Romans 3:9

THAT THE JEW IS SHUT UP UNDER LIKE CONDEMNATION WITH THE GENTILE IS PROVED BY HIS OWN SCRIPTURE. (Rom 3:9-20)

are we better than they?--"do we excel them?"

No, in no wise--Better off the Jews certainly were, for having the oracles of God to teach them better; but as they were no better, that only aggravated their guilt.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

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.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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 God’s 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.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

(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.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES

Rom_3:9.—Do we bring pleas forward on behalf of ourselves—i.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 conduct—plenty 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 view—a 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 soul’s 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 God—unknowable 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 man’s 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 shed—the 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 Lord—national peace, individual peace; harmony amongst the nations—harmonious adjustment and working of all the soul’s 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 swift—destructive, fierce, and fearless—miserable in his greatness—great 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 world—pompous and costly rites transacted before crocodiles and onions, magnificent temples built over all monkeyish and monstrous creatures carved by men’s 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 be—swift 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 ways—oh, 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 evil—a spiritual intelligence in a state of ruin—we 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 conduct—socially and ecclesiastically blameless—was 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” mean—etiquette, 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 asserted—that 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.

Paul’s 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 torment”—the 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 man’s love to God and in man’s 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 God”—they 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 doings—corrupt 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 pronounced—a man, nevertheless, who carried his greatest victories and told his meanest lies in close proximity—a 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 poet’s 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 dramatist—flowering 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 world’s 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.

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3:9 No, not at all: Paul’s emphatic answer does not contradict his claim in 3:1-2 that Jews have an advantage. But that advantage has not done them any good because they have disobeyed God’s word and incurred God’s punishment. Jews, like Gentiles, have sinned against the revelation of God and stand condemned. • under the power of sin (literally under sin): Being “under” something carries the sense of being under its power. The ultimate problem of human beings is not the fact of sin, but the situation of being slaves to sin. The solution to this problem requires the liberation provided in Christ Jesus, who frees us from both the penalty and the power of sin.

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Rom 3:9. Τί οὖν; what then?) He resumes the question with which he began at Rom 3:1.—προεχόμεθα;) have we any advantage as compared with the Gentiles?—οὐ πάντως[35]) the Jew would say πάντως: but Paul contradicts him. In the beginning of this passage, he speaks gently (for, in other places, where μηδαμῶς is used, οὐ πάντως cannot be substituted for it; and in this passage the expression, by no means [μηδαμῶς, 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.—προῃτιασάμεθα) 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: πάντας, all the Jews [as well as] all the Greeks.—ὑφ ἁμαρτίαν) ὑπό denotes subjection, as if under the tyranny of sin.

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

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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 Gods 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 (οὖν), 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 τί οὖν προεχόμεθα; (as it is given by Oecumenius, l, Koppe, Th. Schott) is plain from the answer, which is not οὐδὲν πάντως. but οὐ πάντως. 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 (ʼΙουδαίους τε καὶ Ἕλλ., and see Rom_3:19).

τί οὖν] sc[764] ἐστί (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.

ΠΡΟΕΧΌΜΕΘΑ] 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? προέχειν, 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 rams head (Herod. ii. 42), etc., or in the ethical sense: to put forward, πρόσχημα ποιεῖθαι, to apply something for ones own defence, as in Soph. Ant. 80: σὺ μὲν τάδʼ ἂν προὔχοιʼ, Thuc. i. 140, 5 and Krüger in loc[766], and also Valckenaer, a[767] fr. Callim. p. 227. More frequent in Greek writers is the form ΠΡΟΐΣΧΕΣΘΑΙ, in this sense, as e.g. Thuc. i. 26, 2. Compare also πρόφασιν προΐσχεσθαι, Herod. vi. 117, viii. 3; Herodian, iv. 14, 3; Dem. in Schol. Hermog. p. 106, 16 : προΐσχεσθαι νόμον. 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, Köllner, de Wette, Rückert, Baumgarten-Crusius, Philippi, Baur, Umbreit, Jatho, and Mangold) is that of the Peschito and Vulgate (praecellimus eos?), and of Theophylact: ἐχομέν τι πλέον.… καὶ εὐδοκιμοῦμεν οἱ ʼΙουδαῖοι, ὡς τόν νόμον καὶ τὴν περιτομὴν δεξάμενοι. Compare Theodoret: ΤΊ ΟὖΝ ΚΑΤΈΧΟΜΕΝ ΠΕΡΙΣΣΌΝ; 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 οὐ πάντως, 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 πολὺ κατὰ πάντα τρόπον 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 προεχ. 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.

οὐ πάντως] Vulgate: nequaquam; Theophylact: οὐδαμῶς. This common rendering (compare the French point de tout) is, in accordance with the right explanation of προεχόμεθα, the only proper one. The expression, instead of which certainly ΠΆΝΤΩς Οὐ might have been used (1Co_16:12), is quite analogous to the οὐ πάνυ, 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 πάντως alone, is changed into the opposite.[772] Compare Winer, p. 515 f. [E. T. 693]. The comparison with כללא (Buttmann, neut. Gr. p. 334) is utterly foreign, since the expression is a pure Greek one. Compare Theognis, 305, Bekker: οἱ κακοὶ οὐ πάντως (by no means) κακοὶ ἐκ γαστρὸς γεγόνασιν. Ep. ad Diogn. 9 : Οὐ ΠΆΝΤΩς ἘΦΗΔΌΜΕΝΟς (by no means rejoicing) ΤΟῖς ἉΜΑΡΤΉΜΑΣΙΝ ἩΜῶΝ, ἈΛΛʼ ἈΝΕΧΌΜΕΝΟς. Perfectly similar is also the Homeric Οὐ ΠΆΜΠΑΝ, decidedly not; see Nägelsbach on the Iliad, p. 146, ed. 3; Duncan, Lex. Hom. ed. Rost, p. 888. Compare οὐδὲν πάντως, Herod. v. 34, 65. The explanation, on which van Hengel also insists: not altogether, not in every respect (Grotius, Wetstein, Morus, Flatt, Köllner, Matthias, Umbreit, Mehring and Mangold), as in 1Co_5:10, fails to tally with the true explanation of ΠΡΟΕΧΌΜΕΘΑ and the unrestricted character of the following proof.

