Thomas Aquinas Commentary Romans 3:9-20

"What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we before laid to the charge both of Jews and Greeks, that they are all under sin; as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none that understandeth, There is none that seeketh after God; They have all turned aside, they are together become unprofitable; There is none that doeth good, no, not, so much as one: Their throat is an open sepulchre; With their tongues they have used deceit: The poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood; Destruction and misery are in their ways; And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it speaketh to them that are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God: because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for through the law [cometh] the knowledge of sin." — Romans 3:9-20 (ASV)

1. After showing the Jews’ advantage over the Gentiles regarding God’s blessings, the Apostle now rejects their vainglory, by which they set themselves above Gentiles who had converted to the faith.

   First, he states his point; second, he proves it, beginning with the phrase for we have already charged.

2. First, therefore, he says: I have asked what advantage the Jew has. The first is that God’s words were delivered to them. What then shall we Jews say to those who have converted to the faith? Do we excel them, namely, those Gentiles converted to the faith? For this was a matter discussed among them: a dispute also arose among them, which of them was to be regarded as the greatest (Luke 22:24). He answers this when he says, by no means.

3. But this seems to contradict an earlier statement, which said that their advantage was much in every way (Romans 3:2).

   The Gloss explains that in the first statement, the Apostle was thinking of the Jews in the time of the law, but now he is speaking of the time of grace. As is written in Colossians, Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised (Colossians 3:11), since these make no difference regarding the state of grace.

   However, this explanation does not seem to be entirely consistent with the Apostle’s intention. Later, he will show that even while they were under the law, they were under the power of sin, just as the Gentiles were, and even more so: This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. And she has wickedly rebelled against my rules more than the nations (Ezekiel 5:5–6).

   Therefore, it seems that above he was showing the excellence of God’s blessings; consequently, he did not say that the Jew was more excellent, but that something greater had been conferred on the Jew. Here he is rejecting the notion that they are excellent as persons, because despite receiving God’s blessings, they did not use them properly.

4. Then, when he says for we have already charged, he proves his point: first, that the Jews do not excel the Gentiles regarding the state of sin; second, regarding the state of righteousness, at but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.

   He establishes the first point in two ways: first, from what has been stated above; second, from an authority, at as it is written.

5. First, therefore, he says: we have already charged, that is, we have supported with reasons, that Jews and Greeks, that is, Gentiles, are all under sin. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it (Isaiah 1:6).

   For he showed, first, that the Gentiles suppressed the truth they knew by their wickedness and injustice; second, that the Jews, after receiving the law, dishonored God by transgressing it.

6. Then when he says as it is written, he establishes his point by the authority of the Psalmist. First, he quotes him; second, he explains, at now we know.

   Regarding the first, he does two things: first, he mentions sins of omission; second, sins of commission, at Their throat.

   He touches on the sins of omission in two ways: first, by removing the sources of good works; second, by removing the good works themselves, at all have turned aside.

7. Now there are three sources or principles that make a work good. One of these pertains to the justice of the work, namely, righteousness, which he says is lacking: There is no one righteous (Psalms 14:3). The godly has perished from the earth, and there is no one upright among mankind (Micah 7:2).

   No one is righteous can be interpreted in three ways. One way is to mean that no one is righteous in and of himself; by his own power, everyone is a sinner, and it is from God that he is righteous: The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious... forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty (Exodus 34:6–7).

   Another way it means that no one is completely righteous but has some sin, according to Proverbs: Who can say, “I have made my heart clean”? (Proverbs 20:9), and Ecclesiastes: Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins (Ecclesiastes 7:20).

   In a third way, it can be understood as referring to the wicked members of a people, among whom no one is just. For it is the custom of Scripture sometimes to speak of an entire people in terms of its evil members and sometimes of its good members. For example, in Jeremiah, it is stated that when Jeremiah finished saying everything the Lord had commanded him to say to the entire people, the priests and prophets and all the people seized him, saying he must be put to death (Jeremiah 26:8 and following). Then it is added: Then the officials and all the people said to the priests and the prophets, “This man does not deserve the sentence of death” (Jeremiah 26:16).

   However, the first two meanings seem to be more in keeping with the Apostle’s intent, and the same must be said for what follows.

8. The second element that makes a work good is intellectual discernment, whose absence is declared when he says, there is no one who understands. They have neither knowledge nor understanding (Psalms 82:5); he refuses to understand (Psalms 36:3).

