Original Meaning

PAUL NOW DRAWS from his extended discussion of sin and God’s wrath in 1:18–3:8 a conclusion and an implication from that conclusion, both of which are foundational to his argument in the letter as a whole. The conclusion comes in verse 9: All people, including both Jews and Gentiles, are “under sin.” Paul states the implication at the end of the passage: “No one will be declared righteous in his [God’s] sight by observing the law.” Supporting the conclusion of verse 9 is a series of Old Testament quotations—the longest such series in the New Testament (vv. 10–18).

The question-and-answer format of verse 9 resembles the style of verses 1–8, and the questions are probably sparked by what he has taught in these verses. But to understand the exact connection, we first have to be sure about the translation and interpretation of the second question. A person reading the NIV could be pardoned for wondering what is going on in the Greek. For the text reads, “Are we any better?” while the footnote suggests precisely the opposite, “Are we any worse?” The difference has to do not with a textual variant but with the interpretation of a Greek verb (proecho), whose basic meaning is “surpass.” The specific form of the verb used here (proechometha) can be either passive voice (“Are we surpassed?”1) or middle voice, with an active meaning (“Do we surpass?”). The subject of the verb is the Jews and the implied comparison, granted the context, is almost certainly the Gentiles.

Along with most English translations and commentaries, we think the latter meaning is probably intended here. But the point is roughly the same whatever translation we go with. In either case the question is whether there is, in the last analysis, any basic difference between Jew and Gentile. We can understand how Paul’s discussion in verses 1–8 may have raised just this question. For in verses 1–2 he has asserted that Jews do have certain privileges, while in chapter 2 as a whole he has criticized the Jews to such an extent that some may conclude they are worse off than the Gentiles.

The “Not at all!” that NIV has as Paul’s response to this question does not translate the same Greek expression (me genoito) that we find elsewhere in Romans (see comment on 3:4). Some interpreters therefore insist that Paul’s negation here is weaker, having the sense of “not entirely” (the Greek is ou pantos). Such a nuanced negative is required, they argue, because Paul has already affirmed that Jews do have an advantage over Gentiles in a certain sense: They have been “entrusted with the very words of God” (3:2).2

But we do not need to nuance the negative to achieve harmony between the two texts. The context makes clear enough that the distinction Paul denies here (as throughout ch. 2) has to do with the specific issue of rescue from God’s wrath. It is just this point that Paul reiterates as his explanation (gar, “for,” not translated in NIV) of his negation at the end of v. 9: “[For] we have already made the charge that both Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin.” The exact phraseology is important: People do not just commit sin, but they are “under sin.” We will explore the significance of this language in the Contemporary Significance section.

With his typical introductory formula, “As it is written,” Paul now moves to a series of Old Testament quotations that substantiate the universality of sin. Paul quotes mainly from Psalms and Isaiah. At first sight the arrangement of the quotations appears to be haphazard. But a closer look uncovers a certain structure. The phrase “there is no” (ouk estin) links the quotations in verses 10b–12, which establish the general point of universal human sin. In verses 13–14, Paul focuses on sins of speech, referring to a different organ of speech in each of the four lines. Verses 15–17 then enumerate sins of violence against others. Verse 18, finally, returns to where Paul began, using “there is no” (Gk. ouk estin) to state basic human disregard for God.

A few scholars have suggested that Paul may be quoting from an early Christian collection of Old Testament passages.3 We have some evidence that such collections of “proof texts” from the Old Testament (called a florilegium) existed, either in oral or written form, in the early days of the church. But we have no way of knowing whether we have one of them here.

The quotations also raise a hermeneutical issue. Some of the words Paul quotes do, indeed, refer to human beings generally in their original contexts (e.g., verses 10b–12). But in the case of others, the original referents were wicked enemies (verses 13–14) or the unrighteous within Israel (verses 15–17). How can Paul apply all these texts to people generally? Some, indeed, deny that Paul is doing any such thing; they use these quotations as evidence that Paul is condemning in this context only unrighteous Jews.4 But Paul’s language seems pretty clear: “Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin” (v. 9); “there is no one righteous” (v. 10, italics added). Perhaps, then, Paul is implying that all Jews must now be considered to belong to the category of the “wicked” (see Bridging Contexts).

