Romans 3:10-11 “as it is written, “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD;”

As a brief reminder of the context within which our current study resides, Paul is ministering to a church that is divided by a common faith - Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. These groups exercised their Christian faith differently from each other and had very different cultural assumptions. A strong Jewish constituency evidently gave preeminence to Jewish believers because of their rich history with God. Paul spent the last 2 1/2 chapters explaining that everyone that's ever lived knows that God exists and knows what is right (from the scriptures, from nature, or from conscience). Yet everyone has also turned their backs on Him in sin. Everyone is on equal footing. All approach God unworthy.

In the last few verses, Paul responded to his critics. They slanderously reported that he taught people to sin more in order to make God's grace look even better. That, he said, was nonsense.

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9 What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. 10 As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one;

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This passage is about as clear as any in the Bible. It requires very little interpretation. I called it out as a separate study because it is the sort of message that, if it were combined with a longer section, it would likely get skimmed by with very little notice. We'd prefer to not linger on passages like these, wouldn't we?

Note first that the words were written to apply to "all, both Jews and Greeks" (v.9). But if you are Italian or Swedish, or something else, this doesn't let you off the hook. Paul chose the word "Ἕλλην" (Hellen), from which we get the term "Hellenistic, "which literally means "those who act like Greeks.' The term was commonly used to refer to anyone who is not of Abrahamic descent. So he literally says in these verses that every single person in this world:

• Fails to understand
• Fails to seeks after God
• Has turned aside
• Has become worthless
• Has only evil, not good
• Has used their tongues to deceive
• Has spoken venomous words
• Has cursed others and become bitter toward them
• Is quick to shed blood
• Follows a path of ruin and misery
• Does not know the way of peace
• Does not fear God
  

That is you and me! If I'm honest, I have been guilty of nearly everything in that list.

Just a couple of weeks ago I was driving on a windy country road at night. The driver of the car behind me didn't like me driving the speed limit. He honked and revved his loud engine and then passed me on this 2-lane road in the pitch dark, almost causing me to wreck. I responded in a way I hadn't done for 30 years - I flipped him off! I gave him the Beverly Hillbillies one finger salute!

Where did that come from? Well, from my heart, I guess. I just don't like acknowledging it. All of my righteousness is like bloody tampons, as Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 64:6. Your English language version says something like "filthy rags," but the Hebrew is more poignant, literally "used menstrual cloths."

Fortunately Paul writes hope for me in the next verses:

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19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

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Verse 20 says that " by works" I am doomed.
Under the Law I am doomed.

But I'm not under Law! Through Christ I'm under grace! Praise God for rescuing me!

Having God's direct words gave them a distinct advantage – knowing very specifically what holiness and righteousness was in the Lord's eyes – but they didn't fully apply it. Knowing very specifically what God required for holiness made them no better than Gentiles who did not.

Even with scriptures directly from God, they are as unrighteous as the heathen. Those scriptures are a double-edged sword of the Spirit! The Law only served to increase the thing that made them equal with the Gentiles - sin (he'll draw this out more plainly a little later).

"Under" sin is an interesting expression. What exactly does it mean to be under it? We can get some insight by comparing similar New Testament phrases. For example,

This Greek word for "under" here means to be "dominated or controlled by the authority of" something else. Jews and Gentiles alike are under sin. They are sin's helpless servants.

There is an important distinction - especially in Romans - between "sin" and "sins." While a person can potentially do something about the individual sins that he commits (that is, he can individually choose not to commit them), he cannot avoid the ultimate reality that he is separated from God.

Even someone who avoids committing "sins" is under the command, the authority, and the control of sin and is helpless to escape from it by himself or herself.

Correcting our actions is just a Band-Aid. It doesn't address the root of the problem, which is slavery and helplessness. The human predicament is not that people do bad things. Correcting people's actions cannot alleviate the human predicament. The problem with humans is that they are slaves to sin and are thus separated from the hand of God who alone can heal them.

