Bible Study: Romans 3:27-31

Romans 3:27-31 Boasting In God Alone: The Law of Faith

Vanity of Boasting in Works (3:27-28)

• Paul anticipates the question about boasting in good works and assertively rejects any such misconceptions about the gospel. (3:27a)
  
• Boasting is excluded because it is not by a law of works that a man is saved but only by the law of faith in Jesus Christ. In this way, God is made the both the Just and the Justifier to His glory and not to man (3:27b).
  
• Paul maintains that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the Law because all have fallen short of the glory of God. (3:28)
  

One God Who Justifies both Jews & Gentiles by Faith (3:29-30)

• In order to quell any ideas about there being two different gods who govern Jews and Gentiles or even One God who operates differently between the two, Paul brings up an important anticipated question regarding the this reality. (3:29a)
  
• Paul then dogmatically states that the One True God is the God of both Jews and Gentiles. (3:29b)
  
• Not only is there One God over all, but He justifies both by faith--(the different prepositions here do not connote a difference in how they are justified, by vs through; rather, it is just another way of saying the same thing--William MacDonald Believer’s Bible Commentary, 1995, p1691).  Both are just as sinful as the other and stand condemned without Christ. (3:30)
  

Law Established Through Faith (3:31)

• Paul now brings up the anticipated question about the value of the Law.  Some would try to charge the gospel as nullifying the Law if it is all of faith. (3:31a)
  
• Paul emphatically declares that by faith the Law is established. The purpose of the Law was to magnify man’s sin against the backdrop of God’s Holiness. (3:31b) This then immediately leads man to the need for salvation outside of himself which comes By God’s Grace Through Faith In Jesus Christ Alone. (Eph 2:8-9) 
  
• We must be thankful for the Law, for it leads us to Christ, and Christ takes the burden that we could not bear on our own. (Matt 11:28-20)  
  
• Because He takes the burden that we could not, He therefore deserves all the glory that we do not!  Praise Him that we are not left in sin!  Amen!