Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Romans 3:9

What then? are we better [than they]? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;

9 20. Man universally and fatally guilty: no hope in human merit. This with special reference to Jewish prejudice

9. What then? are we better? ] i.e., probably, “we Jews.” The effect of the last passage has been specially to convince the Jew of his sin and danger; and here the Apostle speaks, as he was so ready to do, as a Jew with Jews. The delicacy of his so doing here is remarkable, where it is a question of humiliation.

proved ] Or charged, as in margin. “ We have before proved:” a use of plural for singular frequent with St Paul.

under sin ] The grammar of the Gr. suggests motion under; q. d., “ fallen under sin,” i.e. from an ideal (not actual) state of original righteousness, such as is implied when we speak of individuals as “fallen human creatures.” “ In Adam all” fell, as from a standing. “ Under sin: ” i.e. so as to be subject to its weight, its power and doom. This is the first occurrence of the word Sin in the Epistle. It is repeated nearly fifty times in the first eight chapters.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

What then? – This is another remark supposed to be made by a Jewish objector. What follows? or are we to infer that we are better than others?

Are we better than they? – Are we Jews better than the Gentiles? Or rather, have we any preference, or advantage as to character and prospects, over the Gentiles? These questions refer only to the great point in debate, to wit, about justification before God. The apostle had admitted Rom 3:2 that the Jews had important advantages in some respects, but he now affirms that those advantages did not make a difference between them and the Gentiles about justification.

No, in no wise – Not at all. That is, the Jews have no preference or advantage over the Gentiles in regard to the subject of justification before God. They have failed to keep the Law; they are sinners; and if they are justified, it must be in the same way as the rest of the world.

We have before proved … – Rom 1:21-32; 2.

Under sin – Sinners. Under the power and dominion of sin.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Rom 3:9-20

What then?

Are we better than they? No they are all under sin.

Nominal Christians compared with heathen

1. Have much advantage every way (Rom 3:2).

2. Are no better.

3. Are all alike under sin. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

Man under sin,

inasmuch as–

I. He is under the imputation of sin. And whose sin? Adams; for he had been placed by his Maker in the situation of head and representative of all his descendants. And because he rendered himself guilty, therefore we, being in him and identified with him, were made sharers of his guilt. This, of course, is a statement against which the pride of human reason will rebel. But if you will listen to the Word of God, turn to Rom 5:12, etc. And what puts this matter beyond all doubt is the way in which all through that passage Paul represents our sin and condemnation in Adam, as parallel and as correspondent to our righteousness and salvation by Christ. He tells you here, that just as believers are accounted righteous in Christs righteousness, so they were held as sinners on account of Adams sin. As Christs obedience now justifies them, because accounted theirs, so was Adams disobedience.

II. His nature is under the degrading and polluting influence of sin. Now this also he inherits from Adam. Original sin is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil (Art. 9; Gen 6:5; Gen 8:21; Psa 51:5; Rom 7:18; Rom 8:7). In support of this we may appeal–

1. To the individual conscience.

2. To the page of history.

3. To the witness of travellers.

4. To the reports of newspapers.

III. He is held in bondage by the tyranny of sin. This is more than being depraved and corrupt: it is a positive enslaving of the will. Man cannot of himself turn from evil to God. The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith and calling upon God. Wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us when we have that good will (Art. 10; Rom 5:6; Eph 2:1; 1Co 2:14).

1. Well may this thought stir us earnestly to cry to God to send down His Spirit, and give us the strength He only can communicate.

2. Sin, indeed, would whisper, You can do nothing, and therefore you need not care; the fault is not your own. Perish the thought! No, rather say, I can do nothing; therefore, O God, create Thou a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me.

IV. He is under the condemnation and the curse of sin.

1. AS a partaker of Adams guilt, he is included in the sentence of Adams punishment.

2. As he is corrupt, he incurs the wrath due to his own iniquity.

3. As one sold under sin, he must, if left to himself, be consigned to a hopeless state of misery (Eph 2:3; Rom 7:5; Rom 6:23).

Conclusion:

1. Have we felt these truths so as to cry, What must I do to be saved? That is the question which constitutes the first step in the way of salvation.

2. The gospel brings us instead of Adams guilt, Christs righteousness; instead of inherent corruption, the counteracting balm of the Holy Spirit; instead of the bondage of sin, the glorious liberty of the children of God; instead of the wages of sin, which is death, the gift of God, eternal life. (J. Harding, M. A.)

Sin as revealed by conscience and Scripture

I. Paul had appealed to the conscience of the Jews, and in chap. 2. affirmed and enlarged upon their guilt. He can scarcely be said to have proved it; he had only charged them with it; and yet through the conscience of those whom we address it is possible that a charge may no sooner be uttered than conviction may come on the back of it. There is often a power in a bare statement which is not at all bettered but rather impaired by reasoning. If what you say of a man agree with his own experience, there is a weight in your simple affirmation which needs no enforcing. It was this which mostly gained acceptance for the apostles. They revealed to men the secrets of their own hearts; and what the inspired teachers said they were, they felt themselves to be. This manifestation of the truth unto the conscience is the grand instrument still. That obstinacy of unbelief, which we vainly attempt to carry by the power of any elaborate demonstration, may give way, both with the untaught and the cultivated, to the bare statement of the preacher, when he simply avers the ungodliness of the human heart.

II. He now refers the Jews to their own Scriptures, and, in so doing, he avails himself of a peculiarly proper instrument. Thus Christ expounded what was written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in almost every interview the apostles had with the Hebrews, you will meet with this as a peculiarity which is absent when Gentiles only are addressed–e.g., Stephen, Peter, Paul at Antioch, Thessalonica, etc. He who was all things to all men was a Jew among the Jews. He reasoned with them on their own principles, and nowhere more frequently than in this Epistle.

III. It is this agreement between the Bible and conscience which stamps upon the Book of God one of its most satisfying evidences. It is this perhaps more than anything else which draws the interest and the notice of men towards it. For there is no way of fixing the attention of man so powerfully as by holding up to him a mirror of himself; and no wisdom which he more prizes than that which by its piercing and intelligent glance can open to him the secrecies of his own heart, and force him to recognise a marvellous accordancy between its positions and all the varieties of his own intimate and home-felt experience. The question, then, before us is, Does this passage bear such an accordancy with the real character of man? It abounds in affirmations of sweeping universality, and a test of their truth or of their falsehood is to be found in every heart. The apostle has here made a most adventurous commitment of himself; for the matters here touched upon all lie within the well-known chambers of a mans own consciousness, and one single case of disagreement would be enough to depose him from all the credit which he has ever held in the estimation of the world. Of course, from the nature of the case, a withdrawment must be conceded in behalf of those who are under the gospel, yet we are prepared to assert that Paul has not overcharged the account that he has given of the depravity of those who are under law–whether it be the law of conscience, or of Moses, or even of the purer morality of Christ–insomuch that all who refuse the mysteries of His grace are universally in the wrong. Be assured, then, that there is a delusion in all the complacency associated with self-righteousness. It is the want of a godly principle which essentially vitiates the whole: and additional to this, with all the generosities and equities which have done so much for your reputation among men, there is a selfishness that lurks in your bosom; or a vanity that swells and inflames it; or a preference of your own object to that of others, which may lead you to acts or words of unfeeling severity; or a regard for some particular gratification, coupled with a regardlessness for every interest which lieth in the way, that may render you, in the estimation of Him who pondereth the heart, as remote a wanderer as he on the path of whose visible history there occurred in other times the atrocities of savage cruelty and savage violence. It were barbarous to tell you so had we no remedy to offer. Life has much to vex and to trouble it; and it were really cruel to add to the pressure of a creature so beset and borne in upon by telling him of his worthlessness, did we not stand before him charged with the tidings of his possible renovation (Rom 2:21-26). (T. Chalmers, D. D.)

Sin: revealed by conscience

A fashionable lady entered church in a strange place, and heard a sermon on human depravity. During the week the preacher called upon her, when she told him she did not believe in the doctrine of his sermon. He asked the lady to test the subject by reviewing her life, alone before God, to see if all her acts had been done from right motives, which she promised to do. The next day the preacher called again, when the lady confessed that she did not find one bright spot of conscious love to God in all her past life. A look within had convinced her of the truth of the doctrine. Feeling now the disease of sin, she went to the Great Physician and found a cure.

Sin: revealed by grace

When the light of Gods grace comes into your heart, it is something like the opening of the windows of an old cellar that has been shut up for many days. Down in that cellar, which has not been opened for many months, are all kinds of loathsome creatures, and a few sickly plants blanched by the darkness. The walls are dark, and damp by the trail of reptiles: it is a horrid, filthy place, which no one would willingly enter. You may walk there in the dark very securely, and, except now and then for the touch of some slimy creature, you would not believe the place was so bad and filthy. Open those shutters, clean a pane of glass, let a little light in, and now see how a thousand noxious things have made this place their habitation! Sure, it was not the light that made this place so horrible; but it was the light that showed how horrible it was before. So let Gods grace just open a window, and let the light into a mans soul, and he will stand astonished to see at what a distance he is from God. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The reign of sin

I. Universal.

1. Over all men.

2. Over every faculty of man.

II. Ruinous.

1. To happiness.

2. To peace.

3. To moral power.

4. To hope. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

Superior sinners

I remember a gentleman taking exception to an address based upon this text. He said, Do you mean to say that there is no difference between an honest man and a dishonest one; between a sober man and a temperate man? No, I remarked, I did not affirm that there was no room for comparison between such cases; but my position is that if two men were standing here, the one intemperate and the other sober, I should say of the one, This is an intemperate sinner, and the other a sober sinner. My friend did not know how to meet the difficulty, but answered, Well, I dont like such teaching. Very quietly I replied, Then I will make some concession, and meet your difficulty. I will admit that there are many superior sinners, and that you are a superior sinner. I shall not soon forget my friends expression of countenance when he had taken stock of the argument. (H. Varley.)

Human depravity

I. Universal. Jew and Gentile. None righteous, wise, faithful.

II. Total. In–

1. Word;

2. Deed;

3. Thought;

4. Purpose.

III. Ruinous. All–

1. Guilty;

2. Condemned;

3. Without hope. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

Human depravity

I. Wherein it consists (Rom 2:9-18).

II. How it is demonstrated. By the law (Rom 2:20).

III. What is the effect (Rom 2:19)? (J. Lyth, D. D.)

Human depravity: its deceitfulness and the occasion of its manifestation

In a vessel filled with muddy water, the thickness visibly subsided to the bottom, and left the water purer and purer, until at last it seemed perfectly limpid. The slightest motion, however, brought the sediment again to the top; and the water became thick and turbid as before.
Here, said Gotthold, when he saw it, we have an emblem of the human heart. The heart is full of the mud of sinful lusts and carnal desires; and the consequence is, that no pure water–that is, good and holy thoughts–can flow from it. It is, in truth, a miry pit and slough of sin, in which all sorts of ugly reptiles are bred and crawl. Many a one, however, is deceived by it, and never imagines his heart half so wicked as it really is, because sometimes its lusts are at rest, and sink to the bottom. But this lasts only so long as he is without opportunity or incitement to sin. Let that occur, and worldly lusts rise so thick, that his whole thoughts, words, and works show no trace of anything but slime and impurity. One is meek as long as he is not thwarted; cross him, and he is like powder ignited by the smallest spark, and blazing up with a loud report and destructive effect. Another is temperate so long as he has no jovial companions; a third chaste while the eyes of men are upon him.

Human depravity: its outward development from latent germs of evil

A few years ago, a house was built at Newcastle-upon-Tyne; and the earth which was dug out of the foundations was thrown over a piece of ground in front, intended for a garden. The following spring a number of caper plants came up: they were not common in that part of the country, and their appearance excited great surprise. Upon inquiry, it was found that, years before, that ground had been a public garden: it therefore appeared certain that those seeds had remained dormant while buried deep in the earth, and had sprung to life as soon as they were brought within the influence of heat and light. How like to our hearts! What seeds of evil may lie dormant in them! (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Haman depravity: its universality

The greatest of unregenerate men are as much in need of new hearts as the meanest of their fellows. There be some men that are born into this world master spirits, who walk about it as giants, wrapped in mantles of light and glory. I refer to the poets, men who rise aloft, like Colossi, mightier than we, seeming to be descended from celestial spheres. There be ethers of acute intellect, who, searching into mysteries of science, discover things that have been hidden from the creation of the world; men of keen research, and mighty erudition; and yet, of each of these–poet, philosopher, metaphysician, and great discoverer-it must be said, The carnal mind is enmity against God! Ye may train an unrenewed man, ye may make his intellect almost angelic, ye may strengthen his soul until he shall unravel mysteries in a moment; ye may make him so mighty, that he can read the iron secrets of the eternal hills, tearing the hidden truth from the bowels of ancient marvels; ye may give him an eye so keen that he can penetrate the arcana of rocks and mountains; ye may add a soul so potent, that he may slay the giant Sphinx, that had for ages troubled the mightiest men of learning; yet, when ye have done all, his mind shall be a depraved one, and his carnal heart shall still be in opposition to God, unless the Holy Spirit shall create him anew in Christ Jesus. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The importance of civil government to society

I. The apostles conclusion is, that before God all the world is guilty, and if we single out those verses which place man in his simple relationship to God, we shall see the justice of the sentence.

1. There is none righteous, no, not one. To be held as having kept the law of our country, we must keep the whole of it. It is not necessary that we accumulate the guilt of treason, forgery, murder. One of these acts is enough to condemn. A hundred deeds of obedience will not efface or expiate one of disobedience; and we have only to plead for the same obedience to a Divine that we render to a human administration, to prove that there is none righteous before God.

2. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. No man who has not submitted himself to the doctrine of justification by faith has any clear knowledge of the ground on which he rests his acceptance with God. He may have some obscure conception of His mercy, but he has never struck the compromise between His mercy and His justice. What becomes of all that which stamps authority upon a law, and exhibits the Majesty of a Lawgiver, is a matter of which he has no understanding, and he does not care to understand it. He is seeking after many things, but not seeking after God. When did your efforts in this way ever go beyond an empty round of observances?

3. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable, there is none that doeth good; no, not one. We do not say that they have gone out of the way of honour, equity, or neighbourliness. But they are all out of the way of godliness. The prophet does not affirm that we have turned everyone to a way either of injustice or cruelty; but he counts it condemnation enough that we have turned everyone to his own way–a way of independence of God, if not of iniquity against our fellows in society. It is this which renders all the works of mere natural men so unprofitable, that is, of no value in the reckoning of eternity. They want the great moral infusion which makes them valuable. There is nothing of God in them.

II. We now pass onward to another set of charges–which may not be so easy to substantiate–of offences against the dearest interests of society. It is true that the apostle here drops the style of universality, and quotes Davids charges, not against the race, but against his enemies. But yet it will be found that though the picture of atrocity may not in our day be so broadly exhibited as in ruder periods, yet that the principles of it are still at work; that though law and civilisation and interest may have stopped the mouth of many a desolating volcano, yet do the fiery materials still exist in the bosom of society. So that our nature, though here personified by the apostle into a monster, with a throat like an open sepulchre, emitting everything offensive; and a tongue practised in the arts of deceitfulness; and lips from which the gall of malignity ever drops in unceasing distillation; and a mouth full of venomous asperity; and feet that run to assassination as a game; and with the pathway on which she runs marked by the ruin and distress that attend upon her progress; and with a disdainful aversion in her heart to peace; and with an aspect of defiance to the God that gave all her parts and all her energies–though this sketch was originally taken by the Psalmist from prowling banditti, yet has the apostle, by admitting it into his argument, stamped a perpetuity upon it, and made it universal–giving us to understand that if such was the character of man, as it stood nakedly out among the hostilities of a barbarous people, such also is the real character of man among the regularities and the monotonous decencies of modern society. To illustrate: Oaths were more frequent at one time than they are now, but while there may be less of profaneness in the mouths, there may be as much as ever in the heart. Murder in the act may be less frequent now, but if he who hateth his brother be a murderer, it may be fully as foul and frequent in the principle. Actual theft may be no longer practised by him who gives vent to an equal degree of dishonesty through the chicaneries of merchandise. And thus may there lurk under the disguises of well-bred citizenship enough to prove that, with the duties of the second table as with the first, man has wandered far from the path of rectitude.

III. All this, while it gives a most humiliating estimate of our species, should serve to enhance to our minds the blessings of regular government. Let our police and magistrates depose to the effect it would have upon society, were civil guardianship dissolved. Were all the restraints of order driven in, conceive the effect, and then compute how little there is of moral, and how much there is of mere animal restraint in the apparent virtues of human society. There is a two-fold benefit in such a contemplation. It will enhance to every Christian mind the cause of loyalty, and lead him to regard the power that is, as the minister of God to him for good. And it will also guide him through many delusions to appreciate justly the character of man; to distinguish aright between the semblance of principle and its reality.

IV. Learn three lessons from all that has been said.

1. As to the theology of this question. We trust you perceive how much and how little it is that can be gathered from the comparative peace and gentleness of modern society; how much is due to the physical restraints that are laid on by this worlds government, and how little is due to the moral restraints that are laid on by the unseen government of Heaven: proving that human nature is more like the tractableness of an animal led about by a chain, than of an animal inwardly softened into docility. On this point observation and orthodoxy are at one; and one of the most convincing illustrations which the apostle can derive to his own doctrine may be taken from the testimony of legal functionaries. Let them simply aver what the result would be if all the earthly safeguards of law and of government were driven away; and they are just preaching orthodoxy to our ears.

