'Let us do evil that good may result' (3:8): the charge against Paul's gospel

Says Paul writes that "some slanderously claim that we say, 'Let us do evil that good may result'" (3:8); βλασφημούμεθα (blasphēmoumetha, "we are slandered"). He answers only, "Their condemnation is deserved!" The objection returns as questions he rejects: "Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase?" (6:1) and "Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace?" (6:15; cf. Gal 2:17). In Jerusalem, believers "zealous for the law" had heard that Paul taught "all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to forsake Moses" (Acts 21:20–21; cf. 15:1, 5).

The charge outlived Paul in Jewish-Christian circles. Irenaeus reports that the Ebionites "repudiate the Apostle Paul, maintaining that he was an apostate from the law" (Haer. 1.26.2). In the later Pseudo-Clementine Epistle of Peter to James, "Peter" complains that some Gentiles follow "certain lawless and trifling preaching of the man who is my enemy" (Ep. Pet. 2.3); the ANF editor calls it "one of the strongest anti-Pauline insinuations" in that literature.

Implies Preaching justification freely by grace, apart from works of the law (3:20–24), left Paul open to the charge of encouraging sin. He does not soften the message but rejects the inference (3:8, 31; 6:2).

Uncertain Whether the slanderers of 3:8 were unbelieving Jews, Jewish Christians, or others who misread Paul cannot be determined from the verse.