfect harmony with what we profess? Satan seeks to remind us of this (and others too), so that we will draw back from speaking to men and women about their need of salvation. Paul’s words are for us. The truth of God’s Word is not reduced by our unfaithfulness to His Word. God’s truth in the gospel is “the power of God for salvation,” whether that is proclaimed by an obedient saint (at the time), a prodigal prophet like Jonah, or a self-seeking preacher (see Philippians 1:15-18). If we wait to proclaim the gospel until we have perfectly obeyed it, we will wait for all eternity.
(3) The rejection of God’s revelation and the practice of sin darkens the mind so that man’s thinking is twisted, resulting in the perversion of the truth in practice. It is amazing to note that those who knew the most about God were those who seemed farthest from the truth. To them the righteousness of God had been revealed, and yet they questioned His righteousness when it came to His judgment of their sins. They did not deny their sins, but defended them, as though sinning was doing God a favor. They did not view God’s Word from His perspective, but from their own. While God acts on the basis of His righteousness (among other things), they viewed life from the perspective of self-interest. They felt that if they gained (by sin) and God gained at the same time, God should be content to let them live in sin, without judgment. Nothing could be further from the truth.
When we reject God’s truth, God gives us over, not only to perverted practices but also to perverted thinking. Justifying your own sin and condemning God’s judgment is about as perverted as one can become. There is nothing more dangerous than the logic of the sinner. Sinners can turn the truth inside-out, so that it becomes a mandate for sin, rather than a deliverance from sin.
(4) God’s judgment is not only just, it is gracious, for all who will repent and find His forgiveness. The words of David, taken from his confession in Psalm 51, are music to the ears of God and to the sinner. David acknowledged his sin, as God exposed and condemned it through the Law and through Nathan, the prophet. David admitted that God was completely just and justified in condemning his sin and that he had no excuse.
But David also knew that God is gracious and compassionate. David knew that God not only judges sin but that He forgives sin as well. Because of this, David cast himself upon God and upon His grace. In so doing, he found mercy and forgiveness. You can find that same forgiveness by confessing your sin, and by trusting Jesus Christ, who died for your sin. How wonderful the justice of God is to those who have been forgiven and to those who would be free from the burden of their sin.
This is the forgiveness which many of the Jews of Paul’s day rejected and which all Israel will someday receive, when they first acknowledge their sin and that God’s judgment on them is just.
A rebuke goes deeper into one who has understanding than a hundred blows into a fool (Proverbs 17:10). |
|
|