2. The very same train of argument which goes to enlighten the theology of this subject, serves also to deepen and establish the principles of loyalty. That view of the human character, upon which it is contended, by the divine, that unless it is regenerated there can be no meetness for heaven, is the very same with that view of it upon which it is contended, by the politician, that unless it is restrained there will be no safety from crime and violence along the course of the pilgrimage which leads to it. An enlightened Christian recognises the hand of God in all the shelter that is thrown over him from the fury of the natural elements; and he equally recognises it in all the shelter that is thrown over him from the fury of the moral elements by which he is surrounded. Had he a more favourable view of our nature he might not look on government as so indispensable; but, with the view that he actually has, he cannot miss the conclusion of its being the ordinance of Heaven for the Churchs good upon earth; and he rejoices in the authority of human laws as an instrument in the hand of God for the peace of His sabbaths, and the peace of His sacraments.

3. Let our legislators recognise the value of true religion. When Solomon says that it is righteousness which exalteth a nation, he means something of a deeper and more sacred character than the mere righteousness of society. Cut away the substratum of godliness, and how, we ask, will the secondary and the earth-born righteousness be found to thrive on the remaining soil which nature supplies for rearing it? But with many, and these too the holders of a great and ascendant influence in our land, godliness is puritanism; and thus is it a possible thing that in their hands the alone aliment of public virtue may be withheld, or turned into poison. The patent way to disarm Nature of her ferocities is to Christianise her. For note–

(1) Though social virtue and loyalty may exist in the upper walks of life apart from godliness–yet godliness, in the hearts of those who have the brunt of all the common and popular temptations to stand against, is the main and effective hold that we have upon them for securing the righteousness of their lives.

(2) The despisers of godliness are the enemies of the true interest of our nation; and it is possible that, under the name of Methodism, that very instrument may be put away which can alone recall the departing virtues of our land.

(3) Where godliness exists, loyalty exists; and no plausible delusion–no fire of their own kindling, lighted at the torch of false or spurious patriotism, will ever eclipse the light of this plain authoritative Scripture–Honour the king, and meddle not with those who are given to change.

(4) Though Christianity may only work the salvation of a few, it raises the standard of morality among many. The reflex influence of one sacred character upon his vicinity may soften, and purify, and overawe many others, even where it does not spiritualise them. This is encouragement to begin with.

(5) Alarming as the aspect of the times is, and deeply tainted and imbued as the minds of many are with infidelity, and widely spread as the habit has become of alienation from all the ordinances of religion, yet the honest and persevering goodwill of one imbued with the single-hearted benevolence of the gospel will always meet with respect. He who, had he met a minister of religion or of the state, would have cursed him, had he met the Sabbath school teacher who ventured across his threshold might have tried to bear a repulsive front against him, but would have found it to be impossible. Here is a feeling which even the irreligion of the times has not obliterated, and it has left, as it were, an open door of access, through which we might at length find our way to the landing place of a purer and better generation. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)

There is none righteous, no, not one.

None righteous

Had there been one righteous, God would have found him out. (T. Robinson, D. D.)

There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.–

Human ignorance and perversity

I. There is none that understandeth.

1. What? Ignorance is not affirmed of many things of more or less importance. A man may be an accomplished scientist, a profound scholar, widely read in general literature, and yet not understand–

(1) His guilt;

(2) His duty;

(3) His responsibility;

(4) His Saviour;

(5) His destiny.

2. Why? Because–

(1) He does not want to. Ignorance is fancied bliss. He is not troubled by qualms of conscience, a sense of Gods anger, an anticipation of judgment. A practical knowledge of these things would trouble him.

(2) He will not; and that in spite of the witness of both Nature and Revelation. He might understand if he would.

II. There is none that seeketh after God. There are many who seek after matters infinitely less important–temporal profit, pleasure, etc.

1. The folly of this.

(1) The sick will not seek after their Physician.

(2) The ignorant after their Teacher.

(3) Sinners after their Saviour.

2. The necessity and blessedness of reversing this.

(1) God must be sought, for men have lost Him.

(2) When sought, God will be found–and as all that the soul can possibly want. (J. W. Burn.)

They are all gone out of the way.–

Practical error

I. Its source.

II. Its manifestations.

III. Its predominance.

IV. Its effects. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

Progress in sin inevitable

Every sin we commit is like taking a step further back from God: and return is rendered impossible without Divine assistance, as Satan cuts the bridges behind man in his retreating downward path; and also as every false step necessitates another–rather indeed many–as the author of Waverley Novels knew to his cost, and left it on record: Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive! Or again, as Schiller more philosophically puts it: This is the very curse of evil deed, that of new evil it becomes the seed.

The sin and folly of ignoring God

Why did you not think of God? One would deem that the thought of Him must, to a serious mind, come second to almost every other thought. The thought of virtue would suggest the thought of both a lawgiver and a rewarder; the thought of crime, of an avenger; the thought of sorrow, of a consoler; the thought of an inscrutable mystery, of an intelligence that understands it; the thought of that ever-moving activity that prevails in the system of the universe, of a supreme agent; the thought of the human family, of a great father; the thought of all-being, of a creator; the thought of life, of a preserver; and the thought of death, of an incontrollable disposer. By what dexterity of irreligious caution did you avoid precisely every track where the idea of Him would have met you, or elude that idea if it came? And what must sound reason pronounce of a mind which, in the train of millions of thoughts, has wandered to all things under the sun, to all the permanent objects or vanishing appearances in the creation, but never fixed its thought on the supreme reality; never approached, like Moses, to see this great sight. (J. Foster.)

Their throat is an open sepulchre.–

The throat of an ungodly man compared to an opened sepulchre

I. I have to mention some particulars in which the throat of man is an open sepulchre in regard to that which it receives: I mean, in regard to the air we breathe, and the food and beverage we eat and drink.

1. This is true universally of every unregenerate man. Every breath of air that is breathed by a man who is not born of God, and every morsel of food that he eats, is but like the carrying a putrid corpse into a vault. He is supporting his body for the dishonour of God. It is not in the service of his heavenly Father, but in the service of his Fathers enemies, that he uses all his strength and health, and all his bodily powers; he is guilty of abusing Gods gracious gifts; he is steadily going forward into increased corruption.

2. But if in this way it holds good of all who are not restored to God, even the most abstemious, that their throat is no better than an opened sepulchre, how much more does it give us a striking view of the wretched state of the intemperate: the gluttonous and the drunkard? Well does the wisdom of God compare the throats of all such wretched sinners to an opened sepulchre, corrupt in themselves, infectious to others, and offensive to God. Can such a man expect to dwell with God in holiness and glory? Would you yourselves consent to have an opened sepulchre, with all its abominations, in your house? Would you tolerate anything so offensive? Much less can you suppose that God will suffer a drunkard to be anywhere but in the depths of hell.

II. I now proceed to enumerate a few particulars in which the throat of every unregenerate man is also like an open sepulchre in that which proceeds out of it.

1. But let me first say a word generally to those who are Christians in name only. As in regard to what goes in, so in regard to what comes forth from your throat, it is still but an open sepulchre.

2. In descending to particulars, I must be content to mention only one of the multitude of sins that make the throat of sinners an open sepulchre; and that is, the sin of blasphemy, and swearing, and profaneness. And if an opened sepulchre is odious because it sends forth the smell of death, well may we say that the mouth of the profane is like it, for it breathes the breath of spiritual and eternal death. (John Tucker, B. D.)

Dignity of human nature shown from its ruins

1. A most dark and dismal picture of humanity, and yet it has two aspects. In one view it is the picture of weakness, wretchedness, and shame; in the other it presents a being fearfully great; great in his evil will, his demoniacal passions, his contempt of fear, the splendour of his degradation, and the magnificence of his woe.

2. It has been the way of many to magnify humanity by tracing its capabilities and its affinity with God and truth; and by such kind of evidences they repel what they call the insulting doctrine of total depravity. And not without some show of reason, when the doctrine is asserted so as to exclude the admission of high aspirations and amiable properties; for some teachers have formulated a doctrine of human depravity in which there is no proper humanity left.

3. Now one of these extremes makes the gospel unnecessary, because there is no depravation to restore; the other makes it impossible, because there is nothing left to which any holy appeal can be made; but I undertake, in partial disregard of both, to show the essential greatness of man from the ruin itself which he becomes; confident of this, that in no other point of view will he prove the spiritual sublimity of his nature so convincingly.

I. We form our conceptions of many things by their ruins.

1. Of ancient dynasties. Falling on patches of paved road leading out from ancient Rome, here for Britain, here for Germany, here for Ephesus, etc.; imagining the couriers flying back and forth, bearing the mandates of the central authority, followed by the military legions to execute them; we receive an impression of the empire which no words could give us. So, to form some opinion of the dynasty of the Pharaohs, of whom history gives us but the obscurest traditions, we have only to look on the monumental mountains, and these dumb historians in stone will show us more of that vast and populous empire than history and geography together.

2. Of ancient cities. Though described by historians, we form no sufficient conception of their grandeur till we look upon their ruins. Even the eloquence of Homer yields only a faint, unimpressive conception of Thebes; but to pass through the ruins of Karnac and Luxor, a vast desolation of temples and pillared avenues that dwarf all the present structures of the world. This reveals a fit conception of the grandest city of the world as no words could describe it. So Jonah endeavours to raise some adequate opinion of Nineveh, and Nahum follows, magnifying its splendour in terms of high description; but no one had any proper conception of it till a traveller opens to view, at points many miles asunder, collects the tokens of art and splendour, and says, This is the exceeding great city. And so it is with Babylon, Ephesus, Tadmor of the Desert, Baalbec, and the nameless cities and pyramids of the extinct American race.

II. So it is with man. Our most veritable, though saddest impression of his greatness, we shall derive from the magnificent ruin he displays.

1. And this is the Scripture representation of man, as apostate from duty and God. How sublime a creature must that be who is able to confront the Almighty and tear himself away from His throne! And, as if to forbid our taking his deep misery and shame as tokens of contempt, the first men are shown as living out a thousand years of lustful energy, and braving the Almighty in strong defiance to the last. We look upon a race of Titans who fill the earth–even up to the sky–with demoniacal tumult, till God can suffer them no longer. So of the picture in chap. 1, and the picture in the text corresponds.

2. But we come to the ruin as it is, and we look–

(1) Upon the false religions of the world; pompous and costly rites transacted before crocodiles and onions; magnificent temples built over monstrous creatures, carved by mens hands; children offered up by their mothers; gorgeous palaces and majestic trappings studded all over with beetles in gold, or precious stones, to serve as a protection against pestilences, poisons, and accidents. A picture of ruin–yet how magnificent! For how high a nature must that be that it must prepare such pomps, incur such sacrifices, and can elevate such trifles of imposture to a place of reverence! If we say that in all this it is feeling after God, then how inextinguishable and grand are those religious instincts by which it is allied to Him!

(2) The wars of the world. What opinion should we have of the fearful passion of a race of animals, who marshal themselves by the hundred thousand, marching across kingdoms and deserts, swift to shed blood, and strewing leagues of ground with dead? (verse 16). One race there is that figure in these heroics, viz., the tiny race of ants, whom God has made a spectacle to mock the glory of human wars. Plainly enough man is a creature in ruins, but how magnificent! Mean as the ant in his passions, but erecting, on the desolations he makes, thrones of honour and renown; for who of us can live content without some hero to admire and worship?

(3) The persecutions of the good; poison for Socrates, a cross for Jesus. What does it mean? No other than this, that cursing and bitterness, the poison even of asps, and more, is entered into the heart of man. He hates with a diabolical hatred. And what a being is this that can be stung with so great madness by the spectacle of a good and holy life! The fiercest of animals are capable of no such devilish instigation.

(4) The great characters of the world. On a small island of the southern Atlantic is shut up a remarkable prisoner, wearing himself out there in a feeble mixture of peevishness and jealousy, solaced by no great thoughts and no heroic spirit. And this is the great conqueror of the modern world; a man who carried the greatest victories, and told the meanest lies; who, destitute of private magnanimity, had stupendous powers of understanding and will. How great a being must it be that makes a point of so great dignity before the world, despite of so much that is contemptible! But he is not alone. The immortal Kepler, piloting science into the skies, and comprehending the vastness of heaven, only proves the magnificence of man as a ruin, when you discover the strange ferment of irritability and superstition wild, in which his great thoughts are brewed, and his mighty life dissolved. So also Bacon–The greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind. Probably no one has raised himself to a higher pitch of renown by his superlative genius than Shakespeare; flowering out, nevertheless, into such eminence of glory, on a compost of buffoonery, and other vile stuff, which he so covers with splendour, and irradiates with beauty, that disgust itself is lost in the vehemence of praise.

III. But we must look more directly into the contents of human nature and the internal ruin by which they are displayed. And notice–

1. The sublime vehemence of the passions.

(1) What a creature must that be who, out of mere revenge, will deliberately take the life of a fellow man, and then despatch his own to avoid the ignominy of a public execution! No tiger is ever instigated by any so intense and terrible passion.

(2) Or take the passion of covetousness. How great a creature must that be who is goaded by a zeal of acquisition so restless, so self-sacrificing, so insatiable! The poor, gaunt miser were even the greatest of heroes if he could deny himself with so great patience in a good cause.

(3) The same is true even of the licentious lusts. No race of animals can show the parallel of such vices, because they are none of them instigated by a nature so great in wants that find no good to satisfy them.

2. The wild mixtures of thought displayed both in the waking life and the dreams of mankind. How grand! how mean! It is as if the soul were a thinking ruin. The angel and the demon life appear to be contending in it. And yet a ruin which a Nineveh or a Thebes can parallel only in the faintest degree; comprehending all that is purest, brightest, most Divine; all that is worst, meanest, most deformed.

3. The significance of remorse. How great a creature must that be that, looking down upon itself from some high summit in itself, withers in relentless condemnation of itself, gnaws and chastises itself in the sense of what it is!

4. The dissonance and obstinacy of his evil will. It is dissonant as being out of harmony with God and the world, and all beside in the soul itself–viz., the reason, the conscience, the wants, the hopes, and even the remembrances of the soul. How great a creature is it that, knowing God, can set itself off from God and resist Him! There is no fear of God before their eyes. In one view there is fear enough, the soul is all its life long haunted by this fear, but there is a desperation of will that makes it as though it were not.

5. The religious aspirations and capacities of religious attraction that are garnered up, and still live in the ruins of humanity.

IV. The practical issues of our subject.

1. It is a great hope of our time that society is going to slide into something better–by education, public reforms, and philanthropy. We have a new gospel that corresponds, which preaches faith in human nature, that proposes development, not regeneration. Alas, that we are taken with so great folly. As if man, or society, crazed and maddened by the demoniacal frenzy of sin, were going to reconstruct the shattered harmony of nature. As soon will the desolations of Karnac gather up their fragments. Nothing meets our case but to be born of God. He alone can rebuild the ruin.

2. The great difficulty with Christianity in our time is that it is too great for belief. After all our supposed discoveries of dignity in human nature, we have commonly none but the meanest opinion of man. How could we imagine that any such history as that of Jesus Christ is a fact, or that the infinite God has transacted any such wonder for man? God manifest in the flesh! It is extravagant, out of proportion, who can believe it? Anyone who has not lost the magnitude of man. To restore this tragic fall required a tragic salvation. Nor did ever any sinner, who had felt the bondage of his sin, think for one moment that Christ was too great a Saviour. Oh, it was an almighty Saviour that he wanted! none but such was sufficient! Him he could believe in, just because He was great–equal to the measures of his want, able to burst the bondage of his sin.

3. The magnitude and real importance of the soul are discovered in the subject as nowhere else. The soul appears under sin, all selfish as it is, to shrink and grow small in its own sight. Perhaps this is due, in part, to the consciousness we have, in sin, of moral littleness and meanness. Whereas, in another sense, sin is mighty, God-defying. Just here is it that you will get your most veritable impressions of your immortality; even as you get your best impression of armies, not by the count of numbers, but by the thunder shock of battle, and the carnage of the field when it is over. In the tragic desolations of intelligence and genius, of passion, pride, and sorrow, behold the import of his eternity. And yet, despite all this, you are trying and contriving still to be happy–a happy ruin! The eternal destiny is in you, and you cannot break loose from it. With your farthing bribes you try to hush your stupendous wants. Oh, this great and mighty soul, were it something less, you might find what to do with it. Anything would please it and bring it content. But it is the godlike soul, capable of rest in nothing but God; able to be filled and satisfied with nothing but His fulness. (H. Bushnell, D. D.)

Wickedness in word and deed

I. In speech. These verses refer to the different organs of speech, and show them all exercising their power to hurt, under the dominion of sin.

1. The throat (larynx) is compared to a sepulchre; this refers to the language of the gross and brutal man, of whom it is said in common parlance–it seems as if he would like to eat you. The next characteristic is a contrast–the sugared tongue, which charms you like a melodious instrument. Doth of these are taken from the description of Davids enemies in Psa 5:9.

