Romans 3

Are we better than they? For we previously warned both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. Wesley: here he resumes verse 1. Under sin—under the guilt and power of it: the Jews by transgressing the written law; the Gentiles by transgressing the law of nature.

Both camps must say this together first: advantage in oracles (v. 2) is not advantage in standing. Arminian readers take the "no" as honest. All are under sin’s guilt and power. This is the common ruin 3:21–31 will answer by grace, not a leftover capacity that could found a boast.

Calvin: he returns from digression. The privileges in which they were eminent were separate from themselves, dependent on God’s goodness, not their merit. Here he inquires as to their own worthiness. To be under sin means we are justly condemned as sinners before God, or held under the curse due to sin; as righteousness brings absolution, so sin is followed by condemnation.

He puts himself among them ("are we") to avoid offense, then strips all dignity that would be their own. The forensic charge already laid in chapters 1–2 now covers both. Under sin is curse-standing, not a mild deficit. Both camps need this verse to prepare 3:21: mercy alone will justify, because all are under sin.

As it is written, There is no one righteous; no, not one. Wesley: all men are under sin; Paul cites David and Isaiah, who expressed what manner of men God sees when he looks down from heaven—not what he makes them by his grace. There is none righteous: this is the general proposition; particulars follow.

Both camps hear a general proposition with no exception in view. "No, not one" is not hyperbole to be walked back by a virtuous pagan. What grace will make of believers is not what God sees in the natural man. Arminian readers take this as the honest level ground that 3:23–24 will meet: all have sinned; they are justified by grace as a gift. No Pelagian climb remains.

Calvin: he now reasons from authority. Before particulars, he states the substance: none is righteous. Scripture testifies that all men are in this state who are not regenerated by the grace of God. The condition of the saints would be nothing better were not this depravity corrected in them.

The quote is God’s verdict, not a pessimistic mood. No one is righteous at his bar. Regeneration does not prove a native island of righteousness; it proves mercy had to correct what was there. Both camps refuse a Pelagian reading: this is what man is when left to himself. The righteousness of 3:21 will have to be gift.

No one who understands. There is no one who seeks after God. Wesley: there is none that understandeth—the things of God. The general proposition of v. 10 now names the mind and the quest.

Arminian readers take the verbs as they stand: without grace, no one understands the things of God or seeks him as he is. This is not a denial that the gospel sincerely calls all to seek; it is the reason they need that call and the grace that enables it. Native seeking is not the engine of justification.

Calvin: the first effect of unrighteousness is that there is none that understands; this ignorance is proved, for they seek not God. Empty is the man in whom there is not the knowledge of God, whatever other learning he may possess; the sciences and the arts are empty without this groundwork.

Not-seeking grows from not-righteous. Understanding and seeking are not the sinner’s contribution waiting to be counted; they are what grace must create. Both camps let the citation stand: no one, left to himself, seeks God. The law will give knowledge of sin (v. 20), not a seeking that justifies.

All have turned aside; together they have all turned away. They have together become unprofitable. There is no one who does good, no, not so much as one. Wesley: they have all turned aside from the good way; they are become unprofitable—helpless, impotent, unable to profit either themselves or others.

Both camps hear helplessness, not a near-miss. "Not so much as one" repeats v. 10. Turning aside is universal; worthlessness is together. Arminians refuse to treat "no one who does good" as a slur on civil kindness that could still found a verdict. No one does good as a ground of justification. This is the need 3:24 will meet by gift.

Calvin: there is no one who does kindness; they had put off every feeling of humanity. Inhumanity commonly follows ignorance of God, as every one, when he despises others, loves and seeks his own good. All have gone out of the way; they are together become unprofitable.

The "all" and "together" and "not so much as one" are the same leveling. There is no half-righteousness at God’s bar. Worthless here is justifying standing, not a denial that civil virtue exists among men. The law’s later use (v. 20) is knowledge of sin, not a ladder of good deeds. Both camps shut the door on works as the way in.

Their throat is an open tomb. With their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of vipers is under their lips. Wesley: their throat is noisome and dangerous as an open sepulchre. Observe the progress of evil discourse, proceeding out of the heart, through the throat, tongue, lips, till the whole mouth is filled therewith. The poison of asps—infectious, deadly backbiting—is under their lips.

Wesleyan Arminians take the catalog as moral realism, not a cartoon of a few villains. Speech itself is corrupt. The mouth that will be stopped in v. 19 is already an open grave. Both camps let David describe mankind, not a subclass. No Pelagian reading: this is the human mouth, not "some Jews" only.

Calvin: their throat is an open grave—a gulf to swallow up men; an intimation of extreme barbarity. Their tongues are deceitful, and the poison of vipers is under their lips, import the same thing.

The citations map the body because the disease is the person. Deceit is not an accident of speech; it is what the unregenerate mouth does. Both camps let the Psalms describe man left to himself. The whole world will be held accountable (v. 19) with this evidence already in.

Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Wesley: cursing—against God; bitterness—against their neighbour. The mouth is aimed both ways.

Arminians hear more than a rare vice. Full of curses is the same mouth that will try to boast in 3:27; Paul is filling it first so that boasting can be excluded. Total need, not a few coarse speakers. Both camps take the catalog as the world’s indictment, not a local scandal.

Calvin: their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness—a vice of an opposite character to fair, deceitful speech; they are in every way full of wickedness. If they speak fair, they deceive; if they draw forth what they have in their hearts, bitterness and cursing stream out.

The mouth sins in two registers, but the corruption is one. Whether flattery or curse, the mouth is not a righteous organ. Both camps refuse to farm this verse out to a villain class so that a respectable remnant might still be justified by works. The law is gathering evidence for v. 19.

