Romans 3:3,4

“ For what shall we say? If some did not believe, shall their unbelief make void the faithfulness of God? Let it not be: yea, let God be found true, and every man a liar; as it is written: That Thou mightest be justified in Thy sayings, and mightest overcome when Thou comest into judgment. ”

Here again Paul is not introducing any opponent; the objection which he states springs logically from the fact he has just affirmed.

It would be possible to put the point of interrogation after the word τινές, some: “For what are we to think, if some did not believe?” But we think it preferable to put the point after γάρ, for: “For what is the fact? ” and to connect the proposition: “If some did not believe,” with the following question (see the translation). Paul likes these short questions in the course of discussion: for what? but what? fitted as they are to rouse attention. If he here uses the particle for instead of but, it is because he wishes from the first to represent the objection as no longer subsisting, but already resolved.

What is the unbelief of the Jews which the apostle has here in view? According to some, Philippi for example, it is their old unbelief in respect of the ancient revelation. But the aorist ἠπίστησαν, did not believe, refers to a particular historical fact rather than a permanent state of things, such as Jewish unbelief had been under the old covenant. Besides, the faithfulness of God toward Israel, when formerly unbelieving and disobedient, was a fact which could not be called in question, since God by sending them the Messiah had nevertheless fulfilled all His promises to them in a way so striking. Finally, the future will it make void? does not suit this sense; Paul would rather have said: did it make void? The subject in question, therefore, is a positive fact, and one which has just come to pass, and it is in relation to the consequences of this fact that the question of God's faithfulness arises. What is this fact? We find it, with the majority of commentators in Israel's rejection of Jesus, its Messiah; and we might even add: in the persevering rejection of apostolic preaching. The hostile attitude of Israel in relation to the gospel was now a decided matter.

The pronoun τινές, some, may seem rather weak to denote the mass of the people who had rejected the Messiah; but this pronoun denotes a part of the whole irrespectively of the proportion. In chap. Romans 11:17, the unbelieving Jews are called “ some of the branches;” in Hebrews 3:16, the whole people, Caleb and Joshua only excepted, are described by this same pronoun; comp. 1 Corinthians 10:7. The phrase of Plato is also cited: τινὲς καὶ πολλοί γε. Morison rightly says: “Many are only some, when they are not the whole.”

Questions introduced by a μή always imply an answer more or less negative; so it is in this case: “This unbelief will not, however, make void”...? Answer understood: “Certainly not.” Hence the for at the beginning of the verse, which referred to this foreseen negative answer.

The verb καταργεῖν, which we have translated by make void, signifies literally: to deprive of action, or efficacy; and the phrase πίστις τοῦ θεοῦ, in contrast to ἀπιστία, unbelief, can only designate the faithfulness of God Himself, in a manner His good faith. This perfection consists in the harmony between God's words and deeds, or between His past acts and His future conduct; it is his adherence to order in the line of conduct followed by Him. The question thus signifies: “Can Jewish unbelief in regard to the Messiah invalidate God's faithfulness to His people?” The question might be asked in this sense: “If the Jews have not taken advantage of the salvation which the Messiah brought to them, will it follow that God has not really granted them all He had promised? Will any one be able to accuse Him of having failed in His promises?” The sense may also be: “Will He not remain faithful to His word in the future, even though after such an act on their part He should reject them?” For, in fine, His word does not contain promises only, but threatenings; comp. 2 Timothy 2:13: “If we believe not, He abideth faithful” (by punishing unbelief, as He has said).

The first of these meanings does not agree naturally with the future καταργήσει, will make void, which points us not to the past, but to the future. The second might find some countenance in Romans 3:4, where the example of David's sin and punishment is referred to, as well as in the term righteousness (taken in the sense of retributive justice) and in the term wrath, Romans 3:5. Yet the very severe meaning which in this case must be given to the phrase God's faithfulness, would not be sufficiently indicated. We are led to another and more natural meaning: “From the fact that Israel has rejected the Messianic salvation, does it follow that God will not fulfil all his promises to them in the future? By no means; His faithfulness will find a means in the very unbelief of His people of magnifying itself.” The apostle has before him the perspective, which he will follow to its termination in chap. 11, that of the final salvation of the Jews, after their partial and temporary rejection shall have been instrumental in the salvation of the Gentiles.

The negative answer to this question, as we have seen, was already anticipated by the interrogative μή. When expressing it (Romans 3:4), the apostle enhances the simple negative. He exclaims: “ Let that not be (the faithfulness of God made void)!” And to this forcible negation he adds the counter affirmation: “May the contrary be what shall happen: truth, nothing but truth, on God's side! All the lying, if there is any, on man's side!”

