Romans 3:19-20

“ Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it speaketh for them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become subject to judgment before God. Seeing that by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. ”

By his we know, Paul appeals to the common sense of his readers. It is obvious, indeed, that the Old Testament, while depicting to the Jews the wickedness of the Gentiles, did not at all mean to embitter them against the latter, but to put them on their guard against the same sins, and preserve them from the same judgments; a proof that God saw in their hearts the same germs of corruption, and foresaw their inevitable development if the Jews did not remain faithful to Him. Thus, while none of the sayings quoted might refer to them, they were nevertheless all uttered for them.

The law here denotes the whole Old Testament, as being throughout the rule for Israelitish life; comp. John 10:34; 1 Corinthians 14:21, etc.

The difference of meaning between the words λέγειν, to say, and λαλεῖν, to speak, comes out clearly in this passage the first referring to the contents of the saying, the second to the fact of its utterance.

There is no reason for weakening the sense of the conjunction ἵνα, in order that, and making it signify so that. The object of all those declarations given forth by Scripture regarding the wickedness of the natural man, was really to close his mouth against all vainglory, as that to which a man filled with self-satisfaction gives himself up. Every mouth, even the Jews'. Καί : and that thus. All the world: all mankind, Jew and Gentile; ὑπόδικος, placed under the stroke of justice, like one whom the judge has declared guilty, and who owes satisfaction to the law he has violated. The word is frequently used in this sense in the classics; it is a judicial term, corresponding to the word Paul had used to denote the accusation (αἴτιᾶσθαι, Romans 3:9). The last word: to God, is full of solemnity; it is into the hands of His justice that the whole guilty world falls.

The all the is so true that the only possible exception, that of the Jewish people, is excluded (Romans 3:20). This people, indeed, could have alleged a host of ritualistic and moral works performed daily in obedience to the divine law. Did not such works establish in their case special merit and right to God's favor? The apostle sets aside such a claim, Διότι : for the reason that. No flesh: no human creature (see on Romans 1:3).

Here for the first time we meet with the expression ἔργα νόμου, works of the law, one of the important terms in the apostle's vocabulary. It is found, however, only in the Epistles to the Romans (Romans 3:28, Romans 9:32) and to the Galatians (Romans 2:16; Romans 3:2; Romans 3:5; Romans 3:10). But, nevertheless, it expresses one of the ideas which lie at the root of his experience and of his view of Christian truth. It sums up the first part of his life. It may be understood in two ways. A work of law may mean: a work exactly conformed to the law, corresponding to all the law prescribes (Hodge, Morison, etc.); or it may mean: such a work as man can accomplish under the dispensation of the law, and with such means only as are available under this dispensation. In the first sense it is certainly unnecessary to explain the impossibility of man's finding his righteousness in those works by an imperfection inherent in the moral ideal traced by the law. For Paul himself says, Romans 7:14, that “ the law is spiritual; ” Romans 7:12, that “ the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, just, and good; ” Romans 8:4, that “the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer consists in fulfilling what the law has determined to be righteous.” Much more, he goes the length of affirming positively, with Moses himself (Lev 18:5), that if any one exactly fulfilled the law he would live by his obedience (Romans 10:5; Galatians 3:12). Taking this meaning, then, why cannot the works of the law justify? It can only be man's powerlessness to do them. St. Paul would then say: “No man will be justified by the works of the law, because works really conformed to the spirit of the law are beyond his power to realize.” Thus the kind of works referred to in the declaration: “not being justified by the works of the law,” would be ideal and not real. This meaning is far from natural. From Paul's way of speaking of the works of the law, we cannot help thinking that he has a fact in view that he is reckoning with a real and not a fictitious value. We must therefore come to the second meaning: works such as man can do when he has no other help than the law that is to say, in fact, in his own strength. The law is perfect in itself. But it does not provide fallen man with the means of meeting its demands. Paul explains himself clearly enough on this head, Galatians 3:21: “If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.” In other words, the law does not communicate the Spirit of God, and through Him the life of love, which is the fulfilling of the law (Romans 13:10). Works wrought in this state, notwithstanding their external conformity to the letter of the law, are not therefore its real fulfilment. Though agreeable to the legal statute, they are destitute of the moral disposition which would give them value in the eyes of God. Paul himself had groaned till the time of his conversion over the grievous contrast in his works which he constantly discerned between the appearance and the reality; comp. the opposition between the state which he calls, Romans 7:6, oldness of the letter and newness of spirit. He gives his estimate of the works of the law when, after saying of himself before his conversion, Philippians 3:6: “As to the righteousness which is under the law, blameless,” he adds, Romans 3:7: “But what things were gain to me (all this from the human point of view blameless righteousness), these I counted loss for Christ's sake.”