9. The third element is a right intention, whose absence is described when he says, there is no one who seeks God, namely, by directing his intention toward Him: It is time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you (Hosea 10:12).

10. Then he removes the good works themselves.

    First, he cites offenses against the divine law when he says, All have turned aside, namely, from regulation by divine law: they have all turned to their own way (Isaiah 56:11).

    Second, he cites the failure to pursue the proper end; therefore he adds, together they have become worthless. For we call something worthless that does not attain its end. Therefore, when men turn from God, for whom they were made, they are rendered worthless: the offspring of the ungodly will be of no use .

    Third, he excludes the good works themselves when he adds, there is no one who does good. They are skilled in doing evil, but how to do good they know not (Jeremiah 4:22).

11. He adds, not even one. This can be taken exclusively, to mean: except the One who alone did good by redeeming the human race. One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found (Ecclesiastes 7:28).

    Or it can be taken inclusively, to mean: there is not even one pure man doing good, that is, what is perfect. Search her squares to see if you can find a man, one who does justice and seeks truth (Jeremiah 5:1).

12. Then when he says Their throat, he mentions the sins of commission: first, sins of speech; second, sinful deeds, at Their feet are swift. The sins of the heart can be gathered from these.

13. Regarding sins of speech, he mentions four things. First is their readiness and foulness, when he says: Their throat is an open sepulcher.

    An open grave has two features. It is ready to receive the dead. According to this, a man’s throat is said to be an open grave when it is prepared to utter deadly remarks, in the manner described by Jeremiah: their quiver is an open tomb (Jeremiah 5:16). Second, it exudes a foul odor: You are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness (Matthew 23:27). Therefore, a person from whose mouth proceeds the foul odor of filthy remarks has a throat that is an open grave: fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths (Revelation 9:17).

14. Second, regarding sins of speech, he touches on deception when he says, with their tongues they use deceit, having one thing in their heart and another in their words: their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaks deceitfully (Jeremiah 9:8).

15. Third, he mentions the havoc wrought by their words when he says: The venom of asps is under their lips, because they utter words that kill their neighbor either spiritually or bodily: Their wine is the poison of serpents and the cruel venom of asps (Deuteronomy 32:33).

16. Fourth, he designates the abundance of these sins when he says: Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. They have an abundance of curses, for they curse by slandering others, contrary to what he says below: bless and do not curse (Romans 12:14).

    And bitterness, since they do not hesitate to say insulting words to their neighbor’s face, being provoked by bitterness, contrary to what is written in Ephesians: Let all bitterness... be put away from you (Ephesians 4:31).

17. Then when he says Their feet are swift, he touches on sinful deeds, regarding which he mentions three things.

    First is their readiness to do evil. Therefore he says, Their feet are swift, that is, their inclinations, to shed blood, that is, to commit any serious sin, because among the sins committed against our neighbor, murder is the most grievous: their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood (Proverbs 1:16).

18. Second, he touches on the number of injuries they inflict on others when he adds: in their paths, that is, in their deeds, are ruin, because they crush others by oppressing them: it is in his heart to destroy (Isaiah 10:7); and misery, since they deprive men of their goods and reduce them to wretchedness: they take away the clothing of the naked (Job 24:10).

    Yet these two, ruin and misery, can be taken as designating the punishment rather than the sin. Then the sense is: in their paths are ruin and misery, that is, their deeds, which are signified as paths, lead them to misery. In this case, ruin would refer to the oppressive punishment they suffer for their sins: so that he is shattered like an earthen vessel (Isaiah 30:14), and misery to the punishment of damnation, because they will be refused eternal happiness: miserable are they, and their hopes are on dead things .

19. Third, he shows their persistence in evil, from which men are turned back in two ways.

    One way is by a desire to be at peace with others. Against this he says, the way of peace they have not known, that is, have not accepted: I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war (Psalms 120:7). Another way is by the fear of God; but they neither fear God nor respect man (Luke 18:2). Therefore he adds, There is no fear of God before their eyes, that is, in their plans: The fear of the Lord drives out sins, for a man without fear cannot be justified .

    This could also refer in a particular way to the Jews who did not believe in Christ: that they have not known the way of peace, namely, Christ, of whom it is written: he himself is our peace (Ephesians 2:14).