There is an antithesis between μὴ γένοιτο, that be far removed (the chalilah of the Hebrews), and the γινέσθω δέ, but let this come to pass! The imperative γίνεσθω, may be or it become, is usually understood in the sense: “May God be recognized as true”...! But the term γίνεσθαι, to become, refers more naturally to the fact in itself than to the recognition of it by man. The veracity of God becomes, is revealed more and more in history by the new effects it produces. But this growing realization of the true God runs parallel with another realization, that of human falsehood, which more and more displays man's perversity. Falsehood denotes in Scripture that inward bad faith wherewith the human heart resists known and understood moral good. The apostle seems to allude to the words of Psalms 116:11: “I said in my haste: All men are liars.” Only what the Psalmist uttered with a feeling of bitterness, arising from painful personal experiences, Paul affirms with a feeling of composure and profound humiliation in view of the sin of his people. He says even all men and not only all Israelites; all men rather than God. If the principle of falsehood is realized in history, let all that bears the name of man be found capable of falseness, rather than that a tittle of this pollution should attach to the divine character. For the idea of faithfulness (Romans 3:3) there is substituted that of veracity, as for the idea of unbelief that of falsehood. In both cases the second is wider than the first, and includes it.

The conflict between the promises of God and His veracity, raised by the present fact of Israel's unbelief, must issue in the glory of the divine faithfulness. This necessary result is expressed by the apostle by means of a saying of David, uttered on the occasion of one of his gravest infidelities, Psalms 51:6: “ That according as it is written...” Alarm has been taken at the that; it has been sought to make it a simple so that (Osterv., Oltram.), as if what was spoken of were an effect, not an end. The wish was to avoid making David say he had sinned in order that God might be glorified. It cannot really be supposed that David means to ascribe to God responsibility for his trespass in any degree whatever, and that in a passage where he expressly affirms that the purity of the divine character must appear with new brightness on occasion of it. Hengstenberg and after him Philippi, have recourse to the distinction between the sinful will of David, which belongs wholly to him, and the form in which his sin was outwardly realized, a form which falls under the direction of Providence. But this distinction, which the theologian can make, could not present itself to the mind of David at the time, and in the disposition in which he composed his psalm. To explain the that, we have simply to take into account the manner in which David expresses himself in the foregoing words. He had said not only: “I have sinned,” but: “I have sinned against Thee; ” not only: “I have done the evil,” but: “I have done that which is displeasing in Thy sight. ” It is with the two ideas against Thee and what is displeasing in Thy sight, which aggravate the confession: I have sinned, that the that is connected. David means: “I was clear as to what I was doing; Thou hadst not left me ignorant that when sinning I was sinning against Thy person, which is outraged by such misdeeds, and that I was doing what Thou hatest that if, in spite of this knowledge, I nevertheless did it, Thou mightest be pure in the matter, and that the guiltiness might belong to me only.” This idea of the knowledge of the divine will possessed by David, is that which is anew forcibly expressed in Romans 3:6: “Thou didst teach me wisdom in the hidden part.” God had instructed and warned David that if he sinned, he sinned, he might be the only guilty one, and might not be able to accuse God. The that has therefore nearly the same meaning as the: “to the end they might be without excuse,” Romans 1:20. We thus recognize the analogy of situation between David and Israel, which leads the apostle to quote these words here. Israel, the depositary of the divine oracles, had been faithfully instructed and warned, that if later, in spite of these exceptional revelations, giving themselves up to the falsehood (voluntary blindness) of their own hearts, they came to miss recognizing the Messiah, they should not be able to accuse God for their rejection, but should be declared, to the honor of the divine holiness, the one party guilty of the catastrophe which might follow.

The words: “that Thou mayest be justified in or by Thy words,” signify: “that Thou mayest be acknowledged righteous, both in respect of the warnings which Thou hast given, and in the sentences which Thou wilt pronounce (on David by the mouth of Nathan, on Israel by their rejection).” In the Hebrew, the second proposition refers exclusively to those sentences which God pronounces; for it said: “and that Thou mayest be found pure when Thou judgest. ” But the LXX. have translated: “that Thou mayest be victor (gain Thy case) when Thou art judged,” or: “when Thou hast a case at law.” It is probably this last meaning to which the apostle adapts his words, giving the verb κρίνεσθαι the middle sense, which it has in so many passages; for example, Matthew 5:40; 1 Corinthians 6:1; 1 Corinthians 6:6: “that Thou mayest gain Thy case if Thou hast one to plead.” Paul has obviously in view the accusation against God's faithfulness which might be raised from the fact of the unbelief and rejection of the chosen people.

But this very thought, that the veracity of God will come forth magnified from Israel's unbelief, raises a new objection, the examination of which forms the third phase of this discussion.