What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin [Rom. 3:9].

Now Paul doesn’t mean “proved” here. That word is a little too strong; it does not have quite that shade of meaning, because Paul is not trying to prove man a sinner. Rather, he is showing that God judges sin. He assumes man is a sinner, and you don’t have to assume it—it is evident. He is merely stating that which is very obvious today. The better word is charged—“for we have before charged both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin.” He is just stating the case, by the way, that it doesn’t make any difference who we are today—high or low, rich or poor, good or bad—we’re all under sin.

Now it’s very important to understand what it means to be “under sin.” Man is a sinner four different ways. God is giving man four strikes (in baseball you get only three). (1) Man is a sinner by act. (2) Man is a sinner by nature. Sinning does not make a sinner; we sin because we are sinners. (3) Man is a sinner by imputation. We’ll see that later in this epistle. (4) The estate of man is under sin. We all are under sin—the entire human family.

This is the first charge:

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one [Rom. 3:10].

This should read, “It is written that there is none righteous, no, not one,” because it is a free rendering of Psalm 14:1.

He makes the positive statement that “none … doeth good.” “Doeth good” and righteousness are the same. What does it mean to be righteous? Well, it means to be right. Right with whom? We are to be right with God. And if we are going to be right with God, it is a little different from being right with your fellow man. When we have differences with friends, we may or may not be to blame, but we have to reach some sort of compromise. But if we are going to be right with God, we are going to play according to His rules. Actually, you can’t play games with Him. You see, God’s salvation is a take it or leave it proposition. God is not forcing anybody to take His salvation. You don’t have to be saved. You can turn it down. God says, “This is My universe. You’re living on My little world, using My sunshine and My water and My air, and I have worked out a plan of salvation that is true to My character and My nature. My plan and My program is the one that’s going to be carried out. You’re a sinner, and I want to save you because I love you. Now here it is. Take it or leave it.” That’s what God is saying to a lost world. This is what He is saying to you. Have you accepted it? Well, I want you to know that I have accepted it. To be right with God, then, means to accept His salvation.

When I was in school, I had a professor of sociology who really enjoyed batting that little ball around, saying, “Who is right? Who is going to make the rules?” Well, I know one thing: that professor is not going to make the rules. I know something else: I am not going to make the rules, and you are not going to make the rules either. God makes the rules. Take it or leave it. That is God’s plan; that is God’s program. There is none who is righteous, none right with God. But He has worked out a plan. No one has done good according to God’s standard, according to God’s method. That is the Judge’s first charge.
The second charge is this:

There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God [Rom. 3:11].

In other words, there is none who acts on the knowledge that he has. No one is the person he would like to be.

The third charge:

“There is none that seeketh after God.” God is not concealed today. God is not playing hide–and–seek with man. He has revealed Himself. You remember that Paul told the Athenians, the philosophers on Mars Hill: “And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). He is not winking at sin today. God is out in the open telling man that he is a sinner and offering him salvation. And His salvation is clear, you see. That’s what He is saying here. And there is none that seeks after God. The anthologies of religion say man is out looking for God—how fallacious they are! It’s claimed that in the evolutionary process religion is man’s search for God. Well, actually, is religion man’s search for God? No. That’s not what the Bible teaches. Believe me, man hasn’t found out very much about God on his own. He hasn’t advanced very far in that direction, because he’s going the wrong way. He’s going away from God.

Then the fourth charge that He makes is:

They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one [Rom. 3:12].

They’ve detoured. They left the way they knew was right. And primitive tribes have an ancient tradition that way back at one time their forefathers knew the living and true God. My friend, if you are honest, you know that you are not doing what you ought to do. Furthermore, you are not going to do it, although you know what it is. You have gone out of the way. Man has deviated from the way. This is the fourth charge that God makes.

The fifth charge is: “they are together become unprofitable.” The word unprofitable suggests overripe, spoiled fruit. It could be translated, “they have altogether become sour.” I am very fond of fruit, especially the papaya. But when it passes the ripe state and becomes rotten, there is nothing quite as bad as that. Mankind is not lush fruit; he is corrupt fruit. That is what the Judge of all the earth is saying.

The sixth charge: “there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” This is a triple negative. Mankind is like a group of travelers who have gone in the opposite direction from the right one, and not one can help the others. Our Lord said to the religious leaders of His day, “You are blind leaders of the blind” (see Matt. 15:14). That is what the Judge of all the earth says about you and about me and about everyone on the face of the earth.

Now Paul transfers us over to God’s clinic into the hands of the Great Physician. This is a spiritual clinic, and the Great Physician says that we are spiritually sick.

Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips [Rom. 3:13].