3. The next is taken from Psa 140:3 –the calumny and falsehood which malignant lips give forth, as a serpent infuses its poison.

(4) Verse 14. The wickedness which is cast into your face by a mouth full of hatred or bitterness (Psa 10:7).

II. In deed (verses 15-18). Of the four propositions the first three are borrowed from Isa 59:7-8.

1. The feet as the emblem of walking symbolises the whole conduct.

2. Man acts without regard to his neighbour, without fear of compromising his welfare or even his life (Pro 1:16). He oppresses his brother, and fills his life with misery, so that the way marked out by such a course is watered with the tears of others.

3. No peace can exist either in the heart of such men, or in their neighbourhood.

4. And this overflow of depravity and suffering arises from a void; the absence of that feeling which should have filled the heart–the fear of God. This term is the normal expression for piety in the Old Testament; it is that disposition which has God always present in the heart, will and judgment. The words before their eyes show that it belongs to man freely to evoke or suppress this inward view of God on which his moral conduct depends (Psa 36:1). (Prof. Godet.)

The poison of asps is under their lips.—

Poisonous speech

Poison concealed in a bag under a loose tooth or fang: the fang pressing the bag, the poison is emitted with the bite. Honey on the lips, poison under them. Poison conveyed–

1. In ordinary conversation.

2. In wanton and licentious songs.

3. In profane and blasphemous expressions.

4. In infidel and unscriptural teaching.

5. In corrupting works of fiction.

6. In the language of the drama. (T. Robinson, D. D.)

The poison of the tongue

Suppose I open a bag of serpents, and let them out where children are playing, or in a camp where there are soldiers, and I say of myself, Madman I fool! and go to hunt my snakes? I cannot find them. It was mine to let them out, but it is not mine to catch them and put them in the bag again. Now there never was a bag of snakes in this world like a mans mouth. To open it is in your power, but to shut it again upon all that you have emitted from it is not in your power. I am not referring to cases in which a man himself suffers directly from the evil that he has done; but to those worse cases in which others suffer from the evil that we have done. For, as a man grows spiritual, as a man goes toward God he comes to feel that the mischiefs done on another are unspeakably worse than those done on himself; and that no unrepentable transgressions are as bad as those by which he has struck the welfare of another. Parallel with these, although differing from them, are those things by which men wound the hearts of those whom they should shield. Your anger may sting venomously. Your jealousy may do a mischief in one short hour that your whole life cannot repair. Your cruel pride may do a whole ages work in a day. You cannot take back the injuries that you have done to those whose hearts lie throbbing next to yours. All! when winter has frozen my heliotropes, it makes no difference that the next morning thaws them out. There lie the heliotropes–a black, noisome heap; and it is possible for you to chill a tender nature so that no thawing can restore it. You may relent, but frost has been there, and you cannot bring back freshness and fragrance to the blossom. You cannot sweeten the embittered heart to which your words have been like scorpions. It is a terrible thing for a man to have the power of poisoning the hearts of others, and yet carry that power carelessly. (H. W. Beecher.)

Immoral authors and their poisonous effects

It is a remarkable fact that the poison of the rattlesnake is even secreted after death. Dr. Bell, in his dissections of the rattlesnakes which have been dead many hours, has found that the poison continued to be secreted so fast as to require to be dried up occasionally with sponge or rag. The immoral author, like these rattlesnakes, not only poisons during his lifetime, but after death: because his books possess the subtle power of secreting the venom to a horrible degree. A moral sponge is constantly called into requisition to obliterate his poison for many years after he himself has been dead. (Louis Figuier.)

Their is no fear of God before their eyes.–

Impenitent men destitute of holiness

The text gives us mans native character. Such he is till the Spirit of God has sanctified him.

I. Many have mistaken the native character of man, from having seen him capable of affections and deeds that are praiseworthy. We do not deny that there has been seen in men not sanctified.

II. Men have been led to controvert this doctrine because they are not conscious of the wrong motives by which they are actuated. What the prophet says of the idol maker is more or less true of all unregenerate men in all ages, A deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand? They do not consider it important to know what their designs are, and have not that familiarity with their hearts that would render it easy to discover.

III. The doctrine of the text is often controverted to support schemes with which this sentiment would not compare. The sinners entire depravity is a fundamental doctrine on which there can be built only one, and that the gospel system. Make this doctrine true, and it sweeps away, as with the besom of destruction, every creed but one from the face of the world. It settles the question that God may righteously execute His law upon all unregenerate men; that by deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified; that the doings of unregenerate men are unholy; that an atonement, such as God has provided, is the only medium through which we can purge our consciences from dead works to serve the living God.

IV. This doctrine has been controverted through the pride of the human heart. Depravity is a most degrading doctrine, and entire depravity intolerable, till the heart has been humbled by the grace of God. There is in apostate men great pride of character. With the promptness with which we fly the touch of fire does pride resist imputation. Hence inquires the unregenerate man, Would you deny me the credit of loving my Creator, Preserver, and Benefactor? Do I never obey His law, or do a deed from motives that please Him? And is there, among my noblest actions of kindness to men, nothing that amounts to love?

V. I proceed to offer some reasons for esteeming it a very important doctrine.

1. The fact that it is plainly revealed testifies to its importance. God would not have cumbered His Word with a doctrine of no value.

2. The doctrine of the text is esteemed important, as it is one of the first truths used by the Spirit of God in awakening and sanctifying sinners.

3. The doctrine of the text is esteemed important, as it lies at the foundation of the whole gospel scheme. (D. A. Clark.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 9. JEW. What then?] After all, have not we Jews a better claim to the privileges of the kingdom of God than the Gentiles have?

APOSTLE. No, in no wise] For I have already proved that both Jews and Gentiles are under the guilt of sin; that they are equally unworthy of the blessings of the Messiah’s kingdom; and that they must both, equally, owe their salvation to the mere mercy of God. From this, to the end of the 26th verse, the apostle proceeds to prove his assertion, that both Jews and Gentiles were all under sin; and, that he might enforce the conviction upon the heart of the Jew, he quotes his own Scriptures, which he acknowledged had been given by the inspiration of GOD, and consequently true.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

What then? are we better than they? the apostle here returns to the argument that he had been handling in the beginning of the chapter. He brings in the Jews propounding a question, Seeing it was confessed that the oracles of God were committed to them, then it followed, that they excelled the Gentiles, and stood upon better ground than they.

No, in no wise; he doth not contradict himself as to what he had said of the Jews prerogative, Rom 3:2. They did indeed excel the Gentiles as to some external benefits, of which you have a larger account, Rom 9:4,5, but not upon the account of any evangelical righteousness, or their own supposed merit.

We have before proved; viz. separately and apart, in the foregoing chapters; and the same is now to be asserted of

both Jews and Gentiles, conjunctly and together; that notwithstanding the Jews boasted of their law, and the Gentiles of their philosophy, yet as to the evangelical faith and righteousness, they were both in the same case.

Under sin; under the power of sin, but chiefly under the guilt of sin: see Rom 3:19.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

9. are we better than they?“dowe excel them?”

No, in no wiseBetteroff the Jews certainly were, for having the oracles of God to teachthem better; but as they were no better, that only aggravatedtheir guilt.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

What then? are we better than they?…. The apostle returns to what he was treating of in the beginning of the chapter, and suggests, that though the Jew has the advantage of the Gentile, with respect to some external privileges, yet not with regard to their state and condition God-ward, and as in his sight; “are we [Jews] better than they [Gentiles]?”

no, in no wise; upon no consideration whatever, neither as men, nor as Jews; which is directly opposite to a notion that people have of themselves:

“in mankind (they say r) there are high degrees, one higher than another, and the Israelites , “are above all mankind”; they are the head, and the nations of the world are the tail, and are like to a serpent, for they come from the filth of the old serpent.”

Again, they say s,

“worthy are the Israelites, for the holy blessed God hath given to them holy souls, from an holy place, “above all the rest of the people”, that they may do the commandments, and delight in the law.”

And elsewhere t it is observed on those words, Ge 1:24, “the living creature”, or “the soul of the living creature”, by R. Aba:

“these are the Israelites, for they are the children of the holy blessed God, and their holy souls come from him; the souls of the rest of the people, from what place are they? says R. Eleazar, from the side of the left hand, which is defiled; for they have polluted souls, and therefore they are all defiled, and defile whoever comes nigh them:”

but they are no better, especially with regard to their estate by nature:

for we have before proved; in the preceding chapters, by full instances to a demonstration; and if that cannot be thought sufficient, he goes on to give more proof in the following “verses”:

that both Jews and Gentiles are under sin; under the power and guilt of sin, and a sentence of condemnation for it; which is equally true of the Jews, who were no better than the Gentiles, for being Abraham’s seed, for being circumcised, for having the ceremonial law, and other outward privileges; for they were equally born in sin, and by practice sinners, as the Gentiles: and this is true of God’s elect in all nations, who are no better by nature, by birth, than others; as deserving of the wrath of God as the rest; no better in their tempers and, dispositions, or in the endowments of their minds, or outward circumstances of life; nor better qualified to receive and improve the grace of God bestowed on them, than others.

r Tzeror Hammor, fol. 103. 2. Vid. Nishmat Chayim, orat. 2. c. 7. fol. 61. 1. s Zohar in Lev. fol 28. 2. t Zohar in Gen. fol. 31. 1.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

What then? ( ?). Paul’s frequent query, to be taken with verses Rom 3:1; Rom 3:2.

Are we in worse case than they? (?). The American Revisers render it: “Are we in better case than they?” There is still no fresh light on this difficult and common word though it occurs alone in the N.T. In the active it means to have before, to excel. But here it is either middle or passive. Thayer takes it to be middle and to mean to excel to one’s advantage and argues that the context demands this. But no example of the middle in this sense has been found. If it is taken as passive, Lightfoot takes it to mean, “Are we excelled” and finds that sense in Plutarch. Vaughan takes it as passive but meaning, “Are we preferred?” This suits the context, but no other example has been found. So the point remains unsettled. The papyri throw no light on it.

No, in no wise ( ). “Not at all.” See 1Co 5:10.

We before laid to the charge (). First aorist middle indicative of , to make a prior accusation, a word not yet found anywhere else. Paul refers to 1:18-32 for the Greeks and 2:1-29 for the Jews. The infinitive with the accusative is in indirect discourse.

Under sin ( ). See Gal 3:22; Rom 7:14.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Are we better [] . Rev., are we in worse case than they? Render, with the American Revisers, are we in better case than they, i e., have we any advantage ? The Rev. takes the verb as passive – are we surpassed ? which would require the succeeding verses to show that the Gentiles are not better than the Jews; whereas they show that the Jews are not better than the Gentiles. Besides, nothing in the context suggests such a question. 27 Paul has been showing that the Old Testament privileges, though giving to the Jews a certain superiority to the Gentiles, did not give them any advantages in escaping the divine condemnation. After such showing it was natural that the question should be renewed : Do the Jews have any advantage ?

We have before proved [] . The reference is not to logical proof, but to forensic accusation. The simple verb means to charge as being the cause [] of some evil : hence to accuse, impeach. Rev., correctly, we before laid to the charge.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

FINAL VERDICT OF SIN –WHOLE WORLD GUILTY

1 ) “What then?” (ti oun) “What therefore?” If the Jews who had natural and national advantage until they forfeited it because of their sins, is it possible the Gentiles are now better off than they?

2) “Are we better than they?” (proechometha) “Do we (not) excel?” “Are we not above the Gentiles in goodness and acceptance with God, because of the Law and who we are,” the Jews were asking, despising Paul and others, Mat 23:2; Luk 18:9.

3) “No, in no wise,” (ou pantas) “Not at all,” not in any manner, not in the least. The Jews had been guilty of every breach of Divine law that Gentiles and heathen had broken –so that all needed pardon and redemption; 1Ki 8:46; Jer 17:9; Gal 3:22.

4) “For we have before proved,” (prosetiasametha gar) “For we previously accused or charged with guilt or wrong,” Rom 1:1 to Rom 2:29. So that all are “without excuse,” Rom 1:18; Rom 2:1; Rom 7:14.

5) “Both Jews and Gentiles,” (loudaious te Kai Hellenas) “Both Jews and Gentiles (Hellenecians),” Rom 1:14-16. The universality of sin is charged and evidenced in Rom 3:9-20.

6) “That they are all under sin,” (pantas huph’ hamartian einai) “All to be or to exist under (guilt of) sin;” all therefore need to be saved, the very premise and occasion for our Lord’s coming into the world; Luk 19:10; Joh 3:16-17; Joh 1:11-12; Joh 10:27-29; Rom 3:23.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

9. What then? He returns from his digression to his subject. For lest the Jews should object that they were deprived of their right, as he had mentioned those distinctions of honor, for which they thought themselves superior to the Gentiles, he now at length replies to the question — in what respect they excelled the Gentiles. And though his answer seems in appearance to militate against what he had said before, (for he now strips those of all dignity to whom he had attributed so much,) there is yet no discord; for those privileges in which he allowed them to be eminent, were separate from themselves, and dependent on God’s goodness, and not on their own merit: but here he makes inquiry as to their own worthiness, whether they could glory in any respect in themselves. Hence the two answers he gives so agree together, that the one follows from the other; for while he extols their privileges, by including them among the free benefits of God, he shows that they had nothing of their own. Hence, what he now answers might have been easily inferred; for since it was their chief superiority, that God’s oracles were deposited with them, and they had it not through their own merit, there was nothing left for them, on account of which they could glory before God. Now mark the holy contrivance ( sanctum artificium ) which he adopts; for when he ascribes pre-eminency to them, he speaks in the third person; but when he strips them of all things, he puts himself among them, that he might avoid giving offense.

For we have before brought a charge, etc. The Greek verb which Paul adopts, αἰτιάσθαι is properly a forensic term; and I have therefore preferred to render it, “We have brought a charge;” (96) for an accuser in an action is said to charge a crime, which he is prepared to substantiate by testimonies and other proofs. Now the Apostle had summoned all mankind universally before the tribunal of God, that he might include all under the same condemnation: and it is to no purpose for any one to object, and say that the Apostle here not only brings a charge, but more especially proves it; for a charge is not true except it depends on solid and strong evidences, according to what Cicero says, who, in a certain place, distinguishes between a charge and a slander. We must add, that to be under sin means that we are justly condemned as sinners before God, or that we are held under the curse which is due to sin; for as righteousness brings with it absolution, so sin is followed by condemnation.

(96) So do [ Grotius ] , [ Beza ] , and [ Stuart ] render the verb. [ Doddridge ] and [ Macknight ] have preserved our common version. “We have before charged,” [ Chalmers ] “ Antea idoneis argumentis demonstravimus — we have before proved by sufficient arguments.” [ Schleusner ] It is charge rather than conviction that the verb imports, though the latter idea is also considered to be included. — Ed.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CRITICAL NOTES

Rom. 3:9.Do we bring pleas forward on behalf of ourselvesi.e., in fear of a sentence of condemnation against ourselves? (Stuart.)

Rom. 3:10.The apostle having mentioned that he had impeached both Jews and Gentiles of being under sin, adduces documentary evidence of the legitimacy of his impeachment (Wordsworth).

Rom. 3:19.By the law here expositors understand the written revelation as a whole. That every month may be stopped.Phraseology borrowed from the custom of gagging criminals.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Rom. 3:9-20

A great deficit to all.There may be a surplus of privilege, and a deficit of conductplenty of light from heaven, and yet such depravity that, in the midst of light, we are still in darkness. The Jews a people favoured of Heaven, and this favour not without some good results; but from time to time how dark their state, how deplorable their condition! A dark picture is by the apostle here presented to our viewa correct representation in its general aspect. How much light in England! And yet what a dark picture must be drawn! Notwithstanding our Christianity and our civilisation, we have often hard work in keeping the forces of evil at bay. Let us not too easily lay the flattering unction to our souls that we are better than the Jew. We have all the light God will shed upon our race, and yet how morally dark is our condition! We may still mournfully cry that both Jews and Gentiles, both Christians and heathen (we mean by the term the peoples born in a Christian country and raised under Christian influences), are all under sin. As it is written, There is none righteous; no, not one. Here, then, is the doctrine of universal depravity, which shows itself by:

I. Practical atheism.There is none that seeketh after God. There is no fear of God before their eyes. The avowed atheist says, There is no God; the practical atheist acts as if there were no God. So that both characters come to the same practical result, and both are the outcome of a degenerate nature. In our darker moods, how often rise to our lips the words, There is none that seeketh after God! Where are those who seek after God as the souls true and only good? Where are those who can legitimately use the language of the sacred poet, My soul thirsteth for God? We thirst for the material benefits a God may be supposed to confer. We thirst for a material God, for a God that we can presume to put to serviceable uses, and not for a God who shall put us to serviceable uses. Each man seeks for his own God, who is thus a being subject to human imperfections and limitations. In fact, the modern Christian says God is not wisely trusted when declared unintelligible. And yet can a God of perfect rectitude be fully knowable to a creature who is all imperfect? Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection? Who is there that seeks after the unknowable Godunknowable in His perfections, and yet so far knowable in the manifestation made by the God-man that we may feel it is no vain search? Is not the fear of man stronger than the fear of God, so that the words have a very wide application, There is no fear of God before their eyes? If God were a detective dogging each mans steps, there would be a change in society. Do we fear God as a judge? Do we fear God as a father? Have we the loving fear that prompts to holy action and sweet deeds of divine charity?

