Romans 3:30

The Alex. read εἴπερ : if truly. This reading might suffice if the apostle were merely repeating the principle of the unity of God as the basis of the preceding assertion: “ if indeed God is one.” But he goes further; this principle of the unity of God serves him as a point of departure from which to draw important inferences expressed in a weighty proposition: “ who will justify. ” To warrant him in doing so, it is not enough that he has asserted the unity of God as an admitted supposition: “ if indeed. ” He must have laid it down as an indubitable fact which could serve as a basis for argument. We must therefore prefer the reading of the other two families: ἐπείπερ, seeing that. Monotheism has as its natural corollary the expectation of one only means of justification for the whole human race. No doubt this dogma is compatible with a temporary particularism, of a pedagogic nature; but as soon as the decisive question arises, that of final salvation or condemnation, the unity must appear. A dualism on this point would imply a duality in God's essence: “ who (in consequence of His unity) will justify. ” The future: will justify, has been variously explained. Some think that it expresses logical consequence (Rück. Hofm.); others, that it refers to the day of judgment (Beza, Fritzs.); a third party refer it to all the particular cases of justification which have taken or shall take place in history. The last sense seems the most natural: the whole new development of history, which is now opening, appears to the apostle as the consequence of the fundamental dogma of Judaism.

Meyer alleges that the difference of the two prepositions ἐκ and διά, from and by (which we have sought to render in our translation), is purely accidental. Is it also accidental that the article τῆς, the, which was wanting in the first proposition before the word πίστεως, faith, is added in the second? Experience has convinced us that Paul's style is not at the mercy of chance, even in its most secondary elements. On the other hand, must we, with Calvin, find the difference a pure irony: “If any one insists on a difference between Jews and Gentiles, well and good! I shall make over one to him; the first obtains righteousness from faith, the second by faith.” No; it would be much better to abandon the attempt to give a meaning to this slight difference, than to make the apostle a poor wit. The following, as it seems to me, is the shade of meaning which the apostle meant to express. With regard to the Jew, who laid claim to a righteousness of works, he contrasts category with category by using the preposition ἐκ, from, out of, which denotes origin and nature: a righteousness of faith. Hence, too, he omits the article, which would have described the conciete fact, rather than the quality. But when he comes to speak of the Gentiles, who had been destitute till then of every means of reaching any righteousness whatever, he chooses the preposition διά, by: by means of, which points to faith simply as the way by which they reach the unexpected end; and he adds the article because faith presents itself to his mind, in this relation, as the well-known means, besides which the Gentile does not dream of any other.

The harmony between the Mosaic law and justification by faith has been demonstrated from two points of view 1. That of the universal humiliation (the exclusion of all boasting), which results from the former and constitutes the basis of the latter (Romans 3:27-28). 2. That of the unity of God, which is the basis of Israelitish Mosaism and prophetism, as well as that of evangelical universalism (Romans 3:29-30). Thereafter nothing more natural than the conclusion drawn in Romans 3:31.