Romans 3:29

Or is God the God of Jews only? is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yea, of Gentiles also: if so be that God is one, and he shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith.

Israel's long familiarity with God constitutes the ground of their reluctance to admit salvation as a Gentile prerogative, and was also the basis of their feeling that God was a tribal, or national, God to themselves alone. Paul here disposed of that bias by two statements: (1) since there is only one God, he is God of both Jews and Gentiles, and (2) the salvation God offers to all people is offered upon the same conditions to them all, "by faith," and "through faith" being the summary of those conditions in a magnificent synecdoche.

The expressions "by faith" and "through faith" are a kind of gobbledegook, as rendered in this place. Lard wrote:

The two expressions should be translated in the same words. In speaking of them, Winer says: "Paul certainly does not have in view a difference of meaning between them." When we translate, God will justify the Jews BY belief and the Gentiles THROUGH belief, we bewilder, not enlighten.[40]

In these glorious thoughts of the great apostle to the Gentiles, one is overwhelmed with the grandeur, holiness, and justice of God's great scheme of human redemption; nor can the intrusion of any human system, such as sola fide, take away the joy of thinking these great thoughts after him. That error should have been imported into this chapter is unfortunate; but it is such an error that any man may see it and avoid the pitfalls of accepting it. Martin Luther, the great reformer, was the man who, more than any other, was responsible for the error; and an understanding of the circumstances by which he fell into it goes far to explain why it happened. Lard observed that:

It was over this passage that Luther made his famous translation, "We are justified by faith ONLY," which daring act gave rise to that doctrine. But Luther's act was prompted solely by his aversion to the Papal tenet of justification by works. It is without defense, either from scripture or philology. I admire Luther's bold opposition to the error of Rome, but deeply regret the extreme to which it led him. Not that the doctrine of justification by faith only is as dangerous as the Roman position. This I do not hold. On belief in Christ, absolutely taken, it would be difficult in my judgment to lay too great stress. ... It is only when belief is affirmed to be the sole condition of justification that I put in my demurrer.[41]

There looms in these two verses a further phase of Paul's argument that God was righteous in calling both Jews and Gentiles "through the faith," that is, by means of the Christian religion, with no regard whatever for any distinctions at all between Jews and Gentiles. (The rendition "through the faith" is in the English Revised Version (1885) margin). Paul, beginning here and continuing throughout the fourth chapter, had under discussion, not the question of how either Jew or Gentile was justified, but rather the problem of how God could be righteous in wiping out all the glorious privileges of Judaism and saving both Jews and Gentiles, without distinctions between them, in the new system of Christianity. That issue was a "hot" one in those times; and the principal theme of Romans was directed to a defense of God's righteousness in doing such a thing.

Circumcision ... and the uncircumcision ... Paul here shifted to another pair of words expressing the distinction, "Jews and Gentiles"; and he followed this terminology throughout Romans 4, in which these two words are found twelve times. It will be much easier for the student to follow Paul's meaning in that chapter if the subject Paul was discussing is kept constantly in view. He was not, repeat not, explaining how either Jews or Gentiles are justified, but was still discoursing on how God was righteous in calling both groups to salvation within the framework of Christianity.

[40] Moses E. Lard, op. cit., p. 126.

[41] Ibid., p. 123.