ΠΡΟῌΤΙΑΣΆΜΕΘΑ] namely, not just from Rom_3:5 onward (Hofmann), but, in accordance with the following ἸΟΥΔΑΊΟΥς ΤΕ Κ. ἝΛΛΗΝΑς, 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, πάντας may either be joined as an adjective to ἸΟΥΔ. Τ. Κ. ἝΛΛ., 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 ΠΡΟΑΙΤ.; the Greeks use ΠΡΟΚΑΤΗΓΟΡΕῖΝ.

ὙΦʼ ἉΜΑΡΤ. ΕἾΝΑΙ] They arewhile still unregenerate, a more precise definition that is self-evidentall 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 ὑφʼ ἁμαρτ. εἶναι, 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 προεχώμεθα and take τί οὖν προεχ. together. But the absolute position of προεχ., which has been made an objection to our explanation (Rückert, 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 τί (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 τί οὖν προεχώμεθα (subjunctive); but expunges γάρ afterwards, and takes οὐ 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 γάρ 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 προεχ. as passive, are preferred, referring in support of his view to Plut. de Stoic. contrad. 13 (Mor. p. 1038 C), where, however, in τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς πᾶσι ταῦτα προσήκει κατʼ οὐδὲν προεχομένοις ὑπὸ τοῦ Διός, the meaning of this προεχομένοις 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 προφασίζομαι also, by which Hesychius properly explains the word, always refers to the subject, which excuses itself by a pretext.

[771] Those passages where οὐ πάνυ 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 πάντως, 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.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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 τί οὖν 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 προεχόμεθα , 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?”

Rom 3:9 . Τί οὖν ; What then? i.e. , how, then, are we to understand the situation? It is necessary to take these words by themselves, and make προεχόμεθα a separate question: the answer to τί could not be οὐ , but must be οὐδέν . The meaning of προεχόμεθα has been much discussed. The active προέχειν means to excel or surpass. Many have taken προεχόμεθα 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 τί οὖν προεχόμεθα could be taken together, it might certainly be rendered, What then is our plea? but it is impossible to take προεχόμεθα in this sense without an object, and impossible, as already explained, to make this combination. The only alternative is to regard προεχόμεθα 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.: τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς πᾶσι προσήκει , κατʼ οὐδὲν προεχομένοις ὑπὸ τοῦ Διός : “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 οὐ πάντως . Strictly speaking, the οὐ should modify πάντως , 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.” ὑπὸ ἁμαρτίαν , 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.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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).

Vv. 9. “What then? are we sheltered?Certainly not:for we have before proved all men, both Jews and Greeks, that they are under sin.”

If the words τί οὖν, what then, be taken as an independent question, the meaning will be: “What, then, is the state of things? To what result are we thus brought?” But many commentators connect these two words with the following sentence, so as to form a single question. The meaning in that case is, according to the different acceptations of the verb προέχεσθαι: What have we to allege as an excuse? or: In what, then, are we superior? But neither of these meanings agrees with the answer following. Indeed, instead of in no wise. it would require to be none whatever, or in nothing. There are therefore two questions, and not merely one.

What is the sense of the verb προεχόμεθα, which by itself forms the second question? We should first testify to the correctness of the Received reading. All the MSS. are at one on this point except A L, which read the subjunctive instead of the indicative, obviously to convert the word into an exhortation, and D G, which read προκατέχομεν while adding the object περισσόν; these last, at the same time, reject the words οὐ πάντως. This is the text which Chrysostom and Theodoret seem to have followed, as well as the Itala and Peshito. The meaning would be: What superiority do we possess? It is simply an attempt to escape from the difficulty of the Received reading.

The verb προέχειν has two principal meanings in the active: to hold before (in order to protect), and to hold the first place. In the passive, the first meaning changes into to be protected; the second meaning, as being intransitive, has no passive. In the middle, the verb signifies, according to the first meaning: to protect oneself, to shelter oneself, to hold out a pretext; according to the second: to place oneself at the head, to surpass. It is logically impossible to apply here the idea of superiority, either in the passive form: Are we preferred? or in the middle form: Do we surpass? Undoubtedly these two interpretations have both found their defenders; Osterv., for example: Are we preferable? Oltram.: Have we some superiority? But the question of ascribing a superiority to the Jews had been put at Rom 3:1; the apostle had resolved it affirmatively from the theocratic standpoint. If, then, he now resolves it negatively, as he does in the following answer, it can only be from the moral point of view. But in this case he could not fail to indicate this distinction. The only appropriate meaning, therefore, is that of sheltering, which is also the most frequent in classic Greek: “Have we a shelter under which we can regard ourselves as delivered from wrath?” This meaning seems to us to be perfectly suitable. The apostle has demonstrated that the Jewish people, as well as the Gentile world, are under God’s wrath. He has put to himself the objection: But what in this case becomes of the Jew’s advantage? And he has proved that this advantage, perfectly real though it be, cannot hinder the rejection and judgment of this people. “What then?” he now asks as a consequence from what precedes, “can we flatter ourselves that we have a refuge?” “In no wise,” such is his answer. All is closely bound together in the reasoning thus understood.

