A closer look at St Paul's "none are righteous" (Romans 3:9-20)

A common understanding of the first three chapters of the Epistle to the Romans is to see it as Paul's case for the 'universal sinfulness of mankind' (as some refer to it). This way Paul can then get his audience recognizing their need for salvation, and thus lay the groundwork for presenting us the Gospel. This interpretation quite understandable, and somewhat correct, but I've come to a more nuanced reading of the text that I think better explains the arguments Paul is making. What I'm about to present isn't my own invention, but rather an interpretation that has been widely known from even among the early Church Fathers.

I think the popular take on Romans 3:9-20 is missing the larger point Paul is trying to make. In Romans 3 when Paul says “none are righteous” and “no one seeks after God” and “all have sinned,” I don’t think he is so much concerned about individual sinfulness as he is about corporate sinfulness. This might not seem like a big deal, but if we are truly aiming for solid exegesis we cannot afford to be sloppy and reading things only at the surface level.

Consider some details:

• The Jewish mindset was collectivist, so we shouldn't automatically assume Paul is speaking on the individual level. The Jews often thought in terms of “us/we” (Jews) versus “them” (Gentiles). This is reflected throughout Romans and Galatians, and other parts of the NT (e.g. Rom 1:16; 2:17-24; 3:9; 3:29; 9:24). The Jews saw themselves as the "chosen people," the "elect," not simply individually saved (as I note in a few posts HERE). So it would make more sense for Paul to be attacking the Jews on this bigger issue, namely their corporate fidelity to the Mosaic Covenant, since the Jews were aware many of them individually lived sinful lives (e.g. Jesus ate with "sinners"). Even today, we often tend to see our own nation in a more positive light than other nations, even if our nation has obvious sinners. For example, we love to point the finger at the Germany of WW2, though the fact is many of the citizens didn't want anything to do with it and many were ignorant of what was going on. All the while, many Western nations are fully pro-abortion, killing millions of children, and yet subconsciously see ourselves as "God's favorite nation". I think it is principally this inconsistent 'nationalist mindset' of us-vs-them that Paul is exposing in Romans 3.
  
  
• The OT passages that Paul cites in Romans 3:10-18 come from David’s prayers in the Psalms and one quote from Isaiah. Within these OT references are some blatant references to “righteous” individuals, which doesn't make much sense if the OT passage is trying to suggest literally nobody is righteous. For example, in Romans 3:10-12, Paul is quoting Psalm 14:1-3 ("none who does good"), yet in this same Psalm 14:4-6 it speaks of "the generation of the righteous" and other aspects of God's beloved people. Another example is Romans 3:13, where Paul is quoting Psalm 5:9 ("their throat is an open grave"), yet almost all of Psalm 5 is about God making a distinction between the evil doers and "the righteous" (Ps 5:12). Also, Romans 3:13 is citing Psalm 140:3, yet the majority of the Psalm is about God distinguishing the evil men from those who do good. In Romans 3:14, Paul is quoting Psalm 10:7 (LXX), and yet again the theme of the whole Psalm is making a distinction between those who are evil and those who are good. Then there's Romans 3:15-17, where Paul is now quoting Isaiah 59:7-8, but again the context is about evil men persecuting God's faithful. Lastly, Romans 3:18 cites Psalm 36:1, which spends the whole Psalm contrasting the evil doers with those who are "upright in heart" (Ps 36:10). Indeed, David (and Isaiah) did not consider himself one of the “wicked” men, and it would defeat the point of many of the Psalms if David saw himself as one of the wicked. So these texts in their actual context cannot be suggesting literally everyone is sinful, and thus we shouldn't assume Paul is grabbing random texts and putting his own spin on them.
  
  
• Within these Psalms, David is not speaking of the Gentiles as persecuting him, but rather his own people persecuting him, namely the Israelite leaders. This means Paul isn’t trying to prove the Gentiles are sinners here, especially since "the Gentiles are sinners" is basically a given within the Jewish mindset (Gal 2:15). If you lived outside of the Mosaic Covenant, you were basically walking in darkness (Rom 2:18-19). Paul is also probably hinting at the fact that just as the Israelites persecuted David their King, so now the Jews are persecuting Jesus their King. Obviously, this should lead to some embarrassment in the mind of Paul’s Jewish audience.
  
