Romans 3:8

And not rather, &c. The grammatical difficulty of this verse is great. The words, up to the brief last clause, are a question. This question is introduced (like that in Romans 3:5) by the particle which expects a negative reply. But again the drift of the reasoning seems to demand, though not so clearly as in Romans 3:5, an affirmative, thus: "Is it not(as we are slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say) a case for the maxim -Let us do evil that good may come"?" Here, in our view, the wording presents a compound between the simple statement of the argumentative question, and St Paul's abhorrence of the moral wrong involved in an affirmative answer. He cannot bear to state the case without conveying, while he does so, his deep protest, both in the words "as we be slanderouslyreported" (lit. "as we are blasphemed"), and in the choice of the interrogative particle which demands a negative.

The "slanderous report" in question is illustrated by Romans 3:31, and Romans 6:1; Romans 6:15. It was a distortion of the doctrine of free grace. St Paul was charged, by his inveterate adversaries in the Church, with teaching that complete and immediate pardon for Christ's sake makes sin safe to the pardoned, and that, consequently, the more "evil" is "done" by such, the more "good" will "come," in the way of glory to God's mercy.

whose damnation is just i.e. the condemnation, moral and judicial, of all who can hold such a principle. This is a more natural reference of the words than that to the slanderers, or to the Apostle and his followers as holding (by the false hypothesis) immoral principles. It is the brief elliptic statement of his abhorrence in totoof all and any who could maintain the lawfulness of wrong. What a comment upon Jesuitical maxims, and "pious frauds" in general! See Introduction, i. § 33, not [34].

[34] note Rüstzeug:the word used by Luther in Acts 9:15, where our Version uses vessel.

damnation In the Gr. strictly judgment. So 1 Corinthians 11:29 margin. The Gr. word is inclusive. In Romans 11:33, in plural, it signifies the Divine counsels or decisions; in 1 Corinthians 6:7, acts of going to law; in 1 Corinthians 11:29; 1 Corinthians 11:34, inflicted penalty; in Revelation 20:4, judicial power. In almost every other N. T. passage it means "condemnation," whether that of opinion (Matthew 7:2) or of a judicial (usually capital) sentence, either human (Luke 24:20) or Divine (Romans 2:2-3; Hebrews 6:2). Here undoubtedly it is the latter.