Romans 3:5-6

“ But if our unrighteousness establish the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is not God unrighteous when He inflicts wrath? I speak as a man. Let it not be: for then how shall God judge the world? ”

From the that, Romans 3:4, it seemed to follow that God wills the sin of man for His own glory. But in that case, has He the right to condemn an act from which He reaps advantage, and to be angry with him who commits it? This objection might be put in the mouth of a Jew, who, placing himself at Paul's view-point, and hearing him say that Israel's rejection of the Messiah will glorify God's faithfulness, and conduce to the accomplishment of His plans, judged God highly unjust for being angry with Israel on account of such conduct. Our unbelief would then signify the unbelief of us Jews. But the contrast which prevailed in Romans 3:4 was that between God and every man, and not between Jew and Gentile. It is therefore more natural to apply the term our unrighteousness to human unrighteousness in general, undoubtedly with special application to the Jewish unrighteousness which gives rise to the objection. It is from the depths of the human conscience that the apostle fetches his question. Is it righteous on God's part to judge an act which He turns to His own advantage? As Paul had previously substituted the idea of truth for that of (God's) faithfulness, he here substitutes righteousness for truth. This term in its most general sense denotes the perfection in virtue of which God cannot become guilty of any wrong toward any being whatever. Now this is what He seems to do to the sinner, when He at once condemns and makes use of him. It is from the word: that Thou mayest be acknowledged righteous, Romans 3:4, that Paul derives the term righteousness, Romans 3:5. Συνιστάναι, strictly: to cause to stand together, whence: to confirm, to establish. The question τί ἐροῦμεν, what shall we say? does not occur in any other letter of the apostle's; but it is frequent in this (Romans 4:1; Romans 6:1; Romans 7:1; Romans 8:31; Romans 9:14; Romans 9:30). It serves to fix the mind of the reader on the state of the question, at the point which the discussion has reached. If it had been in the interest of a certain school of criticism to deny the authenticity of the Epistle to the Romans, it is easy to see what advantage it would have taken of this form so exclusively characteristic of this treatise.

The interrogative form with μή assumes, as it always does, that the answer will be negative: “God is not, however, unjust in”...? It is certainly the apostle who is speaking, and not an opponent; for the objection is thus expressed in the outset as one resolved in the negative. The phrase: to inflict wrath, alludes to Romans 2:4-5, where the apostle threatened Israel with divine wrath against the day of wrath; but the question is nevertheless put in a perfectly general sense.

There is always something revolting to a conscience enlightened from above, in joining the epithet unrighteous with the word God, even hypothetically. This is why Paul adds: I speak as a man. By man he here understands man left to himself and his own reason, speaking with lightness and presumption of the ways of God. Some commentators would join this explanatory remark with what follows. But the following exclamation (μὴ γένοιτο, let it not be so), is absolutely opposed to this.

The argument of Romans 3:6, according to Meyer, is this: How would God be disposed to judge the world, if there was no righteousness in Him? For the troublesome consequences of sin could not impel Him to it, since He can turn them to good. It must be confessed that this would be a singularly wiredrawn argument. To go to prove God's righteousness by the fact of the judgment, while it is the fact of the judgment which rests on divine righteousness! If the apostle had reasoned thus, Rückert would have been right in declaring that the argument was insufficient. But the reasoning is quite different. Meyer might have found it clearly stated by Olshausen: “If God's drawing a good result from a bad deed were enough to destroy His right to judge him who committed it, the final judgment would evidently become impossible; for as God is always turning to good the evil which men have devised, every sinner could plead in his defence: My sin has after all served some good end.”

One might be tempted to apply the word the world exclusively to the Gentile world, which would lead us to the explanation whereby Romans 3:5 is put into a Jewish mouth. To this Jewish interlocutor, excusing the sin of his nation by the good fruits which God will one day reap from it, Paul would then answer: But at this rate God could as little judge the Gentiles (the world). For He brings good fruits from their sins also. This meaning is very plausible in itself. But yet it does not correspond with the apostle's thought. For the word τὸν κόσμον, the world, would then have such an emphasis (as forming an antithesis to the Jews), that it would necessarily require to be placed before the verb. The idea is therefore more general: No final judgment is any longer possible if the beneficial consequences of sin, human or Jewish, justify the sinner. This idea is exactly that which is expounded in the two following verses.