(Excerpt)
Objections Answered.
The first part of the third chapter of Romans consists of questions and answers.
The thoughtful reader of the epistles of Paul must have noticed the frequent occurrence of questions in the midst of an argument. Every possible objection is anticipated. The apostle asks the question that an objector might ask, and then answers it, making his argument more emphatic than before. So in the verses next following it is very evident that the truths set forth in the second chapter would not be very acceptable to a Pharisee, and he would combat them with all his might.
The questions raised by the apostle are not difficulties that lie in his own mind; this is clear from the parenthetical clause in verse 5, "I speak as a man."
With this in mind, we may read Romans 3:1-18:
1 What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?
2 Much every way; chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.
3 For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?
4 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. 5 But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man.)
6 God forbid; for then how shall God judge the world?
7 For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?
8 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.
9 What then? are we better than they? No, in nowise; for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
10 as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one;
11 there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
13 Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips;
14 whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness;
15 their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 destruction and misery are in their ways;
17 and the way of peace have they not known;
18 there is no fear of God before their eyes.
"The Oracles of God."
An oracle is something spoken. That which was emphatically spoken by the mouth of the Lord is the Ten Commandments. See Deuteronomy 5:22.
Deu 5:22 These words the LORD spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice: and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me.
Stephen, speaking of Moses receiving the law, said, "This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the Mount Sina, and with our fathers; who received the lively oracles to give unto us." Acts 7:38. The Ten Commandments are primarily the oracles of God, because they were uttered by his own voice in the hearing of the people.
But the Holy Scriptures as a whole are the oracles of God, since they are the word of God, spoken "in divers manners" (Heb. 1:1), and because they are but an expansion of the Ten Commandments. Christians are to shape their lives solely by the Bible. This is seen from the words of the apostle Peter: "If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God."1 Peter 4:11.
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