Romans Chapter 3

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Keep reading below if you want to start where we are (Romans 2:17-24)
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Either way works. I just don't want you to feel lost.

Before diving into my notes, I encourage you to read Romans 3:1-8 first (or the whole chapter if you have time).

I include all the Scripture below, but there’s something about sitting with the whole chapter first — giving yourself room to be curious.

What catches you off guard?
What doesn't make sense?
Where is that?
Who's that?
Why?

Those questions will make the notes hit deeper.

"When disciples followed a rabbi, they followed him closely so they would never be out of his sight, never be someplace where they couldn’t hear him speak. They followed him so closely that his sandals often kicked up dust."

May you be covered in His dust.

Grace and peace to you, brothers and sisters.

Romans 3:1-8 is a train wreck.

Not because Paul's argument falls apart. But because he's fielding objections from people who are losing their minds.

For two chapters, Paul has been systematically destroying every claim to righteousness. Gentiles? Condemned. Jews? Condemned. Religious people? Condemned. Moral people? Condemned.

And now the room is in chaos.

People are shouting. "Wait, what's the advantage of being Jewish then?" "If our sin shows God's righteousness, why are we judged?" "Are you seriously saying we should just sin so grace can abound?"

Paul doesn't run from it. He walks straight into the fire.

But here's the problem: this passage is notoriously difficult.

John Piper preached through Romans for eight years. And he said Romans 3:1-8 is the hardest passage in the book, possibly one of the hardest in the entire Bible.

Peter warned about this too. In 2 Peter 3:15-16, he said Paul's letters contain "some things that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction."

People have been twisting it for 2,000 years.

So this week, we're going slow. We're breaking it down. Verse by verse. Question by question. Objection by objection.

Cool?
Let's go.

Paul knows what you're thinking.

Actually, he knows what the Jews in the room are thinking. Because after two chapters of being told they're just as condemned as the pagans, they're done listening quietly.

"Wait. WAIT. What's the advantage of being Jewish then?"

Think about what Paul just said in chapter 2. Circumcision doesn't save you. The law doesn't save you. Being born into Abraham's family doesn't save you. If you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. And the Gentile who obeys by the Spirit is more Jewish than you are.

Devastating.

Because for 2,000 years, being Jewish meant something. It meant you were chosen. Set apart. Part of the covenant. God's people.

And now Paul's saying none of that matters if your heart hasn't been changed.

So the question erupts: "Then what was the point? What advantage did we have? What value does circumcision have?"

Paul doesn’t flinch.

He doesn't say, "You're missing the point."

He says, "MUCH in every way."

There IS an advantage. A massive one.

And then he starts a list: "To begin with..."

Except he never finishes the list.

He gives one advantage. The most important one. And then he stops. He doesn't give "secondly" or "thirdly." He pulls off the highway, grabs a snack, and gets back on the Roman road.

It's not until Romans 9:4-5 that Paul finally lists all the advantages:

"They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen."

But here in Romans 3? He only mentions one.

"The Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God."

The oracles of God.

Not feelings. Not impressions. Not religious traditions passed down by men.

The very words of God.

God spoke. And He didn't speak to everyone. He spoke to Israel. He gave them His law. His prophets. His written revelation. Every single prophet who revealed God's Word was Jewish.

That's the advantage.

And
it's
massive.

If you were raised in a Christian home, you had the same advantage. You had access to the Bible. You heard it read. You were taught it. You had God's Word.

But here's the thing Paul's about to hammer home:

Having the oracles isn't enough.

You can have the Word of God and not believe it.

You can read it, know it, memorize it, teach it... and still be lost.

Here's the objection.

"Okay Paul, you just said we were entrusted with the oracles of God. That's the advantage. But some Jews didn't believe. Some rejected the Word. Some were unfaithful.

Does that mean God failed? Does our unfaithfulness nullify God's faithfulness?"

To understand why this question makes sense, you need to see something I didn't notice until last year.

I read the entire Bible in 60 days. Twenty chapters a day.

When you read that fast, you can't dig deep like we're doing here. But you get something else. You see the Bible from 30,000 feet. The big picture. The patterns you miss when you're zoomed in on one verse at a time.

And there's one pattern that runs through the entire Old Testament like a drumbeat.

Israel rebels.
God judges.
God is patient.
God restores.

Over and over and over again.

That's what Israel has always done. Rebelling. Breaking covenant. Testing God's patience. And every single time, God remained faithful. He judged them, yes. But He never abandoned them. He always restored them.

So when Paul says Jews are condemned just like Gentiles, the objection is obvious:

"Wait. Israel has ALWAYS been unfaithful. Read the Old Testament. They rebelled constantly. They broke the covenant over and over. And God kept His promises anyway. He didn't reject them. He restored them.

So how can you say their unfaithfulness disqualifies them now? Doesn't God's faithfulness to Israel override their unfaithfulness?"

That's the question.

And Paul's answer is decisive.

"By no means!"

God's faithfulness doesn't depend on Israel's faithfulness.

God doesn't become less true because we're unfaithful.
He doesn't become less righteous because we're unrighteous.
He doesn't break His promises because we break ours.

God is true. Period.

Not contingent on anything we do.

Listen to how Paul says it:

"Let God be true though every one were a liar."