The language in verses 10b–12 is taken from Psalm 14:1–3 (cf. also Ps. 53:1–3). The “there is no one” reverberates like a steady beat in these lines, hammering home Paul’s point that all people, Jew and Greek alike, are under sin’s power. The quotation, like most of Paul’s, seems to be taken from the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint (LXX). But a comparison between the Psalm text and Romans 3:10b–12 reveals one significant difference. Where the Psalmist claims that “there is no one who does good,” Paul quotes “there is no one righteous” (dikaios). A few commentators think that the change is because Paul is also alluding to Ecclesiastes 7:20: “There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.”5 But the importance of “righteous” language in this part of Romans makes it more likely that Paul himself has introduced this change to tailor the quotation more closely to its context.

After highlighting the universality of sin, Paul goes on to illustrate this point in turn by enumerating representative sins. The first series (vv. 13–14), focusing on sins of speech, comes from three separate Psalm verses: Psalm 5:9; 140:3b; and 10:7. Paul may have arranged the verses to match the sequence of organs that people use when they speak: throat, tongue, lips, mouth. Paul uses the quotations to paint a vivid picture of the way people use their words to harm others.

The next series of representative sins concentrates generally on violence (vv. 15–17). The quotation is taken from Isaiah 59:7–8a, with possible allusion to Proverbs 1:16. The series concludes with a final general proof of the universality of human refusal to honor God: “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom. 3:18, quoting Ps. 36:1b).

In verse 19 Paul announces the conclusion to be drawn from this series of quotations: “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.” The first occurrence of “law” must refer to the quotations that he has just finished, many of which come from the Psalms. Here, then, is one of the few times when Paul uses the word “law” (nomos) in a canonical sense, to denote Scripture (see Bridging Contexts section of 2:12–16). But in his second use of nomos in this verse, Paul reverts to his usual usage: Those “under the law” are Jews, accountable by God for the law of Moses he has imposed on them.

The conclusion Paul draws from this is interesting: “Every” mouth is “silenced”; the “whole world” is accountable to God. The imagery is judicial. We are to picture the defendant closing his or her mouth with nothing to say in defense after the prosecuting attorney (i.e., the Old Testament quotations of vv. 10b–18) has finished. That defendant recognizes that he or she is at the mercy of the judge (God), who is about to pronounce sentence.

But how can Old Testament verses that, Paul says, apply to the Jews (“those under the law”) bring all of humanity under conviction? A few have thought that this universal conclusion requires that “those under the law” include all people. Nomos, then, would refer to divine law generally, whether Mosaic or “natural” (cf. 2:14).6 But this broad an application of nomos is unusual in Paul and does not fit with the language “under the law.” Thus an alternative is preferable. Paul knows full well that the most difficult case he has to prove is that Jews, who are recipients of God’s revelation and covenant blessing, are sinners accountable for God. By proving from the Old Testament, then, that Jews are condemned, Paul feels it legitimate to extend that verdict to all people.

The NIV, with its “therefore” (dioti) suggests that verse 20 is a conclusion to be drawn from verse 19. This makes good sense. But dioti can also be translated “because,” and this may make even better sense. Paul is aware that Jews may well want to excuse themselves from the universal charge he has made in verse 19. They will want to appeal to their relationship to God’s law as a reason why they are exempt from the verdict of condemnation. Consequently, Paul meets this objection by claiming that the law is powerless to change the Jews’ basic standing before God: “No one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law.”

Paul’s language here echoes Psalm 143:2b: “No one living is righteous before you.” But the significant addition, of course, is Paul’s reference to the law. The NIV “observing the law” translates a phrase that has been the center of a heated debate in the last few years: erga nomou (lit., “works of the law”). Paul is the only New Testament author to use the phrase (see also Rom. 3:28; Gal. 2:16; 3:2, 5, 10). In each case, he denies that “righteousness” (or its equivalent) can be based on these “works of the law.”

Almost all modern interpreters agree that the “law” in this phrase is the Mosaic law and that Paul is talking about some kind of Torah-observance. But scholars disagree over whether the emphasis is on “works” or on “law.” If the former, then Paul’s point is that even works done in obedience to the law of Moses cannot bring a person into relationship with God. A legitimate inference, then, is that no works of any kind, done in obedience to any law or moral impulse, can justify. But if the emphasis is on the word “law,” Paul may be focusing not so much on the performance of the law as on the possession of the law. On this view, his point is narrowly focused on the Jews and cannot be extended beyond them. He is arguing that the Mosaic law and the covenant of which it is a part cannot justify—no more.