Their feet are swift to shed blood. The catalog moves from mouth to path. Wesley points Isaiah 59:7–8 as the source. Swiftness names eagerness, not a rare lapse.

Classical Arminians refuse to confine this to notorious violence only. Isaiah spoke it of a people with oracles; Paul applies it in a chain that includes every mouth. The point is guilt, not a sociology of crime. Grace, not a slower gait, will be the answer in 3:21–24. Both camps let the prophet stand.

Calvin: very striking is the sentence added from Isaiah. Ruin and misery are in all their ways—a representation of ferociousness which produces solitude and waste wherever it prevails. Feet swift to shed blood belong to that picture.

Paul abbreviates Isaiah to keep the charge moving. Bloodshed is the body in motion as the mouth was the body in speech. Scripture’s authority, not Paul’s mood, levels the world. Both camps need the catena intact so that v. 20 can say no flesh is justified by works.

In their paths are ruin and misery. Wesley’s chain: dispositions and designs (vv. 11–12), discourse (vv. 13–14), then actions (vv. 16–18). The path is what life leaves behind—ruin, not a trail of justifying works.

Wesleyan Arminians hear the law’s indictment of the walk, not an invitation to walk better as the way of justification. Misery in the path is fruit of v. 10. Both camps will soon say: by the works of the law, no flesh is justified. This verse does not leave a Pelagian bypath.

Calvin: ruin and misery are in their ways—ferociousness above measure barbarous, producing solitude and waste by destroying everything wherever it prevails.

The way is the person’s course. There is no righteous bypath alongside this one that the law could credit. The next verse will say they have not known peace’s way. Knowledge of sin (v. 20) is what the law can still give. Both camps keep the charge universal.

And the way of peace, they haven’t known. Wesley: of peace—which can only spring from righteousness. No righteousness (v. 10), therefore no peace known.

Classical Arminians hear the ignorance as moral, not merely informational. The gospel of 3:21–26 will justify and so open peace (5:1); it will not pretend they already knew the way. Both camps agree: peace is not native to this catalog. The shut mouth of v. 19 is still coming.

Calvin: they are so habituated to plunders, violence and wrong, to savageness and cruelty, that they know not how to act kindly and courteously. The way of peace, they haven’t known.

Not-knowing here is habituation, not a missing lecture. Peace’s way is unknown because righteousness is absent. The law will stop the mouth (v. 19); it will not teach this people into self-justifying peace. Both camps refuse to make the law a second gospel.

There is no fear of God before their eyes. Wesley: the fear of God is not before their eyes—much less is the love of God in their heart.

Both camps take the last citation as the root: no fear, therefore the catalog. Wesley’s "much less love" is pastoral, not a second ladder. Without fear there is no beginning of wisdom; without love, no fulfilling of the law. Both are God’s to give. This is total need, preparing grace in 3:21—not leftover piety the law could count.

Calvin: in the last clause he repeats what was at the beginning—every wickedness flows from a disregard of God. As the principal part of wisdom is the fear of God, when we depart from that, there remains in us nothing right or pure. It is a bridle to restrain wickedness; when it is wanting, we feel at liberty to indulge every licentiousness.

No fear before their eyes is the fountain of vv. 10–17. Scripture describes man left to himself. Saints differ not by nature but by depravity corrected in them—God’s mercy, not their native fear. Both camps shut the door on a Pelagian "some still fear enough." The next verses will stop every mouth.

Whatever things the law says, it speaks to those under the law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world held accountable to God. Wesley: the law—the Old Testament—saith to those who own its authority, the Jews. Every mouth—full of bitterness (v. 14) and yet of boasting (v. 27)—may become guilty: fully convicted, and apparently liable to most just condemnation. These things were written of old, and quoted by Paul not to make men criminal, but to prove them so.

Both camps hear the courtroom close. Jewish mouths cannot farm the citations out to Gentiles only; the law speaks to those under it, and the whole world is held accountable. Arminians take stopped mouths as the right prelude to 3:21. No one is justified by talking. Grace will not be a second argument beside a still-open defense.

Calvin: leaving the Gentiles, he addresses the Jews, who covered themselves with the cloak of the covenant. That every mouth may be closed: every evasion cut off, every occasion for excuse. A metaphor from courts of law: the accused who has a defense demands leave to speak; if convicted by his own conscience, he is silent and waits for condemnation, already by his own silence condemned.

The law’s proper pupils are the Jews; what it says of mankind applies first to them, then to the world. Accountable to God is the verdict. Both camps need every mouth stopped before "but now" in 3:21. The live passage that follows begins here: Paul has shut every mouth; Jews and Gentiles alike are under sin.

Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight; for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. Wesley: no flesh shall be justified—none shall be forgiven and accepted of God—by the works of the law, on this ground, that he hath kept the law. Paul means chiefly the moral part. For by the law is only the knowledge of sin—but no deliverance either from the guilt or power of it.Both camps stand here with 3:24 and 3:28 already in view: justified by grace as a gift, by faith apart from the works of the law. The law’s use is knowledge of sin, not the verdict of acceptance. Wesleyan Arminians hear faith as the condition that will receive Christ (3:28), not a work that keeps the law after all. No Pelagian climb remains. This verse is why "but now" must come.

Calvin: a truth to be remembered as first in importance—by keeping the law no one can attain righteousness. All, being to a man guilty of transgression, are condemned for unrighteousness by the law. He reasons from the opposite: righteousness is not brought to us by the law, because it convinces us of sin and condemns us; for life and death proceed not from the same fountain. To devise a half kind of righteousness, so that works in part justify, is frivolous.

"no flesh" (flesh) is as wide as v. 19’s whole world. The law cannot justify because it convicts. Faith will be the instrument that receives Christ, not a co-cause with deeds. Both camps say this together: grace, not works—and 3:21–31 will name how.