When you go to the doctor, what’s the first thing that he says to you? Well, I have to go in for a regular check–up because of the fact that I apparently have cancer in my system, and I report regularly in case of an outbreak. Well, it is a ritual for me to go in, and I sit down in the little room where he does his examination. Do you know the first thing that he says to me? “Open your mouth.” Then he takes a little wooden stick and pushes it around in my mouth, and he looks at my throat. Likewise God, the Lord Jesus, the Great Physician, does that with mankind. Do you know what He says? “Their throat is an open sepulchre.” Have you ever smelled decaying human flesh? When a little girl in Nashville was kidnapped many years ago, the sheriff of the county was a member and a deacon in my church. He called me up and told me they had found the body of a little girl, and they were going out to exhume it. He wanted to know if I wanted to go with them. I got to the place where they had taken the body out—it had been buried several days—and the body was corrupt. Oh, it was terrible! I’ve never been as sick in my life as I was at the odor of corrupt human flesh. I always think of that in connection with this verse.

When God looks down at you, friend, He doesn’t say what a sweet, fine little boy or girl you are. God says you smell like an open grave! Someone, I think it was Mel Trotter, said, “If we could see ourselves as God sees us, we couldn’t even stand ourselves!” Well, that is what Paul is saying here.

And “with their tongues they have used deceit.” That’s number two. And the second thing my doctor says to me (after he looks at my throat) is, “Stick out your tongue!” That’s what the Great Physician says to the human family. “Stick out your tongue.” And when God looks at the tongue of mankind—that means your tongue and mine—do you know what He says? “The poison of asps is under their lips.” There’s a snake house and a place for reptiles in the zoo in San Diego, California, which I have been through several times. As I look at the vicious fangs of those diamondback rattlers, I think of the poison that is there. Friend, right now, if you go and look in the mirror, you will see a tongue that is far more dangerous than any diamondback rattlesnake. He can’t hurt your reputation at all. He can kill your body, but he can’t hurt your reputation. You have a tongue that you can use to ruin the reputation of someone else. You can ruin the fair name of some woman. You can ruin the reputation of some man. I think today the most vicious thing in some of our churches is the gossip that is carried on. I actually advised someone not too long ago not to join a certain church, because I happen to know that some of the worst gossips in the world are in that church. And I want to tell you they have slaughtered the reputation of many individuals. Do you know who they are? They are the so–called spiritual crowd. I call them the spiritual snobs, because that’s what they are. With their tongues they use deceit, and “the poison of asps [adder’s poison] is under their lips.” Oh, how vicious the human tongue is! How terrible it can be.

Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness [Rom. 3:14].

This is the fourth thing the Great Physician says about man. His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud; under his tongue is mischief and vanity. Also he is prone to curse. And if you listen to what is being said today, you know that cursing is in the vocabulary of all men, whether he is a ditch digger or a college professor. They’re better at using profanity than they are at any other language. A man challenged this verse one time when I was a pastor in downtown Los Angeles. He didn’t believe it was true. So I said to him, “Let’s test it. You and I will walk out here to the corner, and the first man who comes by, whoever he is, you punch him in the mouth and see what comes out. I guarantee that it will be as God says.”
Then God says the fifth thing.

Their feet are swift to shed blood [Rom. 3:15].

Isaiah 59:7 gives the unabridged version: “Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.” What a picture this is of mankind—“Their feet are swift to shed blood.”

Destruction and misery are in their ways [Rom. 3:16].

Man leaves desolation and distress behind him. This is included in Isaiah 59:7 which we have quoted.

And the way of peace have they not known [Rom. 3:17].

Man does not know the way of peace. Look about you in the world today. After all these years man is still talking about peace, but he hasn’t found it. Just read your newspaper, my friend; there is no peace in this world.

There is no fear of God before their eyes [Rom. 3:18].

Paul seems to sum up all of man’s sin in this final statement. He has no fear of God at all. Man is living as if God does not exist. Man actually defies God. What a picture this gives of mankind!
Now we come to the final thing Paul has to say about sin. Because there are still those who will say, “Well, we have the Law and we’ll keep the Law. We will hold onto it.”

Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God [Rom. 3:19].

Man cannot attain righteousness by the Mosaic Law. It is as if mankind in desperation grabbed for the Law as the proverbial straw when drowning. The Law won’t lift him up. Actually, it does the opposite. To hold onto the Law is like a man jumping out of an airplane, and instead of taking a parachute, he takes a sack of cement with him. Well, believe me, the Law will pull you down. It condemns man. It’s a ministration of death.


McGee, J. V. (1991). Vol. 42: Thru the Bible commentary: The Epistles (Romans 1-8) (electronic ed.) (59–65). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.