There remains one question to be examined. Is it true, as Theodoret, Pelagius, and many modern critics have thought, that Paul is speaking here only of ceremonial works imposed by the law, and not of works implying moral obedience? The meaning of the verse would then be this: “The whole world is condemned; for the Jews themselves cannot be justified by the observance of the ceremonies which their law prescribes.” But such a distinction between two kinds of works is opposed to the context; for the apostle does not contrast work with work he contrasts work with faith. Then how could he add immediately, that by the law is the knowledge of sin? From Romans 7:7-8, it appears that this saying applies above all to the moral law. For it was the tenth commandment which led the apostle to discern covetousness in his heart, and it was this discovery of covetousness which convinced him of sin. Hence it appears that the last words of our verse refer to the moral, and not the ceremonial law, which decides the meaning of the term: the works of the law. Besides, the expression all flesh, which evidently embraces the Gentiles, could not be applied to them if the law were here taken as the ceremonial law, for in this sense they have never had it. In general, the distinction between the ritual and the moral elements of the law is foreign to the Jewish conscience, which takes the law as a divine unity.

It follows from this saying of the apostle, that man ought never to attempt to put any work whatever between God and himself as establishing a right to salvation, whether a work wrought before his conversion proceeding from his natural ability, for it will lack the spirit of love which alone would render it good in God's sight; or even a work posterior to regeneration and truly good (ἔργον ἀγαθόν, Ephesians 2:10), for as such it is the fruit of the Spirit, and cannot be transformed into a merit of man.

The declarative meaning of the verb δικαιοῦν, to justify, appears clearly here from the two subordinate clauses: by the works of the law, and before him (see on Romans 1:17).

By a short proposition (Romans 3:20 b) the apostle justifies the principle affirmed Romans 3:20 a. Far from having been given to sinful man to furnish him with a means of justification, the law was rather given to help him in discerning the sin which reigns over him; ἐπίγνωσις, discernment, proof.

This thought is only indicated here; it will be developed afterward. Indeed, Paul throughout the whole of this piece is treating of sin as guilt, forming the ground of condemnation. Not till chap. 7 will he consider sin as a power, in its relation to the law, and in this new connection; then will be the time for examining the idea with which he closes this whole passage.

Judaism was living under a great illusion, which holds it to this very hour, to wit, that it is called to save the Gentile world by communicating to it the legal dispensation which it received through Moses. “Propagate the law,” says the apostle, “and you will have given to the world not the means of purifying itself, but the means of seeing better its real corruption.” These for us are commonplaces, but they are become so through our Epistle itself. At the time when it was written, these commonplaces were rising on the horizon like divine beams which were to make a new day dawn on the world.

On the order of ideas in this first section, according to Hofmann and Volkmar.

Hofmann finds the principal division of this section between Romans 3:4-5. Up to Romans 3:4, the apostle is proving that God's wrath rests on mankind, whether Gentile (Romans 1:18 to Romans 2:8) or Jewish (Romans 2:9 to Romans 3:4); but from that point all the apostle says applies specially to Christians, thus: “As we are not ignorant, we Christians (Romans 3:5), that man's sin, even when God is glorified by it, can be justly judged (Romans 3:5-7), and as we do not teach, as we are accused of doing, that the good which God extracts fron evil excuses it (Romans 3:8), we bow, with all other men, before the Scripture declarations which attest the common sin, and we apply to ourselves the sentence of condemnation which the law pronounces on the whole world. Only (Romans 3:21 et seq.) we do not rest there; for we have the happiness of knowing that there is a righteousness of faith through which we escape from wrath.”

This construction is refuted, we think, by three principal facts

1. The man who judges, Romans 2:1, is necessarily the Jew (see the exegesis).

2. The objection, Romans 3:5, is closely connected with the quotation from Psalms 51, and cannot be the beginning of a wholly new development.

3. The question: “What then? have we a shelter?” (Romans 3:9), is too plainly a reference to that of Romans 3:1 (“what then is the advantage of the Jew?”) to be applied otherwise than specially to the Jew. This is confirmed by the end of Romans 3:9, in which the apostle gives the reason for the first proposition in this general sentence: “ For we have proved both Jews and Greeks. ” It is clear, therefore, that as chap. 1 from Romans 3:18 describes the wrath of God displayed on the Gentiles, chap. 2 describes and demonstrates the wrath of God as accumulating over the Jewish world, and that the passage Romans 3:1-8 is simply intended to set aside the objection which the Jew might draw from his exceptional superiority. Romans 3:9-20 are the scriptural resumé and demonstration of this double condemnation of Jews and Gentiles.

According to Volkmar, chap. 1 from Romans 3:18 describes the wrath of God against all sin, and chap. 2 that same wrath against all sinners, even against the Jew, notwithstanding his excuses (Romans 2:1-16) and his advantages, which he is unable to turn to moral account (Romans 3:17-29), and finally, notwithstanding the greatest of his privileges, the possession of the Messianic promises (Romans 3:1-8). Here, Romans 3:9, Volkmar places the beginning of the new section, that of the righteousness of faith. “Since the whole world is perishing, Romans 3:9-20, God saves the world by the righteousness of faith, which is confirmed by the example both of Abraham and Adam, the type of Christ.” This construction differs from ours only in two points, which are not to its advantage, as it appears to me (1) The antithesis between all sins (chap. 1.) and all sinners (chap. 2), which is too artificial to be apostolical; (2) The line of demarkation between the preceding and the new section fixed at Romans 3:9 (instead of Romans 3:21), a division which awkwardly separates the section on wrath in its entirety (Romans 1:18 to Romans 3:8) from its scriptural summary (Romans 3:9-20).