Paul knew well that everything he had said would be highly offensive to Jewish ears, and that they would indignantly accuse him of belittling and setting aside all that God had done in calling Israel out of Egypt to be His people. That is why he raises the questions found in the first verse of chapter 3. He answers that it was indeed a privilege to be a Jew, and especially because the Jew had been given the Word of God.
Let us make a present-day application. Christendom now holds the privileged position once held by the Jew. There is certainly an advantage in being born and raised in a “Christian” land, but along with that comes tremendous responsibility. It is also sadly true that the terrible sins of Christendom provoke the heathen to blaspheme. The unconverted person who professes the Christian faith will be judged according to the high standard he claims to uphold, and therefore deserves greater judgment.
The oracles of God today include not only the Old Testament but also the New—not only the word of His law but also the word of His grace. But let us especially note the wordcommitted. Long ago, the oracles of God were committed to the Jews; today they are committed to the Church. That is the true position. The Church is not the producer of Scripture, nor is she—as many wrongly claim—the only authorized teacher of it. She is simply its custodian. Scripture is entrusted to her so that, through it, the Spirit may be her Teacher.
At the beginning of chapter 3, only the Jew and the law are under discussion. Paul knew well the quibbles raised by Jewish minds. He was also aware of the slanderous reports Jews circulated about his teaching. Hence, his comments in verses 3 to 8. He makes it absolutely clear that no amount of human unbelief can cancel or alter what God has said. “The faith of God” refers to everything God has revealed so that people may receive it in faith.
Again, God stands infinitely above human evil and unbelief; He knows how to turn them ultimately into a dark background on which He displays the brightness of His righteousness and truth. Does this compromise Him or make it wrong for Him to judge sinners? It does not. Nor does it give any excuse to those who want to argue, “If my evil ends up serving God’s glory, I will continue doing more evil.” The judgment of such people will be certain and just.
What then is the situation? Let us be sure we understand it. Verse 9 raises the question. The reality is this: although the Jew had significant advantages over the Gentile, he was no better than the Gentile. Paul had already proved this, especially in chapter 2. Both Jew and Gentile are “under sin.” Paul, however, was not going to rely only on reasoning to prove this to the Jew. He now quotes their own Scriptures directly.
Verse 10 begins with, “As it is written,” and from there down to verse 18, we have a series of quotations—five from the Psalms and one from Isaiah. Together, they describe in full the condition into which humanity has fallen.
The first quotation (vv. 10–12) appears twice in the Psalms (Ps. 14 and Ps. 53). Its repetition suggests that its statements are extremely important and should not be missed, even though we would prefer not to hear them. This quotation contains six sweeping statements: four negative and two positive. Four times we find the word “none,” and twice the word “all,” though the second “all” is implied. Let us face this sweeping indictment.
The first count is this:There is none righteous, not even one.This includes us all. The statement is like a net so tight that it catches everyone, leaving no room for even the smallest fish to escape. Not one of us is right in our relationship with God.
Someone argumentative may respond, “That seems exaggerated. But even if true, man is intelligent. Once he is told what is wrong, he can fix it.” But the second count says thatno one understands—no one grasps his own unrighteous condition. People cannot fathom their plight, not even partially. This makes the situation far worse.
“Oh well,” says the argumentative person, “if human understanding is faulty, man still has instincts and feelings. These will surely lead him toward God.” But count number three confronts us:There is no one who seeks after God.Is that really true? Yes, completely. What does man seek instead? We all know: self-pleasure, self-advancement, self-glory. Therefore, he seeks money, pleasure, and sin. What he seeks once God has touched his heart is another matter entirely; the point here is what man seeks according to his fallen nature, apart from God’s grace.
Man’s state is wrong. His mind is wrong. His heart is wrong. This third count seals his condemnation. It shows that there is no point of recovery within himself.
Out of this flow the three counts of verse 12:all have turned aside; all together have become useless; none does good—no, not one.You can add thousands of zeros together, but the sum remains zero. In the same way, when all human works are added together, they amount to nothing. Even actions that seem good on the surface are wrong, because they spring from wrong motives. No work is right unless it flows from seeking God and His interests. And that is exactly what fallen man never does; he seeks only his own interests, as we have just seen.
It is striking how the words “no, not one” appear at the end of both the first and last counts. They have been translated, “Not even one… not so much as one,” which is perhaps even more forceful. May these words strike home to all our hearts. We are not assuming that any Christian reader wishes to dispute this indictment—if he did, we would doubt his Christianity—but many of us have read these verses without fully realizing the depth of ruin they describe, a ruin hopeless apart from the grace of God. It is essential that we grasp this, for unless we correctly diagnose the disease, we will never properly appreciate the remedy.
