Romans 3:5

unrighteousness … righteousness General terms, but implying the special forms of unbeliefand fidelity. Man's mistrust is awfully unjust to God;God's fidelity to His promise is just to Himselfand His holiness. See below on Romans 3:21 for the exceptionalmeaning here of "the Righteousness of God[33]."

[33] It is possible, however, that the meaning assigned to the phrase in note on Romans 1:17, may be the meaning even here: q.d., "What if our sin should illustrate (by contrast or otherwise) God's Way of Acceptance?"

Is God unrighteous, &c.?] This question (the Opponent's) is a serious grammatical difficulty in the Gr. The interrogative particle is that which regularly expects the answer "No." But the turn of this argument suggests a question (from the Opponent) expecting "Yes." (The above use of the particle in question is not quiteinvariable in Gr., but it holds in all other cases in St Paul.) To us it seems that the solution is as follows: The Apostle gives the Opponent's question, but jealousy for God's honour compels him to modify it by his own intense sense of the Divine righteousness. The Opponent demands the answer "Yes;" St Paul is forced to make him, grammatically, demand the answer "No." Instead of his would-be "Is notGod unrighteous, &c.?" it thus stands, "IsGod unrighteous, &c.?" in which at most the question is left, verbally, open.

taketh vengeance Lit. inflicteth the wrath; i.e. the wrath merited by the special sin; the wrath which had fallen on Israel.

I speak as a man i.e. "on merely human principles, from mere man's point of view." This serious questioning about right and wrong in the Eternal and His acts is, in St Paul's view, "speaking as man." In the light of the Holy Spirit's teaching it is impossible, unless (as here) by way of a mere argumentative formula.