“ God forbid” answers the question raised in verse 3: “For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?” Paul addresses here an apparent dilemma: If the Jews are God’s covenantal people, then would their unbelief make God’s promise of no effect? The answer is no. The Jews were given the privilege of bearing the sign of God’s covenant (circumcision) and the oracles of God, but that did not mean all would be saved. The essential element is their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. In setting the question in verse 3 and answering it in verse 4, Paul, being one of the keenest thinkers in their community, was thinking of the questions a Jewish mind might generate. The Jews were proud of their status as God’s covenantal people, and in that framework, they had claimed salvation through blood ties. The requirement of believing in the Lord Jesus would naturally set them thinking: would unbelieving Jews then be living contradictions of God’s faithfulness to His own covenant? The answer is no. As progressively revealed in His Word, God’s covenant in the Old Testament points toward His promise in the New Testament. To be saved, saints before the Lord Jesus Christ’s advent look forward to the cross, and saints after that look back towards it. God is the only Truth; every man, in his own wisdom and guile, is a liar if he doubts or distorts God’s Truth. Paul’s quoting of Psalm 51:4 tells us man has no excuse before God’s judgment: “Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight: that Thou mightest be justified when Thou speakest, and be clear when Thou judgest.” God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? – Numbers 23:19
LESSON
God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar ; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.
THOUGHT
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