The phrase οὐ πάντως strictly signifies: not altogether; comp. 1Co 5:10. When Paul means: not at all, he uses, in conformity with Greek custom, the form πάντως οὐ; comp. 1Co 16:12. But the first meaning is evidently too weak after the preceding argument, and in consequence of that which follows. Meyer even finds himself obliged here to abandon his philological rigorism, and to take the second meaning. And, in reality, this meaning is not incorrect. It is enough, as Morison says, to make a pause in reading after οὐ, not, adding πάντως, absolutely, as a descriptive: no, absolutely; or better: no, certainly. This meaning is that of the entirely similar phrase οὐ πάνυ in Xenophon, Demosthenes, Lucian, and even that of οὐ πάντως in two passages quoted by Morison, the one taken from classic Greek, the other from patristic.

The apostle demonstrates this negation, which refers specially to the Jews, by summing up in the following proposition the result of the long preceding indictment against the two divisions of mankind. The term αἰτιᾶσθαι, to accuse, incriminate, belongs to the language of the bar. The προ, before, previously, which enters into the composition of the verb, reminds the reader of the two great pictures which Paul had just drawn.

The phrase: to be under sin, does not merely signify: to be under the responsibility (the guilt) of sins committed, but also to be under the power of sin itself, which like a perpetual fountain constantly reproduces and increases this guilt. These two meanings, sin as a trespass, and sin as a power, are both demanded by the context, the first by the preceding, and the second by the succeeding context. In point of fact, God’s wrath is not based solely on trespasses committed, which have something external and accidental in their character; it is founded, above all, on the permanent state of human nature as it is about to be described by Scripture. So long as the Scriptures had not spoken, Paul might be regarded as a simple accuser. But as soon as the voice of this judge shall be heard, the case will be determined, and the sentence pronounced. Rom 3:10-18 enumerate, if one may so speak, the grounds of judgment; Rom 3:19-20 give the sentence.

Paul first reminds his readers, in scriptural terms, of the most general characteristics of human corruption, Rom 3:10-12. Then he presents two particular classes of the manifestations of this corruption, Rom 3:13-17. Finally, he closes this description by a decisive feature which goes back to the very fountain of evil, Rom 3:18.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rom_3:9-20

Analysis

The apostle having demonstrated that the Jews cannot expect exemption from condemnation, on the ground of their being the peculiar people of God, except on principles incompatible with the government of the world, and inconsistent with the plainest moral truths, draws, in Rom_3:9, the conclusion, that the Jew, as to the matter of justification before God, has no preeminence over the Gentile. He confirms his doctrine of the universal sinfulness of men by numerous quotations from the Scriptures. These passages speak of men in general as depraved, Rom_3:10-12; and then of the special manifestations of that depravity in sins of the tongue, Rom_3:13, Rom_3:14; and in sins of violence, Rom_3:15-18. The inference from all his reasoning, from Rom_1:18, derived from consciousness, experience, and Scripture is, that the whole world is guilty before God, Rom_3:19; and that no flesh can be justified by the deeds of the law, Rom_3:20.

Commentary

Rom_3:9

What then? do we excel? What then? i.e., what is the conclusion from the preceding discussion? are we Jews better off than the Gentiles? Wahl points the passage thus: Τί οὖν προεχόμεθα; What then do we, or can we pretend or present as an excuse? Then, however, as Rückert and others remark, the answer should be, οὐδέν, nothing, and not οὐ πάντωϚ. The principal difficulty in this verse is to determine the meaning of προεχόμεθα. The most commonly received and the most satisfactory explanation assumes that the middle form has here the sense of the active. Προέχειν means to hold before, or intransitively and topically, to have before another, to excel. In the middle voice, the verb means to hold before oneself, as a shield, or figuratively, to use as a pretext. Though the middle does not elsewhere occur in the sense of the active, its use in the present instance in that sense, may be justified either by the remark, that the later writers often use the middle form where the earlier authors employ the active, (Tholuck); or by assuming the sense of the active to be here somewhat modified, since the apostle is speaking of a superiority which the Jews attributed to themselves, so that the strict sense is: Licetne nobis tribuere majorem dignitatem? Bretschneider. The context suits the sense commonly attributed to the word. The whole discussion has brought the apostle to the conclusion, that the Jews as sinners have no advantage over the Gentiles, and this is the conclusion which he here confirms. If the middle force of the verb be retained, then the sense is, as given by Meyer: What then? Have we protection or defense? That is, are we Jews and Gentiles, men as sinners, protected from the justice of God? The answer is, By no means. But this does not so well suit the context or the form of the answer to the question presented. The verb προεχόμεθα should, as Rückertsays, in that case have an accusative, designating the excuse or pretext: Have we anything for a pretext? And the answer would be, Nothing. The passive sense, Are we excelled? adopted by Wetstein and others, is still less suited to the context. For whether the Gentiles or the Jews be supposed to ask the question, there is nothing to account for it, or to suggest it. Paul had given no reason to either to ask, Are we excelled? He had not proved that the Gentiles were worse off than the Jews, or the Jews than the Gentiles, but that both were alike under condemnation. The question, therefore, Do we excel? are we Jews better off than the Gentiles? is the only one which the occasion calls for, or that the answer suits. This is the view given by Theophylact, who says, δείκνυσι μηδὲν αὐτούς ἔχειν περισσόν, ὃσον ἐκ τῶν οἰκείων πραετξ.εων; and which is adopted by Calvin, Beza, Grotius and the modern commentators, Tholuck, Rückert (2nd edition), Reiche, and De Wette.

