Romans 3:31

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Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.

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Ambrosiaster

AD 400

Paul says that the law is not nullified by faith but fulfilled. For its status is confirmed when faith bears witness that what it said would come has actually happened. Paul says this because of the Jews who thought that faith in Christ was inimical to the law because they did not understand the true meaning of the law. For Paul does not nullify the law when he says that it must come to an end, because he asserts that at the time it was given it was rightly given, but now it does not have to be kept any longer. In the law itself it is said that a time would come when the promise would be fulfilled and the law would no longer have to be kept…. “Behold the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers.” Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.

1 min1/8

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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430

Do we then make void freedom of choice through grace? God forbid! Rather, we establish freedom of choice. As the law is not made void by faith, so freedom of choice is not made void but established by grace. Freedom of choice is necessary to the fulfillment of the law. But by the law comes the knowledge of sin; by faith comes the obtaining of grace against sin; by grace comes the healing of the soul from sin’s sickness; by the healing of the soul comes freedom of choice; by freedom of choice comes the love of righteousness; by the love of righteousness comes the working of the law. Thus, as the law is not made void but established by faith, since faith obtains the grace whereby the law may be fulfilled, so freedom of choice is not made void but established by grace, since grace heals the will whereby righteousness may freely be loved.

1 min2/8

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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430

The law is confirmed by faith. Apart from faith the law merely commands, and it holds guilty those who do not fulfill its commands, so that it might thereafter turn to the grace of the Deliverer those groaning in their inability to do what is commanded.

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Augustine of Hippo

AD 430

How should the law be upheld if not by righteousness? By a righteousness, moreover, which is of faith, for what could not be fulfilled through the law is fulfilled through faith.

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Cyril of Alexandria

AD 444

On account of his humanity Emmanuel is called a prophet, who following Moses is the mediator between God and humanity. The law was a shadow, but even so it presented an image of the truth. Furthermore, the truth hardly destroys its images; rather it makesthem clearer. .

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George Leo Haydock

AD 1849

Do we then destroy the law through faith? No: but we establish the law. See the words of Christ: (Matthew v. 17.) 1. Because the figures and types of the law of Moses, and the predictions of the prophets, are fulfilled. 2. Because Christians are now taught to fulfil the moral precepts, and the chief part of the law, with greater perfection, in the spirit of faith, charity (Witham)

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John Chrysostom

AD 407

Paul’s use of the word uphold shows that the law was failing…. The purpose of the law was to make man righteous, but it had no power to do that. But when faith came it achieved what the law could not do, for once a man believes he is immediately justified. Faith therefore established what the law intended and brought to fulfillment what its provisions aimed for. Consequently faith has not abolished the law but perfected it.

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Tertullian of Carthage

AD 220

But he had withal said above: "Are we, then, making void the law through faith? Far be it; but we are establishing the law "

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Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation - 2 Peter 1:20