  
• The Jews were a minority in the world, making up less than 1% of the world’s population. So if Paul were saying ‘the whole world is sinful’, this wouldn’t really shock the average devout Jew, since it is obvious that the 99.9% of the world is not following the Torah. Thus, it isn’t enough for Paul to say ‘the whole world’ is sinful, since the Jews already believe this in their own way. So Paul has to trap this small group who are trying to dodge the charges and not want to recognize Jesus as their Messiah.
  
  
• It seems that Paul’s goal would be to get the Jews to see that they as a collective have broken the Mosaic Covenant, particularly in their rejection of the Messiah. The Mosaic Covenant was broken before, particularly at the Golden Calf incident and at the time leading to the Babylonian Exile. So it is certainly possible for the Jews as a whole to go astray, no matter how perfect they think they are. With Jesus being crucified, it seems that this is the third and decisive breaking of the Mosaic Covenant. 

Thus, the picture Paul is painting is not so much that all humans are individually depraved, but rather that mankind as a whole, between two races/nations of people, are sinful. These two races/nations of people are the Jews and Gentiles. The Gentiles were sinners in so far as they walked in darkness without the light of the Torah (Romans 2:19), with their Gentile societies often approving of things that are in fact depraved (e.g. idolatry, sexual immorality). Yet the Jews as a class themselves, who should know better, ended up acting as bad if not worse than the Gentiles as a whole. All throughout the OT, the Israelites are turning to sin. All through the Psalms, David, the chosen King by God, is running for his life from the Jews. The fact is, the history of the Jews in the OT is quite embarrassing, and it's no accident that God wanted all their depravity recorded.

The idea that Paul had in mind the Jews specifically in Romans 3:10-18 is found in various Biblical Commentaries, including even from the early Church period.  Consider the following:

• New American Bible, footnote for Romans 3:9-20, says: "Having explained that Israel’s privileged status is guaranteed by God’s fidelity, Paul now demonstrates the infidelity of the Jews by a catena of citations from scripture..."

• John Chrysostom, Homily on Romans 3, says: "But as yet [Paul] does not venture, as having an eye to the violence of the Jews, and so turns afresh to his accusation of them; and first he brings in as accuser, David speaking of the same things at length, which Isaiah mentioned all in short compass, so furnishing a strong curb for them . . . For what need was there, he means, that a prophet who was sent for your [i.e. Jewish] correction should accuse other people [i.e. the Gentiles]. . . . For since it was the principal bane of the Jews that they were so conceited with themselves"

• Haydock Catholic Bible, Commentary on Romans 3:9, says: "What then do we Jews excel the Gentiles? [Paul] again turns his discourse against the Jews, by shewing that they have been sinners, as well as the Gentiles, notwithstanding the particular favours God had done to them, and not to the Gentiles: this he proves out of the psalms; and (ver. 19.) he shews, that these things were spoken of them [the Jews], who were under the law."

• Aquinas in his Commentary on Romans 3 says this is a permissible view, though not the most preferred: "In a third way it can be understood as referring to the wicked members of a populace, among which no one is just. For it is the custom of Scripture sometimes to speak of an entire populace in terms of its evil members and sometimes of its good members..."

• Aquinas in his Commentary on Romans 3 goes onto say: "It should be noted that the Jews, against whom the Apostle was speaking, could, to excuse themselves, pervert the sense of the text [i.e. the various Psalms quoted] he cited and claim that it referred to the Gentiles, not to the Jews. But the Apostle rejects this, saying (Rom 3:19): Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, i.e., to whom the Law is given and who profess the Law: “When Moses commanded us a law” (Dt 33:4). But the Gentiles were not under the law; accordingly, the above words pertain to the Jews."

• Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, footnote on Romans 3:10-18, says: "Six citations from the OT confirm the charge that wickedness has flourished in Israel. . . . Many of these passages distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, suggesting that Paul is not condemning every single Israelite without exception. His point is that sin has taken hold of the covenant people as it has the rest of the world."

• Protestant Benson Commentary: "As it is written — Here he proves further, concerning the Jews, that they were unrighteous before God, by testimonies taken from their own prophets concerning their universal corruption, and he rightly cites David and Isaiah."

• Protestant Albert Barnes Commentary: "As it is written - The apostle is reasoning with Jews; and he proceeds to show from their own Scriptures, that what he had affirmed was true. The point to be proved was, that the Jews, in the matter of justification, had no advantage or preference over the Gentiles . . . To show this, the apostle adduces texts to show what was the character of the Jewish people; or to show that according to their own Scriptures, they were sinners no less than the Gentiles. The point, then, is to prove the depravity of the Jews, not that of universal depravity."

• Protestant Cambridge Biblical Commentary: "The awful charges of Romans 3:10-18 are specially pointed at the Jews: see Romans 3:19. The passages quoted are descriptive of Israelites, some of them of Israelites of the best days of Israel."

The above comments are a good testimony from both Catholic and Protestant sources that what I'm saying is not some novel, nor unreasonable, understanding of Romans 3:9-20. The tension of Romans 3 is that Paul begins by explaining that the Jews 'are better than' the Gentiles in a certain sense, such as being given the Old Testament revelation and circumcision and Mosaic Covenant (3:1-8), which would suggest a room for boasting. So Paul has to quickly clarify that the Jews are 'are not better than' the Gentiles in another sense, namely in regards to sin, which Paul does in 3:10-18. And he caps it off by saying (Rom 3:19) "whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law," namely that the OT in the above passages is speaking of the Jews. See HERE for a look at what "under the law" means (1 Cor 9:20-21).

The main 'objection' with everything said so far is the wording of Rom 3:9-10, which says "for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written". The "as it is written" could suggest both Jews and Gentiles are included in these OT texts, but I don't think this is the best interpretation given the significant details above. Moreover, where has Paul "already charged" this against the Jews and Gentiles? The only possible reference to "already charged" is somewhere within Romans 1:18-2:29. But look at Paul's methodology in those earlier chapters: Paul is speaking as if it is a given that the Gentiles are sinful, thus only calling them out indirectly, while Paul is directly calling out the Jews as sinful, particularly by saying the Jews are living no differently from them (Rom 2:21-24). And consider Romans 1:23, which says: "They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things." Most people read this as thinking it refers to the Gentiles, since Gentiles do indeed act this way. But the reality is, this wording is nearly identical to Psalm 106:19-20, "They made a calf in Horeb and worshiped a metal image. They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass." Clearly, the Jews are foremost in Paul's mind here as "exchanging their glory," so Paul's main focus in ch1-3 is the Jews directly, and the Gentiles indirectly. Thus, when it comes to 3:9-10, Paul can legitimately say "as it is written" and yet refer only (directly) to the Jews, since the Jews acted like Gentiles.

Paul needs to highlight that the Jews as a nation have broken the Mosaic Covenant, which was a national covenant, not an individualist covenant. In this collectivist sense, Paul is saying the Jews need Jesus just as much as the Gentiles. And this salvation takes place within a third collective/nation, the Body of Christ, the Church.

In Conclusion, I think most would be asking why this is really that big of a deal. I think it's a big deal for a few reasons. Most importantly, reading Paul properly makes all the difference in the world. It means you're being properly fed, truly appreciating his brilliance, and not projecting your own ideas onto the text. It also helps curb abuses of the text, notably the widespread, shamefully shallow reading of Romans, as well as misusing texts like "all have sinned" to advance erroneous views of salvation (and unfairly attack doctrines like the Immaculate Conception). I would hope that properly reading and discussing Romans was something practicing Catholics cared about doing, especially if we want to effectively evangelize Protestants.