The objector may still protest. He may say that these six statements are all general, and that lawyers with weak cases often rely on generalities to avoid specifics. If he objects in this way, he is immediately met by verses 13 to 18, which give specifics. These specifics relate to six parts of the human body: the throat, tongue, lips, mouth, feet, and eyes. It is in the body that man sins, and actions done in the body will be judged on the coming day. Notice that four of the six parts concern speech, one concerns action, and one concerns thought, for the eye is the window of the mind.
What an awful picture it is—and what language! Take time to let it sink in. An “open grave,” for example—how terribly expressive! Is man’s throat like the entrance to a cave filled with dead men’s bones, filth, and decay? It is. And not only is there decay, but also deceit and poison, cursing and bitterness. His ways are marked by violence, destruction, and misery. No peace exists, and God and His fear have no place in his mind.
All this was directed especially at the Jew. Paul reminds them of this in verse 19. They were the people under the law, to whom the law was primarily addressed. They might want to brush all this aside and pretend it applied only to the Gentile. That was impossible. The laws of England are addressed to the English; the laws of China to the Chinese; the law of Moses to the Jew. Their own Scriptures condemned them, silencing them and pronouncing them guilty before God.
This completes the picture. Barbarians and Greeks had already been shown guilty and without excuse. Now, the whole world is guilty before God. Moreover, nothing in the law can rescue us from guilt or judgment. Its purpose is rather to expose our sin, and it has done so very effectively in the verses we have just considered.
Where then can hope be found? Only in the Gospel. The explanation of the Gospel begins in verse 21 with the words,“But now…”In contrast to this story of unrelieved darkness, something entirely different has now come to light. Blessed be God, multiplied millions of times, that there is another story to tell. And here it is told in divine order and with words divinely chosen. That wordnowis emphatic. We will meet it again several times in connection with the Gospel message. Look ahead to its use in Rom. 5:9; 5:11 (margin); 6:22; 7:6; 8:1.
The first word associated with the Gospel is“the righteousness of God,”not—as we might have expected—the love of God. The fact is that human sin directly challenges God’s righteousness, and so His righteousness must first be upheld. The entire Gospel rests on divine righteousness. What news could be better? It guarantees the stability and permanence of everything that follows.
The Gospel, then, is first of all the revelation of the righteousness of God, entirely apart from the law, though the law and the prophets testified to it. That righteousness has been revealed, not in rightful legislation nor in the execution of perfectly just punishment upon sinners, but in Christ and in the redemption that is in Him. In Christ’s death, every question raised by human sin was fully and finally settled on a righteous basis. This is stated in verse 25:propitiationhas been made—meaning that full satisfaction has been rendered to the righteousness of God, not only concerning the sins of believers in this Gospel age, but also concerning the sins of all previous ages. The “sins that are past” are the sins of those who lived before Christ came—past in relation to the cross, not in relation to your conversion or mine or anyone else’s.
This righteousness of God, revealed and established through the death of Christ, istoward all, but it isupon all who believe. In its scope, it looks toward everyone; in its actual application, it rests only on those who believe. Then the righteousness of God becomes theirs in its actual effect, and they stand right with Him. God Himself is the One who justifies the person who believes in Jesus, no matter how great his guilt has been—and He is just in doing so. This is stated in verse 26.
This wonderful justification—this complete clearing from guilt—is the portion of all who believe in Jesus, whether Jew or Gentile. All have sinned, so there is no distinction in guilt. In the same way, there is no distinction in the way of justification. Faith in Christ—and nothing else—puts a person right with God. This is stated in verse 30.
This way of blessing obviously excludes all boasting. It is entirely shut out. This is why proud people resent the idea of God’s grace. We are justified freely by His grace. Grace gave Jesus to die. Grace is the way God acts in justification, and faith is our response. We are justified by faith apart from the works of the law. This is the conclusion drawn from everything we have considered.
The final verse of the chapter answers the objection that a zealous Jew might raise—that the Gospel cannot be true because it undermines the law, which was undeniably given by God earlier. “No,” says Paul, “far from nullifying the law, we establish it.” We put it in the place God always intended.
The law has never been so honored and upheld as in the death of Christ. The Gospel honors the law by allowing it to do its proper work of revealing sin. Then the Gospel steps in and does what the law was never intended to do: it brings complete justification to the one who believes in Jesus.
