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Verse

Romans 3:3

ESV What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God?
NIV What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness?
NASB What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it?
CSB What then? If some were unfaithful, will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness?
NLT True, some of them were unfaithful; but just because they were unfaithful, does that mean God will be unfaithful?
KJV For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?
NKJV For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect?

What does Romans 3:3 mean?

Paul is staging a question-and-answer session between himself and an imagined critic of his words in chapter 2. Now he asks the next logical question: "What if some were unfaithful?" By this, Paul seems to be pointing to what he said in the previous chapter. The Jewish people were given God's law, but they did not keep it. As a nation and as individuals, every Jewish person had sinned. Nobody can keep the law perfectly, and even those who had been "entrusted with the oracles of God" (Romans 3:2) were not immune to sin.

Paul's questioner follows by asking, does the unfaithfulness of some of the Jewish people nullify God's faithfulness to His people? Does their sin make His faithfulness pointless? In other words, does the fact that those under the law broke the law, that they sinned as all people do, mean that God will no longer be faithful to them?

In the following verse, Paul will answer this question with a loud and emphatic "no."
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