God's Faithfulness Unblemished
RO18-02

We are in that part of the book of Romans where the apostle Paul is showing religious unbelievers that they're as bad off with God as the immoral unbelievers that he has previously discussed, and as the moral unbelievers. The Jew is being used here specifically as an example of a religious person who is yet an unbeliever. This category of humanity includes millions of people today who someday are going to find themselves in the lake of fire and brimstone. Like the rich man in the historical account in Luke 12 of Lazarus and the rich man, they are going to discover that they have been trusting in their religion, and that their religion does not count with God. They will discover that the person of Jesus Christ was rejected, either at the point of His deity, or at the point of His sacrifice in behalf of our sins. Anyone who does not accept the deity of Jesus Christ will spend eternity in the lake of fire. Anyone who does not accept the substitutionary death for our sins, which He performed upon the cross as the perfect Lamb of God, will spend eternity in the lake of fire.

The religious Jew is going to spend eternity in the lake of fire. And there are many religious Jews today, and there are many religious gentiles, and they're all in the same boat. The rebellious Jew didn't like Paul saying such a thing. So, he, in effect, at the opening of Romans 3, challenges this accusation (this contention) of the apostle Paul that he is in a bad way. Though he is religious, yet he is condemned by God. He counters Paul's contention with a question to the effect of, "Well, what good is it then to be born a Jew?" He says, "Of what advantage, then, has the Jews?"

Inerrancy

God gave them His divine viewpoint, while other nations surrounding Israel were groveling in their degradation and their idolatry, and in their ignorance. Just such a thing as the sanitation life of Israel reflected the fact that they had divine viewpoint relationships with the living God. They knew things that other nations did not know about personal health habits; about things to eat; about things not to eat; about sanitation procedures; and, about the dealing with communicable diseases. The whole Old Testament spelled all those things out. And the promise accompanying the rules and regulations that God gave them was that none of these diseases that plague the nations round about you will eat into your bodies. None of these things will be found among you if you obey things directions.

Circumcision

Visual Aids

However, the problem with the Jew was that he got all caught up in doing the visual aid, and he forgot the significance of the spiritual truth which was being taught. Sometimes teachers in Sunday school and club meetings like to use visual aids and charts, and one thing and another. They also get so caught up in their charts, and their visual aid, and the things that they're performing, that they forget to drive home the spiritual truth that this is supposed to illustrate. And they get all caught up in the visual thing and forget the meaning.

That's exactly what the Jews did. And this Jewish unbeliever is challenging Paul on: "What good is it then to be born a Jew, if what you say is true? And what good is all this stuff that God gave us to do, if what you say is true? Well, the only real Jew was the Jew who realized that these visual things had a spiritual significance. So, there are various kinds of Jews to this day. But the only real Jew, in God's view, is the one who has received Jesus Christ as personal Savior. Only those who trusted, as Abraham did, in the Savior which God was to provide could really be called Jews. Of course, any person of Jewish descent today who receives Christ as Savior no longer is a Jew. He becomes a Christian. So, he leaves that category of humanity in which he was born forever.

What if Some did not Believe?

It says, "So, what if?" The word "if" is the Greek word "ei," which, as you know, introduces conditional clauses. This happens to be first class, which therefore means (which you cannot tell from the English – you have to have the Greek to tell that) that the Jew is admitting that they have been faithless to the Word of God. "So, what if," and it is the case about us. Here he states the negative volition of the Jews to the divine viewpoint teachings of the Old Testament Scriptures: "What if some?" The word "some" is again the word "tis." It looks like the previous one, except that one has a Greek accent mark, and one does not. They are different words. This is an indefinite pronoun in contrast to the other one. This one is an indefinite pronoun, and it is raising the question of certain ones; that is, certain unbelieving ones – some Jews who went negative to the Bible doctrine records.

He says what they did not do was: "So what if some of the Jewish people did not believe?" "Did not believe" is one word in the Greek. It's "apisteo." "Apisteo" means "disbelief," but it connotes something a little more. It connotes a disbelief in the sense of faithlessness. What this Jew is recognizing is that some of his people, including himself in effect in this imaginary challenge, is that they have been faithless toward God's promises and toward the revelation which they have – toward what Paul had called in verse 2: "The oracles of God." This is a condition of pride that they had. They were proud of the fact that they only, of all nations, had been spoken to by Jehovah God. Only they had this revelation. Only they had information. The heathens never got such a revelation. They did not have this kind of direct communication. But they were proud, as a race, of such a direct revelation from the living God. However, they ignored what He had revealed to them. That was the point that this unbelieving Jew recognizes also.

