God's Courtroom, Our Objections Text: Romans 3:1-8
Introduction: Squirming in the Dock
We have arrived at a crucial juncture in Paul's argument. He has spent two chapters systematically dismantling every human claim to righteousness. He has put the pagan Gentile in the dock and shown him to be a lawbreaker, condemned by the light of nature. He has put the moralizing Gentile in the dock, the one who tut-tuts at the pagan, and shown him to be a hypocrite, guilty of the very same things. And then, in chapter two, he turned his full attention to the covenant man, the Jew, who possessed the law of God, the sign of circumcision, and the heritage of the patriarchs. Paul has demonstrated, with devastating logic, that possessing the law is not the same as keeping it, and that true circumcision is a matter of the heart, not the flesh.
The net effect of this is that Paul has gathered all of humanity into one great courtroom, and the verdict is guilty. Every mouth is stopped. There are no excuses left. But this is precisely where the objections begin to fly. When a man is cornered by the law of God, his natural instinct is not to surrender, but to lawyer up. He starts to argue with the judge. He begins to cross-examine the prosecution. He looks for loopholes, technicalities, anything to mitigate the sentence. "This isn't fair!" "This doesn't make sense!" "If what you say is true, then God is unjust!"
This is what we find in Romans 3. Paul, a master rhetorician and logician, anticipates the objections that would naturally arise from his Jewish readers. He voices the very arguments that are bubbling up in their hearts and then, one by one, he demolishes them. What we are reading here is not just an ancient argument. These are the same objections that every sinner, in every age, raises against the justice of God. These are the arguments you hear in the university classroom, in the coffee shop, and in the quiet rebellion of your own heart. Paul is not just dealing with first-century questions; he is dealing with the perennial human refusal to accept God's verdict.
And so, we must pay close attention. Paul is teaching us how to think. He is teaching us how to defend the character of God against the slander of sinful men. He is showing us that God's justice is not fragile. It does not buckle under our cross-examination. Rather, our foolish objections only serve to highlight the brilliance and the unshakeable righteousness of God. We are about to watch a master apologist at work, defending the very foundations of the gospel.
The Text
Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God. What then? If some did not believe, does their unbelief abolish the faithfulness of God? May it never be! Rather, let God be true and every man a liar, as it is written, “THAT YOU MAY BE JUSTIFIED IN YOUR WORDS, AND OVERCOME WHEN YOU ARE JUDGED.” But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is the God who inflicts wrath unrighteous? (I am speaking in human terms.) May it never be! For otherwise, how will God judge the world? But if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner? And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), “Let us do evil that good may come”? Their condemnation is just.
(Romans 3:1-8 LSB)
Objection One: The Uselessness of Privilege (vv. 1-2)
Paul anticipates the first and most obvious objection. If circumcision of the heart is what matters, and if having the law doesn't save you, then what was the point of being a Jew at all?
"Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God." (Romans 3:1-2)
The objector is essentially saying, "Paul, you've just spent a whole chapter rendering my entire religious heritage null and void. If we are condemned just like the pagans, what was the point of it all? What good was the covenant? What good was the sign of the covenant?" This is a charge of meaninglessness.
Paul's answer is immediate and emphatic: "Great in every respect." He does not backtrack. He does not say, "Well, it was just symbolic." He affirms the immense privilege of the Jewish people. The advantages were real, they were massive, and they were manifold. He only begins the list here, saying "First of all..." before his line of argument is interrupted by the next objection. And what is the chief advantage? "They were entrusted with the oracles of God."
The "oracles of God" refers to the entire Old Testament revelation. The Jews were the custodians of Scripture. God chose to speak to the world through them. He gave them the law, the covenants, the promises, the prophecies, the entire story of redemption. This was not a small thing. To be the people who hold the very words of the living God is a staggering privilege and an awesome responsibility. It is the advantage of knowing the rules of the game, of having the map, of hearing the voice of the Creator when all other nations were stumbling in the dark, fashioning gods out of wood and stone.
The principle here is crucial. Privilege does not equal salvation, but it does equal responsibility. God's gifts are real gifts, but they come with strings attached. The Jews had the immense advantage of knowing God's will. But as Paul has already argued, and as Jesus Himself taught, to whom much is given, much is required. Their failure was not in the gift, but in their response to the gift. The advantage was real, but it only increased their culpability when they failed to believe and obey the oracles they possessed.
Objection Two: The Failure of God's Plan (vv. 3-4)
This leads directly to the second objection. If the Jews, who had all this advantage, were largely unfaithful, doesn't that mean God's plan failed? If His chosen people didn't believe, doesn't that make God's faithfulness look a bit shaky?
"What then? If some did not believe, does their unbelief abolish the faithfulness of God? May it never be! Rather, let God be true and every man a liar, as it is written, 'THAT YOU MAY BE JUSTIFIED IN YOUR WORDS, AND OVERCOME WHEN YOU ARE JUDGED.'" (Romans 3:3-4 LSB)
This is a profound question. The objector is putting God's character on trial. "God made a covenant with Israel. Israel broke the covenant. Therefore, God's covenant project is a failure. His promises are void." This is an attempt to shift the blame from man's unbelief to God's supposed inability to follow through.
Paul's response is a thunderous, "May it never be!" This is his strongest possible negative, me genoito. It is a cry of moral horror at the very suggestion. The thought is blasphemous and unthinkable. Why? Because God's faithfulness is not contingent on our faithfulness. His promises do not depend on our performance for their validity. If they did, they wouldn't be divine promises; they would be mere contracts, breakable by either party.