A powerful force in favor of this second view is a revised interpretation of Judaism that has become widespread in the last thirty years. But despite this force, we think the former view is preferable. Jewish antecedents to the phrase “works of the law” suggest that it means simply “things done in obedience to the law”; no further nuance is justified. The phrase appears to function in Paul as an equivalent to the simple word “works” (cf. 3:20, 28 with 4:2, 3–5). This interpretation makes good sense in the context of first-century Judaism (see Bridging Contexts).

Having told us what the law cannot do—bring one into relationship with God—Paul concludes by telling us what the law does accomplish: Through it “we become conscious of sin.” “Become conscious” in the NIV translates the Greek noun epignosis, “knowledge.” But since “knowledge” in the Bible often refers to intimate acquaintance or understanding, the NIV rendering is on target here. By setting before people a detailed record of God’s will, the law makes people vividly aware of how short of God’s requirements they fall. It therefore brings awareness of sinfulness.

Bridging Contexts

READING OLD TESTAMENT quotations against their contexts. We have emphasized before in this commentary (see “Bridging Contexts” section on 1:1–7) how important it is to read Romans against the background of the Old Testament. This is obviously necessary in 3:10–18, where we have a series of explicit quotations. But we can sometimes miss the nuance of the quotation by neglecting to look carefully at the context from which Paul takes it. This does not mean that Paul, or other New Testament authors, always quote the Old Testament in a way that fits the original context. But the careful reader of the New Testament should always check the Old Testament context to see if that context might illuminate the New Testament application.

To illustrate, we give below the larger Old Testament contexts from which Paul’s quotations in vv. 10–18 are taken (the language Paul uses [or its equivalent] is in italics).

Psalm 14:1–7 (see Rom. 3:10b–12)

For the director of music. Of David.

The fool says in his heart,

“There is no God.”

They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;

there is no one who does good.

The LORD looks down from heaven

on the sons of men

to see if there are any who understand,

any who seek God.

All have turned aside,

they have together become corrupt;

there is no one who does good,

not even one.

Will evildoers never learn—

those who devour my people as men eat bread

and who do not call on the LORD?

There they are, overwhelmed with dread,

for God is present in the company of the righteous.

You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor,

but the LORD is their refuge.

Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!

When the LORD restores the fortunes of his people,

let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!

Psalm 5:5–10 (Rom. 3:13a)

The arrogant cannot stand in your presence;

you hate all who do wrong.

You destroy those who tell lies;

bloodthirsty and deceitful men

the LORD abhors.

But I, by your great mercy,

will come into your house,

in reverence will I bow down

toward your holy temple.

Lead me, O LORD, in your righteousness

because of my enemies—

make straight your way before me.

Not a word from their mouth can be trusted;

their heart is filled with destruction.

Their throat is an open grave

with their tongue they speak deceit.

Declare them guilty, O God!

Let their intrigues be their downfall.

Banish them for their many sins,

for they have rebelled against you.

Psalm 140:1–4 (Rom. 3:13b)

For the director of music. A psalm of David.

Rescue me, O LORD, from evil men;

protect me from men of violence,

who devise evil plans in their hearts

and stir up war every day.

They make their tongues as sharp as a serpent’s;

the poison of vipers is on their lips.

Keep me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked;

protect me from men of violence

who plan to trip my feet.

Psalm 10:4–7 (v. 14)

In his pride the wicked does not seek him;

in all his thoughts there is no room for God.

His ways are always prosperous;

he is haughty and your laws are far from him;

he sneers at all his enemies.

He says to himself, “Nothing will shake me;

I’ll always be happy and never have trouble.”

His mouth is full of curses and lies and threats;

trouble and evil are under his tongue.

Isaiah 59:4–10 (Rom. 3:15–17)

No one calls for justice;

no one pleads his case with integrity.

They rely on empty arguments and speak lies;

they conceive trouble and give birth to evil.

They hatch the eggs of vipers

and spin a spider’s web.

Whoever eats their eggs will die,

and when one is broken, an adder is hatched.

Their cobwebs are useless for clothing;

they cannot cover themselves with what they make.

Their deeds are evil deeds,

and acts of violence are in their hands.

Their feet rush into sin

they are swift to shed innocent blood.

Their thoughts are evil thoughts;

ruin and destruction mark their ways.

The way of peace they do not know;

there is no justice in their paths.

They have turned them into crooked roads;

no one who walks in them will know peace.

So justice is far from us,

and righteousness does not reach us.

We look for light, but all is darkness;

for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows.

Like the blind we grope along the wall,

feeling our way like men without eyes.

