Romans 3:5Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

But if God is not unjust, and yet He punishes you, then you have not become the cause of His victory. Notice the Apostle's reverence. Having said, “Is God unjust who inflicts wrath?” he added: “I speak as a man.”

Anyone would say this, says the Apostle, when reasoning according to human understanding. Yet the righteous judgment of God incomparably surpasses what appears just to us, and has other reasons incomprehensible to us.

Then, since this was not completely clear, he says the same thing a second time: “For if the truth of God has abounded through my lie to His glory, why am I still judged as a sinner?” (Rom 3:7).

Therefore, when God punishes you, and He is not unjust, it follows that you did not become the cause of His victory by sinning. For God could have prevailed in another way, if you had not proved evil.

The words “I speak according to human reasoning” have this meaning: I answer thus in defense of God according to human reason, that is, as any sound-minded man can answer. For God's actions have reasons incomprehensible to us.

They surpass human reason and have no need of our defense.

What profit is there that we kept His ordinances and walked in prayer before the face of the Lord Almighty? And now we call foreigners blessed, for all who do lawlessness are built up. They resisted God and remained whole.’

Thus those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord gave heed and heard” (Mal 3:13-16).

For this very reason, the Apostle says, some thought the Jews were saying: “Shall we not do evil, that good may come?” He said that the judgment is truly righteous.

This judgment is either upon those who attribute such things to the Jews, or upon those who dare to say: “Shall we not do evil, that good may come?”

Therefore this is not the meaning of the prophet David's words when he says: “Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done evil before Your eyes, so that You are righteous in Your sentence and pure in Your judgment” (Ps 50:6).

This meaning is perversely interpreted by evil men, as though human sins and evil deeds were advantageous to God's righteousness, and as though God appears good through our sins. They claim that only our unrighteousness shows God to be righteous.

Therefore God will not be “unjust in showing wrath,” because He is not justified by our sins. If He were justified through our sins, He would be unjust in repaying them.

But since He is not unjust in repaying sins, it is clear that our unrighteousness does not reveal the righteousness of God.

For this reason the Apostle observed: “I speak according to human reasoning.” By no means. Let it never be said of God that He is unjust. For such a thing belongs only to man: he errs, is deceived, and deceives others.

God remains immutable and cannot fail to love what He has created.

He calls down the righteous judgment of God upon those who assert such a thing and attribute such teaching to the Apostle. The accusation against the Apostle could have arisen from a false explanation of his words: “Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more” (Rom 5:20).

The Apostle had probably used these words more than once in his oral teaching.

For every sinner, whether Jew or Gentile, would reason thus: “If the faithfulness of God is exalted by my unfaithfulness to the glory of God, why am I still judged as a sinner?” (Rom 3:7).

One might even go further: “And why not do evil that good may come, as some slander us and say that we teach? Their judgment is righteous!” (Rom 3:8-9). The Apostle cries out indignantly against all such reasonings.

The Apostle refutes the absurd thought of the unbelievers by bringing it to its most evident absurdity. “In that case,” he says, “we would have to do evil that good may come. Some think that we teach this, and for such obvious slander they will incur divine punishment.”

This slander was brought against the Apostle. It was also brought against all Christians in general because of their teaching on God's superabounding grace toward sinners.

For this reason the Novatian schismatics later appeared, falsely teaching that those who had betrayed Christ should not be received into the Church at all. Later came the Pelagians and other false teachers.

They understood the participation of faith and grace in justification and salvation in different ways, and came to various wrong conclusions about the whole of life. Some began to attach too much importance to works, namely Catholics, while others almost rejected their value, namely Protestants.

Meanwhile, although the Apostle Paul spoke of the justifying power of faith and grace, and even expressed it thus, “where sin abounded, grace abounded much more” (5:20), this had to be understood historically.

It means that the greatest grace of God appeared only when human sins had reached the greatest depth and multitude. In that time, or while in that state, men could receive salvation in no other way than through faith by grace.

For no one had so many good works that he could be justified by them before God. Having received justification in Christ, believers must necessarily live in holiness and in a manner pleasing to God.

