Romans 3:31 - Exposition

Do we then make law void through faith? God forbid: nay, we establish law . The question naturally arises after what has been said about justification being χωρὶς νόμου . Do we then make out our revealed Law, which we have accounted so holy and Divine, to be valueless? Or. rather, as the question is more generally put ( νόμον being without the article, and therefore translated as above), "Do we make of none effect the whole principle of law, embodied to us in our Divine Law? Regarded erroneously as a principle of justification, the apostle might have answered. "Yes, we do." But any disparagement of it, regarded in its true light and as answering its real purpose, he meets with an indignant μὴ γένοιτο . On the contrary, he says, we establish it. Law means the declaration of righteousness, and requirement of conformity to it on the part of man. We establish this principle by our doctrine of the necessity of atonement for man's defect. We put law on its true base, and so make it the more to stand ( ἰστάνομεν ) by showing its office to be, not to justify— a position untenable—but to convince of sin, and so lead up to Christ (cf. Romans 7:12 , etc.; Galatians 3:24 ). In pursuance of this thought, the apostle, in the next chapter, shows that in the Old Testament itself it is faith, and not law , which is regarded as justifying; as, in the first place and notably, in the case of Abraham; thus proving the previous assertion in Romans 3:21 , ΄αρτυρουμένη ὑπὸ τοῦ νόμου καὶ τῶν προφητῶν . In Romans 7:1-25 . he treats the subject subjectively, analyzing the operation of law in the human soul, and so bringing out still more clearly its true meaning and purpose.