Romans 3:19

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. NOW WE KNOW THAT WHAT THINGS SOEVER THE LAW (THAT IS, THE SCRIPTURE, REGARDED AS A LAW OF DUTY: CF. JOHN 10:34 ) SAITH, IT SAITH TO THEM WHO ARE UNDER THE LAW (and of course, therefore, to the Jews); THAT EVERY MOUTH (THAT WOULD OPEN ITSELF IN SELF-JUSTIFICATION) MAY BE STOPPED, AND ALL THE WORLD MAY BECOME GUILTY BEFORE GOD, [ hupodikos (G5267) geneetai (G1096)] - 'come under the judgment of God,' or stand condemned at His bar. The Grand Inference from All the Foregoing Reasoning...

19._Now we know, etc. _Leaving the Gentiles, he distinctly addresses his words to the Jews; for he had a much more difficult work in subduing them, because they, though no less destitute of true righteousness than the Gentiles, yet covered themselves with the cloak of God’s covenant, as though it was a sufficient holiness to them to have been separated from the rest of the world by the election of God. And he indeed mentions those evasions which he well understood the Jews were ready to bring forward; for whatever was said in the law unfavorably of mankind, they usually applied to the Gentiles, as though they were exempt from the common condition of men, and no doubt they would have been so, had they not fallen from their own dignity. Hence, that no false conceit as to their own worthiness should be a hinderance to them, and that they might not confine to the Gentiles alone what applied...

19,20 It is in vain to seek for justification by the works of the law. All must plead guilty. Guilty before God, is a dreadful word; but no man can be justified by a law which condemns him for breaking it. The corruption in our nature, will for ever stop any justification by our own works....

Verse 19. _WHAT THINGS SOEVER THE LAW SAITH_] That the word _law_, here, does not mean the _pentateuch_, is evident from the preceding quotations, not one of which is taken from that work. Either the term _law_ must here mean the _Jewish writings in general_, or that _rule of moral conduct_ which God had given to both Jews and Gentiles: to the former in their own _Scriptures_; to the latter in that law written in their hearts by his own Spirit, and acknowledged in their written codes, and in their pleadings in every civil case. Now, according to this great law, _this rule of_ _moral conduct_, whether given in a _written_ revelation, as to the Jews, or by the secret inspiration of his Spirit, as in certain cases to the Gentiles, _every mouth must be stopped, and the whole_ _world_, πας ο κοσμος, both Jews and Gentiles, _stand convicted_ _before God_: for all mankind have sinned against th...

NOW WE KNOW - We all admit. It is a conceded plain point. WHAT THINGS SOEVER - Whether given as precepts, or recorded as historical facts. Whatever things are found in the Law. “The law saith.” This means here evidently the Old Testament. From that the apostle had been drawing his arguments, and his train of thought requires us here to understand the whole of the Old Testament by this. The same principle applies, however, to all law, that it speaks only to those to whom it is expressly given. IT SAITH TO THEM ... - It speaks to them for whom it was expressly intended; to them for whom the Law was made. The apostle makes this remark in order to prevent the Jew from evading the force of his conclusion. He had brought proofs from their own acknowledged laws, from writings given expressly for them, and which recorded their own history, and which they admitted to b

EXPOSITION ROMANS 3:1 (2) _Certain objections with regard to the Jews suggested and met. _In_ _this passage, before proceeding with his argument, the apostle meets certain objections that might be made to what has been so far said. Some difficulty in determining his exact meaning arises from the concise and pregnant form in which the objections are put and answered, and from fresh ones arising out of the answers, which have also to be met. The objections are from the Jewish standpoint, though not put into the mouth of an objecting Jew, but rather suggested as likely ones by St. Paul himself. To the original readers of the Epistle, who were familiar with the tone of Jewish thought, the sequence of the ideas would probably be more obvious than to us. Reserving special consideration of successive clauses for our exposition of each verse, we may,

NOW WE KNOW THAT WHAT THINGS SOEVER THE LAW SAITH,.... By "the law" is meant, not the law of nature, nor the civil law of nations, nor the ceremonial law of the Jews, nor barely the five books of Moses, nor the book of Psalms, of the Prophets, or the writings of the whole Old Testament; but the moral law, as it appears in the whole word of God, which every man is bound to observe, of which all are transgressors, by which is the knowledge of sin, which no man can be justified by, and which Christ was made under, and came to fulfil. This law is represented as a person speaking, and saying many things, some of which are here mentioned; so, אמרה תורה, "the law says" so and so, is an usual phrase with Jewish writers y. The persons it speaks to, are THEM THAT ARE UNDER THE LAW; the Jews were in a peculiar sense under it, as it was given to them by Moses; all mankind are under it, as to the ma...

Romans 3:1. _What advantage then hath the Jew? Or what profit is there of circumcision?_ If, after all, both Jew and Gentiles were under sin, what advantage had the Jew by the covenant under which he lived? Or what was the benefit to him of the circumcision which was his distinctive mark? Romans 3:2. _Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God._ The Jews were God's chronicle-keepers. They had to guard the holy Books, «the oracles of God.» They had also to preserve the knowledge of the truth by those divers rites and ceremonies by which God was pleased to reveal himself of old time. Romans 3:3. For what if some did not believe? Shall their unbeli

BECOME Be brought under the judgment of God....

CHAPTER 3:1-20 _ 1. Objections and Their Answers. (Romans 3:1 .)_ 2. The Whole World Under Sin. (Romans 3:9 .) Romans 3:1 A number of objections are next raised and answered. “What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?” Such would be the natural question of the Jew after reading the argument that the Jew is on the same level with the Gentile. This objection is stated here for the first time. It is important, for the Jews are God's chosen people and as the Apostle states later, to them belongs “the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God and the promises” ...