Paul continues to explain God’s judgment of sin.
Click here for an online Bible Romans 3:1-8
Since the Jews are just as guilty before God as all the other people in the world, what advantage is there to being a Jew? Paul says that there is an advantage to being a Jew. The Jews had been entrusted with the words of God. The Old Testament comes through the Jewish prophets. As the covenant community of God’s people, the Jews were the people that God spoke through. Even Christianity comes from the Jews. Jesus and all of his followers were Jews.
In verses 3 and 4, Paul answers another potential question. Since God promised to be faithful to the Jewish people, does his judgment of them imply that he is unfaithful? Paul answers, “Not at all!” God is faithful. It is people that are unfaithful. God promised that he would judge those who were unfaithful.
In verses 5-8, Paul answers the question that some may have asked. If God is glorified in forgiving sins, should we not sin more so that God may be glorified more? Paul says that this is a human argument (verse 5) and anyone who thinks this way deserves condemnation (verse 8). Any action of God results in his glory, so forgiving sins results in his glory, but so does judgment of sin. Human sin can never glorify God.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
These verses always confused me and seemed to need a long in-depth study, which at this moment I don't have time for. But, after several read throughs and several different versions, an analogy came to me.
When he talks about the advantage of the Jews, I equate it to life-long Christians or those that grew up in a bible believing church vs. myself coming to faith in my thirties. The earlier Christians, like the Jews Paul talks about, have had the Word throughout their life, memorized it, developed Godly habits of reading and relying on it, etc. I have missed out on much of this - not having verses memorized for decades to recall later, not having grown up in things like Awana, and not having a regular bible reading time with family and many other such things. Though both saved, the question is not salvation but who has the background more likely to find this salvation - hence the advantage. The strong, God fearing Jew has had his "soil" prepared for hearing the words of salvation and taking root in his life. The Gentiles at the time had little "soil" preparation perhaps only creation was testimony they have encountered. Indeed, Paul starts his salvation message in Acts to the Greeks with the history of creation to get them up to speed, to the need for salvation, quickly. The Jews required no such background since they knew the true history of the world up to their own time.
Larry,
That's a great analogy.
Post a Comment