II. A depraved understanding.There is a depravity of morals which works depravity of intellect. In these days we pride ourselves on our intellectual greatness. Some mental philosophers affirm that mind is sublimated matter. They are materialists. They are so far correct that our modern tendencies are materialistic. Morally it may be said there is none that understandeth. We understand science, literature, art, commerce, creeds, an outside religion. Where is the man who touches the core and heart of the spiritual sphere? There is none that understandeth.

III. A depraved physical nature.We are so far materialists that we believe the elevation of the moral is the elevation of the physical, and that the depravation of the former is the depravation of the latter. The throat becomes sepulchral. Instead of the sweet odour of gracious words flowing through the portals of the lips, there comes the death-producing miasma of profane thoughts in the vehicle of ribald language. Honeyed lips cover the secreted poison. Thought touches speech. Evil thoughts and evil speech defile the organs of utterance. These, unrestrained, terminate in the climax of brutality. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. Thank God, there is a force of good stronger than the force of evil. As we see men restrained from extreme violence, we the more firmly believe in an overruling good force. If it were not so, the feet would run so swiftly to shed blood that soon on this bloodstained earth there would be no blood to shedthe last man, gloated in human blood, would perish a victim of his own vile doings. Wars and rumours of wars have been many. Wild beasts in human form have fought like fiends. Modern skill and science have made the shedding of human blood one of the fine arts. Adored be the great Peace-bringer that the way of peace is not unknown! Give peace in our time, O Lordnational peace, individual peace; harmony amongst the nationsharmonious adjustment and working of all the souls powers.

IV. The revelation of the law.When the law speaks in its awful majesty, the sad doom of universal guilt is pronounced. The law is a revealing force; the law condemns; the law renders speechless when its voice is properly heard and felt in the secret chambers of imagery. When the man is so oppressed with the sense of his guilt that he can frame no words of apology, and stands self-confessed a sinner in the presence of the infinite Justice, then the light of redeeming love and mercy breaks through the oppressive gloom, the clouds are scattered, the shadows flee away, the morning light glints the mountain tops, the voice of merry singing is heard in the land, the soul glows with the gladness of the upper sphere, the spirit soars to unite itself with the spirit of the Eternal, and the redeemed man wonders at the marvel of divine grace, and humbly asks himself if it be indeed true that he is a member of that race which has shown itself capable of a depravity so appalling.

Rom. 3:13-18. Dignity of human nature shown from its ruins.A dark picture of humanity, and yet it has two aspects. In one view it is the picture of weakness and shame; in the other it presents a fearfully great being. I propose to call your attention to:

The dignity of man as revealed by the ruin he makes in his fall and apostasy from God.It has been the way of many in our time to magnify humanity; but I undertake to show the essential greatness of man from the ruin itself which he becomes. As from the ruins of ancient dynasties and cities we tell their former greatness, so it is with man. Our most veritable though saddest impressions of his greatness as a creature we shall derive from the magnificent ruin he displays. And exactly this, I conceive, is the legitimate impression of the Scripture representations of man as apostate from duty and God. Thoughtfully regarded, all exaggerations and contending theories apart, it is as if they were showing us the original dignity of man from the magnificence of the ruin in which he lies. How sublime a creature must that be, call him either man or demon, who is able to confront the Almighty and tear himself away from His throne! So of the remarkable picture given by Paul in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. In one view we are disgusted, in another shocked, doubting whether it presents a creature most foolish and vile or most sublimely impious and wicked. And the picture of the text corresponds, yielding no impression of a merely feeble and vile creature, but of a creature rather most terrible and swiftdestructive, fierce, and fearlessmiserable in his greatnessgreat as in evil. But we come to the ruin as it is, and receive the true impression for ourselves. We look, first of all, upon the false religions of the worldpompous and costly rites transacted before crocodiles and onions, magnificent temples built over all monkeyish and monstrous creatures carved by mens hands, children offered up by their mothers in fire or in water, kings offered on the altars by their people to propitiate a wooden image, gorgeous palaces and trappings of barbaric majesty studded all over with beetles in gold or precious stones to serve as a protection against pestilences, poisons, and accidents. I cannot fill out a picture that so nearly fills the world. The wars of the world yield a similar impression. These are men such as history in all past ages shows them to beswift to shed blood, swifter than the tiger race, and more terrible. Cities and empires are swept by their terrible marches, and become a desolation in their path. Destruction and misery are in their waysoh, what destruction, misery! how deep and long! And what shall we think of any creature of God displayed in signs like these? Plainly enough he is a creature in ruins; but how magnificent a creature! Consider again the persecutions of the good. What does it mean? Man hates with a diabolical hatred. Feeling how awful goodness is, the sight of it rouses him to madness, and he will not stop till he has tasted blood. And what a being is this that can be stung with so great madness by the spectacle of a good and holy life! The great characters of the world furnish another striking proof of the transcendent quality of human nature by the dignity they are able to connect even with their littleness. But we must look more directly into the contents of human nature and the internal ruin by which they are displayed. And here you may notice, first of all, the sublime vehemence of the passions. Consider again the wild mixture of thought displayed both in the waking life and the dreams of mankind. How grand! how mean! how sudden the leap from one to the other! how inscrutable the succession! how defiant of orderly control! Notice also the significance of remorse. How great a creature must that be that, looking down upon itself from some high summit, in itself withers in condemnation of itself! So again you may conceive the greatness of man by the ruin he makes if you advert to the dissonance and obstinacy of his evil will. How great a creature is it that, knowing God, can set itself off from God, and maintain a persistent rebellion even against its own convictions, fears, and aspirations. Consider once more the religious aspirations and capabilities of religious attraction that are garnered up and still live in the ruins of humanity. Regarding man, then, as immersed in evila spiritual intelligence in a state of ruinwe derogate nothing from his dignity. O Thou Prince of life! come in Thy great salvation. Breathe on these majestic ruins, and rouse to life again, though it be but for one hour, the forgotten sense of their eternity.Bushnell.

The consciousness of evil.

I. Law discovers the fact of sin.Renan has written, It may be said, in fact, that original sin was an invention of the Jahveist. What a strange misuse of language to speak of the sacred writers as inventing original sin! Can we say that Jenner invented the smallpox, or that Pasteur invented the rabies, or that any of the celebrated physicians invented the maladies which are known by their names? What these famous men did was to successfully diagnose, characterise, and to treat diseases which already existed, and which proved their malignant power by carrying thousands of men and women to the grave. Did the sacred writers invent sin? Listen to a modern writer on science who has no theological sympathy whatever, but who is constrained to give a testimony to a theological tenet that is to thousands a huge offence. Men are born with their moral natures as deformed or as imperfect as their physical ones. To the doctrine of original sin science thus has given an unexpected support. No, revelation did not invent the doctrine of original sin; that doctrine serious men have discerned in all ages; that doctrine the scientist finds deep down in the grounds of human nature. What revelation has done is to define the doctrine, to make clear its real nature, to express its characters, to discover its source, to bring it home to the conscience, and, thank God, to prescribe for it a sovereign remedy. The law showed the apostle that the reality of sin was in his own heart, that it lived and worked there beneath all the moral aspects of his character; the law convinced him that his conductsocially and ecclesiastically blamelesswas nevertheless essentially false and hollow. Says George Sand: Proprieties are the rule of the people without soul or virtue. Says Schopenhauer: Politeness is a conventional and systematic attempt to mask the egoism of human nature. To combine politeness with pride is a masterful piece of wisdom. And, indeed, how little do many of those grand words mean which are on our lips! What does good form meanetiquette, decorum, good breeding, the code of honour, respectability? What do justice, temperance, diligence, benevolence, and other of our virtues mean if they are severely looked into? What do reputation, fame, success, glory, often mean? What the Frenchwoman saw, what the German saw, what we all see dimly from time to time of the dimness of human virtue, the apostle in presence of the law saw and felt profoundly; he was overwhelmed to find under all the proprieties of his life the fact and power of sin. We all do fade as a leaf. Before the searching brightness of the eternal righteousness our proud virtues wither; for they have no depth of earth, no sap of life. Studying the commandments of Sinai; pondering the exposition of the law in prophet, psalmist, and apostle; listening to the Sermon on the Mount; beholding the beauty of the Lord,we become conscious how deeply we are wrong at heart; what a mysterious weakness, disharmony, perverseness, exists within us; spoiling our great gifts and possibilities; involving our life in constant failure; filling us with remorse. In the purgatory of the Chinese is the mirror of sin. Into this mirror departed sinners are compelled to gaze and see all the naughtiness of their own heart, after which they are dismissed to punishment. The moral law is that mirror, here and now revealing the wickedness and deceitfulness of our heart. One of our novelists writes of the tragedy of the mirror. The mirror has its tragedies. It makes palpable to us the ravages of grief; it pathetically discloses the lines of suffering; but the real tragedy of the mirror is when revelation sharply frees us from all illusions, and from its infinite depths of purity flashes back upon our consciousness the image of our moral self.

II. By the law we discover the nature of sin.It discloses the real character of that dark mysterious power which forbids our perfection and felicity. And what then is sin? Sin as against God is the preference of our own will to the supreme will. I had not known sin except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. Sin is not limitation; we act irregularly, not because we are so much less than God, but because we are contrary to God.

III. By the law as unfolded in revelation we discover the strength of sin.The presence of the law brings out the virulence and wrath of the evil principle which is in our heart. When the commandment came sin revived. The strength of sin is the law. The presence of the lofty, the beautiful, in the first instance evokes, stirs up, draws out, the morbid humours of the soul; the fierce light stimulates the vicious germs which are in us.

IV. By the law as unfolded in revelation we discover the guilt of sin.It is the ministry of condemnation; it convinces us that our transgressions are worthy of death. With the law before us we cannot plead that sin is ignorance. Sin is the transgression of the law, but we should think mercifully of sin committed in total ignorance of the law. But the law which convicts us first enlightens us; we clearly see our duty, and yet persist in carrying out our own desires. With the law before us we cannot plead that sin is imperfection. It is now seen that sin is not finiteness, but contradictoriness; it is a conflict of wills. With the law before us we cannot plead that sin is misfortune. By the deepest of instincts we discern the vast difference between a misfortune and a sin. And the law brings sin and guilt home to us personally. It does not impeach and condemn a race so much as it challenges the man, the woman, the child. Those who have no proper consciousness of sin must come to the light. We must test ourselves by the standard of Sinai; we must submit ourselves to the white light which shines upon us and into us in the perfection of Jesus Christ. The law does not give deliverance from sin. The redemption of our life is in Christ Jesus. He turns the knowledge of sin into true sorrow for sin. Its issue is eternal life. He also awakens in us the love of holiness. We have redemption in His blood, even the forgiveness of sin. How infinite our debt to Jesus Christ! If He has banished the light laughter of Grecian joyousness, He has brought in a diviner joy. He has changed a life of petty thoughts, narrow sympathies, ignoble aims, into a life of large ideas, of emotions at once blissful and profound, of delightful fellowships, of sublime charity, and of most glorious hope.W. L. Watkinson.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Rom. 3:9-20

Jews and Gentiles guilty.Of these passages it is unnecessary to offer a particular illustration. They are selected from different parts of the inspired books, but chiefly from the poetical parts of Scripture, and sometimes the sense is expressed rather than the words of the original. They are quite sufficient to establish the wickedness of the Jews, which they are brought to prove. But the strong and amplified expressions common in Eastern poetry must not be understood according to their literal meaning in our speech. Nor is it to be presumed that all parts of the description apply to the general body of the nation, or that there were not many good men among them who did not deserve to be thus characterised. The passages describe either the general character of the wicked or of the people at large in times of great degeneracy, though no doubt with many exceptions. They are intended as the proof of what the apostle had immediately before assertedthat the Jews as well as the Gentiles are all guilty of sin, and generally also of very heinous sins, and that, consequently, they are as far from deserving to be justified by their works as the Gentiles are. Now as these quotations express the conviction of their own inspired writers, the Jews could not deny their truth. Had the apostle described their sins in his own language, they might have refused to acquiesce in his statement; but when he merely quotes their own Scriptures in which they gloried, and the inspiration of which they admitted, they could not refuse assenting to his conclusion. It may be observed, further, of these quotations, that though intended to describe the character of the wicked, or the national character generally, in times of great degeneracy, they are, however, true to a certain extent of every individual, seeing every individual may justly be charged with much sin, though not with each of the particular sins here specified. Still, however, it was possible for the Jews to flatter themselves that these descriptions were not intended to apply to themselves, but to the heathen; and to take away the possibility of this pretence, the apostle adds in the nineteenth verse: Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.Ritchie.

Pauls mosaic of sin.On what principle and with what precise object did Paul select these quotations? We cannot conceive that he gives here a universal or even a comparatively fair description of the nation. He has rather gathered together into one awful picture the very darkest lines of the many delineations of character contained in the Jewish Scriptures. The men before us are of the very worst kind. The opening of their mouths is the opening of a grave. They are deadly as vipers. Their language is a curse. The prospect of murder hurries them on with rapid steps. Where they have been destruction and calamity are found. How to walk so as to be at peace they know not. The delineations form one picture. Rom. 3:13-14 describe their words; Rom. 3:15-17, their actions; Rom. 3:18 gives the cause of the whole. Paul has, in my view, put together this mosaic of sin to prove that the Old Testament teaches that Jewish privileges do not in themselves save even from the lowest depths of sin. He does not say that the objector of chap. 2 is as bad as these men. But whatever he has pleaded for himself these might have pleaded. These bad men whose names are forgotten, but in whose character is plainly written the condemnation of God, arise from oblivion to declare that outward privileges, even though they come from God, and outward connection with the covenant people, do not necessarily save.Beet.

Fear of God.If, says Cartwright, the prophet and apostle had laid their heads together to have found out the most forcible words, and most significative, to shut all men, born of the seed of men, from righteousness, and to shut them under sin, they could not have used more effectual speeches than these. Clause is piled upon clause to the effect that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The passages which are quoted in continuation are tacked on to the quotation from the fourteenth Psalm, and not as containing additional Scripture evidence of the universality of sin, but as exhibiting in graphic touches, and distributively, as Zwinger remarks, representative specimens of the very varied forms into which the essential principle of sin has in its universal range developed itself. The reference more particularly is, as Melancthon observed, to breaches of the second table of the law.Annot.

It is a grand and magnificent thing, says Origen, always to have before the eyes of the heart the fear of God. Such fear is the beginning of wisdom, and it is not far removed from the end of it. There is a fear indeed which hath tormentthe fear of the lash, the dread foreboding of final woe. It is well when this fear is cast out, and supplanted by perfect confidence in the propitious favour of God. And it is ousted from the soul when the soul is filled with love; and the soul is filled with love when we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. Nevertheless there is always an element of sensitive fear in mans love to God and in mans love to man. There is a fear of doing anything to offend or to wound. This fear is inseparable from a consciousness of imperfection, and it is at once a self-imposed rein to restrain and a self-appointed watch to keep guard. When it is said that there is not the fear of God before the eyes, there is objectively ascribed to a condition which is psychologically subjective. But the subjective may become objective when it is made the mark of reflective thought. The wicked not only do not feel as a general rule the fear of Godthey do not even think of it as a feeling which they should cherish. It is not kept in view by them as an object to be realised in emotion.Morrison.

Corrupt in thought, abominable in deed.They are corrupt, they have done abominable things; there is none that doeth good. Men, says Bernand, because they are corrupt in their minds, become abominable in their doingscorrupt before God, abominable before men. There are three sorts of men of which none doeth good. There are those who neither understand nor seek God, and they are the dead. There are others who understand Him, but seek Him not, and they are the wicked. There are others who seek Him, but understand Him not, and they are the fools. O God! cries a writer of the Middle Ages, how many are here at this day who, under the name of Christianity, worship idols, and are abominable both to Thee and to men! For every man worships that which he most loves. The proud man bows down before the idol of worldly power, the covetous man before the idol of money, the adulterer before the idol of beauty, and so of the rest. And of such saith the apostle, They profess that they know God, but in works deny Him, being abominable and disobedient, and unto every work reprobate (Tit. 1:16). There is none that doeth good. Notice how Paul avails himself of this testimony of the Psalmist, among those which he heaps together in the third chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, where he is proving concerning both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin.John Mason Neale.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 3

Rom. 3:13-18. Littleness of great men.On a small island of the southern Atlantic is shut up a remarkable prisoner, wearing himself out there in a feeble mixture of peevishness and jealousy, solaced by no great thoughts and no heroic spirit, a kind of dotard before the time, killing and consuming himself by the intense littleness into which he has shrunk. And this is the great conqueror of the modern world, the man whose name is the greatest of modern names, or, some will say, of all names the human world has pronounceda man, nevertheless, who carried his greatest victories and told his meanest lies in close proximitya character as destitute of private magnanimity as he was remarkable for the stupendous powers of his understanding and the more stupendous and imperial leadership of his will. How great a being must it be that makes a point of so great dignity before the world, despite of so much that is really little and contemptible! But he is not alone. The immortal Kepler, piloting science into the skies and comprehending the vastness of heaven for the first time in the fixed embrace of definite thought, only proves the magnificence of man as a ruin, when you discover the strange ferment of irritability and superstition wild in which his great thoughts are brewed and his mighty life dissolved. So also Bacon proves the amazing wealth and grandeur of the human soul only the more sublimely that, living in an element of cunning, servility, and ingratitude, and dying under the shame of a convict, he is yet able to dignify disgrace by the stupendous majesty of his genius, and commands the reverence even of the world as to one of its sublimest benefactors. And the poets stinging line,

The greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind,
pictures only with a small excess of satire the magnificence of ruin comprehended in the man. Probably no one of mankind has raised himself to a higher pitch of renown by the superlative attributes of genius displayed in his writing than the great English dramatistflowering out, nevertheless, into such eminence of glory on a compost of fustian, buffoonery, and other vile stuff, which he so magnificently covers with splendour and irradiates with beauty that disgust itself is lost in the vehemence of praise. And so we shall find, almost universally, that the greatness of the worlds great men is proved by the inborn qualities that tower above the ruins of weakness and shame in which they appear, and out of which pillars and dismantled temples they rise.