Not at all, not in the least, (οὐ πάντωϚ) the πάντως strengthening the negation. Grotius, Wetstein, and Köllner translate, not altogether, not in all respects. But the former version is shown by Winer, §61, to be consistent with usage, and is much better suited to the context; for it is the obvious design of the apostle to show that, as to the point in hand, the Jews did not at all excel the Gentiles. This strong negation the following clause confirms. The Jews are not better off; for we have before charged both Jews and Gentiles with being under sin. Αἰτιᾶσθαι is properly, to accuse, here as in other cases followed by an accusative and infinitive. Our version, we have before proved, though it may be justified by implication, is not in strict accordance with the meaning of the words. The same sense, however, is expressed by Erasmus, ante causis redditis ostendimus, and is adopted by Reiche and others. There is force in the remark of Calvin: Verbum Graecum αἰτιᾶσθαι proprie est judiciale: ideoque reddere placuit constituimus. Dicitur enim crimen in actione constituere accusator, quod testimoniis ac probationibus aliis convincere paratus. Citavit autem apostolus universum hominum genus ad Dei tribunal, ut totum sub unam damnationem includeret. To be under sin means to be under the power of sin, to be sinners, whether the idea of guilt, just exposure to condemnation, or of pollution, or both, be conveyed by the expression depends on the context. Comp. 1Co_15:17; Gal_3:10, Gal_3:22; Joh_15:22. Here both ideas are to be included. Paul had arraigned all men as sinners, as the transgressors of the law, and therefore exposed to condemnation.

Charles Hodge — Commentary on Romans (1835), First Corinthians (1857), and Ephesians (1856) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Are guilty of sin.

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

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

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.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

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;” 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.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(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 prophet’s 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.

(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.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. The several passages cited here, and in some following verses, are taken out of the Psalms and Isaiah; and are brought to prove, not only that the Jews are no better than the Gentiles, being equally corrupt and depraved as they; but also to show the corrupt state and condition of mankind in general: and the words are not always literally expressed, but the sense is attended to, as in this passage; for in the original text of Psa 14:1, it is, "there is none that doth good"; from whence the apostle rightly infers, "there is none righteous"; for he that does not do good, is not righteous; and therefore if there is none on earth that does good and does not sin, there is none righteous upon earth, "no, not one" single person. The Jews allegorizing that passage in Gen 19:31, "there is not a man in the earth to come into us", remark (u) on it thus,

"Urab qydu vya Nya, "there is not a righteous man in the earth"; and there is not a man that rules over his imagination.''

There is none righteous as Adam was, in a state of innocence; for all have sinned, and are filled with unrighteousness, and are enemies to righteousness; none are righteous by their obedience to the law of works; nor are there any righteous in the sight of God, upon the foot of their own righteousness, however they may appear in their own eyes, and in the sight of others; nor are any inherently righteous, for there is none without sin, sanctification is imperfect; nor is it, either in whole or in part, a saint's justifying righteousness; indeed there is none righteous, no, not one, but those who are justified by the righteousness of Christ imputed to them.

(u) Midrash Haneelam in Zohar in Gen. fol. 68. 1.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

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.)

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

What then do we Jews excel the Gentiles? He again turns his discourse against the Jews, by shewing that they have been sinners, as well as the Gentiles, notwithstanding the particular favours God had done to them, and not to the Gentiles: this he proves out of the psalms; and (ver. 19.) he shews, that these things were spoken of them, who were under the law. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

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.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Vers. 9-20. (3) The testimony of the Old Testament to human sinfulness. Objections having been thus raised and met, the apostle now confirms his position, that all mankind, Jew as well as Gentile, are under sin, by adducing the Scriptures of the Jews themselves.

What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved (or, charged, as in the Vulgate, causati sumus) both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin. The meaning of the first part of this verse has been much discussed. We may observe:

(1) Ti oun seems to be rightly separated (as in Authorized Version) from proecomeya because of the form of the answer to the question, ou pantwv : after ti proecomeya ; we should expect ouden .

(2) The Jews, with whom St. Paul identifies himself, must be supposed to put the question; not the Gentiles, as some have supposed. For there is nothing in the context to suggest the Gentiles as the speakers, nor does what follow suit the supposition.

(3) The main question is as to the sense of proecomeya , which occurs here only in the New Testament, and has, therefore, to be interpreted from consideration of the sense of which the verb is capable, and the probable drift of the argument. Some have taken it as a passive verb, with the meaning, "Are we surpassed?" i.e. are we Jews in worse case than the Gentiles on account of our greater privileges? The active verb, proecein , in the sense of "to excel," being both transitive and intransitive, its passive may be used in the same sense. An instance quoted in commentaries is kap oudenoiv upo tou Diov (Plut., "Mor.,"), "cum Jove minores non sint." So the recent Revisers, though dissented from by the American Committee. The strong objection to this interpretation is that there has been nothing so far even to suggest any superiority of the Gentile to the Jew, and that what follows does not bear upon any such idea. Thus to interpret would be to sacrifice the sense to supposed grammatical exigence, which, after all, is uncertain. Taking, then, proecomeya as the middle voice, we have two interpretations before us; either, with Meyer, to render, Do we put forward (anything) in our defence? which he maintains (though not conclusively) to be the only proper sense of the middle verb or (as in the Authorized Version), Are we better (i.e. in better ease) than they? This rendering, though it gives essentially the same sense as if proecomen (intransitive) had been written, is commended by its suitableness to the course of argument, and the middle voice may, perhaps, he accounted for as denoting the Jews" supposed claim of superiority for themselves. Thus the connection of thought is plain. The conclusion of Ro 2 had left the Jews on the same footing with the Gentiles before God in respect of sinfulness. But then objections had been raised on the ground of the acknowledged privileges of the chosen people; and such objections have been met. The apostle now sums up the result: What, then, is the state of the case? Have we any advantage to allege? No, not at all in the sense intended; the previous argument stands; and he proceeds to confine his position from the testimony of the Old Testament itself.

