BOOK 45 OF 66 · PAULINE EPISTLES · KING JAMES BIBLE

Romans 3

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Romans 3 Overview

Paul acknowledges Jewish advantages, especially possession of God’s oracles, but insists that human unbelief cannot make God unfaithful. He then gathers Scripture to prove that Jews and Gentiles are all under sin: none is righteous, none seeks God, and every mouth is stopped. By deeds of the law no flesh will be justified. But now God’s righteousness is manifested through faith in Jesus Christ unto all and upon all who believe; sinners are justified freely by grace through Christ’s redemption, and boasting is excluded by the law of faith.

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Before you read Romans 3

Coming from

Paul warns people who judge others while practicing sin that God’s judgment is according to truth and without respect of persons. Gentiles without the Mosaic law still show moral awareness through conscience, while Jews possessing the law are accountable to obey the law they boast in. Circumcision has value only within covenant obedience; outward identity alone cannot shield a transgressor. Paul ends by distinguishing outward marks from the heart reality God sees.

In this chapter

Romans 2 exposed both moralists and religious insiders to God’s impartial standard. Romans 3 concludes the prosecution and then announces the gospel solution.

Leads into

Romans 4 proves justification by faith from Abraham and David, showing that righteousness is counted to the ungodly who believes rather than earned through works or circumcision.

Key understandingExplore deeper

Romans 3:21–28 is a controlling salvation passage. Justification is free, by grace, through Christ’s redemption, received through faith, and explicitly apart from deeds of the law.

The phrase ‘faith of Jesus Christ’ in the KJV has generated discussion about grammar, but the paragraph repeatedly states ‘unto all and upon all them that believe’ and ‘faith in his blood,’ making the receiving response unmistakably faith rather than works.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

All are under sin

Paul does not divide humanity into people needing grace and people good enough without it.

The law exposes rather than justifies sinners

It gives knowledge of sin and stops boasting mouths.

God provides righteousness apart from law-works

The righteousness witnessed by law and prophets is manifested through faith in Christ.

Justification is free grace

The sinner contributes no meritorious work to the verdict of righteousness.

The cross displays both justice and mercy

God is just and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

Psalm 14:1–3; 53:1–3

Paul uses the Psalms to establish universal corruption.

Psalm 51:4

David’s confession that God is justified in His words supports Paul’s argument about God’s truthfulness.

Isaiah 59:7–8

The description of violent feet and absent peace contributes to Paul’s chain of guilt texts.

Galatians 2:16

Paul elsewhere states three times that justification is by faith in Christ and not by works of the law.

Ephesians 2:8–9

Salvation by grace through faith excludes works as the basis for boasting.

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Do not add baptism, prayer, repentance of sins, or perseverance as extra conditions to Romans 3’s justification statement

Paul explicitly contrasts faith with deeds of law and grounds justification in Christ’s work.

Do not say faith is a meritorious work that earns grace

Paul uses faith specifically to exclude boasting and works-righteousness.

Do not treat “all have sinned” as erasing differences in earthly consequences or degrees of wrongdoing

The point is universal need before God.

Do not imply the Old Testament taught a different way of justification

Paul says this righteousness is witnessed by the law and the prophets.

Read Romans 3 watching for…

Jewish advantage and God’s faithfulness.

The chain of Old Testament quotations proving guilt.

The phrase ‘every mouth may be stopped.’

The transition ‘But now.’

Every phrase describing the source and means of justification.

How faith excludes boasting.

Chapter outline4 sections

1-8Jewish advantage and God’s faithfulness remain despite human unbelief 9-20Scripture shows that all are under sin and no flesh is justified by deeds of the law 21-26God’s righteousness is revealed through faith in Jesus Christ, who is the propitiation through faith in his blood 27-31Boasting is excluded because a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law

What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?

Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.

For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?

God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man)

God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world?

For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?

And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.

What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:

Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:

Their feet are swift to shed blood:

Destruction and misery are in their ways:

And the way of peace have they not known:

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;

Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.

Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also:

Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.

Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.

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Romans 3:2

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