At midday we stumble as if it were twilight;

among the strong, we are like the dead.

Psalm 36:1–4 (Rom. 3:18)

For the director of music. Of David the servant of the LORD.

An oracle is within my heart

concerning the sinfulness of the wicked:

There is no fear of God

before his eyes.

For in his own eyes he flatters himself

too much to detect or hate his sin.

The words of his mouth are wicked and deceitful;

he has ceased to be wise and to do good.

Even on his bed he plots evil;

he commits himself to a sinful course

and does not reject what is wrong.

What immediately strikes us when we see these contexts is that every one of them (with the possible exception of the Isaiah quotation) focuses on wicked or unrighteous people, in distinction from the writer and other righteous Israelites. We would certainly never have guessed this from the quotations in Romans by themselves.

What are we to conclude from this observation? As we noted above, some scholars think this proves that Paul is referring in these quotations only to unrighteous Jews. But a more likely explanation is that Paul deliberately chose to take his words from these contexts in order to make a subtle, but important point: in light of Christ, all Jews must now be considered to be in the category of the “wicked.” The original readers of Romans would be well aware that the words Paul quotes apply only to the wicked, and they may well have wondered at first about how Paul can apply them to all Jews. But then they would realize the rhetorical point that Paul is making: All Jews (along with all Gentiles) are “unrighteous.”

Reading Paul in the context of first-century Judaism. Since God has revealed himself to us in space-and-time history, that history becomes an indispensable context for the accurate interpretation of the Bible. Most Christians, therefore, understand the need to investigate “backgrounds” in study of the Bible. Many excellent books that help the average Bible reader do just that have appeared in recent years.

But what some students of the Bible may not understand is how debated some of these background data really are. The potential for serious misunderstanding of the Biblical texts is therefore large. We may conclude, for instance, that a particular text must have a certain meaning because it was written against a specific background. But suppose that background is not correct? Then our interpretation will also be wrong. The answer to this problem is not to dismiss background information, but to be as certain as possible that the background is accurate, and to be cautious about forcing texts to fit a background.

Nowhere in the interpretation of the Bible is this problem of correct background more debated or more important than in passages such as Romans 3:20. In denying that a person can be “justified by works of the law” (lit. trans.), Paul is clearly arguing against someone who thinks that a person can be justified in this way. But who is this person? And what exactly were they claiming?

Almost everyone today agrees that the person Paul is debating is a Jew. That means that the “law” Paul refers to is the Mosaic law, the law that Jews put so much stock in. But why does he use the phrase “works of the law”? Why not just “law”? Here is where we enter into the issue of Jewish backgrounds. In the past, most interpreters of Paul assumed, or argued, that these texts reveal a battle between Paul and legalistic Jews. Jews thought that their observing the law would save them; Paul insists that it cannot and that only the grace of Christ can save them.

But many contemporary interpreters are no longer sure that this is what Paul is talking about. One of the reasons for their hesitation is that they do not think the Jews in Paul’s day believed they were saved by doing the law. Rather, Jews believed that they were saved because God had chosen them. In his covenant with Abraham and Moses, God entered into a relationship with the Jewish people. He chose them to be his people. Thus, Jews were “saved” by God’s grace in the Jewish covenant. To be sure, they understood that they had to obey the law God had given them. But they did not obey it to “get saved”; they obeyed to maintain the salvation God had already given them.

This way of understanding salvation in ancient Judaism had been brought up by scholars in the past. But it has been particularly in the last twenty years that this interpretation has become popular. The view is often labeled “covenant nomism.” The word “covenant,” of course, reflects this view’s emphasis on the centrality of the covenant for Jewish salvation, and “nomism” is deliberately chosen as a contrast to “legalism.” The Jews were not “legalistic” (i.e., thinking they had to do the law to get saved) but “nomistic” (i.e., seeking to obey the law to stay saved and to honor the God who had chosen them).

The popularity of the “covenant nomism” understanding has created a revolution in the study of Paul. So much of what he writes about being justified is against the Jewish background that any change in the background changes Paul’s teaching as well. It is as if one suddenly looked at a familiar object against a whole different backdrop. The object changes its shape and its size. How is Paul’s teaching about being justified changed when we look at it against this different Jewish background? Not everyone agrees, but one of the most popular interpretations goes like this:

1. “Works of the law” is a phrase that refers to the Jews’ covenant obligation.

2. Jews were insisting that they, and they alone, could be “justified before God” because only they had been put into covenant relationship with God.

