Romans 3 Objections Answered

== Romans 3 Objections Addressed ==
There are two parts to the Romans 3 objection, vs 10-12 and 23.  I'm going to address a general understanding of Romans first, then I'll deal with the second part before the first.
== An Overview of Romans ==
Romans is a letter where Paul is explaining (demystifying) the mystery of the gospel: how can the Jews and Gentiles be reconciled in the church?  It is a letter that deals largely in generalizations about nations rather than specifics about individuals, though it does contain that some.  When generalizations are used, it gives us something that is regular, but not necessarily absolute for all individuals.  A trend.  I will show this from the 10-12 objections.
== Romans 3:23 ==
In Romans 3:23, the objection is that the verse states that "all" have sinned and come short of the glory of God.  It is ironic when Calvinists use it given their propensity for limiting all used in other places, but failing to understand the contextual limitation here.
Romans 3:23 is within the context of verses 22 and 24.  The all is limited to all them that believe.  It is limited to all them that are being justified by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.  Read together 22-24 is limited to those who have been saved as a necessary conclusion that to be saved, those people at one time had been lost due to sin.  If Romans 3:23 is universal rather than limited to the saved, then the conclusion of the context is universalism.  In other words, if "all [universally] have sinned and come short of the glory of God" then that same all [universally] are being justified by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
If, however, we limit all logically to those who are being justified by grace, those who have need of justification and are being justified, i.e. Christians/the saved, then we must necessarily limit the all of verse 23 to the saved.  It's actually kind of a basic statement to make.  All those who are being saved have sinned.  Because if they never sinned, they wouldn't need to be saved!
== Romans 3:10-12 ==
In Romans 10-12 (and we could go beyond that) we have the quotes from at least 7 different Psalms (5, 10, 14, 36, 51, 53, 140) as well as Isaiah 59  and Ecclesiastes 7v20.  Within this passage Paul writes:
As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: 
There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
If you look up each of those passages, you see hyperbole (Ecclesiastes, Psalms) or limited groups being generalized about (Psalms, Isaiah 59).  For example, in Psa 5, we have a contrast between the psalmist and his enemies in a poetic frame.  The same case can be made from each context, but for our purposes it is unnecessary.  We can just look at the immediate context of Romans 3 itself.
Paul is writing to Christians.  Men and women who have been made righteous by the blood of Christ.  Men and women who do understand, who did and continue to seek after God, who had and were continuing to do good.  To try and apply this passage as an absolute to individuals rather than a generalization about the nations of the Jews and not-Jews becomes quickly absurd.
== Jesus Is Our Example ==
Lastly, we consider that there is one person at least that shows that Romans 3 cannot be absolute for all individuals.  Jesus Himself never sinned, though He was human.  Doctrines have been invented to explain away why in light of other unBiblical, Augustinians doctrines that have been embraced, but they are not found in scripture.  Jesus was tempted in all points "like as we are tempted".  If He had any "help" that we do not have, then He basically cheated and His sacrifice is an empty gesture with no potency whatsoever.  In other words, Jesus not only showed us that it could be done, but that it could be done under the harder law to live by.
In Truth and Love.
Category:Denominationalism