Rom. 3:18. Restraining grace.The rev. and pious Dr. Ives, whose house was on Oxford Road, and by which the criminals were carried weekly in carts to Tyburn, used to stand at his window and say to any young friends who might be near him, pointing out any of the most notorious malefactors, There goes Dr. Ives! If an explanation were asked, he took occasion to expound the innate corruption of the heart, and appealed to the experience of his auditors whether they had not often felt the movements of those very passions, errors, prejudices, lusts, revenge, covetousness, etc., whose direct tendency was to produce the crimes for which these offenders satisfied the claims of public justice, and which were solely prevented from carrying them to the same dreadful fate by the restraining grace of God.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Text

Rom. 3:9 b Rom. 3:20. No, in no wise: for we before laid to the charge both of Jews and Greeks, that they are all under sin; Rom. 3:10 as it is written, There is hone righteous, no, not one;

Rom. 3:11 There is none that understandeth, There is none that seeketh after God;

Rom. 3:12 They have all turned aside, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not so much as one:

Rom. 3:13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; With their tongues they have used deceit; The poison of asps is under their lips.

Rom. 3:14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness;

Rom. 3:15 Their feet are swift to shed blood;

Rom. 3:16 Destruction and misery are in their ways;

Rom. 3:17 And the way of peace have they not known:

Rom. 3:18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Rom. 3:19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it speaketh to them that are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God: Rom. 3:20 because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for through the law cometh the knowledge of sin.

REALIZING ROMANS, Rom. 3:9 Rom. 3:20

112.

Where in the Roman epistle had Paul proven both Jews and Greeks guilty of sin?

113.

In what sense is there none righteous?

114.

The lack of understanding as in Rom. 3:11 a was limited to understanding on what subject?

115.

There have been seekers after God in all ages and places. In what sense is Rom. 3:11 b true?

116.

Note the responsibility of Rom. 3:12 a. What is it?

Paraphrase

Rom. 3:9 b Rom. 3:20. I acknowledge no such thing; for I have formerly proved both Jews and Gentiles to be all guilty of sin.

Rom. 3:10 With respect to the Jewish common people, they have been wicked in all ages; as it is written, There is not a righteous man, no, not one.

Rom. 3:11 In the same psalm, Rom. 3:2, it is said, There is none that understandeth his duty; there is none that worshippeth God as he ought to do.

Rom. 3:12 And in Rom. 3:3 it is said, They are all gone out of the way of righteousness, they are employing themselves together in works which are utterly unprofitable to themselves and to society: there is none of them who does any good action; there is not so much as one.

Rom. 3:13 Also it is said, Psa. 5:9. Their throat is an open sepulchre sending forth by their rotten speech an offensive stench; with their fair speeches they deceive; their speech being deadly, the poison of asps is under their lips; Psa. 140:3.

Rom. 3:14 On other occasions, giving way to their malicious dispositions, their mouth is full of cursing and bitter imprecations; Psa. 10:7.

Rom. 3:15 Their works correspond to their words; for they make haste to commit murder, as Isaiah hath testified, Isa. 59:7.

Rom. 3:16 They occasion destruction and misery to all who follow them.

Rom. 3:17 But such practices as lead to the happiness of mankind, they neither have known nor desired to know.

Rom. 3:18 All this wickedness they commit, because, as is said Psa. 36:1. There is no fear of God before their eyes; they fear not Gods displeasure.

Rom. 3:19 Now these things are said, not of the heathens, but of the Jews; for we know that whatever things the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law; that every Jew may remain silent, as condemned by the law; and that all the world, Jews as well as Gentiles, may be sensible [aware] that they are liable to punishment before God.

Rom. 3:20 Wherefore, by works of law, whether natural or revealed, moral or ceremonial, there shall no man be justified meritoriously in Gods sight, (Psa. 113:2.); because law makes men sensible that they are sinners, without giving them any hope of pardon; consequently, instead of entitling them to life, it subjects them to punishment.

Summary

In point of guilt, then, are the Jews any better than the Gentiles? None at all. All are alike under the dominion of sin, and therefore are alike guilty. This is proved by the very scriptures which the Jews have. The law condemns all, and justifies none. Therefore, by law, no one may expect to be acquitted in the presence of God. Instead of being justified by law, men only learn from it that they are sinners.

Comment

Continuing the thought of verse nine, the apostle explains why the Jews were as needy as the Gentiles. He says, We before laid to the charge both of Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. At the time that he answers the question of the Jew, he lays down a proposition which sums up all he has previously said. The last portion of the ninth verse through the twentieth carries the conclusion of the whole matter. All that was needed in Pauls splendid argument was a substantiation from the Old Testament. This he gives, and shows in the use of the quotations from the Old Testament that they spoke not only of the sin and need of the Jew, but also spoke with equal force of the sin and need of the Gentile. Rom. 3:9 b

a.

We find a description of the sinful state of both Jew and Gentile, Rom. 3:10-12

b.

Then the practice of sin is noted. Rom. 3:13-17

(1)

The practice of sin in their speech is pointed out. Rom. 3:13-14

(2)

Then sin through overt acts is discussed. Rom. 3:15-17

c.

Finally the cause of such ungodliness is found: There is no fear of God before their eyes. Rom. 3:18

In explanation of the above quotations Paul states that it is a well-known fact that whatever judgments are pronounced in a law are directed against those persons in possession of the law. In this case the Jews were such persons. When violations of the law are pointed out, and the offenders are truly guilty, there is nothing they can say to defend themselves. This was exactly the circumstance in respect to the Jew. But in addition to this effect, there was another: the whole world is brought under the judgment of God. How can this be true? How can the whole world be brought under Gods wrath by pointing out violations of the law of Moses? We can understand this: first, by realizing that the sins described are counted as sin because God so designated them in His law; second, that those Gentiles who practiced the same sins would likewise be guilty because they knew or had the opportunity to know what was right (as we have already shown). The clear statement in the law brought to the surface the truth that all subconsciously felt: the whole world was under the judgment of God. Rom. 3:19

Because is the first word of the twentieth verse, indicating that a reason is now to be given for what has just been said. Paul had just said that the whole world was under the judgment of God as a result of the giving of the law. He now says this is true because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight. This is the grand conclusion toward which the apostle has been leading from chapter one, verse eighteen. He stated that in the gospel was to be found a means whereby man could be declared just before God. The Jew imagined he did not need the gospel, for he felt that there could be found justification through the law. Paul pointed out that the law indeed formed a basis for judgment, but as to obtaining justification through the law, this was proven to be an impossibility. To be just through the law, absolute obedience would have been essential, and this no Jew (or Gentile) accomplished. Indeed, it has been shown that, using the law under which they lived as a basis for judgment, they could not even be constituted conscientious, much less, just. The inspired writer points out that sin is brought to light by the law; hence, (because of sin made known) no one can be justified by the law. The giving of the law made known the fact that all men had been and were transgressing Gods standard of righteousness. These transgressions made justification through the law impossible. Looking into our own lives and then into the law we see that we are practicing the very sins spoken against. This being true, is it not absurd to think that we are just through the law? Rom. 3:20

62.

What is the purpose of Rom. 3:10-18?

63.

How do these verses apply with particular force to the Jews?

64.

How was the whole world brought under the wrath of God?

65.

What was the grand conclusion toward which Paul had been leading from Rom. 1:18?

66.

How could one be just under the law?

Rethinking in Outline Form

3.

Needed by AllBoth Jews and Gentiles. Rom. 3:9 b Rom. 3:20

a.

The need of both Jews and Greeks shown from the words of the Old Testament. Rom. 3:9 b Rom. 3:18

(1)

Their sinful state. Rom. 3:10-12

(2)

The practice of sin. Rom. 3:13-17

(a)

The practice of sin through words. Rom. 3:13-14

(b)

The practice of sin through actions. Rom. 3:15-17

b.

All the world has sinned. Not even the Jew can claim exemption from the consequences of his sin, for when the law of Moses denounces those consequences, it speaks especially to the people to whom it was given. The law was so designed that the Jew, too, might have his mouth stopped from all excuse, and that all mankind might be held accountable to God. Rom. 3:19

c.

This is the conclusion of the whole argument. By works of law (i.e., by an attempted fulfillment of law) no mortal may hope to be declared righteous in Gods sight, for the only effect of law is to open mens eyes to their own sinfulness, not to enable them to do better. That method, the method of works, has failed. A new method must be found. Rom. 3:20 (Sandy, p. 76)

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(9) Are we better than they?Can we claim a preference? The form of the Greek verb is peculiar. It seems upon the whole best to take it as middle for active, which would be apparently unexampled, but is tenable as a question of language, and seems to be compelled by the context. There is no real opposition between the by no means of the reply and the much every way of Rom. 3:2. There the reference was to external advantages, here it is to real and essential worth in the sight of God; as much as to say, For all our advantages are we really better?

Proved.Adopt rather the marginal rendering, For we before charged both Jews and Gentiles with being all under sin.

The verses are a striking instance of the way in which the Apostle weaves together passages taken from different sources. It also affords an example of the corruptions in the text of the Old Testament to which this practice gave rise. The whole passage as it stands here is found in some manuscripts of the LXX. as part of Psalms 14, whence it has been copied not only into the Vulgate but also our own Prayer Book, which will be seen to differ from the Bible version.

The quotations have different degrees of appositeness, so far as they may be considered in the modern sense as probative rather than illustrative. The first, from Psalms 14, is couched in such general terms as to be directly in point; the second and third, from Psalms 5, 140, are aimed specially against the oppressors of the Psalmist; and so, too, the fourth, from Psalms 10, but in a more general and abstract form; that from Isaiah indicates the moral degradation among the prophets contemporaries that had led to the Captivity; while the last, from Psalms 36, is an expression applied, not to all men, but particularly to the wicked.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

(9-20) Once more the argument returns to the main track, and at last the Apostle asserts distinctly and categorically what he had already proved indirectly, that the Jew is every whit as bad as the Gentile.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

(e.) And so the Jews are no better than the Gentiles, their own Old Testament being witness CONCLUSION, ALL, UNDER LAW, CONDEMNED, Rom 3:9-20 .

9. What then? The Jew now makes his last desperate effort. Are we Jews, then, any better at all than Gentiles? In advantages and benefits received (Rom 3:1-2) the answer is yes; but as to character and position the apostle returns an inexorable No, in no wise.

Proved Rather, charged. He now proceeds to the proof of the charge by quoting, either verbally or according to sense, a number of the Old Testament passages, showing that Jews are charged on that conclusive authority with a guilt equal to any that can be ascribed to Gentilism. The quotations are from Psalms and Isaiah. (See references.) The passages describe with dark touches the depravity of unregenerate Judaism. And as the first chapter has described that of unregenerate Gentilism, so both together furnish the biblical picture of what man is, apart from divine grace.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘What then? Are we better than they? No, in no way, for we before laid to the charge both of Jews and Greeks, that they are all under sin,’

Those who had been listening to this argument may (at least theoretically) have been beginning to think, well surely this makes us better than those Jews? Paul quashes that idea immediately. ‘What then is our conclusion? Are we better than they? No in no way –.’ And he points out that he has already dealt with such an argument by his earlier charge that both Jew and Gentile are all under sin. All are in the same position. He will now go on to prove this from Scripture.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Both Jew And Gentile Are In The Same Position. All Are Under Sin (3:9-20).

Paul does not want any of his readers to think therefore that this puts them in a better position than the Jews, for as he has already demonstrated they are all ‘under sin’. So he continues to underline that fact by the citing of a miscellany of their own Scriptures, coming finally to the conclusion that the whole world is under judgment, and therefore guilty in the eyes of God.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Law has Declared Both Jews and Gentiles as Sinner Although the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God (Rom 3:1-8), these oracles only declare that all have sinned (Rom 3:9-20). He explains that all men, Jews and Gentiles, are under sin (Rom 3:9). They have a wicked heart (Rom 3:10-12), and speak wicked words from their minds (Rom 3:13-14), and commit deeds of wickedness with their bodies (Rom 3:15-17), because they have no fear of God in their hearts (Rom 3:18). The Law has simply served to reveal man’s sinful nature rather than justify him (Rom 3:19-20).

Rom 3:9 Word Study on “better” We may translate the word “better” as “any better off” ( BDAG, RSV, TEV).

Rom 3:9 “What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise” – Comments – Rom 3:9 is asking if the Jews were any better off than the Gentiles. It can be paraphrased, “Are we Jews trying to hold ourselves above the Gentiles with reference to man’s human nature? Are we Jews thinking that we are superior human beings?” That is, are the Jews better than the Gentiles, having the advantage of hope in God’s covenant (Rom 3:1-2)? The answer is, “No!”

Illustration – We know how the Nazi regime before and during World War II considered themselves a superior race of humans. [161] So, even though the Jews had an advantage (Rom 3:2) by having God’s covenant, they were still not superior human beings.

[161] Joseph R. Widney, Race Life of the Aryan Peoples (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1907).

“for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin” – Comments The Old Testament has proven beforehand that every man is sinful in God’s eyes. Paul follows this statement with citations in Rom 3:10-18 from a number of Old Testament passges: Psa 14:1-3 or Psa 53:1-3, Isa 59:7-8, and Psa 36:1.

Rom 3:12 “They are all gone out of the way” Scripture References – Note:

Mat 7:13-14, “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life , and few there be that find it.”

Joh 14:6, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way , the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

Rom 3:10-12 Old Testament Quotes in the New Testament – Note that the Old Testament quotes in Rom 3:10-12 are not verbatim, but they are instead paraphrased. They are a quote from Psa 14:1-3 or Psa 53:1-3:

Psa 14:1-3, The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one .”

Psa 53:1-3, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good. God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one .”

Ecc 7:20, “For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.”

Rom 3:13  Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:

Rom 3:13 “Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit” – Old Testament Quotes in the New Testament – This is a quote from Psa 5:9, “For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue .”

Rom 3:13 “the poison of asps is under their lips” – Old Testament Quotes in the New Testament – This is a quote from Psa 140:3, “They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders’ poison is under their lips . Selah.”

Rom 3:14  Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:

Rom 3:14 Comments – The word “cursing” means to speak evil upon someone and about someone, or to slander.

Rom 3:14 Old Testament Quotes in the New Testament – This is a quote from Psa 10:7, “ His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud : under his tongue is mischief and vanity.”

Rom 3:15-17 Old Testament Quotes in the New Testament – Rom 3:15-17 are a quote from Isa 59:7-8:

Isa 59:7-8, “ Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood : their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they know not ; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.”

Note that Rom 3:15 is also similar to Pro 1:16:

Pro 1:16, “For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.”

Rom 3:18  There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Rom 3:18 Old Testament Quotes in the New Testament – Rom 3:18 is a quote from Psa 36:1:

Psa 36:1, “The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes .”

Rom 3:19  Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

Rom 3:19 Comments – When God’s Word is spoken, it shows that man has sinned. This is stated in verses 4, 5 and 7. Verse 19 simply adds that the Word, or the Law, of God applies to the Jews also, who are under the law, because they have all sinned (Rom 3:10-18).

Rom 3:20  Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Rom 3:20 Comments – The purpose of the Law is to show that man is sinful by nature. The “knowledge of sin” refers to the “realization of sin.” So, all have to be justified by faith in God (Rom 7:7, Gal 3:19-22).

Rom 7:7, “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.”

Gal 3:19-22, “Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.”

By the law comes the knowledge of sin (Rom 3:20). Paul is about to explain how apart from the Law is the righteousness of God (Rom 3:21).

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Scriptural Proof for the Universal Guilt of Mankind.

Scripture includes all men under sin:

v. 9. What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise; for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin;

v. 10. as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one;

v. 11. there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

v. 12. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one

v. 13. their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips;

v. 14. whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness;

v. 15. their feet are swift to shed blood;

v. 16. destruction and misery are in their ways;

v. 17. and the way of peace have they not known;

v. 18. there is no fear of God before their eyes.

