Now, if there is any lack of surety whether Paul is talking to the Jews, he comes right out and states it as so. He deals directly with the Jewish defense that they have the law, circumcision and the covenant with God via Moses. In 2:17-24 he removes the defense of the law. In 2:25-29 he removes the defense of circumcision. He turns the tables on the Jews by showing that if they have failed anywhere, then their law and circumcision become judgment on them rather than a defense. What a stunning thing to find that what you thought was your shield has become a prison holding tank waiting your judgment!
There are four objections that Paul deals with in this passage. Probably from his widespread evangelism, he had heard certain objections to his line of reasoning more than once. Here he lays four of them out and answers them. We should anticipate and answer the questions of those we are evangelizing. We have an interesting model for preaching in this dialogical approach.
The four objections deal with God’s faithfulness and foreshadow chapters 9-11. They are:
1) Paul’s teaching can undermine God’s covenant. 1-2
2) Paul’s teaching nullifies God’s faithfulness 3
3) Paul’s teaching impugns God’s justice 5-6
4) Paul’s teaching falsely promotes God’s glory 7-8
In 3:8 we have a huge statement. Paul reports that he is slanderously accused of teaching some form of antinomianism. “The more evil you do, the greater is God’s glory…so sin away!!”
This foreshadows 6:1-14 where he will deal with this topic as he dives into Christ and the power of sin. Note Moo says that this is really a different topic because 3:8 deals with Jews outside of Christ. 6:1 deals with Christians. However the parallel accusation is so similar, it’s easy to imagine that there were two dimensions to this accusation against Paul. He probably had heard it in a variety of forms, either separately or combined. This also raises a question: Had the Romans heard of Paul’s teaching? Had they written him with some concerns? Had Paul caught news that they may have heard some things about him? Was he concerned that some of his opponents may have recently traveled to Rome? These are natural questions I think driven by the nature of Vs. 8 and his comment there.
The bottom line of this section of scripture is that God is faithful. His faithfulness includes faithfulness not only to His covenant people, the Jews, but also to justice and righteousness. Therefore, he maintains judgment of all wrongdoing as part of His faithfulness. As we are about to see, this leads to an absolute conviction of not just the Gentiles, but also the Jews!
