The Guilt of All Men:
The Indictment:
The Character of the Accused

Romans 3:10-12

¹⁰ As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; ¹¹ There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. ¹² They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.” ¹³ “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced 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 they have not known.”

(Verse 10-17) - Paul now presents an appalling thirteen-count indictment against fallen mankind. To reinforce the inclusiveness of the indictment, he reiterates the fact that all of fallen humanity, Jew and Gentile alike, is under sin (see v. 9). In verses 10-18, he uses the term none (and its equivalent, not even one) six times in referring to man’s absolute lack of righteousness before God.

The indictment comes directly from Old Testament Scripture, to which it is written refers. Both Jesus and Satan used that phrase to introduce quotations from the Old Testament during the temptation in the wilderness (Matt. 4:4, 6-7, 10). It is written translates the Greek perfect tense, indicating the continuity and permanence of what was written and implying its divine authority, which every faithful Jew and every faithful Christian, whether Jew or Gentile, acknowledged.  The astonishing indictment that will be presented could easily be dismissed as the modernistic ravings of a malcontent except that it is only a restatement of what had already been said by Old Testament Prophets throughout the ages.  Paul is very careful and sensitive to the issue of authority.  It is important to him that he be perceived, not as speaking on his own authority, but as speaking the Words of God.  This is because he didn’t want his listeners to grapple with his ideas – but to understand that they were grappling with God’s commands and God’s declarations regarding the nature of man.

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; that the Jew had failed to keep the Law which had been given him, as the Gentile had failed to keep the Law which had been given him; and that both, therefore, were equally dependent on the mercy of God, incapable of being justified and saved by their works. 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. The interpretation should be confined to the bearing of the passages on the Jews, and the quotations should not be adduced as directly proving the doctrine of universal depravity. In a certain sense, which will be stated soon, they may be adduced as bearing on that subject. But their direct reference is to the Jewish nation. The depravity of the rest of the world is assumed, and Paul’s concern here is to see that his audience understands tht what is true of the rest of the world is just as true of the Jews as well.  It is not so much that these ideas don’t apply to all men, but that they do apply specifically to the Jewish people, who thought that they did not apply to them.

The passages which follow, are taken from various parts of the Old Testament. The design of this is to show, that this characteristic of sin was not confined to any particular period of the Jewish history, but pertained to them as a people; that it had characterized them throughout their existence as a nation. Most of the passages are quoted in the language of the Septuagint. The quotation in Rom. 3:10-12, is from Ps. 14:1-3; and from Ps. 53:1-3. Psa. 53 is virtually the same as Ps. 14, with some slight variations.

The rub of the passage is that, if we consult Ps. 14 and Ps. 53, from which the quotations in Rom. 3:10-12 are taken, we shall be constrained to admit that their original application is nothing short of universal. The Lord is represented as looking down from heaven, (not upon the Jewish people only, but upon the “children of men” at large, “to see if there were any that did understand and seek God);” and declaring, as the result of his unerring scrutiny, “there is “none” that doeth good, no, not one.”

That the apostle applies the passages to the case of the Jews is admitted, yet it is evident more is contained in them than the single proof of Jewish depravity. They go all the length of proving the depravity of mankind, and are cited expressly with this view. “We have before proved both Jews and Gentiles,” says Paul in Rom. 3:9, “that they are all under sin.” Immediately on this, the quotations in question are introduced with the usual formula, “as it is written,” etc. Now since the apostle adduces his Scripture proofs, to establish the doctrine that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin,” we cannot reasonably decide against him by confining their application to the Jews only.

In Rom. 3:19 Paul does bring his argument to bear directly on the Jews. That they might not elude his aim, by interpreting the universal expressions he had introduced, of all the pagan only, leaving themselves favorably excepted; he reminds them that “whatsoever things the law saith, it saith to them that were under it.” Not contented with having placed them alongside of the Gentiles in Rom. 3:9; by this second application of the general doctrine of human depravity, to their particular case, he renders escape or evasion impossible. The scope of the whole passage then, is, that all people are depraved, and that the Jews form no exception. This view is further strengthened by the apostle’s conclusion in Rom. 3:20. “Therefore, by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his (God’s) sight.”

“If the words,” says Jonathan Edwards, “which the apostle uses, do not most fully and determinately signify an universality, no words ever used in the Bible are sufficient to do it. I might challenge any man to produce any one paragraph in the scriptures, from the beginning to the end, where there is such a repetition and accumulation of terms, so strongly, and emphatically, and carefully, to express the most perfect and absolute universality, or any place to be compared to it.”

