“What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”” -Romans 3:9–18
Verses 9-20 in our English Bible are a single pericope, so it is difficult to break this longer passage down without the possibility of doing damage to the integrity of the argument. Thus, we’ll focus on the first part of the argument today, and tomorrow we’ll consider the passage as a whole while focusing on the second part of the argument.
Here Paul is offering a refutatio to counter the claim made by some Jews that they are “any better off.” There is some dispute amongst scholars about the verb (προεχόμεθα) that is translated “Are (we any) better off,” but the end result, the conclusion, is the same regardless of which voice scholars believe Paul’s verb takes.
The question, “What then? Are we Jews any better off?,” receives another emphatic repudiation: “No, not at all,” followed by an explanation and a list of authoritative testimony from the OT, namely the Psalms, the Proverbs, and the prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah.
The Jews are not better off, spiritually, because he has “already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin.” Those without the law sinned against the law written on their hearts and those with the law sinned against the law written on tablets.
The collection of passages Paul gathers from the Hebrew Scriptures is damning. Not one person—Jew or Gentile—is righteous, understands, or seeks after God. Every last Jew and every last Gentile alike has turned aside from the truth, lied, deceived, and even murdered—at least in his heart. Neither Jew nor Gentile has feared God the way his character, power, and majesty demands.