Romans 3:31 answers a worry that Paul anticipates from his readers: if we are made right with God through faith rather than through keeping the law, does that throw the law out? Paul’s answer is an emphatic no. He says that faith does not cancel God’s law but confirms and fulfills it. The apostle Paul wrote this as part of his letter to the believers in Rome, a church made up of both Jewish and Gentile Christians.
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, to cancel out, or to render useless. Paul’s opponents apparently argued that a gospel built on faith in Christ must make the Jewish law obsolete. He rejects that conclusion so strongly that he answers with a phrase that is closer to “Certainly not!” than to a polite disagreement.
The second half is the heart of the verse. Paul says instead that faith “establishes” the law. To establish something is to set it firmly in place, to give it its proper standing. In this sense Paul means that faith is the response the law was always pointing toward, so faith brings the law to its intended purpose rather than discarding it.
What the verse does not say is equally important. Paul is not telling you that obeying the law earns your standing before God, since he has just said in verse 28 that a person is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Nor is he saying that Christians should follow every ceremonial requirement of the Old Testament. He is making a narrower and more precise claim about how the law and faith relate.
The Context of Romans 3:31
Romans is generally attributed to Paul and was written in the late 50s AD, probably from Corinth. Its readers were in Rome, and the letter lays out the gospel in a careful, almost legal style, working through questions a thoughtful listener might raise. Paul spends the first three chapters showing that all people, Jew and Gentile alike, stand under sin, and that God’s righteousness now comes to them through faith in Christ.
Verses 28 to 30 set up the question in verse 31. Paul argues that God is the God of Jews and Gentiles both, and that he justifies the circumcised and the uncircumcised through faith. Because the same God is at work for everyone, faith cannot be a rival to the law that belongs only to one group. Read in that setting, verse 31 tells you that the law was given by the same God who now offers righteousness by faith, so the two cannot be opposed.
Key Phrases in Romans 3:31
Matthew 5:17
“Don’t think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I didn’t come to destroy, but to fulfill.
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In this verse Jesus says he came not to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to fulfill them. It mirrors Paul’s concern in Romans 3:31 that the law is confirmed, not cancelled, by the work of Christ.
Galatians 3:24
So that the law has become our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
(WEB)
Paul describes the law as a guardian that leads us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. It helps explain how the law has a real purpose that faith brings to completion.
A Short Prayer From Romans 3:31
Lord, thank you that your law is not an enemy of the grace you have given me. Where I have been tempted to think that faith in Christ lets me set aside your commands, show me how my trust in you leads me to walk in your ways. Shape my heart so that my obedience flows from love and not from fear or pride. Help me to honor what you have said, because it is good and true, and because it points to you. Amen.