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.
If you have ever spoken words to someone and have had them twist the words and make them say what you never wanted them to say, you can understand the frustration around the above passage. Paul has been preaching justification by faith and faith alone. His detractors have twisted his teaching to make it say nothing he never intended. They are doing this (mostly the Jewish leaders) to keep their own power and to be used by Satan to thwart the gospel message. In essence, the above passage sounds like this:
Paul, you are teaching about justification by faith. But that makes it sound that even though man is a sinner, God gets glory because He justifies us, despite our sin (remember, the Jew’s had a system of works). We might as well keep sinning, then. You are saying that if something is broken and someone fixes it, the one who fixes it is glorified. If that is the case, we should all be broken so that this person is glorified by fixing us. The more we break ourselves (sin) the more glorified the Fixer is. This is why it is unfair of God to judge us. He is actually benefiting from our sin. He is glorified by it. Then why subject us to wrath?
Paul will later respond to this perverted interpretation of justification by faith in chapter six by saying:
Romans 6:1-2 (ESV)
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
Throughout Romans, Paul is countering these false teachers who have infiltrated the church at Rome. He wants the believers there to be sound in their faith. To take liberty with sin in your life because you think being justified by faith means you bring more glory to God through your sin, is a perversion of great magnitude. This is why Paul starts his argument on it here in chapter 3 but fully develops it more in chapters 5-7. He wants believers to know that God’s righteousness is not magnified when man sins more or less. As one commentator stated it:
Romans 3:5 (Understanding the Bible Commentary Series) God is perfectly good and just; otherwise, he could not judge the world. Human evil is not worse because it grows, anymore than cancer is more deadly because it infects three vital organs instead of one. Nor is human evil less evil because God chooses to meet it with good.
God’s righteousness stands on God’s character. God is not exalted because we are worse sinners. Paul wants them to know that God will judge us with wrath because we deserve wrath for little sin as much as bigger sin. There are not degrees of sin with God. Man is sinful and deserves wrath. Yet, God chose to save us by faith. He chose to justify us by faith based upon His righteousness, not our feeble unrighteousness acts of works. That is argument of Romans. Don’t find yourself trying to justify your sin thinking it will bring glory to God because it allows Him to forgive you more. God is glorified because God is righteous and our being forgiven does not make Him more righteous.
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