None Is Righteous, No, Not One (Romans 3:8–12)

Rom. 3:8. And not as we are slandered, and as some say we say, ‘Let us do evil that good may come,’ whose condemnation is just.

Thus, to reason in such a way is altogether impossible, and God, punishing the Jew for unbelief and the distortion of truth into falsehood, is not unjust. Let God against our unrighteousness display His greater righteousness; let His truth amid the darkness of our falsehood shine with the brightest light to His glory; let from our evil He extract greater good—all this serves only to the glorification of God, not to our justification. Despite such an arrangement of affairs through God’s providence, righteousness remains righteousness, and unrighteousness remains unrighteousness; truth remains truth, and falsehood remains falsehood; good remains good, and evil remains evil. If it were otherwise, if what God extracts of good from our evil served to justify us and not only nullified the guilt deserving punishment for wickedness, but made it worthy of reward; then it would follow: do more evil so that more good might come. And this is an outrageous absurdity, which arouses revulsion in itself, precisely as it is uttered.

That is my teaching, that is what I impart and on what I insist! Thus I teach, not as some say about me that I say: “let us do evil, that good may come.” This is open slander and calumny against me. My enemies invented this to spread prejudice against me and, before anyone hears anything from me, to bar his hearing from receiving the truth of God that I preach. If in this truth of God—the salvation of people, if to preach it everywhere to all is the unshakeable will of God; then those spreading such false reports about me oppose God’s good intentions and cut off the paths of good to people’s salvation, that is, they are God-fighters and haters of mankind. Upon such the judgment of God is truly righteous!

Such calumny was raised against holy Paul by his enemies, it must be supposed, from among the Jews. Holy Paul taught that to be received into the Kingdom of Christ, no preliminary merit is required. However righteous one may be, it is not his righteousness that brings him into this Kingdom, but faith; and conversely, however sinful one may be, it is not his sin that bars him from this Kingdom, but rather if he does not believe. All this is the work of God’s grace, and it happens that “where sin abounded, grace superabounded” (5:20). But in teaching thus, the Apostle had in view only entry into the Kingdom of grace; from those who entered it, he demanded the most perfect holiness, and even called them nothing less than saints, showing that to be in the Kingdom of Christ and to be a sinner are incompatible and unthinkable things. “What then? Shall we continue in sin” (after receiving grace, or entering into the Kingdom of Christ through faith)? “Certainly not” (6:1). Thus the Apostle taught; and thus it actually came to pass. Into the Kingdom of Christ all were received without distinction; but from those who entered it, perfect holiness was demanded, and whoever did not show it and fell into sins was cast out. But the enemies of holy Paul confused these two completely different points and raised against him the slander that he taught generally: “let us do evil, that good may come.” And he recalled this now: from your clever rhetoric it directly follows that position which you attribute to me. But if it, by your judgment, is absurd, then abandon also that reasoning, as if God were unjust if He brings wrath upon those who by their unrighteousness display His righteousness in glory.

Having thus repelled the objection that presented itself, the Apostle presses more strongly the condemnation and demonstration of the helplessness of the Jews, now not by his own word but by prophecy (Rom. 3:9–20). Some think that in this section the Apostle turns his rebuke upon both Jew and Gentile together. He rebuked them separately before, and now together. It is possible so. But it is better to refer the Apostle’s speech to the Jews, because, having finished quoting the prophetic words, which can indeed be recognized as general, he again turns to the Jew.

Rom. 3:9. What then? Do we have an advantage? Not at all. For we have already made the charge that Jews and Greeks alike are all under sin.

Who is asking? One may suppose that the Apostle is asking from himself, putting himself in the ranks of the Jews; and one may suppose that the Jews are asking. The Jew posed the question: “What then is the advantage of the Jew?”—hoping to shield himself from condemnation by the Jew’s advantage. Answering this question, the Apostle directly said: “Much, in every way”; but then in further explanation presented such considerations from which it followed that this much does not serve to justify the Jews, that despite all this they cannot escape judgment or all the more are subject to it. Supposing this was clearly formed in the minds of the Jews, he addresses his interlocutor and from himself poses him a question: after all I have said to you, what do you think, do we have an advantage? Can we hide behind it and shelter ourselves from God’s judgment by it? And he puts himself in their ranks, to soften the obvious answer—which is unpleasant.

