A Faithful, Just, and Righteous God: Romans 3:1-8 (Sermon)

WELCOME / CONTEXT

Good morning! We are working our way through the book of Romans. The author, Paul, was writing to the church in Rome. Some of his audience had Jewish heritage, and others pagan. Some were religious and others were not. We have worked through the first couple of chapters and are now in Chapter 3. Paul shared that the wrath of God has been revealed to everyone. This may not be easy to hear, but it’s true and essential for us to see the goodness of the good news. The good news is that salvation is accessible to all who trust in Jesus, who died on our behalf. This fits with Paul’s overall desire for the church to be unified in the power of the good news. 

TEXT 

I am going to have T.B. read for us. Would you please stand with us in honor of God’s Word, if you are able? 

Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, 

                  “That you may be justified in your words, 

      and prevail when you are judged.” 

But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just. (Romans 3:1–8, ESV)

PRAYER

The Word of the Lord, thanks be to God. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for your Word. We need your help to understand it and apply it to our lives. Teach us to live for you and give you honor, glory, and fame in all we think, speak, and do. Transform us by your Spirit and power that raised Jesus from the dead. We pray all this in Jesus’s name, amen. You may be seated. 

STRUCTURE 

The passage this morning has four sections exploring questions like,  

(1–2) What is the value of being Jewish? 

(3–4) If God’s promised people didn’t obey his Word, does that mean God is not faithful to his promise?

(5–6) Is God unjust in his judgment? 

(7–8) If sin highlights God’s rightness, why not sin more?

MAIN IDEA

The Bible unpacks answers to these questions. Paul was asking questions that some likely had. He knew these questions through decades of experience debating for and against Christianity from a Jewish perspective. A well-placed question engages listeners. Don’t you think? [Pause] I say that tongue in cheek. Paul had several points he wanted his audience to consider. Consider,

1. What is the benefit of Judaism? 

2. What is the character of God? 

3. And what does God want from us? 

Verses 1 through 8 of Chapter 3 dispel arguments around those topics that would distract people from clinging to the hope of the good news about Jesus. In our passage, and others, Paul affirmed again and again that God is just, faithful, and right even when we are not. 

POINT 1 

Let’s look at this. The first question Paul dealt with was, 

(1–2) What is the value of being Jewish? 

(3–4) If God’s promised people didn’t obey his Word, does that mean God is not faithful to his promise?

(5–6) Is God unjust in his judgment? 

(7–8) If sin highlights God’s rightness, why not sin more?

Chapter 2 ended by saying there was value in circumcision, which was emblematic of being Jewish. Circumcision set them apart from the surrounding nations. Virtually, no one was doing it. This was a marker from God to Abraham in Genesis 17, to be passed down to each subsequent generation as a sign of their covenant agreement. Paul answered his own question about the value of circumcision in verse 2: 

“Much in every way” (Romans 3:2a, ESV). 

Paul said there were many ways that being Jewish was advantageous. But one way in particular was 

“Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God” (Romans 3:2, ESV).

God gave his people oracles. What were they? 

ACTS 

In Acts Chapter 7, verse 37, the deacon Stephen gave a speech to an antagonistic Jewish audience, and he mentioned these oracles. He said, 

“This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.’ This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us”  (Acts 7:37–38, ESV).

Some versions translate oracles as the “words of God” or “revelation of God.” This is our Old Testament. God chose the people of Israel out of all the world to receive this revelation. God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, the Law. Other prophets spoke oracles to God’s people, including Samuel, Nathan, David, Jonah, Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. We studied some of them before we got into Romans, like Malachi, Joel, and Obadiah. What was so special about these oracles, since Paul wrote in Chapter 2, that God wrote the law on people’s hearts? What did God’s people have that the world didn’t? They had more of a connection with God and more detailed information about God. Why? Why did God pick the children of Abraham, the Jews, to give these truths and this personal relationship? God told them in the last book Moses wrote, Deuteronomy: 

For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 7:6–8, ESV)

God chose his people. He chose the people of Israel. Why? 

• It was not because the Jewish people were stronger or more populous. 

• It was not because they were more obedient or more religious. 

It was because he loved them, and he made a promise before they were born to their ancestors. That was why. How do you explain love? How do you rationalize affection? Why do we show compassion? Scientifically, is it simply the survival of the species? Is that why? If that is so, why then does our heart go out to the weak, impoverished, disabled, and elderly? They likely won’t pay us back. Where is the ROI in that? We can’t simply boil life down to chance, chemical reactions, and economic benefit. Atheistic evolution fails to explain love. Perhaps looking at our loves more closely will help us understand our heavenly Father’s love for Israel? 

• Do we love our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren because they gave us a great piece of art for Christmas? 

• Do we love them because they look like our handsome and beautiful selves? 

• Do we love them because they are smart or make lots of money and could take care of us when our bodies or brains fail? 

Why do we love them? Have you ever thought of that? It is instinctive, inborn, and natural like breathing. We are made in God’s image to be lovers, creators, and doers. God loves his people that he created, and he had mercy on some. And he showed that mercy through his oracles to all who pay attention. 