Paul then lays down a foundational axiom of all reality: "Let God be true and every man a liar." This is the ultimate presupposition. When there is a conflict between what God says and what man says or does, there is no contest. God's word is the standard of truth. Our experience, our feelings, our failures, our unbelief, none of it can alter the bedrock reality of God's character and His Word. If every single person on earth were to become a liar and an unbeliever, it would not diminish the truthfulness of God by one iota. He remains true because He cannot be otherwise. He is truth.
To support this, Paul quotes Psalm 51:4, from David's great prayer of repentance. David, after his horrific sin with Bathsheba, confesses to God, "Against You, You only, have I sinned." And then he says that his very sin serves to vindicate God's judgment. When God judges David, God's words are shown to be just, and God triumphs in the courtroom. This is a staggering thought. Our sin, when judged by God, does not undermine His righteousness; it displays it. When we lie, it only makes His truth shine brighter by contrast. Human unbelief does not nullify God's faithfulness; it becomes the dark backdrop against which the diamond of His faithfulness is displayed.
Objection Three: The Injustice of Punishment (vv. 5-6)
But this line of reasoning immediately provokes a clever, cynical, and blasphemous objection. The sinner, ever the opportunist, tries to turn Paul's argument on its head.
"But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is the God who inflicts wrath unrighteous? (I am speaking in human terms.) May it never be! For otherwise, how will God judge the world?" (Romans 3:5-6 LSB)
The argument is this: "Okay, Paul. If my sin serves to highlight God's righteousness, if my lie makes His truth look even better, then in a way, I'm doing God a service. My unrighteousness is a showcase for His righteousness. How then can He turn around and punish me for it? Isn't He being unjust by inflicting wrath on me for something that ultimately demonstrates His glory?" Paul recognizes how audacious this sounds, so he adds the parenthetical, "I am speaking in human terms," acknowledging this is the kind of twisted logic men come up with.
Once again, "May it never be!" Paul rejects the conclusion out of hand. The premise is twisted. The creature does not get to put the Creator in a logical bind. Paul's refutation is simple and decisive: "For otherwise, how will God judge the world?" If God were unjust for punishing sin that He uses for His own glory, then the entire concept of divine judgment would collapse. God could never judge anyone. But the fact that God is the Judge of all the earth is a non-negotiable axiom of Scripture (Gen. 18:25). God's role as Judge is fundamental to His nature and His relationship to the world. Therefore, the objection, which would make judgment impossible, must be false.
The sinner's argument confuses purpose with character. God sovereignly uses our sin for His purposes, but that does not change the character of our sin. Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery out of hatred and envy. That was their motive, and it was wicked. God used that very act to save a nation from famine. That was His purpose, and it was glorious. God's sovereign purpose does not excuse their sinful motive. He judges the motive, the act itself, which is a violation of His holy law.
Objection Four: The Antinomian Slander (vv. 7-8)
The final objection is a restatement of the previous one, but this time it is framed as a direct attack on Paul's own teaching. It is the ultimate caricature of the gospel of grace.
"But if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner? And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), 'Let us do evil that good may come'? Their condemnation is just." (Romans 3:7-8 LSB)
This is the slippery slope argument. "Paul, if my lie glorifies God's truth, why am I judged? And if that's the case, let's take it to its logical conclusion. Let's really give God something to work with! Let's sin our heads off so that grace may abound and God can be even more glorified!" Paul acknowledges that this is a slanderous misrepresentation of his gospel. It's a charge that has followed the gospel of free grace throughout history. If salvation is not by works, then what incentive is there for holiness? If grace covers all sin, why not sin more?
Here, Paul does not even dignify the objection with a lengthy refutation. He will deal with this slander in detail in Romans 6. For now, he dismisses it with a swift and final judgment: "Their condemnation is just." Anyone who would twist the glorious truth of God's sovereign grace into a license for sin is demonstrating a heart so perverse, so utterly at odds with the character of God, that their condemnation is righteous and deserved. They do not understand grace at all. They see it as a mere legal transaction, a get-out-of-jail-free card, rather than what it is: the power of God that transforms the heart, breaks the bonds of sin, and creates a new person who loves righteousness and hates evil.
To argue "let us do evil that good may come" is to prove that you are still in love with evil. It is to demonstrate that you have no desire for God, only a desire to escape the consequences of your rebellion. The gospel does not offer such an escape. It offers a rescue from the rebellion itself. Anyone who thinks the gospel is a license to sin has not heard the gospel; they have only heard a caricature of it invented by their own wicked hearts.
God Justified
In these eight verses, Paul has masterfully defended the character of God against the predictable, self-serving objections of sinful man. And what is the result? God is left standing, perfectly righteous, perfectly faithful, perfectly just. And man is left where he began: in the dock, without excuse, with his mouth stopped.
The covenant privileges of the Jews were real, but they heightened responsibility. The unbelief of men cannot thwart the faithfulness of God. The fact that God uses our sin for His glory does not make Him unjust in punishing that sin. And the gospel of sovereign grace is not a license for licentiousness, but the very power of God unto salvation and holiness.
This is the necessary groundwork. Before Paul can unveil the glorious solution of justification by faith alone in the second half of this chapter, he must first make sure we understand the depth of the problem. We must see that all our arguments against God are futile. We must be stripped of our self-righteousness and our intellectual pride. We must come to the place where we stop arguing with the Judge and simply throw ourselves on the mercy of the court.
For it is only when we agree with God's verdict, only when we say with David, "You are justified in Your words, and overcome when You are judged," that we are in a position to hear the good news. The good news is that the Judge Himself has stepped down from the bench, has come to stand in the dock in our place, and has absorbed the full penalty of His own righteous wrath on our behalf. Any other gospel is a slander, and those who promote it, their condemnation is just.