But the Jews could have asked the same way. The Apostle did not say directly that advantages do not shelter from judgment, but conducted his speech so that the Jews themselves would draw that conclusion; and they did not want to. So they put the question: and so what then? Tell us directly, “Do we have an advantage?” Do we have any advantage? The Apostle satisfies their wish and now says directly: “Not at all.”—The advantages were, but our deeds have taken from them all significance; on account of these deeds we have remained without any advantage. The blessed Theophylact writes: “though they (that is, the Jews) did have some advantage, as chosen by God; but as by their deeds they dishonored the One who honored them with honor and chose them, God, then they not only no longer have any advantage, but are subject to greater condemnation. He speaks as if from the voice of the Jews: ‘What then? Do we have an advantage?’—that is, do we have some advantage, do we surpass others, are we more pleasing to God than the rest of us, we Jews who received the Law and circumcision? ‘Not at all,’—that is, not in the least. For the Jews, to say nothing more, sinned just as the Gentiles.”

Such a judgment from the lips of the Apostle Paul could seem harsh and prevent the beneficial effect of his accusatory speech. Therefore he hastens to turn this aside, saying: I do not say this; the Prophets long before me censured us in this. “Predukori,” προητιασάμεθα, can be rendered as: “anticipated the charge, are already accused”—as indeed our Slavonic translation does in a marginal note. And this both in the flow of the speech and in the intention of the Apostle must be considered the close rendering to the original. The Apostle puts himself in the ranks of the Jews, though he had long since departed from them, to show that he in no way excludes himself from under these anticipated censures and that they served him as the impetus to shelter himself from God’s wrath on the basis of their being under grace’s protection, and having shown this, to dispose them also to the speedier imitation of himself in this matter. He speaks as if: this was long ago foreseen; there is therefore no cause to marvel at this or to shun and deny it, but rather, having recognized the truth of this, one should seek the surest way to escape the accusation.

There is no need to rebel against the literal rendering: “predukori,”—that is, we beforehand condemned, accused, proved guilty. If so, then it will mean that the Apostle points here to his preceding speech, in which he indeed proved that both Gentiles and Jews equally are under sin. “To be under sin”—that they are sinful and helpless in sinfulness, subject for it to judgment and condemnation. For they did not sin by compulsion of any kind, but by their own evil will; not driven under sin by violent yoke, but from self-will they rushed toward it and were mired in it. “To be under sin” can mean: both they sin, and they are under God’s wrath for sin. “Jews and Greeks.” The thought is: the Jews no less than the Greeks, or like the Greeks, or just as the Greeks. For the speech concerns the Jews; it was they to whom the prophetic rebukes were addressed. The Greeks stand here as comparison.

Rom. 3:10. As it is written, ‘There is no one righteous, not even one.’

“The Apostle has accused the Gentiles, has accused the Jews; it now remained to speak of justification—of justification through faith. For if natural law did not help, neither did written law accomplish more; on the contrary, both served as a burden for people who did not make use of them as they ought; then there is no other means of salvation except grace. So then, speak and reveal to us that, Paul! But the Apostle does not yet dare, fearing the shamelessness of the Jews, and again turns to their accusation. And first he presents David as the accuser, who portrays at length what Isaiah expressed briefly. And by this he wishes to lay a strong bridle on his listeners, so that each of them, with all paths of accusation closed to him by the Prophets, cannot already escape and slip away when the doctrine of faith will be fully revealed before him. But the Prophets set forth three most grave offenses, namely: that all without exception did evil; that they did evil without any admixture of good, surrendering themselves solely to vices; and finally, they did evil with all their effort” (Saint Chrysostom).

“As it is written”—more directly renders the translation; “beforehand condemned, we have been condemned beforehand”. Holy Paul takes these condemnations from the Psalms and from the prophet Isaiah. First he brings forth such prophecies by which unrighteousness in general is rebuked, and then such by which the chief kinds of unrighteousness are rebuked—impiety before God, lack of love and evildoing in relation to one’s neighbor. It is remarkable that impiety before God is placed at the beginning and at the end, one must suppose, as the source and fruit of unrighteousness toward one’s neighbors.

The words: “there is no righteous one”—literally are not contained in the passages cited. They express the general sense of them and belong to the holy Apostle as an inscription to the prophetic sayings which he is bringing together into one. Understanding it thus, to the word: “righteous”—one must give an extended meaning: righteous in everything, both before God and before men, and in the opposite sense—unrighteous—likewise in everything and before God and before men. Therefore, in: “there is no righteous one”—one must see not the thought that sometimes he sins or is unrighteous, but rather that he is completely sunk in unrighteousness, only devises, only does unrighteousness. And such are all—no exception whatever.

Rom. 3:11. There is none who understands, and there is none who seeks God.

