Romans, Rightly Divided & Verse-by-Verse

Session 10 | Romans 3:31-4:12

Romans 3:20-5:11 | The Case Fulfilled: A Gospel For All

Romans 3:31-4:25 | Addressing the Shock

• Verse 3:31 – Black

  • Note: v. 31 also included on session 9

  • The habitual error in interpretation of this passage is taking the pronoun we to be “all of us who are saved by faith.” But in the book of Romans, the default interpretation of we is those of the Apostolic order (see note on Romans 1:5). Are the Apostles who, along with Paul accepted this revelation of justification by faith making void the law? Paul answers with a firm God forbid.

  • In fact, Paul says, that we establish the law. Clearly the word is not used in a creative way (for the Law was established on Mt. Sinai), but rather an affirmative manner, setting the law beyond dispute.

  • Let’s consider the Law as taught by “standard evangelicals,” by whom it is taught simply as a teacher of right and wrong, and an instrument that could not justify. Instead, justification was always by faith (according to the common thinking). But what does this do to the law? It weakens it. Paul says that by separating law from grace the Apostles establish the law, giving it its separate identity.

  • Dispensationalism should do this same thing, for it recognizes a dispensation of Law and another of Grace. Doing so establishes real meaning to the law. Sadly, modern dispensationalism has largely lost the distinction (and is dispensational in name only).

  • This verse, then, becomes an affirmation of the reality of the law for its time and place. In the verses that follow, Paul will argue that law did not have its place in the Abrahamic covenant, and to put Abraham under Law would weaken the Law rather than establish it.

  • Paul has done a similar thing in Romans 1:16 where he testifies his confidence in the gospel of Christ (which, as we interpreted, was the prophetic Gospel of the Messianic reign). He began his treatise with this affirmation of the Messianic Gospel as a way of saying, “the new does not invalidate the old.”

  • I believe we should honor the distinct position of each dispensation (even in soteriology) or simply quit calling ourselves dispensational.

    
    

• Verse 4:1-3 – Black

  • The dispensation of the Law, being given a clear standing by Paul’s position that Grace is an altogether different dispensation, leads naturally to Abraham, who lived prior to the dispensation of the Law. The natural response to verse 31 is What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? (v. 1). In verse 2, it is implied that one of the answers might be a justification by works (v. 2), but Paul quickly dismisses that idea and affirms that Abraham believed God (v. 3) and this was counted unto him for righteousness (v. 3).

  • Unlike the standard evangelical answer, we should not equate this with salvation. If (as Paul makes clear in Ephesians 2), the offer of individual salvation is part of the mystery, then Abraham was not offered this salvation. It is only now that such an offer is made. Abraham was certainly considered righteous by belief, but his judgment awaits the resurrection. But the point of verses 1-3 is that Abraham found righteousness outside the Law and today individual finds righteousness outside the Law and thus the boundaries of the Law are clearly established. The dispensation of Law had a beginning point and an end point.

    
    

• Verses 4-5 – Black

  • The word now (v. 4) is not a time word and so should not be taken dispensationally. Rather, Paul is making a general statement of reality: the worker is owed a reward, and that reward is not a gift of grace. Once again, this separates Law from Grace, which is Paul’s main point in this segment.

  • In Christianity as a whole, one of the major problems of theology has been mixing Law and Grace rather than taking Paul’s testimony to establish the law (v. 3:31) through giving it boundaries.

    
    

• Verses 6-8 – Black

  • Adding to his point that grace cannot be of works, Paul reminds his readers of David’s declaration, quoted in verses 7-8 and found originally in Psalm 32:1-2, speaking of the blessing of those whose iniquities are forgiven and to whom the Lord will not impute sin. This Psalm is given prophetically of the days of the tribulation and judgment, days in which Israel is invited to come to the Lord in a repentant manner and experience forgiveness.

  • It is important to recognize that Paul is not teaching that David or those in his day were saved by grace through faith. Rather, Paul is giving a second example to show that the Law has its boundaries, and thus through faith (v. 3:31) as a dispensational change, we establish the law (v. 3:31).

  
  
  

  Romans 4:9-22 | Digging Deeper Into The Abrahamic Example

  
  
  Supplemental Resource: The Bible Graphically Presented, pg. 25.