In effect, these Jews had double-crossed God. God had entrusted them with His divine viewpoint through the revelation of the Scriptures, and they had double-crossed Him by ignoring them. They neglected God's Word by trampling its pearls under feet like a group of swine. They fed their minds on human viewpoint trash like a garbage disposal. They failed in exercising the mercy and the justice that the Word of God called upon them to exercise.

So, the idea which is voiced by this Jewish objector to Paul's condemnation is, "So what if some of the Jews were faithless toward the articles of God?" The word "apisteo" is in the areas tense, which indicates looking at the whole act of the faithlessness of the Jews as a whole. It is active, which indicates that their volition was operational. They weren't forced to be faithless to God. They chose to be faithful to God. It's in the indicative, which indicates a statement of fact that the apostle is giving us.

So, the objector says, "So what if some of the Jews were faithless?" His point is, "We're still better off with God than the gentile who never had God's Old Testament Bible to guide him. The Jew is implying that God is going to have to keep His unconditional promises to the nation no matter how unfaithful they have been.

So, that does indeed raise the question of the faithfulness of God. You can see the cleverness of this argument. Paul has pointed his finger at this religious, unbelieving Jew who has rejected salvation through the person of Jesus Christ, and Paul is saying to him, "You're condemned. You're going to the lake of fire and brimstone. You are under the wrath of God, and God is going to judge you."

The Jew stands up and says, "Do you know who you're talking to? I'm a descendant of Abraham. I'm more than that, mister. I'm a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I'm a true Jew. I'm not just an Arab who came from Abraham. I'm a real Jew. Are you talking to me like that? Do you think that God is going to treat me like that? Well, yes. So, what if we have been unfaithful to the Word of God? Are you suggesting that God can be unfaithful?"

So, the question in verse 3 is, "Shall their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect?" It introduces a conclusion to the "if." It began with: "So, if some did not believe (they were faithless); and, it's true that they were. Now what is the consequence? Will this be the consequence? Shall their unbelief?" And "their unbelief" is their "apistia," which again is the quality of their lack of faithfulness: "Is the faithlessness of them going to make the faith of God without effect?" The first Greek word is "katargeo." "Katargeo" is a word which means "to nullify." It is in the future. Therefore, it indicates that God's promises in the future are to be forgotten. Do you think so? Do you think that God's promises to the Jewish people in the future are going to be forgotten? It is active. Do you think that God Himself will choose to be unfaithful to what He's promised to do for us as a nation? It is indicative – a statement of fact.

Here is something again that you can't tell from the English Bible. You have to get this from the Greek. Along with this question in the Greek is a word that is not translated. It's this little Greek word 'me,' which you know to be a negative. When this Greek word "me," a negative, is placed with a question in the Greek, it tells us what the answer should be. That was one of the beauties of the Greek language – that you could ask a question, and you could indicate, by the way you placed the negative that you used, whether the answer should be "Yes" or "No." When you used 'me,' it indicates that the answer is a big fat "No."

So, what we would actually say in translating this is: "Their faithless unbelief will not counter the faithfulness of God, will it?" That's why we have to put it in English, indicating that the answer is "No:" "Shall their faithlessness make the faithfulness?" And the word "faithfulness" is the ordinary word for "faith" in Greek: "pistis." Usually it means "faith." Here it means "faithfulness" because it's referring to promises that God made to the Jews: "The faithfulness of God ('theos'), and it has the definite article "the" with it, so it is "the God," referring to the Father.

