Romans 3:18Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

“What then? Do we have any advantage? For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. As it is written: There is none righteous, no, not one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks God. They have all turned aside. Together they have become unprofitable. There is none who does good, no, not one” (Ps 13:2-3).

“Their throat is an open tomb. With their tongues they practiced deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips” (Ps 139:3). “Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness” (Ps 9:28).

“Their feet are swift to shed blood” (Prov 1:16). “Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known” (Is 59:7-8). “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Ps 35:2).

In what was interpreted before this, the Apostle compared circumcision and uncircumcision, then added: “What advantage then has the Jew?” (Rom 3:1).

Here, intending to show the superiority of the evangelical grace, he said: “What then? Do we have any advantage?” For we have proved that those who lived both outside the law and under the law have sinned.

He also joined to this David’s testimony, as being most fitting to the present subject. He does this chiefly out of concern for brevity. Otherwise he would have summoned all the prophets to accuse the Jews.

For the prophets said things like this about them, and even things still more grievous. Therefore the Apostle added what follows in Rom 3:19.

“That every mouth may be stopped” does not mean that the Jews sinned in order that their mouths might be stopped. Rather, they were accused so that they might recognize their sin, as Chrysostom says.

The Apostle’s teaching on the sinfulness of all men does not contradict the Old Testament’s mention of many persons as righteous before God and as doing what was right.

The Apostle himself, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 11, cites a whole series of righteous men from the Old Testament. But they were righteous by faith, not by works of the law.

When he portrays those under the law in dark colors, the Apostle does not touch those justified by faith. More precisely, he does not touch their righteousness from faith.

He says that all men, even the righteous, while they hoped for salvation from works of the law, could not be justified.

The Apostle often explained these thoughts about the law for those who boasted in the law. He did this to show its true worth and meaning, and thus to restrain the pride of the foolish Hebrews.

The Apostle used the expression “all flesh” shall not be justified to indicate where the source of weakness lies. It is not in the law, but in us.

“As men bearing flesh, we cannot fulfill the law. Therefore there is no need even to think that anyone could be justified by the old law,” says Bishop Theophan.

In listing the kinds and forms of sinful men’s corruption, the Apostle points to a general turning away from striving to know God and serve Him.

He also points to the desire to walk in one’s own ways, to please oneself alone and not serve others, mutual deceit, secret ill will, slander, crafty and evil treachery, and readiness for the most dreadful murders.

All this happens with complete forgetfulness of fear before God, the Giver of recompense.

It is clear that sinners of this kind cannot obtain justification from God by themselves. Little by little, they also bring corruption into the whole earthly world.

Everywhere they produce discord, disorder, and malice, so that men have become beasts and deadly serpents toward one another. Many Roman writers of that time clearly testified to this.

But the Apostle Paul depicts human sinfulness on the basis of more ancient and more trustworthy God-inspired writings. By this he removes every foundation for the arrogance and haughtiness of the Hebrews.

They boasted vainly in the works of the law. Paul urges all to run to God with complete repentance and to receive grace through faith.

One may suppose that not all evildoers intend to do evil to the end. They do evil as though compelled by circumstances. Yet even in such men there is no fear of God, though it could exist. And it happens that many of them come to their senses.

But it also happens that, passing from evil deed to evil deed, they become hardened in heart. Through the multitude of their crimes they lose every hope of mercy. Therefore they surrender themselves into the hands of their own evil will.

When a thought of God arises, they drive it away with hostility and aversion. This disposition is satanic.

Such is the depiction of the Jews’ corruption, set in parallel with the corruption of the Gentiles. Comparing the two, we see that in both cases the whole perversion of morals flows from falling away from God in mind and heart.

Yet it is remarkable that the Gentiles, after falling away from God, sank into the coarsest lustfulness and then into every kind of unrighteousness. The Jews, however, after ceasing to understand and seek God, gave themselves directly to unrighteous and merciless deeds.

History also shows that, although the Jews also fell into sins of fleshly lust, there was not among them such an overflow of fornication as among the Gentiles. The holy Apostle did not consider it necessary to set this vice especially in view.