All Under Sin

The whole letter turns on a single word: “justify”. To be justified is to be made righteous before God, torn from sin and restored to his friendship. Paul announces that this righteousness is a gift of God’s grace, and he first establishes what makes it necessary: no one can make himself righteous by himself. He demonstrates this in two stages, the pagans then the Jews, to reach a single verdict that holds for all.

The pagans without excuse

Paul begins with the pagans, that is, the peoples who did not receive the Law of Moses, the body of commandments God had given to Israel. On them too the wrath of God is revealed, against men who know the truth about God and turn away from it, so as to live without having to obey him. And they are without excuse, because God lets himself be known through what he has made: “His invisible perfections, his eternal power and his divinity are, since the creation of the world, made visible to the intelligence through his works. They are therefore inexcusable.” Romans 1:20. Man can rise from creation to its author; the pagans had the power to do so, and would not. Having known God, they did not give him glory: “They became vain in their thoughts, and their senseless heart was wrapped in darkness.” Romans 1:21. In place of the living God they set images: “They exchanged the majesty of the incorruptible God for images representing corruptible man, birds, four-footed beasts and reptiles.” Romans 1:23. This is the reversal proper to idolatry: worshipping the creature in place of the Creator.

Left to themselves

This refusal has a sequel. Three times Paul writes that God “gave them up”: to impurity, to the passions, to a warped mind. “God gave them up to their perverse sense, to do what is not fitting.” Romans 1:28. God pushes no one toward evil; he withdraws his hand and lets man reap the disorder his refusal has sown. The abandonment is the price of idolatry: whoever turns from the source of all order gives himself over to disorder. The disorder of life thus follows the disorder of worship.

The Jew judged by his Law

Paul then turns to the Jew, who has received the Law from God and condemns in its name the faults of the pagans. To him he turns back his own judgment: “Whoever you are, O man, you who judge, you are without excuse; for in judging others you condemn yourself, since you do the same things.” Romans 2:1. Before God, the question is not having the Law, but fulfilling it: “It is not those who hear a law who are righteous before God; but those who put it into practice who will be justified.” Romans 2:13. Pagans who never received it nonetheless do its works, because a law is inscribed in them: “They show that what the Law commands is written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness.” Romans 2:15. This law of the heart is conscience, that sense of good and evil every man carries within him. The Jew, for his part, possesses the written Law and transgresses it: “You who make it your boast to have a law, you dishonour God by transgressing it!” Romans 2:23. There remains circumcision, the sign engraved in the flesh by which a man entered the people of the covenant. It too does not put one out of reach, for Paul shifts what makes the true Jew: no longer the mark in the body nor birth, but the heart turned toward God. “The Jew is the one who is so inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart.” Romans 2:29. To belong truly to God is settled within: the sign in the flesh is worth nothing unless the heart answers to it.

The verdict: all under sin

Pagans and Jews having each in turn been brought to account, Paul states the conclusion, which makes exception for no one: “Have we any superiority? No, none; for we have just proved that all, Jews and Greeks, are under sin.” Romans 3:9. To be “under sin” is to suffer its hold like that of a power from which one does not deliver oneself. This verdict Paul draws from Psalm 14: “There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who has understanding, there is none who seeks God.” Romans 3:10-11. The Law itself provides no defence; it plays a wholly other role: “All that the Law says, it says to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be shut, and the whole world be subject to the justice of God.” Romans 3:19. This verse aims at the Jew. Hearing Scripture declare that no man is righteous, he might think it speaks of the godless pagans, and not of him, who possesses the Law. Paul removes this escape: Scripture addresses first those who receive it, therefore him; the verdict “not one righteous” strikes him too. And if even the one who has the Law falls under its condemnation, no one escapes: every mouth is shut, and the whole world, Jew as well as pagan, falls under the judgment of God. For the Law shows the good without giving the strength to do it, and reveals sin without erasing it: “No man will be justified before him by the works of the Law, for the law only gives the knowledge of sin.” Romans 3:20.

From the verdict to grace

This demonstration prepares the announcement that follows. By showing that no one saves himself, neither by the Law nor by his works, Paul brings all men back to the same point, so that salvation may appear for what it is: a gift, and not a due. Jews and pagans, all need to be saved, and in the same way: “All have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23. It is on this equality in sin that Paul will be able to announce the equality in grace: God justifies freely the one who believes in Christ, the Jew as well as the Greek.