Romans 3:1-2

(b.) Admission of the Jews’ advantage, chiefly in the divine oracles, Romans 3:1-2 .

The Jew is highly dissatisfied at being in the two preceding chapters placed by the apostle upon a level of guilt and condemnation with the Gentiles. He demands what advantage the apostle allows the Jew, (Romans 3:1.) Nay, as Jewish unbelief really sets God’s faithfulness in a clearer light, that unbelief itself was rather a merit than a sin, (Romans 3:5.) And in final astonishment he demands if the Jew is in no respect better than the Gentile, (Romans 3:9.)

The apostle, accustomed to hear such objections in his various argumentation with the Jews in their synagogues, very concisely states (not in the Jew’s words, but his own) and refutes them here.

The advantage of the Jew is, comprehensively, the possession of God’s revelation, (Romans 3:2;) an advantage which the defection of a part of the race could not neutralize, (Romans 3:3.) He admits that God’s faithfulness is illustrated by Jewish apostasy, but denies that such fact lessens their just penalty from God, since such a concession would subvert God’s very judgment throne over the world, (Romans 3:6,) and lead to justifying our sins by the good that might illegitimately result from them, (Romans 3:8.) And, finally, to the despairing query of the Jew whether the advantage of the Jew did not embrace the being morally better, he gives a prompt and decisive no, and sustains his fearful negative with a running summary of passages of condemnation from their own Scriptures, (9-20.)