That's the problem that needs solved.

The solitary solution to that problem is being restored to God and a born again into a new (or, renewed) human race.

God will conform this new humanity into the image of the Son He loves (Romans 8:29 and Colossians 3:10).

V.10 - I suggested in an earlier lesson that the central theme of this letter, especially of the first 8 chapters, is "the righteousness from (or of) God" (1:17).

God is always righteous because He is always right, and He always does what is right because He Himself is the only standard for righteousness.

For us that means that to be righteous you don't merely have to act like God. You have to actually *be* God - or else abandon any claim to your own righteousness and pray that God will confer His own righteousness to you.

Righteousness exists in God alone. It exists nowhere else.

That's why it is so significant that we have received God's righteousness. There's no other kind of righteousness to be had!

By way of analogy, imagine a golf tournament where a hole-in-one on the 18th hole will be awarded $100,000. The first golfer shoots his ball two feet short of the hole. The second player's ball falls only 1 foot from the hole. The third golfer's ball comes to a stop only 6" from the hole. The fourth competitor’s ball rolls up to the rim but doesn't drop. Who wins the $100,000? No one. Only a hole-in-one wins. Some were very close, but they didn't get the reward.

There are no degrees of righteousness. It does not exist on a spectrum. You can't be more or less righteous. You hit a hole in one or you don't. This isn't horseshoes – "almost" doesn't count.

You either are righteous or you aren't, and no one but God is.

(NB: Though the Bible sometimes describes individuals or nations as righteous - such as Job - it is always in comparison with other people, not with God or His standards.)

3:11-18

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11 there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." 13 "Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit." "The poison of vipers is on their lips." 14 "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." 15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 ruin and misery mark their ways, 17 and the way of peace they do not know." 18 "There is no fear of God before their eyes."

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Paul uses this string of scriptures (a technique known in Hebrew as a "string of pearls") to emphatically show the self-righteous Jew that his own scriptures thoroughly convict him.

Together these Old Testament passages show that the whole person is guilty before God, specifically mentioning their throats, tongues, lips, mouths, feet, minds, and eyes.

His deeper message all along has been that Jews and Gentiles must be saved in the same way. But to demonstrate that he first had to put the Jews and gentiles on equal footing.

So now it's plain: A Jew must deny his own scriptures to deny that only God can make him righteous.

3:19-20

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19 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. 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

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Remember that in 3:9, he wrote that "Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin."
Using the Jews' own scriptures , Paul has clearly demonstrated everyone is "under sin."

Do you see the futility for the Jews here? V.19 says that the Law says what it says to those who are "under" it - again, that means those " dominated or controlled by its authority" similar to being "under" sin – in order to hush their mouths and hold them accountable.

Then in v.20 he adds, as the NIV translates it, "Through Law we become conscious of sin." The NIV doesn't do the Greek justice here. Being conscious of sin isn't enough. Literally, this passage says "The full knowledge (epignosis) of sin comes through the Law."

Ouch! We become even more conscious that we were under sin by being under Law. What a predicament!

As Paul already pointed out, pagans could become aware of God through creation, and Gentiles could become conscious of good and bad through their consciences. But here he says that only through God's Law - His direct communication of righteousness to mankind - can humans become fully knowledgeable about sin. In other words, knowledge of good and evil through our consciences isn't equal to knowing sin through the exposing light of the Law.

That was the Law’s purpose - to make people aware of how sinful they are. Only through the Law can people really know how bad sin is and how futile their efforts are to please God through their own efforts.

In John Bunyan's book Pilgrim's Progress, a pilgrim whose name is Christian carried a weight on his shoulder. When asked why he was carrying it, he answered that it was because of the book he was reading that the Evangelist gave him.

The Law places a heavy burden upon man.

Fortunately that burden is not the end of the story. Jesus promised us "my yoke is easy and my burden light" (Matthew 11:30).