Vers. 9-18. Total depravity of human nature.

Here we have a dark picture of human nature in its fallen and unregenerate state. (The Bible view of human nature is more fully enlarged on below, on vers. 21-26) Here the apostle, as it were, calls up before him the different parts of human nature, and obtains from each of them an admission and an evidence of the moral corruption with which they are tainted. "My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, And every tongue brings in a different tale, And every tale convicts me for a villain. All several sins, all used in each degree, Throng to the bar, crying all Guilty! guilty!

I A DEPRAVED HEART. "There is no fear of God before their eyes" (ver. 18). There is no motive-power to regulate the life. There is no reverence for God"s Law within their spirit. There is no fear of offending the great Judge. There is no filial fear of grieving the heavenly Father. The conscience and heart have become seared and blunted. Remove the fear of God from heart and conscience, and what influence remains to check evil passions and to resist the insidious allurements of temptation? "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.

II A DEPRAVED UNDERSTANDING. "There is none that understandeth" (ver. 11). It is fashionable in some circles to speak as if it was a sign of weak intellect to be a Christian, to believe in the Bible, or to regard with reverence the Law of God. Yet assuredly it may be claimed without any presumption or prejudice that there has been at least as much of the world"s best intellect arrayed on the side of Christianity as on the side of its opponents. If there be credulity anywhere, there is credulity displayed in accepting as scientific truths what very often are pure speculations. If there is weakness anywhere, it would seem to be in disregarding the evidence in nature that points to a great personal and intelligent First Cause, or the evidence in history that points to a wise and overruling Providence. "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." It is sin, and not godliness, that is the evidence of a weak and depraved understanding.

III A DEPRAVED WILL. "There is none that seeketh after God" (ver. 11). Nowhere is the depravity of human nature more painfully shown than in the exercise of the human will. How many deliberately choose evil rather than good! How many, with the experience of others to warn them, deliberately choose impurity rather than purity, intemperance rather than temperance! Life and death are put before them, yet they deliberately choose death. They reject the highest ideal of character, and follow poor and weak and wicked examples. They reject the inspiring hope of heaven and immortality, and only live for worldly pleasure or for worldly gain. They reject the fountain of living water, and seek out for themselves broken cisterns that can hold no water. To all such God appeals, in mercy, to make a right exercise of their will. "Turn ye, turn ye; for why will ye die?

IV DEPRAVED SPEECH.

1. Untruthfulness. "With their tongues they have used deceit" (ver. 13). Truth is essential to the well-being and happiness of society, to the very existence of commercial dealings. Yet how many there are who "use deceit" as a means of obtaining advantage or profit in business, as a means of obtaining some desirable object of their ambition! We have society deceitfulness, commercial deceitfulness, political deceitfulness. Against all such deceit the Bible sets itself. "Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour; for we are members one of another.

2. Slander. "The poison of asps is under their lips" (ver. 13). The sin of evil-speaking is a very widespread one, and it hardly receives sufficient discouragement from Christian people. Men and women who would shrink from doing their neighbour a bodily injury, who would be shocked at the idea of taking his property dishonestly, think it no harm to injure his character and reputation. "The poison of asps is under their lips." "O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united.

3. Profanity. "Whose mouth is full of cursing" (ver. 14). Here is a widespread evil of the present day. Everywhere one hears the profane use of the sacred Name. Just as the suicide acts "As if the Everlasting had not fixed His canon "gainst self-slaughter, the profane person acts as if it had not been written with the finger of God, "The Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain.

V DEPRAVED LIFE. "Their feet are swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in their ways: and the way of peace have they not known" (vers. 15-17). What a sad but true description of human life in its unregenerate and unchristianized condition! It is but the ordinary picture of what heathen nations were before the gospel entered into them. And where large communities throw off the restraints of religion, is it not what may be witnessed still, even in professedly Christian nations? Where there is no fear of the Law of God, there will be little fear of the law of man. Let the heart and conscience be godless; let the reason and understanding fail to respond to the claims of the Divine Being and of his moral Law; let the will cease to be influenced by heavenly and upward motives; let men in their common speech be accustomed to speak lightly of sacred things and of their neighbour"s character and reputation; and the step is but a short one to the disregard of human life and the disregard of human virtue. The nation that ceases to be influenced by the fear of God has entered on the broad way to its own corruption and decay. C.H.I.

Vers. 9-20. Every mouth stolid.

The charge has been made against Gentiles and Jews; it is now forced home, and especially against the self-excusing Jews, by the unimpeachable verdict of God"s own Word. We have here universal sin and universal guilt.

I UNIVERSAL SIN. Some of the quotations referred in the first instance more particularly to Gentiles, some to Jews. But the fact that any of them referred to Jews is of itself sufficient for the apostle"s purpose, viz. to cut away from under their feet the vain hope which they cherished on account of their privileges. And further, as the apostle urges in ver. 19, all the quotations have a very proper bearing on the Jews, inasmuch as the words of the Law are for those who are under the Law, designed to show them their danger even when speaking expressly of the sin of others. There was that in them which might so develop itself, and being so developed, it was under the same condemnation.

