Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans John Calvin
John Calvin encompassed) the seeds of those evils, which would constantly produce fruits, were they not prevented by being mortified; and for this mortification they are indebted to God's mercy and not to their own nature. We may add, that though all the vices here enumerated are not found conspicuously in every individual, yet they may be justly and truly ascribed to human nature, as we have already observed on Romans 1:26.
Romans 3:19-20
Romans 3:19-20
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.
19. Scimus autem quod quæcunque Lex dicit, iis qui in Lege sunt loquitur; ut omne os obstruatur, et obnoxius fiat omnis mundus Deo. 104
20. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
20. Quoniam ex operibus Legis non justificabitur omnis caro coram ipso; per Legem enim agnitio peccati.
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 to them in common with others, Paul here anticipates them, and shows, from what Scripture declares, that they were not only blended with the multitude, but that condemnation was peculiarly denounced on them. And we indeed see the discretion of the Apostle in undertaking to refute these objections; for to whom but to the Jews had the law been given, and to whose instruction but theirs ought it to have served? What then it states respecting others is as it were accidental; or as they say, {παρεργον}, an appendage; but it applies its teaching mainly to its own disciples.
Under the law He says that the Jews were those to whom the law was 104Obnoxius Deo — {ὑπόδικος} {τῶ} {θεῶ}: "Obnoxius condemnationi Dei — subject to the condemnation of God" Beza; "Liable to punishment before God," Macknight; "Stand convicted before God," Doddridge The word means to be "under sentence" or under condemnation, and thus "to God," i.e., before God. Tillotson gives this paraphrase, "Liable to the Divine justice." It may be rendered "condemned before God." The meaning is that the world is under condemnation. — Ed.