Even if every single Jew is unfaithful, God remains true.
Even if everyone on earth is a liar, God remains true.
Even if Israel breaks the covenant, God remains true.
Even if the whole world turns faithless, God remains true.
Even if you walk away, God remains true.

God's character doesn't shift based on human performance.

And then Paul does something brilliant.
He quotes Psalm 51.

See those quotation marks inside the verse?

That's Paul quoting the Old Testament. When you see quotation marks inside a verse like that, it usually means a writer is pulling directly from Scripture to make their point.

And this quote? It's from Psalm 51.

Most of us read right past that.

But every Jew reading this letter would have recognized it immediately.

Psalm 51 was one of the most well-known, most-recited psalms in Jewish life. It was used in confession, in repentance, in worship.

And they all knew the story behind it.

David.
The king.
The man after God's own heart.
God's anointed.

He committed adultery with Bathsheba. Got her pregnant. Tried to cover it up. When that didn't work, he had her husband Uriah murdered on the front lines of battle.

Then he took Bathsheba as his wife and thought he'd gotten away with it.

But God saw.

And God sent the prophet Nathan to confront him.

Nathan told David a story about a rich man who stole a poor man's only lamb. And David exploded with rage. "That man deserves to die!"

And Nathan looked at him and said, "You are the man."

David's sin came crashing down on him. And he wrote Psalm 51.

"Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your words and blameless in your judgment."

Go ahead… read that again.

David didn't make excuses. He didn't say, "But I'm the king. I have the covenant. I'm special. I'm chosen."

He said, "If you judge me, God, you're RIGHT to do it. Your judgment is justified. I have no excuse."

And that's the line Paul quotes in Romans 3:4.

Do you see what Paul's doing?

He's saying: Even the greatest Jew who ever lived admitted that God's judgment is righteous.

David. THE Jew. The KING Jew. The one God called "a man after my own heart."

And even HE said, "God, if You judge me, You're right. I deserve it."

If David admitted God was justified in judging him, then no Jew can claim immunity.

God's faithfulness doesn't mean He overlooks sin.
God's faithfulness means He remains true to His character.
And His character includes justice, righteousness, and judgment.

Israel being Israel doesn't excuse Israel.

God is patient, yes. He’ll restore them, yes. Romans 11:25-26 promises that "a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved."

God's not done with them, but their rebellion doesn't get a pass just because it's familiar.

God remains true. To His promises. To His character. To His justice.

And that means He judges sin righteously.

Here's where it gets ugly.

Paul's been answering legitimate questions. Honest objections from Jews trying to understand.

But now he shifts to the people who aren't confused.

They're twisting.

They're taking Paul's gospel of grace and perverting it into a license to sin.

Listen to the objections:

Verse 5: "If our unrighteousness shows God's righteousness, why is God mad at us? Isn't our sin actually helping Him look good?"

Paul adds a note in parentheses: "I speak in a human way."

He's saying, "I'm phrasing this the way a human would argue it, not because I agree with it." It's like he's holding the objection at arm's length. "This is what THEY'RE saying. Not me."

He's anticipating the objection before anyone can accuse him of blasphemy for even asking the question.

Verse 7: "If my lie makes God's truth more glorious, why am I being judged as a sinner? Shouldn't I get credit for making God look better?"

Verse 8: "Why not just do evil so good can come from it? If God's grace is magnified by our sin, shouldn't we sin more?"

Do you hear it?

These aren't honest questions. They’re traps.

They're either mocking him sarcastically, like "Oh sure Paul, let's just sin so grace can abound!" or they're genuinely perverting his teaching into a license for evil.

And Paul shuts it down.

"Their condemnation is just."

Paul’s addressing the people who take the gospel of grace and twist it into permission to sin. They hear "saved by grace through faith, not by works" and think, "Great, I can do whatever I want."

Here's the thing.

The cross doesn't say, "Sin doesn't matter." The cross says, "Sin matters SO MUCH that the Son of God had to die for it."

If you're using grace as a license to sin, you don't understand grace.

There's a difference between being forgiven and treating forgiveness like a blank check.

And Paul draws the line.

So where does that leave us?

Paul answered three objections in Romans 3:1-8:

"What's the advantage of being Jewish?"
Much in every way. You were entrusted with the oracles of God.

"Does Israel's unfaithfulness nullify God's faithfulness?"
By no means. God remains true, even if everyone is a liar.

"If our sin shows God's righteousness, why are we judged?"
Because twisting grace into license for sin isn't understanding grace. It's condemning yourself.

But Paul's not done.

Next week, he's going to pull out the Old Testament and build a case that will leave no one standing.

Quote after quote after quote.

And when he's finished, every defense will be gone. Every excuse will be stripped away.

"None is righteous, no, not one."

I love you,
George

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George Sisneros is a full-time missionary in Guatemala and the founder of Ordinary Missionaries and the El Rosario Christian Academy for Boys.

He’s been married to his wife, Vonda, for 27 years. He’s a father to nine children, five adopted.

In 2024, George and his wife expanded to Cuba, joining forces with nine pastors committed to transforming lives through the gospel.

You can get George’s newest digital book, Uncovering Scripture: The Gospel of Luke HERE.