The Abrahamic Covenant

The Palestinian Covenant

An Unconditional Covenant

As a matter of fact, on one occasion, God had Abraham lay out a blood covenant in the way they signed a contract in those days. The way they would do it was to take a sacrifice of an animal. They would split it in two, and lay it out on each side of a path. Then the two people who were making the agreement would walk arm-in-arm between the two pieces of the animal that they had cut in half. This was a blood covenant. This covenant then sealed the agreement they had made between them. They laid out the animals of the sacrifices on each side of the path, and then God put him into a deep sleep. And Abraham, in a vision, saw God, in the form of a smoking lamp, walk (so to speak) down the path of the Covenant Himself. Abraham was not included. And the lamp simply floated down the path between these elements of the animals. This was the sign of agreement that God had made with Abraham. That meant that it was going to be God who kept it. It did not depend on anything Abraham did, but it was going to be only what God did. Therefore, this is an unconditional covenant.

The Mosaic Covenant

That's why these are in such contrast. God says, "I'm going to give you this land forever." To whom does Palestine belong today? The Jews. Arabs are squatters.

The Davidic Covenant

The Church

So, Abraham, through his descendants through the Davidic Covenant, had confirmed further the fact that there would be a King, and He would rule forever.

The New Covenant

So, now this Jew is very proud of himself and very confident, because he knows these covenants, and he knows that there were no "ifs," "ands," or "buts" implied by God. He said, "Do you think that God is going to be unfaithful to his own Word?"

The Amillennialist

So, in 1 Thessalonians 5:24, we read, "Faithful is He that calls you, Who also will do it." What God calls you to do, He is going to do. God is not frustrated by human volition. If God has dropped the Jews as a nation, for example, then His claim to faithfulness has been seriously brought into question. If God's faithfulness is dependent upon human response, then even our very eternal security is in question. So, we wouldn't even be able to trust God that once we're saved, He's going to see to it that we are taken into his heaven.

However, 2 Timothy 2:13 gives us a great statement of comfort on that point: "If we believe not, yet He abides faithful." He cannot deny himself. Suppose that you come to the point where you say, "I've changed my mind about Jesus Christ. I'm no longer going to trust in Him as Savior. I don't think he is the Son of God, and I don't think He can take me to heaven, and I reject Him." God says, "No matter how far you stray and drift from the truth, having once been born-again, I cannot deny Myself." He abides faithful to us, and He will still take us into the home in glory that he has prepared for us.

So, if the Jew has no future under these unconditional covenant promises, then you and I can't believe in anything that God has said concerning our own future. In Hebrews 10:23, we are again told that we can count on what God has promised: "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful that promised."

In 1 Corinthians 1:9, Paul says, "God is faithful by whom you were called unto the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." The Bible is very clear on the specific point that God is faithful.

So, the apostle Paul has taken up this rhetorical question that some Jew might bring (and probably has brought): "Shall their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect?" The Jew says, "Well, okay. We haven't been as faithful as we should have been. We didn't respond to God. We didn't take advantage of the oracles of God. We did deny what God told us. But so what? Is our unbelief going to cause God to be unfaithful, so that His promises without effect?" And the implication is that: "You're up against it, Paul. We're still better off with God. What you say is not true. We can't be rejected by God because God can't reject us. Otherwise, you're saying that God is unfaithful."

In verse 4, Paul answers that suggestion that God could be unfaithful. He answers it with the words, "God forbid." This again is a Greek idiom. It has the Greek word "me" and the Greek word "ginoito." "Ginoito" comes from the word "ginomai," which means to become. You can't really translate that literally. Literally, the word "ginomai" means "to be" or "to become." You would literally say, "Let it not be," or "Let it not become." But idioms are not translated literally. They are translated rather in terms of their meanings. So, the point is that you don't take an idiom literally. When somebody says, "Let's have a drink on the house," you know what that means? And it doesn't mean climbing up on your house to do it. So, that's an English idiom. So, "me ginoito" is a Greek idiom, and it meant just that idea "God forbid," or "Absolutely no:" "That idea is absolutely not acceptable – that God is not faithful."

This is for you grammar buffs. This is one of the few times that the New Testament uses the optative mood. The optative mood is a mood that expresses strong contingency, or great possibility. Remember that we learned in our grammar studies that the strongest statement is indicative. That's a statement of fact. Then if things are probable but not really certain, then you have the subjunctive mood, and that is not as firm as indicative. But then when you get to where the thing is only a possibility (just a contingency), then you go to optative. You're father down the line, and then you come along to imperative. That is again a possibility, but there it is dependent upon your volition to respond to the command.