The thirteen charges of the indictment are presented in three categories—the first concerning the character (vv. 10-12), the second concerning the conversation (vv. 13-14), and the third concerning the conduct (vv. 15-17) of the accused.

The Character Of The Accused

Under the heading of what could be called character, Paul lists the first six of the thirteen charges. Because of their fallen natures, men are universally evil (v. 10b). spiritually ignorant (v. 11a), rebellious (v. 11b), wayward (v. 12a), spiritually useless (v. 12b), and morally corrupt (v. 12c).

First, mankind is universally evil, there being absolutely no exceptions. Quoting from the Psalms, Paul declares, There is none righteous, not even one. The full text of Psalm 14:1 is, “The fool has said in his heart, There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; there is no one who does good.” The Septuagint has the same. The apostle quotes according to the sense of the passage. The design of the apostle is to show that none could be justified by the Law. He uses an expression, therefore, which is exactly conformable to his argument, and which accords in meaning with the Hebrew, “there is none just,”.

No, not one - This is not in the Hebrew of the Psalm, but is in the Septuagint (the Greek version). It is a strong universal expression, denoting the state of almost universal corruption which existed in the time of the psalmist. The expression should not be interpreted to mean that there was not literally “one pious man” in the nation; but that the characteristic of the nation was, at that time, that it was exceedingly corrupt. Instead of being righteous, as the Jew claimed, because they were Jews, the testimony of their own Scriptures was, that they were universally wicked.

(The design of the apostle, however, is not to prove that there were few or none pious. He is treating of the impossibility of justification by works, and alleges in proof that, according to the judgment of God in the 14th Psalm, there were none righteous, etc., in regard to their natural estate, or the condition in which man is, previous to his being justified. In this condition, all are deficient in righteousness, and have nothing to commend them to the divine favor. What people may afterward become by grace is another question, on which the apostle does not, in this place, enter. Whatever number of pious people, therefore, there might be in various places of the world, the argument of the apostle is not in the least affected. It will hold good even in the millennium!)

Righteousness is, perhaps, the major theme of the book of Romans, appearing in one form or another more than thirty times. Other terms from the same Greek root are usually translated “justified,” “justification,” or the like. Together they are used more than sixty times in the book of Romans. It is not surprising, therefore, that the first charge Paul makes in his indictment is that of mankind’s unrighteousness.

Paul is using the term righteous in its most basic sense of being right before God, of being as God created man to be. Obviously, people are able do many things that are morally right. Even the most vile person may occasionally do something commendable. But the apostle is not speaking of specific acts or even general patterns of behavior, but of man’s inner character. His point is that there is not a single person who has ever lived, apart from the sinless Lord Jesus Christ (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21), whose innermost being could be characterized as righteous by God’s standard. To prevent some people from thinking that they might be exceptions, Paul adds, not even one.

As already noted, there are obviously vast differences among people as to their kindness, love, generosity, honesty, truthfulness, and the like. But not even one person besides Christ has come remotely close to righteous perfection, which is the only standard acceptable to God. God’s standard of righteousness for men is the righteousness that He Himself possesses, which was manifest in Christ. “You are to be perfect,” Jesus declared, “as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).

In other words, a person who is not as good as God is not acceptable to God. As Paul makes clear later in the epistle, and as the New Testament teaches throughout, men can become perfectly righteous, when the righteousness of Christ is imputed to them. The very truth that makes the gospel the “good news” is that God has provided a way for men to become perfect, divinely perfect. But that perfection comes entirely by God’s grace in response to faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.  

Paul is here, ultimately, speaking of men, all men, who are apart from Christ. In God’s sight, there are no levels of righteousness as far as salvation is concerned. There is either perfect righteousness in Christ or perfect sinfulness apart from Christ.

As mentioned above, from man’s perspective there are vast moral and spiritual differences among people. But men’s achieving God’s standard of righteousness on their own may be compared to a group of people trying to jump from the shore of a south seas island to the United States. A good athlete could jump twenty-five feet or more. Many could jump ten or fifteen feet, and a few might be in such poor shape that they could barely jump five. Measured against each other, therefore, their efforts would be considerably different. But measured against the distance from those islands to the United States, the differences among them would be undetectable and their efforts would be equally futile. Almost as if commenting on such a contest, Paul declares a few verses later: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (3:23).

Tough this passage is speaking primarily to the inclusion of the Jews in the depravity that is true of all men, we must not forget that there is assumed here the fact of the depravity of all men without exception.  This must be the starting point for any consideration of the doctrine of salvation – and the beginning point for any preaching of the Gospel.