Romans 3:9-20 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

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Bible Comments

sums up the impeachment of mankind.

Romans 3:9. Paul has beaten down Jewish counter-pleas; he and his fellow-believers (we) might be supposed to have some apology in reserve: What then? do we make any defence? (mg.). Not in the least! for we have already charged Jews and Greeks alike with being all under the power of sin.

Romans 3:10-18. The universal accusation is restated by a string of OT sentences (p. 805) gathered, with the exception of Romans 3:15-17 (Isaiah 59:7 f.), from the Psalter, which poignantly depict the sinfulness of mankind. Two things are conspicuous in this sad catena: the world's unrighteousness is traced to a want of understanding about God (Romans 3:11; Romans 3:18; cf. Romans 1:18-23); here cruelty, the wrong of man toward man, predominates, as foulness, the wrong of man toward himself, did in ch. 1.

Romans 3:19 f. resumes the thread of Romans 3:9: We know, moreover, that in whatsoever things the law pronounces, it speaks to those within its scope, that every mouth may be stopped (Jewish mouths particularly), and all the world may find itself obnoxious to God's judgment; because by works of law, etc. (Psalms 143:2). For through law comes the fuller knowledge of sin: this concluding sentence awaits explanation in ch. 7 (cf. p. 823).

Related Commentaries of Romans 3:9

Romans 3:9-20

9 What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proveda both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;

10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; 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 ways:

17 And the way of peace have they not known:

18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.

19 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 guiltyb before God.

20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.