The apostle now, including himself with the Jews, brings out very clearly the general guilt of mankind, of Jews as well as of Gentiles: How now? What is the situation? Have we, as Jews, any preference or advantage over the Gentiles? Have we any better claim to the privileges of the kingdom of God than they? His answer is a decisive: Not at all. The Jews in no way were more excellent than the Gentiles in their relation toward God; for we have before charged Jews as well as Gentiles that all of them are under sin, their condition is one of transgression and guilt. This the apostle had done at length, beginning with chap. 1:18. Polluted by sin and subject to the condemnation of sinners: that is the situation of all men, whether they be Jews or whether they be Gentiles.

These statements Paul now substantiates by a reference to Scripture. What he himself says and writes is in itself the truth, the Word of God. But in order to overcome all opposition in advance, he adds the authority of the Old Testament prophecy to the inspired word of his letter. There is written: It has been written, and it stands there as the eternal truth. The apostle here quotes freely from the Old Testament, Psa 14:1-3; Psa 53:1-6; Psa 5:10; Psa 10:7; Isa 59:7-8; Psa 36:1. He offers the texts in a free translation or according to the Greek version, the Holy Ghost arranging the words of eternal truth to suit the present argument. This method of reasoning, with application of general passages, is altogether legitimate. The prevalence of certain acts and crimes in a people may well be taken as a manifestation of the national character. It is a terrible arraignment of mankind which is here offered. There is not that is righteous, not even one; the universality of sin is flatly stated. There is not an understanding man, one with real sense and wisdom in religion. There is not one that seeketh God, that uses zeal and diligence in finding the Lord. They have become estranged from God, and are now totally indifferent to His will and worship. All have turned away, out of the right and proper course which the will of God has shown; altogether they have become unprofitable, worthless, good for nothing, so far as spiritual matters are concerned. Not is there any that doeth goodness. not so much as one.

This depravity of men is manifested in their speech as well as in all their actions. A widely opened grave is their throat: they breathe forth death, they have in mind only to do injury with their tongues. With their tongues they deceive: they make smooth their tongues, they flatter, they speak treacherously, deceitfully. The poison of asps is under their lips: in the midst of all their feigned friendliness and flattery they have evil, treacherous intentions, to inflict suffering delights their malignant soul. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, and they do not stop with maledictions and blasphemy, but continue in their course with sins of violence. Swift are their feet to shed blood: they are eager, they cannot wait, they find their delight in taking their neighbor’s life: wherever they can harm their neighbor in body and life, they seize the opportunity with murderous joy. Destruction and misery are in their ways: their path through life is marked by poor unfortunate people whom they have trodden under foot and plunged into grief. And the way of peace they have not learned to know: a manner of living by which they might dispense peace, salvation, blessings, has never engaged their serious attention. There is no fear of God before their eyes: that is the cause of their entire depravity; the absence of the fear of God, of reverence, of piety, is shown in their entire life and in all their deeds. A person that has the fear of God in his heart and the picture of God before the eyes of his mind will make every effort to lead a life in accordance with His will. Thus St. Paul has given a complete description of natural man’s depravity, a picture which holds true at the present time just as it did several thousand years ago. Of man as he left the Creator’s hand, with the imprint of the divine image on his reason and will, there is left only a caricature, which fills the heart of the beholder with shuddering and horror.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Rom 3:9. What then?Are we better than they? The Apostle having given the Jew leave to put in his objections, in reference to what would disgust him most,the rejection of the Jews; and having given such answers as he thought proper at present,now returns to the main point, namely, to prove that the Gentiles have as good a right to the privileges and blessings of God’s covenant as the Jews; which he introduces very properly by putting this question into the Jew’s mouth; What then? Are we better than the Gentiles? which by the way makes it clear, that in his arguments he considers the Jews and Gentiles in a body, or collective capacity, and that he is arguingfor a justification agreeable to such a capacity; namely, by which the believing Gentiles were taken into the church, when the unbelieving Jews were cast out. For this point, whether Jews, or how far Jews were better than Gentiles, or had a better claim to the blessings and privileges of the kingdom of God, is the very subject upon which he is disputing; and in this extensive collective sense, all his arguments and conclusions are to be understood. He says, we have before proved,namely, chap. Rom 2:3 where, under the gentler compellation of O man! he charges the Jews with being sinners, as well as the Gentiles, and Rom 3:17-24 shews, that by having the law, they were no more kept from being sinners, than the Gentiles were without the law: and his charge against them that they were sinners, he reproves from the testimony of their own sacred books contained in the Old Testament. See Locke.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Rom 3:9 . When Paul, in Rom 3:6-8 , has defended the righteousness of God as decreeing wrath (Rom 3:5 ) in the face of the proposition, correct in itself, that human sin turns out to God’s glory, he has thereby also deprived the sinner of all the defence , which he might derive from the misapplication of that proposition. This position of the case, as it results from Rom 3:6-8 ( ), he now expresses, and that in the lively form of an interrogation, here accompanied by a certain triumph: What then? Are we in the position to apply a defence for ourselves? We cannot therefore with most expositors (including Tholuck, Philippi, Bisping) assume that Paul here reverts to Rom 3:1 .

That the punctuation should not be ; (as it is given by Oecumenius, l, Koppe, Th. Schott) is plain from the answer, which is not . but . And that in adopting the general inclusive form Paul speaks from the standpoint of the Jewish consciousness, and not in the person of the Christians (Hofmann), is apparent from the context both before (see Rom 3:3 ; Rom 3:5 ; Rom 3:7 ) and after ( ., and see Rom 3:19 ).

] sc [764] (Act 21:22 ; 1Co 14:15 ; 1Co 14:26 ), what takes place then? how is then the state of the case? Compare Rom 6:15 , Rom 11:7 ; frequent in classical writers; comp on Rom 3:3 ; Rom 3:5 .

] Do we put forward (anything) in our defence? Is it the case with us, that something serves us as a defence, that can secure us against the punitive righteousness of God? , which in the active form means to hold before, to have in advance, to bring forward , and intransitively to be prominent , also to excel (see Wetstein, also Reiche, Comment. crit. I. p. 24), has in the middle simply the signification to hold before oneself, to have before oneself , either in the proper sense, e.g. of holding forth spears for defence (Hom. Il. xvii. 355), or of having oxen in front ( Od. iii. 8), or of holding in front the ram’s head (Herod. ii. 42), etc., or in the ethical sense: to put forward , , to apply something for one’s own defence , as in Soph. Ant. 80: , Thuc. i. 140, 5 and Krger in loc [766] , and also Valckenaer, a [767] fr. Callim. p. 227. More frequent in Greek writers is the form , in this sense, as e.g. Thuc. i. 26, 2. Compare also , Herod. vi. 117, viii. 3; Herodian, iv. 14, 3; Dem. in Schol. Hermog. p. 106, 16 : . This sense of the word is therefore rightly urged by Hemsterhuis, Venema, Koppe, Benecke, Fritzsche (“ utimurne praetextu? ”), Krehl, Ewald, Morison; compare also Th. Schott. This explanation is the only one warranted by linguistic usage, [768] as well as suited to the connection (see above). The most usual rendering (adopted by Tholuck, Kllner, de Wette, Rckert, Baumgarten-Crusius, Philippi, Baur, Umbreit, Jatho, and Mangold) is that of the Peschito and Vulgate ( praecellimus eos? ), and of Theophylact: . , . Compare Theodoret: ; Philippi: “Have we any advantage for ourselves?” and now also Hofmann (who held the right view formerly in his Schriftbew . I. p. 501): “Do we raise ourselves above those, upon whom God decrees His judgment of wrath?” But the mere usus loquendi , affording not a single instance of the middle employed with the signification antecellere, raising oneself above, surpassing , or the like, decisively condemns this usual explanation in its different modifications. [769] And would not the answer , in whatever sense we take it, so long as agreeably to the context we continue to understand as the subject the Jewish , not the Christian we (as Hofmann takes it), be at variance with the answer given in Rom 3:2 ? The shifts of expositors to escape this inconsistency (the usual one being that Paul here means subjective advantages in respect of justification, while in Rom 3:2 he treats of objective theocratic advantages) are forced expedients, which, not at all indicated by any clause of more precise definition on the part of Paul himself, only cast suspicion on the explanation. Wetstein, Michaelis, Cramer, Storr, and recently Matthias, take . as the passive: are surpassed: “Stand we (at all) at a disadvantage? Are we still surpassed by the Gentiles?” Compare Xen. Anab. iii. 2, 19; Plut. Mor. p. 1038 C. But how could this question be logically inferred from the foregoing without the addition of other thoughts? And in what follows it is not the sinful equality of the Gentiles with the Jews, but that of the Jews with the Gentiles which is made conspicuous. See also Rom 3:19 . Mehring, in thorough opposition to the context, since not a single hint of a transition to the Gentiles is given, makes the question (comp Oecumenius, 2), and that in the sense “Are we at a disadvantage?” be put into the mouth even of a Gentile .

] Vulgate: nequaquam ; Theophylact: . This common rendering (compare the French point de tout ) is, in accordance with the right explanation of , the only proper one. The expression, instead of which certainly might have been used (1Co 16:12 ), is quite analogous to the , where it means in no wise , [771] as in Xen. Mem. iii. 1, 11; Anab. i. 8, 14; Herodian, vi. 5, 11; Dem. Ol. iii. 21; Plat. Lach. p. 189 C; Lucian, Tim. 24 (see Hartung, Partikell . II. p. 87), so that the negative is not transposed, and yet it does not cancel the idea of the adverb, but on the contrary is strengthened by the adverb. By this means the emphatic affirmation, which would have been given by the alone, is changed into the opposite. [772] Compare Winer, p. 515 f. [E. T. 693]. The comparison with (Buttmann, neut. Gr. p. 334) is utterly foreign, since the expression is a pure Greek one. Compare Theognis, 305, Bekker: (by no means) . Ep. ad Diogn. 9 : (by no means rejoicing) , . Perfectly similar is also the Homeric , decidedly not ; see Ngelsbach on the Iliad , p. 146, Exo 3 ; Duncan, Lex. Hom. ed. Rost, p. 888. Compare , Herod. v. 34, 65. The explanation, on which van Hengel also insists: not altogether , not in every respect (Grotius, Wetstein, Morus, Flatt, Kllner, Matthias, Umbreit, Mehring and Mangold), as in 1Co 5:10 , fails to tally with the true explanation of and the unrestricted character of the following proof.

] namely, not just from Rom 3:5 onward (Hofmann), but, in accordance with the following . , in Rom 2:1 ff. as to the Jews , and in Rom 1:18 ff. as to the Gentiles . [773] It is therefore as in Rom 1:5 and frequently elsewhere, the plural of the author , not: we Christians (Hofmann). As to the construction, may either be joined as an adjective to . . . . , or as a substantive to the infinitive, in either case expressing the idea of all collectively, nemine excepto . The latter mode of connection is preferable, because it gives a more marked prominence to the idea of totality, which harmonises with the following Rom 3:10-12 . Hence: we have before brought the charge against Jews and Gentiles, that all , etc. Comp Hofmann and Morison. There is elsewhere no instance of the compound . ; the Greeks use .

. ] They are while still unregenerate, a more precise definition that is self-evident all under sin , an expression denoting not merely a state of sin in general, but moral dependence on the power of sin. Compare Rom 7:25 ; Gal 3:22 . But if this be the case with Jews and Gentiles (not merely on the Gentile side), then the Jew, after the way of escape indicated in Rom 3:5 has been cut off by Rom 3:6-8 , has no defence left to him as respects his liability to punishment any more than the Gentile. [775] Accordingly the idea of liability to punishment is not yet expressed in . , but is meant only to be inferred from it.

[764] c. scilicet .

[766] n loc. refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.

[767] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.

[768] Also adopted by Valck. Schol. in Luc. p. 258. Still he would read and take . together. But the absolute position of ., which has been made an objection to our explanation (Rckert, Tholuck, de Wette, Philippi, Hofmann), does not affect it, since all verbs, if the object be self-evidently implied in the idea itself, may be used so that we can mentally supply a (Winer, p. 552 [E. T. 742]). And the subjunctive , which van Hengel also regards as necessary with our view, is not required; the indicative makes the question more definite and precise (Winer, p. 267 [E. T. 354]). Ewald likewise reads (subjunctive); but expunges afterwards, and takes interrogatively, “ What shall we now put forward in defence? did we not already, at the outset, prove altogether that Jews ,” etc. But the omission of is only supported by D*. Van Hengel despairs of a proper explanation, and regards the text as corrupt.

[769] Reiche (and similarly Olshausen) retains the same exposition in his exegetical Commentary; but takes . as passive, are preferred , referring in support of his view to Plut. de Stoic. contrad . 13 ( Mor. p. 1038 C), where, however, in , the meaning of this is becoming surpassed . In his Commentar. crit. I. p. 26 ff., he has passed over to the linguistically correct rendering praetexere , but understands nevertheless the first person of Paul himself, and that in the sense: “ num Judaeis peccandi praetextum porrigo? ” But the middle means invariably to hold something (for protection) before oneself; as also, by which Hesychius properly explains the word, always refers to the subject, which excuses itself by a pretext.

[771] Those passages where negatives with a certain subtlety or ironical turn ( not quite , not just ), are not cases here in point; see Schoemann, ad Is. p. 276.

[772] Bengel: “Judaeus diceret , at Paulus contradicit .”

[773] Paul however does not say Gentiles and Jews , but the converse, because here again, as in previous cases where both are grouped together (in the last instance Rom 2:9 f.), he has before his mind the divine historical order, which in the very point of sinfulness tells against the Jew the more seriously.

[775] For statements of Greek writers regarding the universality, without any exception, of sin see Spiess, Logos spermat . p. 220 f.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

9 What then? are we better than they ? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;

Ver. 9. That they are all under sin ] Whole evil is in man, and whole man in evil. Homo est inversus decalogus. Man by nature is no better than a filthy dunghill of all abominable vices. His heart is the devil’s storehouse, throne, nest. His eyes great thoroughfares of lust, pride, vanity, &c. His life a long chain of sinful actions, a web of wickedness spun out and made up by the hands of the devil and the flesh, an evil spinner, and a worse weaver. (Mr Whately’s New Birth.)

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

9 20. ] The Jew has no preference, but is guilty as well as the Gentile, as shewn by Scripture; so that no man can by the law be righteous before God .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

9. ] cannot be joined with (c [12] , &c.), because would then have been the answer.

[12] cumenius of Tricca in Thrace, Cent y . XI.?

There is considerable difficulty in . The meaning of every where else is passive , ‘to be surpassed,’ and , act., is to surpass, or have the pre-eminence. So Plut. p. 1038 D (Wetst.), , ‘cum Jove minores non sint:’ and Herod, i. 32, , , &c. (see Wetst.) Those therefore who have wished to preserve the usage of the word, have variously interpreted it in that attempt: ( ) Wetst. would render it passively, and understand it (as spoken by a Jew) ‘ Are we surpassed by the Gentiles ?’ But (1) for this inference there is no ground in what went before, but the contrary (Rom 3:1 ff.), and (2) the question if it mean this, is not dealt with in what follows. ( ) cum. (2nd altern.) regards it as said by a Gentile, ‘ Are we surpassed by the Jews ?’ but for this question there is no ground in the preceding, for all has tended to lower the Jews in comparison and reduce all to one level. ( ) Reiche and Olsh. take it passively, and render, ‘ Are we preferred ( by God )?’ but no example of this meaning occurs, the above use in Plutarch not justifying it. ( ) Koppe and Wahl render, taking it as the middle voice, ‘ What can we then allege ( as an excuse )?’ but this will not suit . ( ) Meyer, ‘ What then, have we an excuse ?’ but . has not this meaning. ( ) Fritzsche, ‘ What then? do we excuse ourselves (i.e. shall we make any excuse)?’ But (1) . is put absolutely ; and (2) the answer would rather be than , which replies to a question on matter of fact . Besides (3) the argument would then go to shew, not that all are sinners, as it does , Rom 3:10-20 , but that all are liable to God’s wrath, without excuse , ( ) The only way left seems (with Theophyl., c [13] (1st altern.), Schol. in Mattha, Pelag., Vulg., Erasm., Luther, Calv., Beza, Grot., Bengel, Tholuck, Kllner, Schrader, De Wette, al.) to take as middle, and understand it as Have we (Jews) the (any) preference ? We have an use of as active, Act 19:24 , Tit 2:7 . See also Winer, edn. 6, 38. 5.

[13] cumenius of Tricca in Thrace, Cent y . XI.?

] No, by no means . This would more naturally be , see reff. But we have for ‘not at all,’ Herod. v. 34. The meaning ‘not in every way,’ ‘not altogether,’ as 1Co 5:10 and Theophr. de Caus. Plant. vi.24(Wetst.), , , will not apply, for it does not agree with what follows, where the Apostle proves absolute equality in respect of his argument.

. ] we have before proved (chs. 1. 2.) both Jews and Gentiles all to be under sin ; the construction is not acc. and inf., that Jews and Gentiles are under sin, but . is acc. after the verb, and . the matter of the charge, q. d. ‘we have before brought in guilty Jews and Gentiles all as sinners.’

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Rom 3:9-20 . In these verses the Apostle completes his proof of the universality of sin, and of the liability of all men, without exception, to judgment. The of Rom 3:9 brings back the argument from the digression of Rom 3:1-8 . In those verses he has shown that the historical prerogative of the Jews, as the race entrusted with the oracles of God, real and great as it is, does not exempt them from the universal rule that God will reward every man according to his works (Rom 2:6 ): here, according to the most probable interpretation of , he puts himself in the place of his fellow-countrymen, and imagines them asking, “Are we surpassed? Is it the Gentiles who have the advantage of us, instead of our having the advantage of them?”

