Paul quotes a text from the Book of Psalms that speaks of universal sinfulness, of the fact that no righteous people remain on earth...
Paul quotes a text from the Book of Psalms that speaks of universal sinfulness, of the fact that no righteous people remain on earth. These are rather allusions to certain passages from different psalms, so that it is impossible to find the passage cited by the apostle in the form in which it appears in the letter. Such allusions to well-known passages from the Book of Psalms, from the prophetic books, or even from the Pentateuch were not rare in rabbinic discussions.
Paul's main thought is clear: there are no sinless people in the world, and therefore there are no innocent people before God and the Torah. It is precisely the Torah that reveals a person's sinfulness; by it, according to the apostle, sin is known. Here Paul raises a very serious problem, relevant to those who walked the way of righteousness presupposed by the Torah, and above all the inner Torah. It was precisely the inner Torah, perceived and experienced by a person as a spiritual and moral imperative, that revealed to the seeker of the way his own insufficiency.
The Torah, perceived mainly or exclusively in an outward way, could create the illusion of something on which one could establish oneself by contrasting oneself with those who do not know or observe the Torah. But then the Torah is reduced to what the apostle calls "works of the Torah" or "works of the Law," to what we would today call religious duties. And then, of course, the Torah becomes for those who follow it an exclusively religious phenomenon.
Paul, however, speaks of something else. He speaks of the inner Torah and of the spiritual path that following it presupposes. Here the issue is no longer religion. What matters here is to relate each step, each intention, to the inner Torah as to a system of God's intentions opened to a person. This is spiritual work, reducible to no religious practice. But precisely the attempts to relate one's will in its concrete manifestations to equally concrete manifestations of God's will reveal to a person his imperfection.
It turns out that doing this is not at all simple, even with every desire: the will of fallen humanity does not obey a person nearly so easily, and a fallen person cannot even simply track all his intentions, not to mention becoming aware of them. And no "works of the Torah," no religious practice, and no outward religious activity can help a person here. If only because all such practice and any such activity touch only the surface of the human person, the periphery of his existence. But the way of righteousness corresponding to the Torah requires deep changes.
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3:9 What then - Here he resumes what he said, Rom 3:1. Under sin - Under the guilt and power of it: the Jews, by transgressing the written law; the gentiles, by transgressing the law of nature.
3:10 As it is written - That all men are under sin appears from the vices which have raged in all ages. St. Paul therefore rightly cites David and Isaiah, though they spoke primarily of their own age, and expressed what manner of men God sees, when he "looks down from heaven;" not what he makes them by his grace. There is none righteous - 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. Psa 14:1, etc
3:11 There is none that understandeth - The things of God.
3:12 They have all turned aside - From the good way.They are become unprofitable - Helpless impotent, unable to profit either themselves or others.
3:13 Their throat - Is noisome and dangerous as an open sepulchre. 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 backbiting, tale - bearing, evil - speaking,is under (for honey is on) their lips. An asp is a venomous kind of serpent. Psa 5:9; Psa 140:3.
3:14 Cursing - Against God. Bitterness - Against their neighbour. Psa 10:7.
3:15 Isa 59:7-8
3:17 Of peace - Which can only spring from righteousness.
3:18 The fear of God is not before their eyes - Much less is the love of God in their heart. Psa 36:1.
3:19 Whatsoever the law - The Old Testament. Saith, it saith to them that are under the law - That is, to those who own its authority; to the Jews, and not the gentiles. St.Paul quoted no scripture against them, but pleaded with them only from the light of nature. Every mouth - Full of bitterness, Rom 3:14, and yet of boasting, Rom 3:27.May become guilty - May be fully convicted, and apparently liable to most just condemnation. These things were written of old, and were quoted by St. Paul, not to make men criminal, but to prove them so.
3:20 No flesh shall be justified - None shall be forgiven and accepted of God. By the works of the law - On this ground, that he hath kept the law. St. Paul means chiefly the moral part of it, Rom 3:9, Rom 3:19, Rom 2:21, Rom 2:26; etc which alone is not abolished, Rom 3:31. And it is not without reason, that he so often mentions the works of the law, whether ceremonial or moral; for it was on these only the Jews relied, being wholly ignorant of those that spring from faith.For by the law is only the knowledge of sin - But no deliverance either from the guilt or power of it.