Romans 3
The universal indictment reaches its conclusion, and Paul sets out his most concentrated statement of the gospel: justification by faith through Christ's redemption.
Summary
Romans 3 begins with objections. If Jewish unfaithfulness does not nullify God's faithfulness, has the distinction between Jew and Gentile collapsed entirely? Paul refuses that conclusion: the advantage of the Jew is real — they were entrusted with the oracles of God, the scriptures and the promises — and God's faithfulness stands even when Israel is unfaithful. The unfaithfulness of human beings only serves to demonstrate divine faithfulness more clearly. Then, in verses 10-18, Paul constructs a catena of quotations from Psalms and Isaiah to establish that the scripture itself witnesses to universal human failure: there is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who seeks God; all have turned aside; their throats are open graves. Every mouth is stopped; the whole world is accountable.
Verse 21 opens with but now, and the rest of the chapter is the core of the letter's theology. Apart from law, the righteousness of God has been manifested — witnessed by the law and the prophets themselves — the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood. The terms — justified, grace, redemption, propitiation — are loaded with legal, financial, and sacrificial resonance, and Paul piles them deliberately. He then argues that God has demonstrated his own righteousness in this: he is just, and the one who justifies the person who has faith in Jesus. The chapter closes with Paul's summary question — does faith overthrow the law? — and his answer: on the contrary, we uphold the law.
- Romans 1Chapter 1 is the opening of a long letter to a community Paul did not found and has not yet visited.
- Romans 2Chapter 2 is the turn in Paul's argument.
- Romans 3Chapter 3 is the hinge of the letter's first movement.
- Romans 4Chapter 4 is Paul's exegetical demonstration of justification by faith, built entirely from the figure of Abraham.
- Romans 5Chapter 5 opens the second major movement of the letter (chapters 5-8), which draws out the consequences of the justification argued in chapters 1-4.
- Romans 6Chapter 6 opens with Paul's most pointed rhetorical question: Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound? The question follows logically from the last verse of chapter 5, where he said grace abounds where sin increases, and it is the objection he expects.
- Romans 7Chapter 7 addresses the role of the law in the new life.
- Romans 8Chapter 8 is the climax Paul has been building toward since chapter 1.
- Romans 9Chapter 9 opens the three-chapter meditation on Israel — the hardest sustained argument in the letter.
- Romans 10Chapter 10 continues the argument of chapter 9 but shifts from divine sovereignty to human responsibility.
- Romans 11Chapter 11 brings the three-chapter meditation on Israel to its resolution.
- Romans 12Chapter 12 opens the practical movement of the letter with the word therefore, gathering everything from chapters 1-11 into a single imperative.
- Romans 13Chapter 13 contains the verses that have generated more controversy in the history of Romans' reception than any other passage in the letter.
- Romans 14Chapter 14 addresses a concrete dispute in the Roman church.
- Romans 15Chapter 15 continues directly from chapter 14.
- Romans 16Chapter 16 is the longest closing greeting in any of Paul's letters.