ACC ~ Romans 3 v3

THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD NOT NULLIFIED. ORIGEN: The oracles of God were entrusted to the Jews, as we have said above, but some of them did not believe either God or his oracles. Those who did not believe were carnal, as Paul says elsewhere: “The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him.” But their faithlessness does not nullify the faithfulness of God. By God’s faithfulness we understand either the faith which God had when he entrusted his oracles to them or the faith by which those who received the oracles from God believed in him. We are therefore reminded that their faithlessness has not nullified the faithfulness of God, which he has shown to us. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

CYPRIAN: The sanctity and worth of the confessors (i. e., martyrs) was not shattered because the faith of a few of them was broken. TREATISES ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH 22.

GRACE GIVEN TO THOSE WHO BELIEVED. AMBROSIASTER: Paul says this because it was not foreordained that believing Jews would not be thought worthy of receiving what God had promised just because the others were unbelieving, for the promise was such that the gift of grace would be given to those who believed.

Therefore God is not put out because of the unbelief of the Jews and will grant eternal life to their believers, which he promised would be given to those who believed in Christ. Those who did not believe excluded themselves from consideration without doing the rest any injury. Having said this, Paul commends Jewish believers, because it was not their fault that many of their kinsmen refused to believe. COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

GOD REMAINS FAITHFUL. APOLLINARIS OF LAODICEA: Let it be agreed, Paul says, that God is faithful and true in every case, whereas men have been judged as unfaithful and untrue, so that God by his goodness may conquer the self-righteousness of men by bestowing his own right-eousness upon them. PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH.

WHAT DOES IT MATTER IF SOME WERE UNFAITHFUL? CHRYSOSTOM: The unbelief of the Jews does not reflect badly on God but rather shows his honor and love of man to be all the greater, in that God is seen to have bestowed honor on people who would dishonor him. Look how he has revealed them to be guilty of misdeeds because of what they gloried in. The honor God showed to them was so great that even when he saw what the result of it would be, he did not withhold his good will toward them. But the Jews made the honors bestowed on them a means of insulting him who honored them.

Paul said: “What if some of them did not believe?” Wasn’t it clear that it was all of them who did not believe? If Paul had told the truth directly he might have appeared to be a severe and hostile accuser. HOMILIES ON ROMANS 6.

THE PROMISES TO ABRAHAM. PELAGIUS: The faithfulness meant here is that to the promises made to Abraham, to whom it was said that “in your seed all the nations will be blessed.” PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

UNABLE TO BLOCK GOD’S BLESSINGS. THEODORET OF CYR: God knew in advance who would obey the law and who would break it. Therefore those who did not believe were unable to stand in the way of his blessings. INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS.

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