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Made Right by Trusting Christ (1:18—5:11), cont.

God’s Faithfulness (3:1–8)

It is not God who has broken the covenant, Paul insists (3:1–8). Ancient writers often used rhetorical questions, and some of these, like some of the questions here, could be objections supplied by an imaginary interlocutor, a straw man to be refuted.1 The interlocutor here raises the obvious objection to Paul’s argument: if ethnic Jewishness and outward circumcision did not guarantee covenant membership (2:25–29), what was the value of these matters (3:1)?2 Paul replies that Israel’s benefit is a greater opportunity, although this opportunity also entailed (as Paul has been noting, 1:16; 2:9–10) greater responsibility. The opportunity involved their role in salvation history (a role Paul continues to assign to ethnic Israel, 9:4–5; 11:12, 15) and their greater access to God’s clearest revelation in Scripture (an access today shared also with Christians). God “entrusted” them with his oracles (3:2). (Although Paul says “first” in 3:2, he does not get beyond this initial benefit here [cf. 1:8]; many think he picks the subject up in 9:4–5. Certainly he revisits the present issues more fully in chs. 9–11.)

The interlocutor again objects in 3:3: surely Israel’s lack of faith does not negate God’s faithfulness to his covenant, does it? (Unbelief and faithfulness in this verse are both cognates of “entrusted” in 3:2.) Indeed, some Jewish teachers were at great pains to show that no matter how Israel behaved, God always counted them as his children.3 Paul exclaims, essentially, “No way!” (3:4).4 But he identifies God’s covenant faithfulness with his righteousness (see comment on 1:17), and insists that it is God as Israel’s judge, rather than disobedient Israel, who will be shown righteous.5 (That his righteousness and faithfulness also include a continuing plan for Israel will be clarified later in 11:1–32, esp. 11:25–32.)

“Everyone is a liar” (3:4) comes from Ps 116:11 (115:2 lxx), anticipating Paul’s texts for human sinfulness in 3:10–18 (esp. 3:13). Because it comes from the “Hallel” psalms used in festivals (at least in Jerusalem), its wording may have been familiar. But Paul more explicitly cites Ps 51:4, where the psalmist admits his guilt and God’s righteousness. Because the current version of the psalm already identified it with David’s repentance, Paul probably anticipates here God’s forgiveness of David without works in Rom 4:6–8.