Romans – A Treatise
Chapter Three
THE ORACLES OF GOD
Scripture Reading: verses 1-10
WHAT ADVANTAGE THEN HATH THE JEW? OR WHAT PROFIT IS THERE OF CIRCUMCISION? MUCH EVERY WAY: CHIEFLY, BECAUSE THAT UNTO THEM WERE COMMITTED THE ORACLES OF GOD. FOR WHAT IF SOME DID NOT BELIEVE? SHALL THEIR UNBELIEF MAKE THE FAITH OF GOD WITHOUT EFFECT? GOD FORBID: YEA, LET GOD BE TRUE, BUT EVERY MAN A LIAR; AS IT IS WRITTEN, THAT THOU MIGHTEST BE JUSTIFIED IN THY SAYINGS, AND MIGHTEST OVERCOME WHEN THOU ART JUDGED. BUT IF OUR UNRIGHTEOUSNESS COMMEND THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD, WHAT SHALL WE SAY? IS GOD UNRIGHTEOUS WHO TAKETH VENGEANCE? (I SPEAK AS A MAN) GOD FORBID: FOR THEN HOW SHALL GOD JUDGE THE WORLD? FOR IF THE TRUTH OF GOD HATH MORE ABOUNDED THROUGH MY LIE1 UNTO HIS GLORY; WHY YET AM I ALSO JUDGED AS SINNER? AND NOT RATHER, (AS WE BE SLANDEROUSLY REPORTED, AND AS SOME AFFIRM THAT WE SAY,) LET US DO EVIL, THAT GOOD MAY COME? WHOSE DAMNATION IS JUST. WHAT THEN? ARE WE BETTER THAN THEY? NO, IN NO WISE: FOR WE HAVE BEFORE PROVED BOTH JEWS AND GENTILES, THAT THEY ARE ALL UNDER SIN; AS IT IS WRITTEN, THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NO, NOT ONE.
This Epistle is a brilliant legal document, presenting in clear argument the entire foundation of the Christian faith. Although we believe that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, yet we can also discern the wisdom of God in choosing and preparing Paul for this ministry. In the hand of the Spirit of God, his astute legal mind was a fitting instrument to set forth the wonder of the righteous groundwork of the Christian faith.
The Epistle to the Romans was not written for the simpleton. Its profundity is impelling. Such verses cannot be read without sensing the divine wisdom that brings forward every argument for the prosecution in order that the condemned sinner might be justified before God, and liberated to enjoy the love of God in all its fullness.
The close of the second chapter laid in the dust all claims the Jew characteristically may have to the favor of God on the ground of outward ritual or tradition. It is the condition of the heart that counts in the long run. There is a natural tendency for the human heart to glory in its heritage. Pride is a natural weed in our hearts and the flimsy things in which we pride ourselves are sometimes quite absurd. Man always likes to look backward, giving his family tree, emphasizing the accomplishments of his forbears for distinguished merit, and being strangely silent about any marks of shame that may stain the family escutcheon. Nowhere has this pride of ancestry been more asserted, perhaps, than in the religious realm, and many souls are caught up in its tide.
We need to once again give attention to Romans 2:28, 29:
He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.
That truth puts in the dust any traditional claim that we may have a place of favor in the spiritual realm by tradition. Every Christian stands individually upon his own feet. The new birth is not something we inherit from our father or grandfather. It is the work of the Spirit of God in the heart of an individual. The Scripture is: “Except a man be born again.” We may be able, perhaps, to thank the Lord that we had Christian parents, or that, like Timothy, we heard the Scriptures from a grandmother and then from a mother. But we cannot travel the path of faith and be impelled forward by the momentum of the spiritual courage of our parents. We must trust the Lord Jesus Christ for ourselves, and, no matter how far our religious family tree takes us back, in the final analysis of the Christian faith it matters not. We shall fall unless we stand on our own individual feet in the power of the Spirit of God.
