Romans 3:31 answers a worry that Paul expects his readers to have right after he says people are made right with God by faith rather than by keeping the law. If faith is what matters, does that throw the law out? Paul says no. He says faith actually gives the law its proper place. Paul wrote this letter to the church in Rome, a mixed community of Jewish and Gentile believers, and this verse is part of his explanation of how both groups stand before God.
Do we then nullify the law through faith? May it never be! No, we establish the law.
Romans 3:31 (WEB)
What Romans 3:31 Means
The verse opens with a question: “Do we then nullify the law through faith?” The word “nullify” means to make void, cancel, or render useless. Paul is asking whether his teaching that we are justified by faith makes God’s law pointless. His answer is strong and immediate: “May it never be!” This is a vigorous rejection of that conclusion, not a mild disagreement.
The second half states Paul’s positive claim: “No, we establish the law.” To establish something is to confirm it, put it on firm footing, or show that it stands. Paul is saying that faith does not discard the law’s purpose. Instead, faith fulfills what the law was always pointing toward, and it brings the law’s true intention into view.
What the verse does not say is equally important. It does not say that obeying the law earns our standing before God, since Paul has just said that people are justified apart from works of the law. It also does not say that every commandment works the same way in every situation. The verse makes one clear point: faith and law are not enemies in God’s plan.
The Context of Romans 3:31
Romans was written by the apostle Paul, traditionally dated to around the mid-50s AD, probably from Corinth. Paul had not yet visited Rome when he wrote, and he wanted to explain the gospel clearly to a congregation that included people from very different backgrounds. Many Jewish believers would have revered the Mosaic law, while many Gentile believers had no such tradition. Romans 3:31 falls in the middle of Paul’s argument that all people, Jew and Gentile alike, need God’s righteousness received through faith.
Just before the verse, Paul insists that God is the God of Gentiles as well as Jews and that he justifies both by faith (Romans 3:28-30). That pairing is why the question in verse 31 arises. If God’s way of making people right is open to everyone through faith, the obvious objection is that the law, given to Israel, must now be set aside. Paul answers that the law itself bears witness to this faith-based righteousness, so the law is confirmed rather than canceled. Reading the verse with this surrounding argument shows that it is defending the coherence of God’s plan, not reversing it.
Key Phrases in Romans 3:31
Romans 3:28
We maintain therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.
(WEB)
This verse states the main claim that Romans 3:31 defends: a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Reading it right before verse 31 makes clear why Paul anticipates the objection that faith cancels the law.
Romans 8:3-4
3 For what the law couldn’t do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh; 4 that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
(WEB)
Here Paul explains that God did what the law could not do, sending his Son so that the law’s righteous requirement might be fulfilled in those who walk by the Spirit. It shows how the law is established through faith rather than discarded.
A Short Prayer From Romans 3:31
Father, thank you that you have made a way for me to be right with you through faith in Christ, and not through my own record. Keep me from treating your commands as if they no longer matter now that I belong to you. Give me a heart that loves your word and wants to live by it, not out of fear of failing, but out of gratitude for what you have already done. Help my faith produce the obedience you have always intended, and let your law be established in my daily life. Amen.