MEETING GOD 

Picture encountering God’s love personally or having a family member, friend, or leader meeting with God face to face, like Moses did on Mount Sinai in the Middle East? As you look up that hill, it smokes, and he walks to God. He is gone for days. He is meeting with the Creator. What if at that meeting, God said he was going to make your descendants into a new nation? What would that be like for him to report those oracles back to you? God told him that you were going to start a new country, move to an uninhabited island somewhere in Lake Michigan, a state that would bless the world, be as numerous as the stars in the sky, and sand on the shores. You might think that if it were your dad, “Dad, you are nuts!” All the while, he is rushing around gathering things and excitedly telling you, “Pack up, we are moving to Nashland, not Nashville, (there is already one of those). We are going to have a people called the Nashites, Nashicans, or maybe Nashiganders?” That would be hard to swallow. But what if it really happened? In a way, God did that with Abraham four thousand years ago. But it wasn’t some hair-brained, nutty adventure. God convinced Abraham, over time, and with his people, that they could trust him. His people were the untrustworthy ones. 

BIBLE 

We know stories like Abraham’s and Moses’s because God gave his people oracles to teach them about their origin, ethics, and what happens when they die. This Bible, God’s Word, is inspired and preserved for our benefit. It is unlike any other book in the history of all books. It was written on three continents, primarily in two languages, over 1,500 years. And it maintains a unified message of who God is, what he wants from us, and our history. Think about God giving you that oracle for the first time. God wrote the Ten Commandments on two stone tablets and gave them to Moses. Think about looking at the wet pen strokes on the parchment right after Isaiah wrote his prophecy, or Jonah his. Or, think of greeting someone at the door who had the original letter Paul sent to Rome. Those were divine words, inspired by the Spirit of God. What if, generation after generation, you had the first copy in your possession, stored away in your crawl space in a box somewhere with old photos, yearbooks, and baseball cards? Wouldn’t it be cool? Why? Because the Bible is God’s Word, and it tells us things we can’t discover in Creation and within our hearts. It has value. 

TRANSLATIONS 

Through our mission giving, we support the Wimbush family with Wycliffe Bible Translation, and we support Eduardo Mendes with Spoken. This organization helps illiterate people hear the Bible in their own language. According to Wycliffe, “As of 1 August, 2025, just 544 of the world’s 7,396 living languages remain on the waiting list for Bible translation to begin.” That represents 36.8 million people without a bible in their own language. (https://www.wycliffe.net/resources/statistics/#:~:text=Exponential%20progress,some%20ever%20imagined%20possible.) Honestly, that doesn’t seem like a lot. When I was in College, I believe there were around 2,000 language groups that had not yet had Bible translations started. We are well on our way to getting the gospel accessible to all. Why is that important? Because there is value in knowing God and his ways. 

POINT 2

That raises another question: 

(1–2) What is the value of being Jewish? 

(3–4) If God’s promised people didn’t obey his Word, does that mean God is not faithful to his promise?

(5–6) Is God unjust in his judgment? 

(7–8) If sin highlights God’s rightness, why not sin more?

Romans 1 and 2 teach us that God’s wrath was upon those who didn’t obey. And he is coming to render to everyone according to what they have done. Does that mean that God is contradicting his promise to make his people great, give them a land flowing with Milk and Honey, and bless the world through them? How did Paul answer that? Jump to verse 3:  

“What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar” (Romans 3:3–4a, ESV).                 

God is faithful through and through, even if people haven’t been. He didn’t make robots and automotons. People have agency and autonomy. And he will hold them accountable on the day of Judgment for every careless word they speak, every lustful glance they give, every selfish deed they do. God can maintain his sovereignty, and we retain culpability. 

PSALM 51

How do we deal with that guilt? Some blame God. Paul ended these verses quoting King David, from Psalm 51, reminding God’s people of what their greatest earthly king said in one of his greatest hit songs regarding his greatest failure. It is an example of how to deal with guilt and an alternative to blaming God. David wrote,  

            Have mercy on me, O God, 

      according to your steadfast love; 

            according to your abundant mercy 

      blot out my transgressions. 

            Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, 

      and cleanse me from my sin!

            For I know my transgressions, 

      and my sin is ever before me. 

            Against you, you only, have I sinned 

      and done what is evil in your sight, 

            so that you may be justified in your words 

      and blameless in your judgment. (Psalm 51:1–4, ESV)

David knew his sin. He was a man after God’s own heart. He wrote part of the Bible. From his offspring, the prophet Nathan said would come a man who would rule and reign forever, whose name would be Jesus. But David got sloppy. He didn’t do the work of a king. In his laziness, he longed for a woman he saw while he was lounging. Being a king, he could get what he wanted when he wanted it. He wanted this woman named Bathsheba, so he got her, and did what only married people should do. Scandalously, he broke one of the top Ten Commandments, “Do not commit adultery.” Consequently, Bathsheba got pregnant. She told David. What did he do? Did he feel bad, apologize, confess his sin, ask for forgiveness, and write Psalm 51? No. He tried to cover it up. When that didn’t work, he arranged to have her husband killed, and he quickly married her, adding to his harem and a list of wrongs. His camouflage didn’t work on God.