It is on that line of reasoning that the first few verses of Romans, chapter 3, come in, and the question arises: “What advantage then hath the Jew? If he has a religious heritage from God Himself; what advantage is it to him?” “Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.” In other words, if we have a spiritual heritage, whether Jew or Gentile, the important thing is that the Holy Scrip-tures have been put in our hands. They may have been handed down to us from generation to generation, and the courage and virulent faith of our forefathers certainly helped protect the Holy Book in order that we might have it now. Still, we must look beyond them and realize the Book has been given to us by God Himself.
This Book containing God’s revelation has been placed in our hand, not simply so that we might bless ourselves with its possession and compliment ourselves on our wonderful forefathers, but rather that we might open its pages and by reading its imperishable words our hearts and lives might be affected by it, and we might come into proper relationship with our God on a righteous basis through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary’s Cross.
Our Jewish friends certainly have a marvelous heritage – able to look back through the centuries and see such men as Abraham, David, Moses, Isaiah, Daniel, and others, and correctly say “these were my people.” But the moment such is said, charges arise regarding treatment of the oracles of God spoken through those men placed in their possession. The advantage of our Jewish friends is this: chiefly unto them the oracles of God have been committed.2 God’s revelation in the Bible is set forth in order that their heart might be repentant, that sin will not dominate their heart, and that they might accept the Lord Jesus Christ not only as Messiah but as Savior, because He died on the Cross for each of them.
And our Gentile friends have a heritage, too. Having been reared in all probability in a land where the Bible is known, they have for years heard the Gospel and read the Bible. What advantage do they have? Has it brought them to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior? Remember the Lord’s words to those who were glorying in their traditional advantage. He said: “Ye search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, but these are they which testify of Me.” The Bible, Old and New Testament, is about the Lord Jesus Christ. He is therein presented as our Savior.
Footnotes:
1 My lie means, “the lie that I am now dealing with,” or “our lie,” thus identifying himself with the objector for the sake of a more effective rebuttal. Since the passage is directed against Jewish objectors, the thought is, “My lie, that is, my lie according to your view of things.” Whatever the exact construction put on this expression, it positively forbids the conclusion that Paul addressed these words to the Christians in Rome.
2 Although it might not have been in Paul’s mind when these words were written, there is a necessary deduction from this inspired statement that stands in the first magnitude of importance. The fact of the Jews having been the divinely appointed custodians of the Scriptures in the pre-Christian ages has the necessary effect of denying the allegations of any church, that their opinion of what belongs or does not belong in the Old Testament canon has any weight at all. If one desires to know what writings truly belong in that portion of the Bible called the Old Testament, the judgment of the Jews during apostolic times must be accepted. Josephus, the great Jewish historian of the first century, lists the canonical books of the Jewish Scriptures; and Josephus’ list corresponds exactly with the 39 books of the Old Testament. In his book, Commentary on the Holy Bible, p. 12, J.R. Drummelow wrote: “Josephus arranged all the books of the Old Testament so as to make twenty-two books in all, corresponding exactly to the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament as generally received, and also corresponding to the twenty-two letters of the Jewish alphabet. These were divided into three large divisions: I. The Torah, including the five books of the Pentateuch, II. The Nebhiim, with eight books in all: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the eighth book of this division being all twelve of the Minor Prophets counted as one book, and III. The Kethubhim, which actually had eleven books, with Ruth assigned as a part of Judges, and Lamentations assigned as a part of Jeremiah, in order to reduce this division to nine books and round out the total of exactly twenty-two in all. The nine books of the Kethubhim are: Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Canticles, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel (Ezra and Nehemiah counted as one), and Chronicles.” Therefore, any prejudice to the effect that the apocryphal writings belong in the Old Testament fails in the light of the truth that the Jews, God’s appointed custodians of the Scriptures, rejected them. Josephus’ limitation of the sacred books of Jewish Scripture to exactly 22, as he arranged them, corresponding precisely to the 39 generally accepted books of the Old Testament, was stated thus, “For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another (as the Greeks have), but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all past times; which are justly believed to be divine” (Josephus, Antiquities, Book I, Paragraph viii).
