31 Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.
31 Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.
31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.
31 But by shifting our focus from what we do to what God does, don't we cancel out all our careful keeping of the rules and ways God commanded? Not at all. What happens, in fact, is that by putting that entire way of life in its proper place, we confirm it.
31 Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.
31 Well then, if we emphasize faith, does this mean that we can forget about the law? Of course not! In fact, only when we have faith do we truly fulfill the law.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Romans 3:31
Commentary on Romans 3:27-31
(Read Romans 3:27-31)
God will have the great work of the justification and salvation of sinners carried on from first to last, so as to shut out boasting. Now, if we were saved by our own works, boasting would not be excluded. But the way of justification by faith for ever shuts out boasting. Yet believers are not left to be lawless; faith is a law, it is a working grace, wherever it is in truth. By faith, not in this matter an act of obedience, or a good work, but forming the relation between Christ and the sinner, which renders it proper that the believer should be pardoned and justified for the sake of the Saviour, and that the unbeliever who is not thus united or related to him, should remain under condemnation. The law is still of use to convince us of what is past, and to direct us for the future. Though we cannot be saved by it as a covenant, yet we own and submit to it, as a rule in the hand of the Mediator.