Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Romans · About this commentary
There Is No One Righteous
Romans 3:9-18
9 What then? Are we better than they? No, in no way. For we previously warned both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. · WEB
The indictment closes with a chain of quotations, and the anatomy of the catalogue moves from throat to feet to eyes.
What then? Are we better than they? No, in no way. For we previously warned both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.
The first person matters: are we better? Paul files himself with the indicted. And the summary phrase is new and total — under sin, sin as a power overhead, a jurisdiction everyone stands beneath, not merely acts everyone commits. Three chapters of argument compress into that preposition.
Then the evidence, and it is entirely quotation — a chain of passages, psalm after psalm with Isaiah closing, strung into a single indictment introduced by as it is written. The method is the point: the verdict on humanity is delivered in Scripture's own words, mostly Israel's own hymnbook testifying against every mouth including the singers'.
The opening declares totality four times over: there is no one righteous; no, not one. There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks after God. They have all turned away... no one who does good, no, not so much as one Romans 3:10–12. Righteousness, understanding, seeking, doing — each denied universally, with not one hammered at both ends. The claim that sinks every scheme of self-rescue is the third: no one seeks. Left to itself, the race does not even look.
Then the catalogue turns anatomical, and the body is toured part by part: their throat is an open tomb — speech as a grave standing open, death on the breath. Tongues that deceive; the poison of vipers under their lips; a mouth full of cursing and bitterness. Then downward: their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. The way of peace, they haven't known.
From organs of speech to organs of motion — what mankind says, then where mankind goes — and the wreckage left on the roads it travels. The anatomy makes sin a whole-body condition, not a moral bookkeeping problem.
And the catalogue ends at the eyes, with the root of everything: there is no fear of God before their eyes Romans 3:18. The last item explains all the others. Where the eyes hold no fear of God, the throat, tongue, lips, mouth and feet follow — the catalogue is a diagnosis running backward to its cause, and it is the cause the gospel will have to cure.
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