Romans 3:1-20 ~ Red & Yellow, Black & White, We are Worthless In His Sight +PDF notes

ESV Romans 3:12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.

All peoples have turned aside from the truth about God and are worthless with respect to being able to find God. We are worthless with respect to saving ourselves. We have a total inability to save ourselves.

ESV Romans 5:6 . . . while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

The Jews agreed with Paul that pagan Gentiles deserved judgment. The problem was they thought themselves exempt simply because they had the law. Paul’s goal from 2:1 up to 3:20 was to convince the Jews that they too were liable to God’s wrath. Having the law was no excuse. In fact, the law made the Jew accountable to God along with the Gentiles. Thus, the whole world (Jew and Gentile alike) was under sin and accountable to God. Both those “under the law” (3:19) and those “apart from the law” (2:12) will be accountable.