Okay, sorry for the delay in response to Romans 3, work is a necessary interuption......lol.
Romans 3, as I said is part of a letter. This letter from Paul starts out painting a picture of his view of all humanity without Jesus, both Gentile and Jew. In fact, in chapter 2, Paul rakes the Jews for having the Scriptures of the OT and not realizing that they all pointed straight at Jesus. There is, in addition, in Romans 2 a set of verses that are very, very important about the total depravity of humanity being a false doctrine.
"For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. Romans 2:13-16 ESV
Did you understand that? There are those, without the Law and the Prophets, Gentiles who God wrote the work of the Law upon their hearts and they were righteous in their thoughts and actions apart from the Law and apart from Jesus, because God had written righeousness in their hearts. And, get this: "God alone judges them by Christ Jesus", when they die, because they were/are doers of the Law, not hearers only.
Now, as to Romans 3:24-26, Paul was actually taking some liberty with what was actually written in the Hebrew Psalm 14 combined with Psalm 53. Instead of quoting those from the Hebrew, he chose to quote them from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew. If we look at Psalm 14, we see whom it is in verse one that is basically indicting the Lord God and telling him that there are none righteous on the earth. The last half of the Psalm tells a different story.
Psalm 14: ESV
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds,
there is none who does good.
2 The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.
3 They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one.
4 Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers
who eat up my people as they eat bread
and do not call upon the Lord?
5 There they are in great terror,
for God is with the generation of the righteous.
6 You would shame the plans of the poor,
but the Lord is his refuge.
7 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people,
let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.
So, the evangelist Paul, is making a point with Scripture to make a written alter call. Have none here been in a congregation with an evangelist preaching hell-fire and damnation to all in attendance? They use colorful metaphors to bring people to the alter by beating them down with their words of condemnation, as if those words apply to them specifically. Since Calvinism is a doctrine of condemnation of all but the elect of God, Paul's misquote without the rest of the story is exactly what they need to beat people down with the Bible into submission and a run down the aisle to the alter to find out if they can become one of the elect.
Psalm 53 ESV:
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity;
there is none who does good.
2 God looks down from heaven
on the children of man
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.
3 They have all fallen away;
together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one.
4 Have those who work evil no knowledge,
who eat up my people as they eat bread,
and do not call upon God?
5 There they are, in great terror,
where there is no terror!
For God scatters the bones of him who encamps against you;
you put them to shame, for God has rejected them.
6 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
When God restores the fortunes of his people,
let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.
Wow, two songs that look almost identical. Go figure? I wonder, do we today have two songs in which the lyrics are almost the same?
Do we really want to base the keystone of our theology on songs? Both were written by King David, who had a general killed so he could have Bathsheba for himself, who had a son Absalom trying to kill him and take his throne. Do you suppose that perhaps David had a pretty dark view of the world and humans from time to time in his life?
Romans 3:24-26 bumps up against so much other Scripture that one is standing on really shaky ground to base one of one's key tennets of doctrine upon it, especially when one understands that David wrote the Psalms being quoted around the time he was involved with Bathsheba on 14 and his son Absalom around the time of 53. No wonder David started them both out with the same first verse. Perhaps David was being self-critical in calling himself the fool.
Again, pretty flimsy evidence of the total depravity of humanity, since no other Scriptures support that position in context.
Blessings,
Lee