Otherwise they will lose all the fruits of justification (6:1-3). Only open enemies of Christian preaching and evil slanderers could say that the Christian teaching on justification by grace contains encouragement to evil deeds.

Such slanderers could be unbelieving Hebrews, and also the supposed guardians of the integrity of Greco-Roman pagan life. Having refuted them victoriously, the Apostle shows that it is the unbelievers themselves who remain in evil, beginning with the Hebrews.

But since he had just explained that the unbelief of the Jews had manifested the truth of God to the glory of God, such thoughts could arise in a Jew trained in scholastic argument by the Greeks: if our unrighteousness magnifies God’s righteousness, why should wrath be brought upon us? That would be unjust. However absurd such a thought is, it could diminish fear of God’s judgment, calm the unbeliever who had begun to be troubled, and thereby cut off his path to faith. Foreseeing this, the Apostle speaks as though to the Jew: you do not believe, and you think that this is nothing. No, God’s dread judgments will fall upon your head. Do not let that evasion of falsehood deceive you, as though, since your unrighteousness reveals God’s righteousness, God will not bring upon you the punishment you deserve for your unbelief. Can one really reason that, since our unrighteousness establishes God’s righteousness, God would be unrighteous in bringing wrath, and therefore will not bring it? Do not reason this way. You will not escape God’s punishment, and God, in bringing wrath upon you, will not be unrighteous in the least.

This thought directly serves the Apostle’s aim: to shake the Jew’s self-confidence and, by awakening a sense of danger for himself, dispose him to repentance and faith. “I speak as a man,” the Apostle added, in order to show that his own tongue would not have turned to say such a thing, nor would it ever have entered his mind. Yet men, as I have heard, sometimes reason this way. In Greek the thought is this: if our unrighteousness reveals God’s righteousness in glory, will God not be unjust in bringing wrath? This, he says, I speak as a man. “Notice the Apostle’s reverence. Having said, ‘Is God unjust who brings wrath?’ he added, ‘I speak as a man.’ Anyone reasoning according to human understanding would say this” (Chrysostom). “He says, I do not pronounce this on my own behalf, but present the reasonings of others” (blessed Theodoret).

Or “I speak as a man” is better joined with what follows: “Let it not be,” in the sense that even if one reasons humanly, this can in no way be said. With God there may be grounds that we cannot even conceive. “So, he says, I answer in justification of God according to human reason, that is, as much as a sound-minded man can answer. For the works of God have certain grounds incomprehensible to us. They surpass human reason and have no need of our defense” (blessed Theophylact). “For the righteous judgment of God incomparably surpasses what is just according to our reasoning” (Chrysostom).

The speculation that God would be unjust if He punished those whose unrighteousness reveals His righteousness is not truth. It is the clever evasion of a crafty, advocate-like mind. Unrighteousness here means the same as unbelief earlier. The Jews did not believe, after they had been led toward belief throughout their entire history. Therefore they are unrighteous. Yet God, despite this, fulfilled His promise. The Lord came and accomplished the salvation of all. This justified the truth of the promises and manifested in a strong light the boundless goodness of God. This is what the words mean: it establishes God’s righteousness.

“Establishes,” from the Greek, means presents or manifests. It makes God’s righteousness shine brightly above our unrighteousness. Yet while illuminating it, it does not unite with it, nor form one thing with it. The Apostle sets forth here precisely this lack of union. He gives to God’s righteousness what belongs to it, and to our unrighteousness what belongs to it. Does our unrighteousness reveal God’s righteousness by its own nature or by our intention? No. Our unrighteousness is essentially unrighteousness. When we gave ourselves over to wrong, we did not even think that God’s righteousness would be manifested through it. It would have been strange to think so. We only followed our own reasoning and did our own will. If God’s righteousness has now shone over such a manner of our action, it can in no way be attributed to that action as its fruit. Consequently, it cannot give that action a right to reward, or at least shelter it from righteous wrath and punishment. God, in His boundless wisdom and goodness, makes our unrighteousness reveal His righteousness. To Him be glory; to us, wrath. For this in no way changes our unrighteousness into righteousness.