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Rom 3:9 . ; What then? i.e. , how, then, are we to understand the situation? It is necessary to take these words by themselves, and make a separate question: the answer to could not be , but must be . The meaning of has been much discussed. The active means to excel or surpass. Many have taken as middle in the same sense: So the Vulg. praecellimus eos? and the A.V. “Are we better than they?” But this use, except in interpreters of this verse, cannot be proved. The ordinary meaning of the middle would be “to put forward on one’s own account, as an excuse, or defence”. This is the rendering in the margin of the R.V. “Do we excuse ourselves?” If could be taken together, it might certainly be rendered, What then is our plea? but it is impossible to take in this sense without an object, and impossible, as already explained, to make this combination. The only alternative is to regard as passive: What then? are we excelled? This is the meaning adopted in the R.V. “Are we in worse case than they?” It is supported by Lightfoot. Wetstein quotes one example from Plut. de Stoic. contrad. , 1038 D.: , : “who are in nothing surpassed by Zeus”. The word would thus express the surprise of the Jew at seeing his prerogatives disappear; “if this line of argument be carried further,” he may be supposed to say, “the relative positions of Jew and Gentile will turn out to be the very reverse of what we have believed”. This is the idea which is negatived in . Strictly speaking, the should modify , and the meaning be “not in every respect”: in some respects (for instance, the one referred to in Rom 3:2 ), a certain superiority would still belong to the Jew. But to allude to this seems irrelevant, and there is no difficulty in taking the words to mean, “No: not in any way”. See Winer, p. 693 f. “We are not surpassed at all, we who are Jews, for we have already brought against Jews and Greeks alike the charge of being all under sin.” , cf. Rom 7:14 , Gal 3:22 . The idea is that of being under the power of sin, as well as simply sinful: men are both guilty and unable to escape from that condition.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Rom 3:9-18

9What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; 10as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one; 11There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; 12All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one.” 13″Their throat is an open grave, With their tongues they keep deceiving,” “The poison of asps is under their lips”; 14″Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness”; 15″Their feet are swift to shed blood, 16Destruction and misery are in their paths, 17And the path of peace they have not known.” 18″There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Rom 3:9 “Are we better than they” The grammar at this point is ambiguous. It is obvious that the main truth of this passage is that all humanity is in need of God’s grace (cf. Rom 3:9; Rom 3:19; Rom 3:23; Rom 11:32; Gal 3:22). However, it is uncertain whether the specific reference was to Jews (Paul and his kinsmen, cf. TEV, RSV) or Christians (Paul and fellow believers apart from the grace of God). Jews did have some advantages (cf. Rom 3:1-2; Rom 9:4-5), but these advantages make them even more responsible (cf. Luk 12:48)! All humans are spiritually lost and in need of God’s grace.

The term “better” is understood by a minority of scholars as passive voice instead of middle (“better off”), resulting in the translation “excelled by” or “disadvantaged by.”

Romans is often said to be the most locally neutral of Paul’s letters. Most of Paul’s letters address a local need or crises (occasional documents). However, the jealousy between believing Jewish leaders and believing Gentile leaders in the church at Rome may be in the background of Romans 1-3, 9-11.

“for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin” This verb (aorist middle [deponent] indicative) is found only here in the NT. Paul is referring to his sustained argument of Rom 1:18 to Rom 2:29.

“under sin” Paul personifies “sin” (Jerome Biblical Commentary, p. 300) as a cruel taskmaster over fallen humanity (cf. Rom 6:16-23).

Rom 3:10-18 “as it is written” This phrase also occurs in Rom 3:4. The following statements are a series of OT quotes using metaphors of the human body to emphasize the fallenness of mankind.

1. Rom 3:10-12, Ecc 7:20 or Psa 14:1-3

2. v.13, Psa 5:9; Psa 140:3

3. v.14, Psa 10:7

4. Rom 3:15-17, Isa 59:7-8 and Pro 1:16

5. v.18, Psa 36:1

It is surprising that Paul did not use Isa 53:6.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

are . . . they? = have we any advantage? or, have we any excuse to put forward? Gr. proecho. Only here; may be mid, or pass, voice.

No, in no wise = Not (Greek. ou. App-105) at all (Greek. pantos).

before proved = before convicted. Greek. proaitiaomai. Only here. Compare Rom 1:21.

Gentiles = Greeks. See Rom 2:9.

that they are = to be.

all Emph.

under. Greek. hupo. App-104.

sin. Greek. hamartia. App-128. Sin is the root, and “sins” are the fruit.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

9-20.] The Jew has no preference, but is guilty as well as the Gentile, as shewn by Scripture; so that no man can by the law be righteous before God.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Rom 3:9. What then? are we better than they?

The first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans contains so horrible an account of the manners of the Gentiles, the heathen of Pauls day, that it is one of the most painful chapters in Scripture to read. Not long ago, one of our missionaries, out in China, was attacked concerning the Bible on this very ground. One of the learned men said to him, This Bible of yours cannot be as ancient as you say that it is, for it is quite clear that the next chapter of the Epistle to the Nomads must have been written by somebody who had been in China, and who had seen the habits and ways of the people here, so accurate is the Holy Spirit, who knew right well what the ways and manners and secret vices of the heathen were, and still are. But the Jews said, Ah, but this is a description of the Gentiles. So Paul replies, What then? are we better than they?

Rom 3:9-10. No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentile, that they are all under sin; as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

Then he selects passages out of different parts of Scripture to show what man is by nature.

Rom 3:11-18. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher, with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in their ways: and the way of peace have they not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes.

These are all quotations from Old Testament Scriptures, from their own psalmists and prophets, from whom Paul quotes to the Jews so that they might see what their own character was by nature.

Rom 3:19. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

The law was given to the Jews, and the descriptions which it gives must be descriptions of the Jews Therefore, says Paul, as Gentile mouths have been already stopped by the descriptions of their vices, you also, the favored people of God, have your mouths stopped by the descriptions of yourselves taken from your own prophets.

Rom 3:20. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh

Whether Jew or Gentile,

Rom 3:20-21. Be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now

Since man is lost, since man is guilty,

Rom 3:21-27. The righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets: even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then?

If salvation is given to the guilty, and if all are guilty, if no one can claim exemption, and yet salvation is freely given, what then? Why, salvation must be purely by the grace of God; so let grace have all the honour. Where is boasting then?

Rom 3:27. It is excluded. By what law of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.

The law of works sometimes aids boasting, for a man rejoices and glories in what he has done; yet the law of works ought to stop our boasting because we are guilty in Gods sight. The law of faith does stop our mouth, because we are under obligation to God, and do not dare to boast, seeing that we have nothing of good but what we have received from God.

This exposition consisted of readings from Rom 3:9-27; Rom 5:6-11; Rom 8:1-32.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

Rom 3:9. ; what then?) He resumes the question with which he began at Rom 3:1.-;) have we any advantage as compared with the Gentiles?- [35]) the Jew would say : but Paul contradicts him. In the beginning of this passage, he speaks gently (for, in other places, where is used, cannot be substituted for it; and in this passage the expression, by no means [, had it been used], would take away the concession which he made to them at Rom 3:2); but he afterwards speaks with greater severity.-) we have proved, before that I had mentioned the peculiar privilege of the Jews. Paul deals, in Chapters 1 and 2, as a stern Administrator [Procurator] of divine justice; but yet he was unwilling to use the singular number. By the plural number, he expresses the assent of his believing readers: , all the Jews [as well as] all the Greeks.- ) denotes subjection, as if under the tyranny of sin.

[35] Beng. seems to translate not altogether; quite different from in no wise.-ED.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Rom 3:9

Rom 3:9

What then?-[The whole course of thought from the discussion (Rom 1:18) is looked at, as much as to say: How does the question about sin now stand ?]

are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we before laid to the charge both of Jews and Greeks, that they are all under sin;-Greater privileges and advantages had been bestowed upon the Jews on account of the possession of the oracles of God, given them on account of the faith of their fathers; but they had forfeited the privileges thereby granted on account of their sins, and were equally with the Gentiles under sin.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

All Justly under Judgment

Rom 3:9-20

A number of quotations are advanced-mostly from the Septuagint or Greek version of the Old Testament-establishing the hopeless evil of mans condition. These apply, in the first place, to Gods peculiar people, the Jews; but if true of them, how terrible must be the condition of the great heathen world! Every mouth will be stopped and all the world brought in guilty before God, Rom 3:19. Various organs of the body are enumerated, and in each ease some terrible affirmation is made of inbred depravity. What need for salvation! What can atone for such sin, or cleanse such hearts, save the redeeming grace of God?

Law here is obviously employed in the wide sense of conscience as well as Scripture. It is Gods ideal held up before our faces, to show us from what we have fallen. The looking-glass is intended, not to wash the face, but to show how much it needs washing. You may commend your soap, and no one will use it; but if you reveal the discoloring filth, people will be only too glad to avail themselves of the cleansing power which otherwise they would neglect and despise. The way to fill the inquiry room is to hold up the divine standard before mens consciences.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

sin

Sin. (See Scofield “Rom 3:23”).

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

what then: Rom 3:5, Rom 6:15, Rom 11:7, 1Co 10:19, 1Co 14:15, Phi 1:18

are we: Rom 3:22, Rom 3:23, Isa 65:5, Luk 7:39, Luk 18:9-14, 1Co 4:7

proved: Gr. charged, Rom 1:28-32, Rom 2:1-16

that they: Gal 3:10, Gal 3:22

Reciprocal: Gen 6:5 – God Gen 19:13 – Lord hath 1Ki 19:4 – better Job 15:16 – abominable Psa 36:2 – until Ecc 7:10 – wisely Ecc 7:29 – they Eze 16:51 – Samaria Mat 7:11 – being Mat 7:13 – for Luk 1:6 – righteous Joh 3:7 – Ye Act 15:9 – put Rom 3:19 – and all the Rom 11:32 – God Gal 2:15 – sinners Gal 6:13 – keep Eph 2:3 – we Tit 3:3 – we 1Jo 5:19 – and the

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Sin and Salvation

Rom 3:9-25

INTRODUCTORY WORDS

The Word of God never belittles sin. Sin, to God, is heinous. It is black, without one ray of white. Sin to God is exceeding sinful. There is nothing in it but sorrow and shame and suffering.

There are some who try to excuse their sin, inasmuch as they were born in sin, and therefore inherited a sinful nature. This is wrong. We dare have no pity toward that which would wreck and ruin us.

Sin may be painted in the brightest of colors; it may be draped in the most marvelous of robes, but sin is always sin. Covering its ugliness does not lessen its power. Satan with artistic brush may paint sin with rosy hue until it shall appear full of glory, but it is like the colors of the asp; it does not lessen the venom of its sting.

When the serpent approached Eve, it was the most beautiful of creatures, but it led to the wreckage of the race.

Let all, young and old, be warned. Never compromise with sin. Never speak of a good sin, and a bad sin; for all are bad. Do not be willing to fellowship with those sins which appeal to your carnal nature. God has said, “Abstain from all appearance of evil.”

We need to look beyond sin in its infancy and behold sin in its full growth. That which seems, at first, but a trifle, will prove itself ultimately to be deadly and damnable. He who plays with sin plays with dynamite.

Dr. Alexander MacLaren says, “I remember away up in the lonely Highland Valley, where, beneath a tall, black cliff, all weather worn and cracked and seamed, there lies at the foot, resting on the green sward that creeps around its base, a huge rock that is fallen from the face of the precipice.” A shepherd had once passed beneath that rock as it first lay high up in the mountain side; then, suddenly, it rent itself from its bed and leaped down, pinning the man beneath it. So it is with sin. In a moment of unexpectant fury, it too will sweep its way against the artless man who was willing to trust in its shadow.

I. THE WHOLE WORLD GUILTY UNDER SIN (Rom 3:19)

It is folly for the sons of men to evade the issue-all are sinners and, therefore, all stand guilty before God. To deny the fact of sin does not lessen the fact. To cover sin does not remove sin. Adam and Eve sought to cover their nakedness with fig leaves, however, their robing was rejected by God. What man covers, God uncovers.

There is no use to cavil. All the world stands guilty before God. No man can stand requited of his sin. The sentence of judgment must fall. Over the head of every son of Adam is written the verdict, “guilty.” “He that believeth not is condemned already.” He does not need to wait the sentence of the Great White Throne. That last great and final assize is not set to proclaim guilt, it is set that every sinner may receive judgment according to his deeds. The fact of guilt is already certain; the sentence of punishment, alone, awaits the full fruition of each sinner’s sin. The wicked are like men shut up in the death row, awaiting the hour when their final lot shall be made known.

The judge on the bench of this world may pronounce “death” on the electric chair, further he cannot go; the Judge on the Great White Throne passes on beyond the powers of the earthly judge, and pronounces the punishment that lies in the great forevermore.

The sinner stands guilty before God. He stands with his mouth stopped, with no word to utter, no plea to make. He dare not come with an array of lawyers, or with an accumulation of excuses. He merely stands guilty, awaiting the hour when judgment shall be spoken and he shall receive according to the extent of his deeds.

II. THE SWEEP AND SWAY OF SIN (Rom 3:10-18)

When sin entered into the world, what wreckage it wrought! God said to Eve, “What is this that thou hast done?” Eve did not know the entail of her sin-God knew. In our Scripture for today we have a view of the sweep and sway of sin. Sin may at times seem to lie dormant. The sinner may not appear so bad. The story of sin may be almost roseate in its view. The awful revelation of sin’s fruitage, as set forth in this text, is not, therefore, always manifest.

Sin may be chained, hedged in; it may even be decked and draped with white raiment, but sin is still heinous sin.

Our Scripture describes sin unveiled, in its real character and harvest. The vine may be pruned, its limbs cut down, until only a small stock remains. Nevertheless when the sap begins to rise the vine will put forth its leaves, send forth its shoots, and bear its fruit. Sin may be pruned, lopped off, cut away, but so long as the heart is the covert in which it dwells it will ever seek to bud and bloom and grow.

Truly, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” From it comes forth all uncleanness. Who can know it?

It is the same with the Jew as with the Gentile; with the cultured as with the unlearned; with women as with men-all alike are gone out of the way.

III. THE WAGES OF SIN (Rom 6:23)

Sin pays its wages not in coin, but in enduring miseries. We are living in a day of decreased wages, and many are the complaints that escape the lips of the employed. There is, however, one place where the present-day depression has not hit; one place where wages have not slumped-the wages of sin are the same.

Sin pays its wages now. One criminal said, “I have been twice in State’s prison, but my worst punishment is in being what I am.” Sin pays off in death to every hope; it plays havoc with every holy dream. Sin takes the light out of the eye, the clearness out of the brain, the joy out of the life.

God does not always pay the sinner off in this life. Sometimes the wicked flourish like a green bay tree. They are not in trouble like other men. God, in patience, holds back the curse. Finally, however, the wicked will be cast into hell, and all nations which forget God. How will they be cast down as in a moment! How will they be utterly consumed with terrors!

Beware of sin, Did you ever watch a fly as it lighted upon the “fly paper,” thinking to have its fill of sweets? When, however, it sought to fly, it found itself caught in the meshes of the sticky paper. The harder it tried to fly, the more and more was it held fast with leg and wing. So is sin. It is illusive. It, outwardly, carries an appeal to the flesh, but it soon encloses its victims in the unrelentless arms of its strength,

The wages of sin are certain,

Each one will, in full, be paid;

No “cut” in its wage awaits you,

Full pay will be surely made.

IV. THE SINNER’S ONLY HOPE (Rom 3:20-25)

1. The Law cannot save. The Law is holy and just and good, but the Law is made helpless, as a Saviour, because it is made broken and lame by man’s sin. The Law affords safety to the righteous, and to the holy alone; it offers peace only to those who obey it. To those who transgress its precepts it brings nothing but wrath.

2. Faith can save. Faith proffers no self-merit; it clings to the merit of Christ. Faith admits, “I cannot,” but it assents, “God can.” Faith meets the demand of the Law, because it clothes the believer with the righteousness of Christ. Before God’s righteousness the Law has no complaint to offer. Faith admits man’s guilt, but it robes the guilty in God’s linen, clean and white.

3. Grace provides the redemption. We are justified freely by God’s Grace. Faith could not operate apart from God and Grace as faith would have had no channel in which to run, no foundation on which to build.

God, being rich in Grace, showed faith the way. Grace provides the meal, faith partakes of the food, Grace grows the fruit, faith plucks it. Grace opens the door, faith enters in.

4. The Blood of Christ provided for the remission of sins. The Blood became the propitiation, the mercy seat, where Grace and faith may meet. Neither the Grace of God, nor the faith of the sinner, could have availed apart from the Cross of Christ. Before we could be allowed by Grace through faith to wear the robe of God’s righteousness, man’s sin had to be satisfied in such a manner that God’s justice would be sustained.

Not at the sacrifice of honor, and truth, and legal requirements, could God save the sinner. God could not forgive without there being a ground for forgiveness. God could not reckon the unholy as holy, or the unrighteous as righteous, until He had made atonement full and replete for our sins.

