Let God be True and Every Man a Liar - Romans 3-4

 Romans 3:4 (ESV)

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.”

At the start of Romans 3 the Apostle Paul is continuing an argument from chapter 2 about the value of circumcision and the Jews in relationship to the Law.   He has stated that circumcision doesn’t mean anything if you have not, first, believed in faith.   The conclusion one might think, then, is that there is no advantage to the Jew.  Of which he responds, no way!   The Jews were given the Law, the Torah.  They were afforded the responsibility to carry the Law to the surrounding nations.   But, some of them failed to believe and did not act in faith.  Paul’s question then is, “If the Jews were unfaithful, does that make God’s Torah false.   Paul’s response?  “By no means!”  Paul is emphatic.  When it comes to God’s word and God’s plan, man’s response does not validate it or de-validate it.   He states opening that God is true and everyone else is a liar.   God’s word (and God Himself) is not elevated by man’s belief in Him, or devalued when man fails to believe in Him.  God does not need man’s approval to be God.  God is truth separate man’s mind.  Note this Bible commentary on this thought:

Understanding the Bible Commentary Series:

Let God be true, and every man a liar, says Paul (v. 4)! This statement, indebted to Psalm 116:11 (“And in my dismay I said, ‘All men are liars’ ”), was judged by Calvin to “contain the primary axiom of all Christian philosophy” (Romans, p. 116). Calvin was right, but the statement means more than that. Verse 4 is not a philosophical abstraction of metaphysics and anthropology; it is a truth hammered out on the anvil of experience, a punishing truth that all are liars, and yet a liberating hope that God is true. Whatever we must concede about ourselves—and it will not be optimistic—we must confess that God is true (v. 4). Barth affirms, “HE is the Answer, the Helper, the Judge, and the Redeemer; not man” (Romans, p. 80). God is not a speculative truth, but a living and subsistent truth who helps, aids, restores, and saves. It is precisely because God is not like us that he is able to help us.

We can rejoice that God is truth, no matter what mankind’s response.    If the entire world disbelieved in God, God is still true.   We like to think that we validate God by our testimony.  We are even encouraged to go about and tell the great things God has done for us, as validation of God’s great love:

Mark 5:19-20 (ESV Strong's)

And he did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.

But, we must never think that our experience or belief validate God.   God is true no matter or belief and/or behavior.   The quote Paul gives, “That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged,” comes from David’s confession after he committed adultery with Bathsheba and killed her husband to cover it up.  David is saying, my behavior does not deny God’s truth and faithfulness.   All mankind can believe what they want and express it has a great passion of their hearts and great temperament of their lives.  But, if it does not align with God the creator, they are but mere liars.  Let God be true and everyone else a liar!!  All the philosophy of mankind and all the world views they can hold must bow at the feat of God’s truth.