3. Therefore, Paul denies that the Jews have any “corner” on justification because of their covenant relationship. That covenant will not put them into relationship with God, for God is determined to justify all people on the same basis—through faith in Christ.7

What are we to make of this new interpretation? There is much that is right about it. “Covenant nomism” is, indeed, a more accurate view of what Jews in Paul’s day believed about salvation than many of the traditional views. For instance, I can remember being taught when I was first a Christian that Jews believed they could be saved only by doing more good works than bad. In the judgment, God would “weigh” their works, and only if the scales tipped in favor of the good could a Jew be saved. This is little more than a caricature of what Jews believed. It completely misses the emphasis in so many Jewish writings on the importance of God’s grace in the covenant with his people.

Advocates of “covenant nomism” are also right to emphasize that Paul was deeply concerned to demonstrate that God’s grace was for all people. He wrote against the Jews’ assumption of exclusive rights to salvation and insisted that Gentiles had just as much right to be saved as did the Jews (see, e.g., Rom. 2; 3:28–30; 4:9–17). But I myself do not think that we can completely buy into this new view.

(1) “Covenant nomism,” while a generally accurate picture of the Jews’ understanding of salvation, does not tell the whole story. The Jewish material from this period of time reveals a lot of differences in what Jews believed about the basics of their faith. To be sure, advocates of covenant nomism insist that virtually all the relevant writings agree in this view. But other scholars are not so sure, and a pretty convincing case can be made that at least some Jews made “doing the law” a lot more important in salvation than “covenant nomism” allows. Indeed, one can almost expect this kind of development. In any religion that puts a lot of emphasis on “law”—Christianity included!—legalism is a persistent problem.

Moreover, “covenant nomism” itself implies that doing the law is essential for salvation. Jews viewed God’s judgment as the time when a person’s salvation was ultimately determined. Especially during the persecutions of the intertestamental period, a division between faithful Jews and apostate Jews became more and more apparent. Both were born as Jews, heirs of the covenant; but, many Jews taught, the faithful Jew was saved and the apostate Jew was not. Why? Because the faithful Jew followed God’s law and the apostate Jew did not. In this sense, fidelity to the law was essential for salvation among the Jews.

If the traditional view is guilty of overemphasizing the degree of legalism in the Jewish religion, “covenant nomism” is guilty of underemphasizing it. The bottom line is this: We are not convinced that the background against which generations of scholars interpreted Paul’s teaching on justification is that far off the mark. Adjustments, particularly in some of the more extreme presentations, are needed. But these adjustments are not so violent as to require a whole new interpretation of Paul’s teaching.

(2) Another reason why I have reservations about the new paradigm on Paul is that I do not think that it finally offers a convincing interpretation of Paul’s teaching. We will be looking at many specific passages as we work through the commentary. But let me make two quick points on verse 20. (a) Many advocates of the new paradigm insist that the key issue Paul is grappling with is the relationship between Jew and Gentile in the people of God. So they tend to interpret “justify” to mean “accept into God’s people.” But this does not do justice to the vertical emphasis in Paul’s justification teaching. As he makes clear in verse 20, it is being justified before God (“in his sight”) that is the ultimate issue. Justification is God’s acceptance of us; belonging to the people of God is penultimate.

(b) “Works of the law,” as we argued in the Original Meaning section, mean “deeds done in obedience to the law.” The other nuances that advocates of the new paradigm find in the phrase are not clearly present.

We conclude, then, that Paul in verse 20 is combating what we might call a “syncretistic” view of salvation that seems to have been widespread in first-century Judaism. God, in his covenant, had provided the basis for salvation. But the individual Jew could be saved only by faithfully doing the law in response to God’s covenant election. In Romans 2 Paul shows that Jews cannot depend on their covenant for salvation, so that they cannot be put right with God by doing the law. Their “works” are now in the same category as that of the Gentiles—unable to secure salvation because of the pervasive power of sin.

Contemporary Significance

COMING TO GRIPS with sin. We can easily miss the precise wording of verse 9 and its significance. Paul does not say that all people “commit sins,” as if doing things contrary to God’s will is just an occasional problem. Nor does he even say that all people are “sinners,” suggesting that sin is a pervasive problem. Rather, he says that all people are “under sin.” Paul uses this kind of language to speak of a situation of domination or even slavery. See, for instance, Galatians 3:22: “But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin [lit., “held prisoner under sin”], so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe” (see also Rom. 6:14, 15; 7:14; 1 Cor. 9:20; Gal. 3:23, 25; 4:2–5, 9, 21; Eph. 1:22). For Paul, then, the human plight is not that people commit sins or even that they are in the habit of committing sins. The problem is that people are helpless prisoners of sin.