On the Cross of Calvary was grace sufficient

All our sins and guilt to satisfy:

Yet, the Cross of Christ becomes to us efficient

When by faith we do on Christ rely,

There it was, on Calvary, Christ died for sinners,

There He set the sin-bound captive free;

There He was made sin, that we might be made righteous;

Yet, we must believe if we would righteous be,

V. LET NOT SIN REIGN (Rom 6:12)

This study is upon regnant sin. It is not sin in, but sin reigning that is up for consideration. It would be a blessed state if we could be done forever with the carnal nature. An enemy, inside the city walls, is ever dangerous. For our part we will rejoice when we enter the New Jerusalem where nothing of sin can be found. The present world is dominated by Satan and by sin, it is a sorry world on that account.

It will be glory, when the last vestige of sin is gone from the heart and life of the saint. In this body we groan. The old man seems ever to hang around. The fact of sin’s presence we cannot doubt. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

Of one thing, however, we are assured-we are commanded not to let sin reign in our mortal body. Sin cannot have power over us. If we walk in the Spirit, we shall not fulfill the desires of the flesh.

Regnant sin, in a believer, contradicts every spiritual blessing which God has provided. In the unbeliever sin always reigns unto death. This cannot be true in the believer.

If sin is a welcomed “guest” in the heart, it will set the house afire; it will wreck its abode; it will work out death. Sin in the heart must be, to the believer, a person “non grata”-not wanted, not recognized, not obeyed.

The believer should live as though sin were not there. He should reckon himself alive to his new man, and dead to every pulsing of the old man. He should give no heed, no quarter, to the promptings of the flesh.

The Cross of Christ has made us free from sin’s penalty; the risen Christ has made us free from sin’s power. Shall we who, potentially, died to sin in His death, and are made free from sin in His resurrection, continue to sin? God forbid! “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”

Dead to sin, to selfish pride

Dead-with Christ I’m crucified;

Made alive-in Christ to be

Sanctified, from sin set free.

VI. THE PLACE OF NO CONDEMNATION (Rom 8:1)

The seventh chapter of Romans closes with a most pitiable wail. That wail discloses the despair of a life that has met defeat. Listen to its cry: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Such is the cry of every soul who, unimpowered, seeks to meet the demands of God’s righteous Law. The ethics of Christ are too high, too holy for the flesh. The requirements of the Law are far beyond the reach of the natural man.

Shall we, then, weep out our defeat forever? God forbid! There is a way out; it is a God-provided way. From the moans of defeat, we pass, in Romans seven, in one breath, to the shouts of victory. Here is the shout: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The result is that the place of “no condemnation” is found. The “no condemnation” of our theme is not a “no condemnation” from God. The expression refers to the believer himself. He has passed from a sense of defeat, into a place of conscious victory. In Romans seven the cry is one of self despair; in Romans eight, the shout is one of self-freedom from despair.

How was the change wrought? One verse says, “Through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The next phrase says, “Them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

The flesh could not attain victory over captivity to sin; the Lord gives the believer victory through the Spirit.

Victory is realized only when we walk in the Spirit. If we walk after the flesh, we shall be defeated; if we walk after the Spirit, we shall be victorious. If we walk after the flesh, we cannot fulfill the righteous requirements of the Law; if we walk in the Spirit, those requirements are fully met The flesh minds the things of the flesh, the Spirit minds the things of the Spirit. The flesh cannot be subject to the Law; the Spirit is always subject. The flesh cannot please God, the Spirit always pleases Him. The flesh only produces death, the Spirit produces life and peace.

There can be no life of victory apart from a Spirit-filled, Spirit-led life.

There is a place of victory

Made certain and complete

There is a place which knows no sin

And suffers no defeat;

That place is found in Christ, for those

Who do the Spirit own,

‘Tis realized by all the saints

Who walk in Him, alone.

VII. THE CULMINATING PLEA (Rom 12:1-2)

After leaving the place of victory and of glorious peace in Romans eight, the Holy Spirit gives us words relative to Israel. Then, in chapter twelve, He presents His great plea to all saints. Here is the plea: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice * * unto God.”

The “therefore” of this verse links us on to all that goes before. It is as though God had said, “Ye were sinners;” “Ye are Blood-bought and Blood-washed”; “Ye are saved by Grace;” “Ye are given victory through the Lord Jesus Christ-THEREFORE PRESENT YOUR BODIES.” How can we do less?

Gratitude should cause every one of us to yield ourselves unto God, and our members as instruments of righteousness unto God. If He has given us life in Christ Jesus, we should gladly give that life in service unto Him. If we have been ministered unto, we should minister.

Jesus Christ, on the Cross, gave Himself a sacrifice, in death, unto us. Let us give ourselves, in life, a sacrifice unto Him. This is holy and acceptable unto God.

Consecration calls for concentration of all that we are and have. It should be complete, and not partial.

We cannot say to God, “I will go with Thee anywhere, but to China.” Our yielding must be entire-it must be “anywhere.” We must cry unto the Lord, who is the Captain on our cruise of life-“Full steam ahead into the complete will of God.”

“Have Thine own way, Lord, have Thine own way,

Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.

Mold me and make me after Thy will.

While I am waiting, yielded and still.”

AN ILLUSTRATION

AUGUSTINE’S STORY

“Take heed of giving way to sin, The heart that was easily troubled before, when once it is inured to sin, loseth all its sensitiveness and tenderness, and what seemed intolerable at first grows into a delight. Alipius, St. Austin’s friend, first abhorred the bloody spectacles of the gladiators, but gave himself leave, through the importunity of friends, to be present for once. He would not so much as open his eyes at first; but at length, when the people shouted, he gave himself liberty to see, and then not only beheld the spectacles with delight, but drew others to behold what himself once loathed.” “The story has had its counterpart in thousands of instances. Men who shuddered at the sight of a dead bird have, by familiarity with cruelty, come to commit murder without compunction. Those who sipped half-a-glass of wine have come to drink by the gallon. * * There is no safety if we venture an inch over the boundary line; indeed, little allowances are more dangerous than greater compliances, since conscience does not receive a wound, and yet the man is undone, and falls by little and little.

“Come, my soul, leave sin altogether. Do not give Sodom so much as a look, nor take from it so much as a thread. Do not set a foot within her doors, for God abhors the abode of sin, and would have His people refrain their foot from it.”

Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water

3:9

Rom 3:9. We means the Jews and they the Gentiles. After the exposure that Paul just made against unrighteous men, the Jews were disposed to apply it all to the Gentiles. He is denying that and declaring that both Jews and Gentiles are alike under sin.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Rom 3:9. What then. The Apostle now returns to his main argument, after the digression, which, however, is referred to in this question.

Are we better than they? That we refers to the Jews appears, from the whole argument, as well as from Pauls usage. But the exact meaning of the verb used (the only Greek word occurring in the question) has been much discussed. In the active voice it means, to hold before, then to surpass, to excel; in the middle, to hold before ones self, hence to put forward something as a defence, or excuse; in the passive, to be surpassed or preferred. The form here may be either middle or passive, but the former is uncommon in the New Testament. (1.) The usual explanation takes it as middle, with the meaning; have we any advantage = are we better than they? This suits the context admirably; in Rom 3:2, the advantage of the Jew was spoken of, but the digression (Rom 3:3; Rom 3:8) may well be followed by the assertion that the Jew is no better. This explanation gives an active sense, but middle verbs frequently pass over into an active sense. (2.) Strictly middle: Do we put forward anything in our defence? But this would require an object after the verb. (3.) Passive, (a.) Are we surpassed (by the Gentiles)? A Jew would hardly ask such a question, which is moreover out of keeping with the context. (b.) Are we preferred (by God)? But this also is opposed by the context, which treats of mans sin, not of Gods power.

No, in no wise. This is the correct sense of a phrase which stands literally, not altogether. There is no contradiction between much every way (Rom 3:2) and this denial. The former refers to historical and external advantages, the latter to the moral result

For we before charged; not, proved. The word suggests a formal indictment. The charge was made in the previous part of the Epistle (chaps. Rom 1:18 to Rom 2:29).

Both Jews and Gentiles. The charge had been made first against the Gentiles (chap. 1), then against the Jews (chap. 2), but the order is here reversed, since the argument is directed against the Jews.

That they are all under sin. While unregenerate, they are all under the power of sin (the notion of guilt is implied, but not expressed). All is emphatic.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Here the apostle starts another objection in the name of the Jews: Some of them might say, “Are we not better than the Gentiles? Do we not excel them in outward privileges? Is not the knowledge of the law found with us, and the oracles of God committed to us?” True, says the apostle, the Jews are better than the Gentiles in respect of outward dispensations, but not in respect of inward qualifications. Jews and Gentiles are alike by natural corruption; alike under sin by actual transgression, and so stand in need both alike of justification by faith; and the gospel righteousness is no less necessary for the one, than for the other.

To prove what he had said, namely, That the whole race of mankind, both Jew and Gentile, were under sin, and void of all true righteousness and goodness, and consequently standing in need equally of justification by Christ; the apostle produces several texts out of the Old Testament, and particularly out of the Psalms 14. which speaks fully of the original corruption, and universal depravation of all mankind, in the following words: Rom 3:10-18.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Rom 3:9-18. What then Well then, (may a Jew further urge,) since you grant that the Jews have the advantage of the Gentiles in point of privileges, having the oracles of God, the promises which he will never fail to observe, and the principles of righteousness which he will never himself violate in his conduct, are we not in a better condition for obtaining justification by our own obedience to his law? No, in no wise The apostle answers, that all are equal in that point, both Jews and Gentiles. For we have before proved Namely, in the two former chapters; both Jews By the breach of the written law; and Gentiles By transgressing the law of nature; that they are all Every one of them, without exception; under sin Under the guilt and power of it: and so are equally excluded from the possibility of being justified by works. And therefore gospel righteousness, or justification by faith, is no less necessary for the one than for the other. As it is written Here he proves further, concerning the Jews, that they were unrighteous before God, by testimonies taken from their own prophets concerning their universal corruption, and he rightly cites David and Isaiah, (see the margin,) though they spoke primarily of their own age, and expressed what manner of men God sees when he looks down from heaven, not what they become when renewed by his grace. There is none righteous That lives exactly according to the rule of Gods law. This is the general proposition, the particulars follow; their dispositions and designs, Rom 3:11-12; their discourse, Rom 3:13-14; their actions, Rom 3:16-18. There is none that understandeth The things of God, till God, by giving them the spirit of wisdom and revelation, open the eyes of their understanding; there is none that seeketh after God To know, worship, and serve him aright; to obtain his favour, recover his image, and enjoy communion with him; that is, till God, by his grace, incline them to seek after him. They are all gone out of the way Namely, of truth into error, of righteousness into sin, of happiness into misery. They are together One and all; become unprofitable Unfit and unable to bring forth any good fruit, and to profit either themselves or others. There is none that doeth good From a right principle, to a right end, by a right rule, and in a right spirit; or perfectly, according to the exact meaning of the law which they are under. Their throat is an open sepulchre Noisome and dangerous as such; or, their speech is offensive, corrupt, and loathsome. Observe the progress of evil discourse; proceeding out of the heart, through the throat, tongue, lips, till the whole mouth is filled therewith. The poison of asps Infectious, deadly, tale-bearing, evil-speaking, backbiting, slandering, is under (for honey is on) their lips. An asp is a venomous kind of serpent. Whose mouth is full of cursing Against God; and bitterness Provoking language against their neighbour: the most shocking profaneness mingles itself with that malignity of heart toward their fellow-creatures which breathes in every word. Their feet are swift To run toward the places where they have appointed; to shed the blood Of the innocent. Destruction To others; and misery As to themselves; are in their ways In their desires and designs, their dispositions, words, and actions. And the way of peace Which can only spring from righteousness; they have not known By experience, nor regarded. And, to sum up all in one word, the great cause of all this depravity is, that there is no fear of God before their eyes Much less is the love of God in their hearts: they have no sense of religion, to restrain them from the commission of these enormities.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Seventh Passage (3:9-20). Scripture proclaims the fact of Universal Condemnation.

After a general declaration, repeating the already demonstrated fact of the condemnation of Jews and Greeks (Rom 3:9), the apostle quotes a series of Scripture sayings which confirm this truth (Rom 3:10-18); then he formally states the conclusion (Rom 3:19-20).

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

What then? Are we [Jews] better than they? [The Gentiles.] No, in no wise: for we before laid to the charge both of Jews and Greeks, that they are all under sin [Having met the effort of the Jew to make an exception in his case, as set forth in Rom 3:5; the apostle now reaffirms his original charge of universal unrighteousness, in which both Jews and Greeks were involved. This charge he further proves by an elaborate chain of quotations, taken from the Old Testament, and chiefly from the Psalms];

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

9. Then what is it? Are we better than they? By no means: for we have proven that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. Paul uses the pronoun we, including himself with the Jews in this contrast with the Gentiles, thus manifesting both the sympathy and humility peculiar to a speaker, who so frequently in his phraseology identifies himself with his hearers. In this verse Greeks is synonymous with the whole Gentile or heathen world; while Jews is identical with the nominal members of the visible church in all ages. Now, do you see the force of the apostles conclusion? It is the simple fact that salvation is a personal and not an ecclesiastical matter so far as churchism or non-churchism is concerned; it has nothing to do with salvation and never did, but simply leaves its votaries all under condemnation, indiscriminately in the hands of the devil, the god of this world (2Co 4:4). The several verses following this sweeping classification of both church members and outsiders in the black catalogue of sin, and under the dismal grip of Satan, vividly, lucidly and appallingly portray the horrific state of moral obliquity pertinent to all the people in all ages who have not been rescued from the above classifications by the redeeming grace of God in Christ, regenerating and sanctifying the heart. An astonishing phenomenon has frequently been noteworthy with reference to these alarming Scriptures, which draw the blackest picture this side the bottomless pit; e. g., a pastor standing in his pulpit reading them to his congregation as a refutation of the doctrine and experience of entire sanctification and a confirmation to his people of the absolute necessity that they all remain in sin down to lifes end, depending on the grim monster to deliver them from the dark grip of the souls destroyer. Such a procedure is simply giving his members a ticket to hell through his church. The Bible is Gods way-bill to heaven. Like all other way-bills, while it points out the right way, that the traveler may walk in it, it equally specifically designates all the wrong ways, that he may avoid them. While the Bible grandly and gloriously points out to the sinner the highway, and to the Christian the holy way, it most clearly and emphatically points out the devils side- tracks which lead down to hell, at the same time warning the traveler to keep out of them. Here we have a most horrific, demonstrative and terrifying presentation of Satans way to hell, given as a solemn warning that we may keep out of it. What is to become of the people when their own pastor points out this way and recommends it to them, which is now being done in countless instances in order to refute sanctification and defeat the Holiness Movement? The only hope in all such cases is that God will have mercy and save the people in spite of the preacher and the devil, too.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Rom 3:9-20. sums up the impeachment of mankind.

Rom 3:9. Paul has beaten down Jewish counter-pleas; he and his fellow-believers (we) might be supposed to have some apology in reserve: What then? do we make any defence? (mg.). Not in the least! for we have already charged Jews and Greeks alike with being all under the power of sin.

Rom 3:10-18. The universal accusation is restated by a string of OT sentences (p. 805) gathered, with the exception of Rom 3:15-17 (Isa 59:7 f.), from the Psalter, which poignantly depict the sinfulness of mankind. Two things are conspicuous in this sad catena: the worlds unrighteousness is traced to a want of understanding about God (Rom 3:11; Rom 3:18; cf. Rom 1:18-23); here cruelty, the wrong of man toward man, predominates, as foulness, the wrong of man toward himself, did in ch. 1.

Rom 3:19 f. resumes the thread of Rom 3:9 : We know, moreover, that in whatsoever things the law pronounces, it speaks to those within its scope, that every mouth may be stopped (Jewish mouths particularly), and all the world may find itself obnoxious to Gods judgment; because by works of law, etc. (Psa 143:2). For through law comes the fuller knowledge of sin: this concluding sentence awaits explanation in ch. 7 (cf. p. 823).

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

Verse 9

Are we better than they? we, the Jews, better than the Gentiles. The preceding passage, (Romans 3:1-9,) considered as a whole, is very elliptical and obscure. Commentators have made labored attempts to show the logical connection of the several parts with each other, and with the general subject of discussion; but the results are not very satisfactory. The explanations offered do not leave a very clear and distinct impression upon the mind.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

3:9 {4} What then? are we better [than they]? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all {k} under sin;

(4) Another answer to the first objection: that the Jews, if they are considered in themselves, are no better than other men are: as it has been long since pronounced by the mouth of the Prophets.

(k) Are guilty of sin.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

C. The guilt of all humanity 3:9-20

Having now proven all people, Jews and Gentiles, under God’s wrath, Paul drove the final nail in mankind’s spiritual coffin by citing Scriptural proof.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

The phrase "What then?" introduces a conclusion to the argument that all people are guilty before God. Paul identified himself with the Jews about whom he had recently been speaking. Jews are not better (more obedient) than Gentiles even though they received greater privileges from God. Being "under sin" means being under its domination and condemnation.

". . . the problem with people is not just that they commit sins; their problem is that they are enslaved to sin." [Note: Moo, p. 201.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)