Romans 3 – Universal Guilt; God’s Righteousness Revealed
Paul knew well that everything he had said would be highly offensive to Jewish ears, and that they would indignantly accuse him of belittling and setting aside all that God had done in calling Israel out of Egypt to be His people. That is why he raises the questions found in the first verse of chapter 3. He answers that it was indeed a privilege to be a Jew, and especially because the Jew had been given the Word of God.
Let us make a present-day application. Christendom now holds the privileged position once held by the Jew. There is certainly an advantage in being born and raised in a “Christian” land, but along with that comes tremendous responsibility. It is also sadly true that the terrible sins of Christendom provoke the heathen to blaspheme. The unconverted person who professes the Christian faith will be judged according to the high standard he claims to uphold, and therefore deserves greater judgment.
The oracles of God today include not only the Old Testament but also the New—not only the word of His law but also the word of His grace. But let us especially note the word committed. Long ago, the oracles of God were committed to the Jews; today they are committed to the Church. That is the true position. The Church is not the producer of Scripture, nor is she—as many wrongly claim—the only authorized teacher of it. She is simply its custodian. Scripture is entrusted to her so that, through it, the Spirit may be her Teacher.
At the beginning of chapter 3, only the Jew and the law are under discussion. Paul knew well the quibbles raised by Jewish minds. He was also aware of the slanderous reports Jews circulated about his teaching. Hence, his comments in verses 3 to 8. He makes it absolutely clear that no amount of human unbelief can cancel or alter what God has said. “The faith of God” refers to everything God has revealed so that people may receive it in faith.
Again, God stands infinitely above human evil and unbelief; He knows how to turn them ultimately into a dark background on which He displays the brightness of His righteousness and truth. Does this compromise Him or make it wrong for Him to judge sinners? It does not. Nor does it give any excuse to those who want to argue, “If my evil ends up serving God’s glory, I will continue doing more evil.” The judgment of such people will be certain and just.
What then is the situation? Let us be sure we understand it. Verse 9 raises the question. The reality is this: although the Jew had significant advantages over the Gentile, he was no better than the Gentile. Paul had already proved this, especially in chapter 2. Both Jew and Gentile are “under sin.” Paul, however, was not going to rely only on reasoning to prove this to the Jew. He now quotes their own Scriptures directly.
Verse 10 begins with, “As it is written,” and from there down to verse 18, we have a series of quotations—five from the Psalms and one from Isaiah. Together, they describe in full the condition into which humanity has fallen.
The first quotation (vv. 10–12) appears twice in the Psalms (Ps. 14 and Ps. 53). Its repetition suggests that its statements are extremely important and should not be missed, even though we would prefer not to hear them. This quotation contains six sweeping statements: four negative and two positive. Four times we find the word “none,” and twice the word “all,” though the second “all” is implied. Let us face this sweeping indictment.
The first count is this: There is none righteous, not even one. This includes us all. The statement is like a net so tight that it catches everyone, leaving no room for even the smallest fish to escape. Not one of us is right in our relationship with God.
Someone argumentative may respond, “That seems exaggerated. But even if true, man is intelligent. Once he is told what is wrong, he can fix it.” But the second count says that no one understands—no one grasps his own unrighteous condition. People cannot fathom their plight, not even partially. This makes the situation far worse.
“Oh well,” says the argumentative person, “if human understanding is faulty, man still has instincts and feelings. These will surely lead him toward God.” But count number three confronts us: There is no one who seeks after God. Is that really true? Yes, completely. What does man seek instead? We all know: self-pleasure, self-advancement, self-glory. Therefore, he seeks money, pleasure, and sin. What he seeks once God has touched his heart is another matter entirely; the point here is what man seeks according to his fallen nature, apart from God’s grace.
Man’s state is wrong. His mind is wrong. His heart is wrong. This third count seals his condemnation. It shows that there is no point of recovery within himself.
Out of this flow the three counts of verse 12: all have turned aside; all together have become useless; none does good—no, not one. You can add thousands of zeros together, but the sum remains zero. In the same way, when all human works are added together, they amount to nothing. Even actions that seem good on the surface are wrong, because they spring from wrong motives. No work is right unless it flows from seeking God and His interests. And that is exactly what fallen man never does; he seeks only his own interests, as we have just seen.
It is striking how the words “no, not one” appear at the end of both the first and last counts. They have been translated, “Not even one… not so much as one,” which is perhaps even more forceful. May these words strike home to all our hearts. We are not assuming that any Christian reader wishes to dispute this indictment—if he did, we would doubt his Christianity—but many of us have read these verses without fully realizing the depth of ruin they describe, a ruin hopeless apart from the grace of God. It is essential that we grasp this, for unless we correctly diagnose the disease, we will never properly appreciate the remedy.
