Romans 3:27,28 - What becomes of our boasting?

3:27

This chapter finishes with Paul raising and answering several questions. The first of these is “where then is the boasting?”. The Jews took pride in their Jewishness. As I have said before, Israel can be seen as a microcosm of humanity. The characteristics that we see described in the Bible about the Jews apply to all of us. We are all prone to taking an inappropriate pride in something, be it “going to the right church” or whatever. Going to the “right church” is of no value unless we are living by faith. Conversely, there may be some who go to the “wrong church” but are actually living by faith. At present the Church of Scotland is in a mess and has recently approved the “blessing” of same-sex marriages, thus going directly against clear Biblical teaching. Many have left the Church of Scotland in recent years over its clear movement away from believing the Bible. There are also Bible-believing Christians (you cannot be a true Christian without believing in the Bible!). There will be Christians in both these groups who are acting in obedience to Christ. However, back to the text! Boasting is excluded. There is no place for pride in the gospel. For we are saved by the unmerited grace of God in Jesus Christ. No one is saved by “a law of works”, rather we are saved by a law of faith. Paul here is using the term “law of faith” in opposition to “law of works”, we should not read too much into the term “law of faith”.

3:28

“We hold that one is justified by faith apart from the Law”. Most strongly in Galatians we see that there those who insisted that Gentile converts needed to become Jews, needed to be circumcised, in order to be fully members of the kingdom. Throughout his letters, but especially in Galatians, Paul is counteracting this, and we also read about it in Acts 15. We are justified by faith, not by works of the Law. Garland points out that Paul does not say we are saved “on account of faith”, rather faith is the means by which we receive salvation. Just as you cannot boast about your works, neither can you boast about your faith!