Romans 3:6

Romans 3:6, in plain English

Of course not, Paul responds. If that twisted logic were true—that God shouldn't judge sinners because their sin shows off His righteousness—then how could God ever judge anyone fairly?

Why it's here

Paul is showing the absurd consequence of the thinking he just mentioned. If God couldn't judge unrighteousness because it somehow serves to display His righteousness, then the whole system of justice collapses. God would be unable to condemn evil, which would make Him unjust.

Who's speaking

Paul

Where it sits in the story

This is Paul defending God's holiness. He's saying that God's ability to judge evil is inseparable from His righteousness. A God who couldn't judge the world wouldn't be just—He'd be complicit.

The scholarly reading

Paul rejects this reasoning decisively: if that logic held, God could never judge anyone, and the entire moral fabric of the universe would collapse.

Language and setting

The rhetorical force is simple but devastating. If the logic of verse 5 were valid—that we cannot be judged for actions that serve God's purposes—then divine judgment becomes impossible and incoherent. Paul is defending God's right to judge as foundational to any meaningful ethical system. Barth would later use this passage to emphasize that God's freedom to judge is inseparable from His freedom to love.

Voice

Paul

Significance

This reasserts God's judicial prerogative as essential to the biblical narrative arc: from Genesis onward, God's judgment maintains moral distinction and cosmic order. To obliterate judgment is to obliterate the very framework in which redemption becomes intelligible.

4Certainly not! Let God be true and every man a liar. As it is written: “So that You may be proved right when You speak and victorious when You judge.”

5But if our unrighteousness highlights the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unjust to inflict His wrath on us? I am speaking in human terms.

6Certainly not! In that case, how could God judge the world?

7However, if my falsehood accentuates God’s truthfulness, to the increase of His glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?

8Why not say, as some slanderously claim that we say, “Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is deserved!

Read all of Romans 3 — The courtroom falls silent. Every mouth is stopped. Then Paul introduces a righteousness that comes not from the law but through faith.