There Is None Righteous
3 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? 2 Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles (word) of God. 3 What then? If some did not believe, does their unbelief abolish the faithfulness of God? 4 May it never be! Rather, let God be true and every man a liar, as it is written,
“THAT YOU MAY BE JUSTIFIED IN YOUR WORDS, AND OVERCOME WHEN YOU ARE JUDGED.” (Psalm 51:4)
[3 God is faithful and will fulfill all the promises He made to the nation, even if individual Jews are not able to receive them because of their unbelief.]
[4If all mankind were to agree that God had been unfaithful to His promises, it would only prove that all are liars and God is true. God cannot lie.]
5 But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is the God who inflicts wrath unrighteous? (I am speaking in human terms.) 6 May it never be! For otherwise, how will God judge the world? 7 But if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner? 8 And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), “Let us do evil that good may come”? Their condemnation is just.
[5-8: Paul anticipates and answers the objection that his teaching actually impugned the very holiness and purity of God’s character.]
9 What then? Are we better? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; 10 as it is written, (Psalms 1:1-3; 53-1-3)
“There is none righteous, not even one; [man is universally evil]
11 There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; [
12 All have turned aside, together they have become worthless; There is none who does good, There is not even one.”
13 “Their throat is an open tomb, With their tongues they keep deceiving,” “The poison of asps is under their lips”;
14 “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness”;
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood,
16 Destruction and misery are in their paths,
17 And the path of peace they have not known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
[9Christians do not have an intrinsically superior nature to those Paul has shown to stand under God’s condemnation.]
19 Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are in the Law, so that every mouth may be shut and all the world may become accountable to God; 20 because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.
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