1. A state of sin. (Vers. 10-12 Psa_14:1-3)

(1) The unrighteousness. "None righteous;" "none that doeth good." There was

(a) no discerning of the will of God (ver. 11);

(b) no aspiration after God (ver. 11);

(c) an utter deviation from the right way an utter corruption (ver. 12). Two positives, these latter, corresponding to the two negatives.

(2) Its universality. "There exists not," four times repeated; "no, not one," repeated twice. There is forcefully implied here that the germ of the same evil, which wrought itself out so flagrantly in special cases, is in every man"s heart; ouk esti that is the charge which comes home to each man"s heart, and the truth of which each man"s conscience attests.

2. A practice of sin. (Vers. 13-17 Psa_5:9 Psa_140:3 Psa_10:7 Isa_59:7, Isa_59:8)

(1) Speech. (Vers. 13, 14)

(a) Deceit-words of suave beguilement, but an inward ravening for the prey;

(b) venom swift, cutting words, shot like the poison of serpents;

(c) wrath blatant fury and oaths.

(2) Deeds. (Vers. 15-17)

(a) Violence and bloodshed are their aim;

(b) desolation and calamity mark their path;

(c) the path of peace they never tread.

3. A source of sin. (Ver. 18; Psa_36:1) The only effectual, permanent safeguard of morality is religion. Are the bonds not being loosened in our day, even by the apostles of ethics themselves?

II UNIVERSAL GUILT.

1. A fact of history to every one that has eyes to see. But attested, as above shown, by the verdict of the Law itself.

2. A fact of consciousness wrought in the individual by the Law. The Law cannot justify; a mirror in which we see ourselves, and in that mirror fallen man sees himself fallen and corrupt. This the intent for which the Law was given, to bring us to self-knowledge, that then we might yearn for God"s salvation through Christ. For law and promise are ever intertwined in Judaism, in Gentilism, in Christianity. The great result then: "every mouth stopped conscious guilt; "all the world brought under the judgment of God objective, historical guilt. Before God"s tribunal, in the heart and in history, man is condemned.

Let us thank God for his severe dealings, for they are in love. As in Tennyson"s "May Queen," "He taught me all the mercy, for he showed me all the sin. " When the throne has become to us palpably the throne of judgment, then, and not till then, it is transformed into the throne of grace. T.F.L.

Vers. 9-20. Knowledge of sin through the Law.

Having described the Jewish privileges and the Divine judgment for the abuse of these privileges, the apostle now proceeds to ask and to answer the question, "Are we Jews preferred (proecometa)?" This means, in God"s esteem; and it is answered without hesitation, "No, in no wise." And the proof has already been given: "For we before laid to the charge both of Jews and Greeks, that they are all under sin" (Revised Version). We are, consequently, face to face in this section with the truth of universal guilt a fact proclaimed alike by the heathen conscience and the Jewish Scriptures.

I JEWS AND GREEKS ARE ALL UNDER SIN. (Ver. 9) It is here that a gracious work must begin in the soul. All possibility of self-righteous confidence must be taken away; the soul must be brought low through a sense of sin. Instead, therefore, of Jews being put into a class of Divine favourites, accepted because of their descent or circumcision, they are put by Paul into the one universal class of guilty men. They have as little ground of hope in themselves as the most abandoned heathen. It is here, accordingly, that we must all come. We must take our stand with the race and realize that we are all guilty before God. We come under a law of condemnation, and no amount of Pharisaic self-righteousness will make any of us an exception. God will not respect the persons of any; all must first humble themselves before him under a genuine sense of sin.

II UNIVERSAL GUILT IS ASSERTED IN THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. (Vers. 10-18) Paul, in making his quotations, gives us some from the Psalms, some from Proverbs, some from the Prophet Isaiah; but the sad chorus is in perfect unison about human guilt and its accompanying depravity. The psalm from which he quotes first, the fourteenth, represents God as looking down from heaven to see, if possible, some righteous man; but the verdict to which he is compelled to come is that "there is none righteous, no, not one." Instead of the knowledge of his Name, and its corresponding righteousness, there was nothing, visible but guilt and corruption. Human history was one long catalogue of selfishness and crime. There were no redeeming features in humanity, wherever left to itself. Hence the "oracles" possessed by the Jews were no flattering unction for Jewish souls. So far from this, the Old Testament Scriptures demonstrated the guilt and waywardness of the chosen people, as well as of the surrounding heathen, and made the most sweeping charges against one and all If Jews hope for consideration and acceptance on the ground of their possession of the book, they were entirely mistaken, for they were simply custodians of their own condemnation. And, indeed, this is one of the wonders of the world, that a literature which is so faithful with guilty men, that is always knocking down their self-righteousness, and flattering them never, should, notwithstanding, be so popular among them. The severest censor of all has, nevertheless, become the most revered. It is in this light a great encouragement to all who have the desire to be faithful with their fellows, that faithfulness will sooner or later be appreciated!

III No HOPE CAN CONSEQUENTLY BE PLACED IN HUMAN MERIT. (Ver. 19) The severe judgment expressed in the Jewish Law is not meant merely for heathens, but especially for Jews who had the Law, in order that every mouth might be stopped, and all the world brought in guilty before God. By the deeds of the Law, consequently, no flesh need expect to be justified in God"s sight. One unvarying tale it has been of guilt and condemnation. All notion of merit must, consequently, be cast to the winds. Now, this is the greatest service which can be rendered to any soul. If we compare Php_3:7, 8, we shall see that the idea of merit cost the Apostle Paul many painful years. He was going about to establish his own righteousness, by asserting his pure Jewish descent and his ceremonial obedience and his headlong zeal; and he was under the delusion that by such a record he could claim as a just right acceptance and honour before God. But the moment he met his risen Saviour on the way to Damascus, he saw that all these self-righteous years were lost, and that "merit" had only kept him away from Christ. In the very same way, anxious souls are kept oftentimes away from Christ by the delusion that they can render themselves, somehow, more acceptable unto him. Let us bless God when he annihilates our delusions and leads us clear of all fancied merit. It is down in the dust of guilt and felt unworthiness that we are sure to receive our gracious exaltation.

IV BY THE LAW IS THE KNOWLEDGE OF SIN. (Ver. 20) The Jews took the ceremonial law as a law of life, and by keeping little rites and ceremonies the more, they imagined, the better they thought they could earn the Divine favour and glory. Had they looked into the ceremonies with proper care, they would have seen in those given by Moses a constant note of condemnation. The moral Law, besides, with its magnificent ideal and standard, only intensified the sense of guilt in the soul of the thoughtful worshipper. In consequence of human sin, the Law ceases to be a way of life, and becomes a tremendous indictment and condemnation. It is this use of the Law which we are to recognize. It is, then, a most wholesome revealer of our real and lost condition. It drives us out of our refuges of lies and fancied merit, that we may betake ourselves to Christ alone. It is the light which exposes the dark chambers of our souls, and brings us to conviction and repentance. Let us make the proper use of the Law, and it will, as a schoolmaster, bring us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith. It will lead us to see that until Christ came there was no real merit in the world on which God could look with complacency. Only when Jesus allied himself with the race was the outlook on humanity in any wise redeemed. R.M.E.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

What then - Here he resumes what he said, verse 1. Rom. iii, 1. Under sin - Under the guilt and power of it: the Jews, by transgressing the written law; the gentiles, by transgressing the law of nature.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

sin

Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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 apostle’s 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 life’s end, depending on the grim monster to deliver them from the dark grip of the soul’s destroyer. Such a procedure is simply giving his members a ticket to hell through his church. The Bible is God’s 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 devil’s 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 Satan’s 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.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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];

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

9. Are we better than they? If Jews shall be judged as well as Gentiles, are not we Jews, having the oracles of God, better than they, and hence likely to be justified? The Jew is still supposed to be speaking. To this Paul replies, In no wise, for he had already shown (chapters 1 and 2) that both Jews and Gentiles were sinners before God.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Connecting Statement:

Paul sums up that all are guilty of sin, none are righteous, and no one seeks God.

What then? Are we excusing ourselves?

Paul asks these questions to emphasize his point. AT: "We Jews should not try to imagine we are going to escape God's judgment, just because we are Jewish!" (See: Rhetorical Question)

Not at all

These words are stronger than a simple "no," but not as strong as "absolutely not!"

This is as it is written

You can translate this in an active form. AT: "This is as the prophets have written in the Scriptures" (See: Active or Passive)

translationWords

Jew

Greek

sin

written

righteous

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

9. τί οὖν; well then, this being so, what follows? Cf. Joh 1:21; infra, Rom 6:15, Rom 11:7 only. Cf. above on μὴ γένοιτο, τί οὗν ἐροῦμεν;

προεχόμεθα; ‘are we surpassed? are we at a disadvantage?’ So R.V. (not margin, not A.V.); see Field, ad loc[103] He shows (1) that there is no example of the mid. = the active ‘are we better than these?’

[103] ad loc. ad locum

(2) that προέχεσθαι = to excuse oneself, always requires an accus.;

(3) that προέχεσθαι = pass. of προέχειν, to surpass, is supported by a |[104], and natural; qu. Plut. T. II. p. 1038 c after Wetstein.

[104] | parallel to

With the meaning settled, it remains to ask, who are we? and what is the connexion? The question must be taken, dramatically, as put into the mouth of Jews. It has been just shown that while they had an exceptional privilege, their use of this privilege brought them under judgment. The privilege itself might then appear to be a penalty, the greater call only an occasion of greater condemnation (cf. closely Rom 6:15). The answer given does not go to the root of the matter—that again is reserved for chh. Rom 9:30 to Rom 10:13—but deals with it only for the purpose of the immediate argument; all have sinned, and as sinners all are equally condemned; yet in a certain sense (n. οὐ πάντως) Jews are in a worse state, because they have sinned against clearer light; yet, again, not to such an extent as to put them at a disadvantage in regard to the new dispensation of the Gospel. The universality of grace covers the universality of sin, and is for all adequate and complete (Rom 3:21 f.).

This horror-struck question of the Jews, then, rises immediately out of the preceding verses, and the answer completes the statement of their case in comparison with Gentiles. The vigorous dramatic form of expression is due to the depth of feeling with which S. Paul sympathises with his brethren after the flesh.

οὐ πάντως. 1Co 5:10 only; not altogether that, either. See above.

προῃτιασάμεθα only here in Greek appy. So προενάρχομαι, 2Co 8:6; προελπίζω, Eph 1:12 (first); προκυροῦν, Gal 3:17. The ref. is esp. to Rom 1:18, Rom 2:1; Rom 2:9.

ὑφ’ ἁμαρτίαν. cf. Moulton, p. 63, for the disuse of the dative after ὑπό. Cf. Rom 7:14; Mat 8:9. = in subjection to sin and therefore needing deliverance. The whole object of these chapters is to show the universal need of the Gospel.

πάντας includes on this side the παντί of Rom 1:16.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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.