So, the Greek language very carefully has these moods to express the particular attitude (the particular viewpoint) from which this statement is being made. And optative was very big in classical Greek, but practically non-existent in the Koine Greek in which the New Testament was written. The apostle Paul uses this expression "me ginoito" 14 times. It's only use 15 times in the New Testament, and he uses it 14 times. It was an expression that, for him, was very strong. When he wrote "me ginoito," it was about as strong a negative as he could express.

The whole idea that God should not be faithful was so absolutely abhorrent to him (and that's what this expression is indicating), that he used the rare Greek form to express this, which made it stand out on the page of Scripture. God the Holy Spirit led him to use this particular idiom to make a strong negative statement toward the idea that God would go back on His Word.

So, he says in verse 4, "God forbid. Yeah." And that's the Greek word "de," which here means "moreover:" "Let be." And there is our word "ginomai" again. This time, "ginomai" is present tense: "Let it not be. God forbid. Yea, let God be true." This is present tense. It is constantly true of God. It is middle, but it is active meaning. ... But it's imperative. Here is a command – constantly viewing God as being what? Again it's "the God" (God the Father): "Let God be found true." And the word "true" is "alethes;" that is, "conforming to reality:" "Let God be true."

Then is says, "But," and again you have the word "de." That is the same word you had earlier. This time, it's a contrast: "But contrasting God with people." Here the idea is "even though:" Let God be true, though every man." And the word "man" is the Greek word "anthropos." "Anthropos" covers both male and female genders of the human being. This is not the word "man" in the sense of "male," but it is man in the sense of human beings. So, God is saying, "In contrast to God who is faithful, let every human be a 'pseustes'" (a "liar"). Psalm 116:11 declares the same fact – that people are liars, and God is true.

So, we would translate: "God forbid. But let God the Father be found true though every human being be found a liar." People are liars, while God is true.

Blasphemy

So, what you have is that this unbelieving Jew is, in effect, performing an act of blasphemy. That is for this reason: When you reject Jesus Christ as Savior, the Bible says that the only way you're going to go to heaven (the only way to eternal life) is through Jesus Christ. There's no other name given among men whereby we must be saved. You might say, "I don't believe that." You do not accept that. That's what this Jew was doing. 1 John 5 says, "When you do that, you call God a liar." That's exactly the point. You have blasphemed God by suggesting that what He said is not true. What you're doing is questioning the veracity of God, and thus you're insulting His character, and that's blasphemy.

Let's bring a little closer to home. Anytime anyone who is a believer anywhere takes any concept of grace, such as salvation here in this case, and He rejects that concept, on the basis of grace, he is calling God a liar. This is why many Christians are actually blasphemers who do not understand how grace works; who do not understand the principle of grace in this age of the church; and, who do not function on grace. Many preachers stand up in the pulpits, and they're the biggest blasphemers that ever walked the face of the earth, as they teach people how to be legalists in order to try to please God. I hope you have learned by now from our studies of Philippians that being a legalist does not mean not keeping rules. Being a legalist means trying to make points with God by keeping some ritual or even keeping some rule that maybe ought to be kept in time. And anytime you reject any expression of the grace of God told you as a believer, you're calling God a liar, because you're saying that it won't work.

Either Jesus Christ is the only way that a person gets to heaven (everyone must receive Him), or else God is a liar. So, now let's take a look at what's happening out in the religious world. What do the Jews do today? If you go to Israel, you'll see the name Jesus Christ written on garbage cans. That's what they do with Jesus Christ. The finest, nicest, most attractive Jews in our country today (many of them in the field of entertainment) completely reject Jesus Christ. They think that He was a good rabbi and a fine man, but they don't think that He is deity, and they don't think that He is the Son of God. What have they done? These Jews, like the one that Paul is talking about here, have called God a liar. When they have done that, they performed an act of blasphemy.

What about all the liberals who fill our pulpits today? These people take the Word of God and challenge its inerrancy; they challenge the inspiration of Scripture; they challenge its authority; they challenge its authority; and, they challenge the supernatural that works in the lives of people through the God who is there. They are blaspheming God because they are calling Him a liar. They are telling God that He's not even there performing what He is doing.