The objector may still protest. He may say that these six statements are all general, and that lawyers with weak cases often rely on generalities to avoid specifics. If he objects in this way, he is immediately met by verses 13 to 18, which give specifics. These specifics relate to six parts of the human body: the throat, tongue, lips, mouth, feet, and eyes. It is in the body that man sins, and actions done in the body will be judged on the coming day. Notice that four of the six parts concern speech, one concerns action, and one concerns thought, for the eye is the window of the mind.
What an awful picture it is—and what language! Take time to let it sink in. An “open grave,” for example—how terribly expressive! Is man’s throat like the entrance to a cave filled with dead men’s bones, filth, and decay? It is. And not only is there decay, but also deceit and poison, cursing and bitterness. His ways are marked by violence, destruction, and misery. No peace exists, and God and His fear have no place in his mind.
All this was directed especially at the Jew. Paul reminds them of this in verse 19. They were the people under the law, to whom the law was primarily addressed. They might want to brush all this aside and pretend it applied only to the Gentile. That was impossible. The laws of England are addressed to the English; the laws of China to the Chinese; the law of Moses to the Jew. Their own Scriptures condemned them, silencing them and pronouncing them guilty before God.
This completes the picture. Barbarians and Greeks had already been shown guilty and without excuse. Now, the whole world is guilty before God. Moreover, nothing in the law can rescue us from guilt or judgment. Its purpose is rather to expose our sin, and it has done so very effectively in the verses we have just considered.
Where then can hope be found? Only in the Gospel. The explanation of the Gospel begins in verse 21 with the words, “But now…” In contrast to this story of unrelieved darkness, something entirely different has now come to light. Blessed be God, multiplied millions of times, that there is another story to tell. And here it is told in divine order and with words divinely chosen. That word now is emphatic. We will meet it again several times in connection with the Gospel message. Look ahead to its use in Rom. 5:9; 5:11 (margin); 6:22; 7:6; 8:1.
The first word associated with the Gospel is “the righteousness of God,” not—as we might have expected—the love of God. The fact is that human sin directly challenges God’s righteousness, and so His righteousness must first be upheld. The entire Gospel rests on divine righteousness. What news could be better? It guarantees the stability and permanence of everything that follows.
The Gospel, then, is first of all the revelation of the righteousness of God, entirely apart from the law, though the law and the prophets testified to it. That righteousness has been revealed, not in rightful legislation nor in the execution of perfectly just punishment upon sinners, but in Christ and in the redemption that is in Him. In Christ’s death, every question raised by human sin was fully and finally settled on a righteous basis. This is stated in verse 25: propitiation has been made—meaning that full satisfaction has been rendered to the righteousness of God, not only concerning the sins of believers in this Gospel age, but also concerning the sins of all previous ages. The “sins that are past” are the sins of those who lived before Christ came—past in relation to the cross, not in relation to your conversion or mine or anyone else’s.
This righteousness of God, revealed and established through the death of Christ, is toward all, but it is upon all who believe. In its scope, it looks toward everyone; in its actual application, it rests only on those who believe. Then the righteousness of God becomes theirs in its actual effect, and they stand right with Him. God Himself is the One who justifies the person who believes in Jesus, no matter how great his guilt has been—and He is just in doing so. This is stated in verse 26.
This wonderful justification—this complete clearing from guilt—is the portion of all who believe in Jesus, whether Jew or Gentile. All have sinned, so there is no distinction in guilt. In the same way, there is no distinction in the way of justification. Faith in Christ—and nothing else—puts a person right with God. This is stated in verse 30.
This way of blessing obviously excludes all boasting. It is entirely shut out. This is why proud people resent the idea of God’s grace. We are justified freely by His grace. Grace gave Jesus to die. Grace is the way God acts in justification, and faith is our response. We are justified by faith apart from the works of the law. This is the conclusion drawn from everything we have considered.
The final verse of the chapter answers the objection that a zealous Jew might raise—that the Gospel cannot be true because it undermines the law, which was undeniably given by God earlier. “No,” says Paul, “far from nullifying the law, we establish it.” We put it in the place God always intended.
The law has never been so honored and upheld as in the death of Christ. The Gospel honors the law by allowing it to do its proper work of revealing sin. Then the Gospel steps in and does what the law was never intended to do: it brings complete justification to the one who believes in Jesus.
Table of content: