Universal Sin
What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”
“Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.”
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
ruin and misery mark their ways,
and the way of peace they do not know.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin. Romans 3:9-20
Paul is coming to the end of his lengthy argument about sin and God’s wrath in 1:18 – 3:8 and asks himself, ‘What shall we conclude then?’ He has exposed in succession the open unrighteousness of the Gentile world (1:18-32), the hypocritical righteousness of moralisers (2:1-16) and the confident self-righteousness of Jewish people (3:1-8) who boast of God’s law but break it. He will now bring this together to declare the whole human race guilty before God.
‘Are we any better?’ (3:9). Is there any benefit in being a Jew? In 3:1 Paul asked ‘What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew?’ and answered ‘Much in every way!’ But here he says ‘Not at all!’ In the earlier passage the context was privilege and responsibility, and the Jews had both because God had entrusted His revelation to them. Here the context is rescue from God’s wrath and the Jews have no immunity. ‘For we have already made the charge [in 1:18-2:29] that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin.’ Sin is personified as a cruel tyrant who holds the human race imprisoned in guilt and under judgement.
Through seven Old Testament quotes from the Psalms and from Isaiah, Paul highlights human unrighteousness. At first sight the arrangement looks haphazard. But a closer look reveals a structure. The phrase ‘There is no …’ links the quotations in verses 10b-12 which establish the general point of universal sin. In verses 13 and 14 Paul focuses on sins of speech. Verses 15 to 17 are sins of violence against others. Verse 18 returns to where Paul began, using ‘There is no …’ to describe basic human disregard for God.
Paul is possibly quoting from an early Christian collection of Old Testament passages. Such collections of Old Testament texts existed, either in oral or written form, in the early days of the church but there is no external proof that this is one of them.
“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one” (3:10b-12). This is taken from Psalm 14:1-3. The ‘There is no one’ reverberates like a steady beat hammering home Paul’s point that all people, Jew and Gentile alike, are under sin’s power.
After highlighting the universality of sin, Paul goes on to illustrate this by enumerating representative sins. “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips.” “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness” (3:13,14) quoting Psalm 5:9; 140:3b; 10:7). This first series focuses on sins of speech, following the sequence of organs we use in speech – throat, tongue, lips and mouth.
The next series concentrates generally on violence. “Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know” (3:15-17) quoting Isaiah 59:7,8a. The series concludes with a final general proof of the universality of sin, “There is no fear of God before their eyes” quoting Psalm 36:1b.
As Christians we need to grasp the way Paul describes sin in 3:9. Paul doesn’t say all people ‘commit sins,’ inferring this is just something we do. Nor does he even say that all people are ‘sinners’ emphasising the pervasiveness of sin. He says that all people are ‘under the power of sin.’ They are helpless under sin’s rule. Sin is a tyrant that holds us in chains. Only Christ can break those chains and does break those chains in the life of all who trust in Him (Romans 6:14,15).