Then, Nathan, a prophet, confronted David on behalf of God using a story of a man in his kingdom who had a large farm. The farmer took an innocent man’s sheep and stole it. This angered David, and he pronounced judgment. Nathan revealed that this man whom David condemned was a parable for him. “You are the man!” David was cut to the heart. His eyes were opened. In a sense, the greatest sin David committed was not against Bathsheba, her husband, Bathsheba’s child, or the nation that looked up to him. King David had sinned against God alone. David was unfaithful to follow God’s clear good law. Did he have an excuse because he was God’s chosen King, Jewish, or circumcised? No. Was it God’s fault because David was born with a strong libido? Could he tell God, “You made me this way,” or “Love is love?” No. He recognized that God was justified in his words and blameless in his judgment. Friends, God was faithful even though David was faithless. David’s song in Psalm 51 starts in an exemplary way with seeking God’s mercy. God gave it to him. In fact, the Bible tells us that God offers mercy to all who put their faith in his son Jesus. That is the good news of the gospel and the message of Romans. God can bring good out of our mess. In fact, the Messiah, God’s one and only Son, Jesus, came from the union of Bathsheba and David to bring mercy to all who would receive it. 

POINT 3

Paul went on to explore another question. Was God wrong in his judgment if it demonstrates how right he is? Another way to say it is, 

(1–2) What is the value of being Jewish? 

(3–4) If God’s promised people didn’t obey his Word, does that mean God is not faithful to his promise?

(5–6) Is God unjust in his judgment? 

(7–8) If sin highlights God’s rightness, why not sin more?

Let’s look at verses 5 and 6:

“But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world?” (Romans 3:5–6, ESV). 

Do you remember what we read in Chapter 2? God judges people based on their actions. The fact that God can bring good out of evil doesn’t make him wicked. We are glad when the bad guy gets his comeuppance. Judgment is good when it brings what this world can’t, justice. However, judgment is harder to bear when it is us. We can be slippery when held accountable. We can blame someone else or point a finger. The Bible tells us that God knows all. He has the power to execute perfect deliberation. He knows all possible endings. Jesus is the one who will fix it all and make the right calls. God is biding his time for his blameless conclusion to history. No jury, appellate court, federal judge, Department of Justice, or Supreme Court can beat God’s insight and resolutions. God is just and faithful. 

POINT 4

This brings us to the last point: 

 

(1–2) What is the value of being Jewish? 

(3–4) If God’s promised people didn’t obey his Word, does that mean God is not faithful to his promise?

(5–6) Is God unjust in his judgment? 

(7–8) If sin highlights God’s rightness, why not sin more?

Jump to Romans Chapter 3, verse 7 for an answer: 

“But if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just” (Romans 3:7–8, ESV).

Paul used this ludicrous line of thinking to condemn those who would slanderously accuse Paul of justifying sin. He will revisit this in Romans Chapter 6. 

APPLICATION 

As we conclude, we need to measure our views of God, sin, judgment, and mercy by the Bible. The Bible is God’s oracle to us, informing our understanding. There is a temptation for Paul’s audience to miss it and distort reality. They are looking for excuses or making excuses and not seeing God’s justice, faithfulness, and righteousness. Not only do we have the Old Testament of the Jews, but we also have the New Testament. God has revealed to us the hope of the gospel. We want to study it. We want to meditate on it. We want to read it. We want to memorize it. We need it. It is not our god, but it is God’s Word to us. What does it look like to know God through the pages of this book? You can actively listen to the sermon, go to Sunday school, bring your Bibles to church, and read them during the week. One of our worship leaders has written Romans 8 to music to help her recall the passage. We shared it in our weekly email called the Gems. (If you are not getting it, let the office know, and they will sign you up.) Let us find ways to ingest God’s Word. It has immense value. 

HEALTHY HABITS

In ministry, I have the privilege of visiting many people who are sick. And often I think of what I would do in their situation. If the doctor said that I had cancer, I would eat better, exercise more, and perhaps get a bit more sleep. But the crazy thing is, often sickness comes upon people suddenly and indiscriminately. Now is the time for me to prepare for the day of sickness, not when I am waiting in the emergency room for the test results. In the same way, now is the time to prepare to meet God, not on our deathbeds. 

HABITS OF GRACE 

Habits of grace, like consuming God’s Word in our lives, help us stand firm in the faith. It helps us be faithful, and when we haven’t been, obtain God’s mercy. We need to realize that God is just, faithful, and right. He is spotless in all his ways. Sin is not something to make light of. If we need help fighting it, God will help us by his Spirit instead of blaming him, making excuses, or trusting in the wrong things for mercy and hope. We can join David in song, asking for mercy poured out to us at the cross of Christ. 

PRAYER 

Please pray with me. Heavenly Father, thank you for your Word. Thank you for your judgment. You are just, right, and faithful. We have not been. Forgive us. Help us to trust in you, consider your Word, and grow in godliness. We pray this in Jesus’s name, Amen. Let us stand and sing.

*All rights reserved. Use by permission.