Romans Chapter 3 verse 4 Holy Bible

Romans 3 : 4 Bible Verse Songs

• Let Go, Let God by Jack Cassidy

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 4. - God forbid (there is no better English phrase for expressing the indignant repudiation of μὴ γένοιτο): yea, let God be true (γινέσθω ἀληθὴς; i.e. "let his truth be established;" "Fiat, in judicio," Bengel), but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged, We can hardly avoid recognizing a reference to Psalm 116:11 in "every man a liar, the words of the LXX. being exactly given, though the general purport of that psalm does not bear upon the present argument. The apostle takes this phrase from it as expressing well what he wants to say, viz. that though all men were false (in the sense expressed and implied by the previous ἠπίστησαν), yet God's truth stands. But it only leads up to the second quotation from Psalm 51, which is the important one, introduced by καθὼς γέραπται. In its final words, νικήσης ἐν τῶ κρίνεσθαί σε, the LXX. is followed (so also Vulgate, cum judicaris), though the Hebrew may be more correctly rendered, as in the Authorized Version, "be clear when thou judgest." The κρίνεσθαι of the LXX. may be understood passively in the sense of God being called to account, as men might be, for the justice of his dealings; or, perhaps, in a middle sense for entering into a suit or controversy with his people. Κρίνεσθαι means "going to law" in 1 Corinthians 6:1, 6 (cf. also Matthew 5:40), and in the LXX., with especial reference to a supposed controversy or pleading of God with men, Jeremiah 25:31; Job 9:2; Job 13:19. (See also Hosea 2:2, Κρίθητε πρὸς τὴν μητέρα ὑῶν.) The meaning of this concluding expression does not, however, affect the main purport of the verse, or its relevancy as here quoted. Occurring in what is believed to be David's penitential psalm after his sin. in the matter of Uriah, it declares, in conjunction with the preceding verse, that, sin having been committed, man alone is guilty, and that God's truth and righteousness can never be impugned. But it seems to imply still more than this, viz. that man's sin has the establishment of God's righteousness as its consequence, or even, it may be, as its purpose; for the conclusion of ver. 4 in the psalm, naturally connected with "against thee only have I sinned" preceding, is so connected by ὄπως α}ν (in Hebrew, לְמַעַן); and it is not out of keeping with scriptural doctrine that David should have intended to express even Divine purpose in that he had been permitted, for his sins, to fall into that deeper sin with the view of establishing God's righteousness all the more. It does not, however, seem certain (whatever some grammarians may say) that the conjunction need of necessity be understood as relic; it may be embatic only. However this be, it is the inference from ὄπως ἀν that suggests the new objection of the following verse.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(4) Impossible! Rather let God be seen to be true though all mankind should be proved false, even as the Psalmist looked upon his own sin as serving to enhance the triumph of God's justice. Speaking of that justice for the moment as if it could be arraigned before the bar of a still higher tribunal, he asserts its absolute and complete acquittal.That thou mightest be justified.--Strictly, in order that, here as in the Hebrew of the Psalm. Good is, in some way inscrutable to us, educed out of evil, and this is clearly foreseen by God, and forms part of His design, though so as not to interfere with the free-will of man. Religion assumes that the two things, free-will and omnipotence, are reconcilable, though how they are to be reconciled seems an insoluble problem. The same difficulty attaches to every system but one of blank fatalism and atheism. But the theory of fatalism if logically carried out would simply destroy human society.Psalms 51, in which the quotation occurs, is commonly (in accordance with the heading), though perhaps wrongly, ascribed to David after his sin with Bathsheba. The effect of this sin is to throw out into the strongest relief the justice of the sentence by which it is followed and punished. The original is, "That thou mightest be just in thy speaking; that thou mightest be pure in thy judging." St. Paul adopts the rendering of the LXX., who make the last word passive instead of active, thus making it apply, not to the sentence given by God, but to the imaginary trial to which by a figure of speech that sentence itself is supposed to be submitted.