Ep. 292. Romans 3 | No One is Righteous

EPISODE 292

NO ONE IS RIGHTEOUS: ROMANS 3

The advantage that the Jew (used to have) over the Gentile is that the Jew had the oracles of God, what we call the Old Testament. To them came the prophets, to them came the promises, and to them came the expectation of the world-redeeming Messiah. They should have seen Jesus coming a mile away. But, though they have an advantage, the Jew is not actually better off than the Gentile. All are under sin, a topic that will be revisited in more detail in Romans 5. "Through the works of the law, no human being will be justified [righteous] in [God's] sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin."

God makes no distinction between Jew and Gentile, as we have previously seen in Romans 2:11.

And since all people, Jews, and Gentiles, are saved by faith, there is absolutely no room for boasting (See also Ephesians 2:8-9) for, "We hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the Law." God isn't just the God of the Jews; he is also the God of the Gentiles. It boggles my mind that Paul will make repeated references to the two people groups of the earth, Jews and Greeks and that people will still insist that Paul is preaching about individual salvation. That isn't to say we can't understand salvation more clearly through the book of Romans; rather, that just isn't the point Paul is trying to make. He seems, rather clearly to me, to be indicating that salvation wasn't limited to the Jews.

The last verse of this chapter is very important, but makes more sense when taken with all of chapter four, so I'll save that discussion for our next blog.

ADDITIONAL READING: 1 Peter 1:10-11; Psalm 51:4; Romans 1:17; Psalm 14:1-3; Psalm 5:9; Psalm 10:7; Psalm 36:1; Isaiah 59:7-8; Galatians 2:16; Romans 2:11; Acts 10-11