9.] τί οὖν cannot be joined with προεχόμεθα (Œ, &c.), because οὐδέν would then have been the answer.

There is considerable difficulty in προεχόμεθα. The meaning of προέχομαι every where else is passive, ‘to be surpassed,’ and προέχω, act., is to surpass, or have the pre-eminence. So Plut. p. 1038 d (Wetst.), κατʼ οὐδὲν προεχομένοις ὑπὸ τοῦ Διός, ‘cum Jove minores non sint:’ and Herod, i. 32, ὁ μὲν δὴ μέγα πλούσιος ἀνόλβιος δέ, δυοῖσι προέχει τοῦ εὐτυχοῦς μόνον, &c. (see Wetst.) Those therefore who have wished to preserve the usage of the word, have variously interpreted it in that attempt: (α) 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 (vv. 1ff.),—and (2) the question if it mean this, is not dealt with in what follows. (β) Œcum. (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. (γ) 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. (δ) Koppe and Wahl render, taking it as the middle voice, ‘What can we then allege (as an excuse)?’ but this will not suit οὐ πάντως. (ε) Meyer, ‘What then, have we an excuse?’ but προεχόμ. has not this meaning. (ζ) Fritzsche, ‘What then? do we excuse ourselves (i.e. shall we make any excuse)?’ But (1) προεχ. is put absolutely; and (2) the answer would rather be μηδαμῶς than οὐ πάντως, 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, vv. 10-20, but that all are liable to God’s wrath, without excuse, (η) The only way left seems (with Theophyl., Œc. (1st altern.), Schol. in Matthaï, Pelag., Vulg., Erasm., Luther, Calv., Beza, Grot., Bengel, Tholuck, Köllner, Schrader, De Wette, al.) to take προεχόμεθα as middle, and understand it as προέχομεν—Have we (Jews) the (any) preference? We have an use of παρέχομαι as active, Act 19:24, Tit 2:7. See also Winer, edn. 6, § 38.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

9. τί οὖν; ‘What then [follows]?’ Not with προεχόμεθα, because that would require in reply οὐδὲν πάντως, not οὐ πάντως.

προεχόμεθα is explained in three ways: as intrans. in the same sense as the active προέχω, as trans. with its proper middle force, and as passive. (i) προεχόμεθα mid. = προέχομεν (praecellimus eos Vulg.; and so the majority of commentators, ancient and modern, Ἄρα περισσὸν ἔχομεν παρὰ τοὺς Ἔλληνας; Euthym.-Zig. ἔχομέν τι πλέον καὶ εὐδοκιμοῦμεν οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι; Theoph. ‘Do we think ourselves better?’ Gif.). But no examples of this use are to be found, and there seems to be no reason why St. Paul should not have written προέχομεν, the common form in such contexts. (ii) προεχόμεθα trans. in its more ordinary middle sense, ‘put forward as an excuse or pretext’ (‘Do we excuse ourselves?’ RV. marg., ‘Have we any defence?’ Mey. Go.). But then the object must be expressed, and as we have just seen τί οὖν cannot be combined with προεχόμεθα because of οὐ πάντως. (iii) προεχόμεθα passive, ‘Are we excelled?’ ‘Are we Jews worse off (than the Gentiles)?’ a rare use, but still one which is sufficiently substantiated (cf. Field, Ot. Norv. III ad loc.). Some of the best scholars (e. g. Lightfoot, Field) incline to this view, which has been adopted in the text of RV. The principal objection to it is from the context. St. Paul has just asserted (ver. 2) that the Jew has an advantage over the Gentile: how then does he come to ask if the Gentile has an advantage over the Jew? The answer would seem to be that a different kind of ‘advantage’ is meant. The superiority of the Jew to the Gentile is historic, it lies in the possession of superior privileges; the practical equality of Jew and Gentile is in regard to their present moral condition (ch. 2:17-29 balanced against ch. 1:18-32). In this latter respect St. Paul implies that Gentile and Jew might really change places (2:25-29). A few scholars (Olsh. Va.Lid.) take προεχόμεθα as pass., but give it the same sense as προέχομεν, ‘Are we (Jews) preferred (to the Gentiles) in the sight of God?’

προεχόμεθα: v. l. προκατέχομεν περισσόν D* G, 31; Antiochene Fathers (Chrys. [ed. Field] Theodt. Severianus), also Orig.-lat. Ambrstr. (some MSS. but not the best, tenemus amplius): a gloss explaining προεχ. in the same way as Vulg. and the later Greek commentators quoted above. A L read προεχώμεθα.

οὐ πάντως. Strictly speaking οὐ should qualify πάντως, ‘not altogether,’ ‘not entirely,’ as in 1Co 5:10 οὐ πάντως τοῖς πόρνοις τοῦ κόσμου τούτου: but in some cases, as here, πάντως qualifies οὐ, ‘altogether not,’ ‘entirely not,’ i.e. ‘not at all’ (nequaquam Vulg., οὐδαμῶς Theoph.). Compare the similar idiom in οὐ πάνυ; and see Win. Gr. lxi. 5.

προῃτιασάμεθα: in the section 1:18-2:29.

ὑφʼ ἁμαρτίαν. In Biblical Greek ὑπό with dat. has given place entirely to ὑπό with acc. Mat 8:9 ἄνθρωπός εἰμι ὑπὸ ἐξουσίαν is a strong case. The change has already taken place in LXX; e.g Deu 33:3 πάντες οἱ ἡγιασμένοι ὑπὸ τὰς χεῖράς σου, καὶ οὗτοι ὑπὸ σέ εἰσι.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.