20. Then when he says Now we know that whatever the law says, he explains the text he quoted in three ways: first, by expounding its sense; second, its intention, at so that every mouth may be stopped; third, he gives the reason for his words, at For by works of the law.

21. It should be noted that the Jews, against whom the Apostle was speaking, could, to excuse themselves, distort the meaning of the text he cited and claim that it referred to the Gentiles, not to the Jews.

    But the Apostle rejects this, saying: Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, that is, to whom the law is given and who profess the law: Moses commanded us a law (Deuteronomy 33:4). But the Gentiles were not under the law; accordingly, the above words pertain to the Jews.

22. Two objections are raised here. The first is that the above words were not taken from the law but from a psalm.

    The answer is that the word law is sometimes taken to mean the entire Old Testament, not just the five books of Moses, as in John: It is to fulfill the word that is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without a cause’ (John 15:25), which was written in the Old Testament, not in the five books of Moses. This is the way law is used here.

    Again, the Old Testament is sometimes divided into three parts, namely, the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, as in Luke: that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled (Luke 24:44).

    Finally, the entire Old Testament is sometimes divided into two, namely, the Law and the Prophets, as in Matthew: On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 22:40). In this sense, the Psalter is included under the Prophets.

23. The second objection is that in the law, that is, in the Old Testament, many things are said that pertain to other nations, as is clear in many passages of Isaiah and Jeremiah, where many statements are directed against Babylon and other nations. Therefore, not everything that the law says speaks to and about those who are under the law.

    The answer is that whatever it says in general terms seems to be directed to those to whom the law has been given. But when the Scripture speaks of others, it mentions them by name, as when it is written: the oracle concerning Babylon, the oracle concerning Tyre, and so on. Furthermore, whatever was said against other nations in the Old Testament was somehow directed to the Jews, since misfortune was foretold for their consolation or fear. In the same way, any preacher should say what pertains to his audience, not what pertains to others: Declare to my people their transgression (Isaiah 58:1), as if to say: not others’ transgressions.

24. Then when he says so that every mouth may be stopped, he states the intent of the cited text, for Sacred Scripture accuses all of injustice for two reasons.

    First, to suppress their boasting, by which they considered themselves righteous, as in Luke: I fast twice a week (Luke 18:12). In regard to this he says, so that every mouth may be stopped, which presumptuously attributes righteousness to itself: the mouths of liars will be stopped (Psalms 63:11); Talk no more so very proudly (1 Samuel 2:3).

    Second, so that recognizing their guilt, they might subject themselves to God as the sick to a physician. Therefore he continues: and the whole world may be held accountable to God, that is, not only the Gentiles but the Jews also, after recognizing their guilt: For God alone my soul waits in silence (Psalms 62:1).

25. Then when he says For by works of the law, he assigns the reason for these words. First, he assigns the reason; second, he explains it, at for through the law.

26. First, therefore, he says: the reason there is no one righteous is that no human being will be justified in his sight by works of the law, that is, according to His judgment. As is stated in Galatians: if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose (Galatians 2:21), and in Titus: he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy (Titus 3:5).

27. However, a work of the law is of two kinds. One is peculiar to the Mosaic law, such as the observance of ceremonial precepts. The other is a work of the law of nature, because it pertains to the natural law, such as You shall not murder, you shall not steal, and so on.

    Now some take the Apostle’s words as referring to the first kind of works, namely, that the ceremonials did not confer the grace through which people are made righteous.

    But this does not seem to be the Apostle’s intent, for he immediately adds: for through the law comes knowledge of sin. It is clear that sins are made known through prohibitions contained in the moral precepts. Consequently, the Apostle intends to say that by no works of the law, not even those commanded by the moral precepts, is a person justified in the sense that righteousness is caused by works, because, as he states below: And if by grace, then it is no longer on the basis of works (Romans 11:6).

28. Then when he says, for through the law, he proves his statement that the works of the law do not justify.

    For the law is given so that a person might know what to do and what to avoid: He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they do not know his rules (Psalms 147:20); For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light (Proverbs 6:23). But from the fact that a person knows a sin he should avoid because it is forbidden, it does not immediately follow that he avoids it, for this pertains to the nature of righteousness. This is because sinful desire subverts the judgment of reason, especially when considering a specific action to be performed. Therefore, the law is not enough to make a person righteous; another remedy is needed to suppress sinful desire.