Why is this point important? Mainly because our understanding of someone’s problem dictates the answer to that problem. Marxists, for instance, believe that the basic human problem is the unequal distribution of wealth. Their solution is, therefore, to exert state control over the economy so that there will be no more rich and poor.

By contrast, many of the great philosophers and moral teachers in the history of the world have been convinced that the basic problem of human beings is that they are ignorant. The solution? Knowledge. That is, teach people, and they will be made into better people, and the problems of the world will disappear. This almost mystical belief in knowledge pervades our society, and many politicians propose programs based on this assumption. In recent months, for example, a blizzard of advertising encouraging children not to smoke has appeared in the United States. The assumption is clear: Teach children how foolish and dangerous it is to smoke, and they will never start. But if Paul is right, the problem, to pursue the analogy, is not that children are tempted to smoke. The problem, rather, is that many children are part of an environment in which peer pressure leads them to smoke. They may acknowledge that smoking is a bad habit and not really want to start. But they do not have the ability to resist the peer pressure. They are, as it were, enslaved to that pressure.

This is Paul’s, and the Bible’s, analysis of the human predicament: People, by nature, are addicted to sin. They are imprisoned under it, unable to free themselves by anything they can do. Knowing this, then, God has sent to us not a teacher or a politician but a liberator—one who has the power to set us free from our sins. Teaching, of course, is a very good thing—at least it had better be, because I do it all the time! But we must understand that is can never be, by itself, the ultimate solution to any one person’s problems or to the problems of the world.

The communist governments that came to power in the twentieth century illustrate vividly the problem. Built on the Marxist philosophy, these governments forced rich people to distribute their resources with the poor. But taking the place of the rich landholders was a new privileged class of bureaucrats. Communism changed the privileged class, but it could not eradicate the basic human selfishness that inevitably leads to the hoarding of wealth and the championing of class distinctions.

When we really see the people all around us—at work, in our neighborhoods, at the store—as helpless captives of sin, we will be better motivated to help them find the true liberator who alone can rescue them from their captivity. Only Jesus Christ, proclaimed in the gospel, can break through the walls of sin that imprison human beings.

The poverty of works. As a result of our analysis of verse 20, we concluded that Paul denies that Jews can gain acceptance with God by doing the law. Their “works,” the things they do in obedience to Torah, cannot justify them. But can the situation of Jews and their law be applied more broadly? Most defenders of the new paradigm deny that it can be. But in our view “works of the law” is not a technical expression for an exclusively Jewish phenomenon. It is, rather, a subset of the larger category “works.” What Jews “do” in obedience to the law is but one particular form of what people “do” in obedience to “natural” law or “conscience” or whatever moral authority they may recognize.

Thus, we think it is appropriate to apply what Paul says in verse 20 to human beings generally. The Reformers consistently interpreted Paul’s language in just this way, finding in verses like these the bedrock on which they built their understanding of the gospel. No person can be put right with God by what a person does. Faith, and specifically faith in Jesus Christ, is the only solution (see 3:21ff.).

The basic theology of Paul’s argument on this point can quickly be seen by highlighting three key claims he makes in these chapters:

“For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.” (2:13)

“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.” (3:9)

“Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.” (3:20)

Taken out of context, the first and the third of these verses can be seen as contradictory. But between them is 3:9, asserting the universal domination of sin. Read as a sequential argument, 2:13 states the standard by which God judges all people: works. But the power of sin makes it impossible for any person to do those works that will win God’s final approval. Thus, the conclusion follows: No person, in fact, can be justified by what he or she does.

The idea that our efforts, however sincere, cannot get us what we want cuts against the grain of natural human pride. We tend to have a high opinion of ourselves, particularly when things are going well. Carried over into religion, this natural human impulse leads to theories of salvation that give human effort a basic role. Such a view of salvation is officially adopted by some world religions. Christians who understand that human effort will never put a person in relationship with God must help people recognize the ultimate poverty of their works.

But Christians can also bring over into our own view and practice of faith a similar overemphasis on our own efforts. To be sure, as Paul will make clear in Romans 6 and 12, Christians need to be dedicated to producing works pleasing to God. But we can never take credit for these works, nor should we ever think that these works will make us acceptable to God.