The cults are hopeless. The cults basically consistently reject the deity of Christ. Everybody who is in a cult today, unless by the grace of God he is snatched out of that fire, is going to find himself in the very hell that he claims does not exist. That's exactly what happened to the rich man in the story of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man knew that there was no place like Torments – the place in Hades. When he died, he discovered how wrong he was.

So, anyone who rejects Christ as Savior is calling God a liar. And that, in effect, is blasphemy.

So, Paul is saying, "God forbid such a suggestion that God is faithless. Let it be clearly established," Paul says, "that God is true. He is veracity. Let everybody else be declared false, for that is characteristic of people." God does not fail to keep His promises. He will not fail to keep them to the Jewish people. All those covenants will be fulfilled. But when an individual Jew rejects personal salvation, those covenants will not help him. That's the point.

The same is true of salvation for you and me. While we may know it, and we have the information, if we reject the person of Christ, we're hopelessly lost. And when you, as a believer, get careless with the Word of God yourself, do you know what's going to happen? You're going to start backsliding down that road. You may have made splendid spiritual progress to the super grace level of a spiritual maturity structure in your soul. And you've gone from babyhood to your adolescence to a full adult level, and now you begin to get careless about the Word of God, and you start backsliding. What are you doing? You're going negative toward the study of the Word of God. You're going negative toward taking food into your soul. You're going negative toward instruction of doctrine. What you're doing is not reflecting something against the pastor-teacher, but you're reflecting something against the character of God.

When you get a mature pastor-teacher, it doesn't disturb him whether people listen or not. It disturbs him for what he knows will be the consequences for them. But he doesn't take this as a personal affront. He recognizes that the one that they are insulting is the living God. And that's a whole lot more serious. In fact, they're calling God a liar. So, any rejection by a Christian of the grace of God, or any badmouthing of the grace of God, is indeed to call that a liar. That is because God says, "I won't do a thing for you, except by My grace. Everything you have I'm going to give it to you. You're not going to earn anything. You're not going to con Me into anything. I'm going to do it by grace. If you won't take it by grace, then I'm going to put screws on you. And when you get around to where you're willing to act by grace, then we're going to get along just fine. All the while that you're rejecting it, you too, as a believer in reversion, are calling God a liar. And that's an act of blasphemy.

So, the apostle Paul has challenged this Jew: "God forbid. He cannot be unfaithful, but let it be clearly understood that God is true, and every man a liar: "As it is written." Now we get to a quotation from the Old Testament. The word "as" is "kathos," and it means "just as." And "as it is written" is the Greek word "grapho." You may recognize that is a word that we use in English. This is in the perfect tense. Perfect means that it was written in the past, and it continues to this day. It's passive, which means that the people who wrote the Bible did not invent the content. Rather, they were God's instruments in recording Scripture. It's indicative. It's a statement of fact.

So, we translate this as: "Yea, just as it stands written." Today that means that the Holy Scriptures stand written for us. It is a quotation from Psalm 51:4. That is what the apostle is quoting at this point. He says, "Just as it is written." What is written? "That" introduces a purpose: "You might be justified." "Justified" is the word "dikaioo." "Dikaioo" means "to be called righteous." God doesn't have to be justified. The issue here is that God is to be declared to be absolutely righteous: without error; and, without fault. It is aorist. It means that mankind as a whole is to recognize the veracity of God. It is passive. This is what other people are to recognize and say about God. It is subjunctive, though. It is potential testimony. That indicates purpose. It is the purpose of the apostle Paul. It's the purpose of the psalmist that he's quoting: "That you, the living God, might be declared to be absolutely righteous (absolutely correct – without error), such that You might be declared to be vindicated.

Then it says, "In" what? What is God to be vindicated in? "In Your sayings." And the words "sayings" here is the Greek word "logos." This connotes an idea. The word "logos" connotes an idea or a concept. There is nobody who can challenge the truthfulness of the accuracy of the Word of God. That is what he is saying. What God has said is the truth; that is, "Your Words – the Word of God."

Doctrine

A lot of people pray for the Lord to lead them, but they don't have enough knowledge of doctrine for them to be able to lead them. If you don't have doctrine, Satan will corrupt you as a believer every time. This is God's thinking from eternity past, delivered to us for our life now: "God forbid. Yea, let God be true, but every man a liar, as it is written that You, the living God, might be declared vindicated in Your sayings (in Your doctrine)."