The Prophet says that God looked down only upon the earth to see if there were anyone “who understands or seeks God” (Ps. 13:2; 52:3). But as he then adds: “they have turned aside”; by this he makes it clear that God, looking down upon the earth, saw no one who understood and sought God. — The holy Apostle takes this thought and expresses it according to the flow of discourse not as a question, but affirmatively: “there is none who understands, there is none who seeks God”.

By this is meant in general the forgetfulness of God, a life without any attention to God, as though God does not exist at all. But one can distinguish in each of these terms a particular significance. “Understanding of God”—the occupation of the mind with God, in order to know and contemplate His boundless perfections, His creative work and, especially, His providential care for us. “Seeking of God”—the striving of the heart toward Him and the direction of all one’s activity toward acquiring Him and having Him within oneself, as the first and all-sufficing treasure. The latter is our ultimate end; understanding of God, knowledge of Him through reflection upon Him, opens in Him our treasure; and this opening calls forth the striving of the heart toward Him and awakens the energy of the active powers to attain Him and to possess Him. When there is no understanding of God, there is no seeking of Him. Without seeking—there is no acquiring and possessing,—no communion with God: man is outside his end. Why then must he wander and become entangled. The mind is not occupied with God, the heart does not tend toward God. But since neither mind nor heart can remain idle, turning away from the one God, they hasten toward creatures—many, and becoming entangled among them, they lose their right direction and produce only every kind of unrighteousness. In it they become skilled, in it alone they find pleasure, to it alone they cling with their heart and direct their active powers.

Rom. 3:12. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless: there is none who does good, not even one.

This is word for word from the 3rd verse of the 13th Psalm, or the 4th of the 52nd. He shows how the decline of godliness and fear of God was followed by the decline of good morality. “All have turned aside”—from where and to where? As was said above concerning the forgetfulness of God and the cessation of striving toward God, “they have turned aside”,—one must suppose, continues that same thought—they have turned aside from God in mind and heart. To turn aside thus from God means to turn aside from His will and from His ways, from His commandments,—or from pleasing God to self-pleasing. If now self-pleasing is carried out through the satisfaction of passions—lust, anger, pride, selfishness, envy and the like, then he who has turned aside from God naturally falls into passionateness, which, holding him in its bonds, makes him useless for any good. Therefore it is said: “together they have become worthless. Together”, ἀμα,—at the same time. At the same time as they turned aside from God, they became worthless, that is, useless for any good; because the passions which came to dominate them as a result of turning aside from God drew them away from good and led them toward the opposite evil.

“There is none who does good”. Goodness, χρηστότης,—a heart that is good and ready for every good deed, with all self-sacrifice. Watch people when they are in a good disposition of spirit, and you will understand what this goodness is. People in such a state—from what good deed would they refuse and from what sacrifice would they shrink? All have become to them brothers and sisters, and all their possessions have become common; and not their possessions alone, but they are ready to give their very lives so that there might be good for others. This is goodness! It is the direct reflection of the goodness of God and pours into the heart from communion with God, alongside godliness and love of God. He who has turned aside from God and fallen into passionateness cannot manifest this characteristic of godlikeness. For the soul of passionateness is egoism, which, making itself the end, turns everything else into means. What place then does goodness have with it? Goodness has in view only the good of others, while he only his own. They deny each other mutually. Thus he who serves passions naturally “does not do good”.

“To do goodness”—means: to fulfill in deed what the good-disposed heart tends toward. Therefore in the expression: “there is none who does good”—one can see such a thought: there is no one who would fulfill in deed the good promptings of heart and conscience. This would mean that they have become worthless, but not to the point that no good should occur to them at all. No—good does occur to them, and the impulse toward it is felt; but at the same time passion rises up, suppresses this good and does not allow them to do goodness. God created our nature good and placed in it all kinds of good dispositions. Then came the passions and pushed these goodnesses back. They are alive and make themselves known each time occasion arises; but they have no power. The master of them—man—pushes them back and gives strength to the passions, as another man drives his legitimate wife into a corner and commits adultery with others. In this regard, the not-doing of goodness happens not simply because evil thoughts and desires swarm in the soul, but because in struggling against goodness they suppress each time the good promptings arising in the heart. This increases the guilt.

“Not even one”. One from another learned and all became like one worthless and lacking goodness. The passions, having generalized themselves and taken possession of all, did not allow anything contrary to passions to appear among them, since all serve them. As inwardly every good thought and feeling is repelled, so outwardly no one in such a society dares to raise his voice against the common passion. Everyone newly born in this society or coming into it from outside is absorbed by the common spirit or cast out.