How is God vindicated in what He says? Well, God is vindicated in what He says because those who function on the divine viewpoint principles of the will of God find that blessings come to their lives. Those who do not function on it find that their lives come into grief. Therefore, it's important that, as a believer priest, you take into your thinking the Word of God. You are told that there are many things by many preachers that you should do as a Christian that are important. But never forget that the Word of God indicates that God is, first of all, to be vindicated in what he has declared. And He is only vindicated as you take Bible doctrine into your soul and put it to the test, and function on it. Then you discover that it works.

So, the most important thing for you to do in life is not to run around serving the Lord in some capacity. But that certainly should be there. The most important thing is for you to constantly be taking in the Word of God: regularly; daily; day-by-day. After your soul is saved, the only way you advance in love for the Lord, and in the knowledge of His Word, and in advancement of your personal life, is through taking in the Word of God: "To be vindicated in Your sayings by the people of God, that You might overcome when You are judge:" "Might overcome" is the Greek word "nikao." "Nikao" means "to win a victory." Who's going to win a victory? God is. When God is judged by Satan and the angelic world, and by unbelieving humanity, the answer is going to come through loud and clear: a victory for God. His word was true. Man's thinking was wrong. It is aorist tense. God is victorious as a whole. It is active. It is God's action. It is subjunctive – potential.

When is this going to be? "When you are judged." The Greek word is "krino." It is present tense, God constantly judges. It is passive. God has to stand by and have His Word put to the test to see if these things be so. It's infinitive (the purpose) – the purpose of God being able to meet the challenge when He is judged as to whether He is faithful, or whether He is not faithful.

So, it's the wording of the Word of God in our souls that proves how true God is. God is constantly being judged by unbelievers, and they judge God by how the Word of God works in us. They judge God according to how it has worked historically – where nations have gone because they have functioned with leaders who take the Word of God and act upon it.

So, God is going to judge this Jewish unbeliever as He is going to judge all religious unbelievers on the basis of His sayings. They're going to find that God has made great promises to humanity. For He has done that – "Whosoever will may be saved." All the promises of the Word of God are available for your use in time. While He has done that, yet He is going to bring judgment for those who have ignored His Word, and who have operated on their own point of view.

So, when you reject Christ as Savior, you are going to vindicate God when He puts you in the lake of fire. When you enter into reversionism as a Christian, you are going to vindicate the sayings of God when discipline comes into your life. It may be even your personal death. When God fulfills His unconditional covenants to Israel (despite all the theologians who told us that God was finished with Israel), God is going to be vindicated again in His promises that he has kept, When the rebel against God's laws of various kinds that He has set up (the divine institutions) finally faces God, he's going to find that the divine institution of free will volition was vindicated. And God is going to bring judgment upon those who interfered with the free will of people. The divine institution of marriage was sacred in the sight of God, and God is going to bring judgment upon those who violate it. The divine institution of family was God's way, and those who violate their responsibility as members of the family are going to come under the judgment of God. When a nation turns its back upon God, that nation is going to lose its national sovereignty.

One of the great things about the early leaders and the founding fathers of our country was that they all were united. Some of them were not evangelical Christians. As a matter of fact, a minimum number of them were evangelical Christians. Most of them were of formal religious groups (the Church of England), or they were deists. But every one of them came through with one point loud and clear that they attach themselves to, and that is the sovereignty of God – that God rules in the affairs of nations. And it was Benjamin Franklin that stood up at the constitutional convention, when they couldn't get together and make progress on making agreements in their hacking out our Constitution. It was Ben Franklin who got up and said, "I want to remind you that the Scripture tells us that God moves in the affairs of nations," meaning that God puts nations up, and He turns them down. He moves them in blessing, or He removes that blessing upon them. And those who violate the laws of divine establishment which God has established for the conduct of nations are going to suffer His sovereign hand. You cannot beat the sovereign hand of God.

That's what this poor Jew is trying to do. When you reject Bible doctrine, truth, you have rejected everything that there is.

So, the question we began with in this session was: "Is God faithful?" You bet He is. I would caution you to take any hazards on that point, for the faithful God will be faithful to blessing as He will be faithful to your condemnation.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1975

Back to the Romans index