What does Romans 3:12 mean?
Paul is quoting from Psalm 14 to show that his bold statements are not new ideas, even if the Jewish religious leaders have misunderstood or forgotten them. Judging by Paul's remarks here, it was commonly held that the Jewish people had the law and were circumcised, therefore they were therefore a righteous people in God's eyes. This would have led people to feel protected from God's judgment. Paul has contradicted that idea, teaching that every individual person will be judged by God for their actions, whether right or wrong. And every one of us will be found to be "under sin" and deserving of God's anger. Verse 10, which began this citation, makes this clear by stating that there is "not one" who is naturally righteous.Paul's paraphrase of David's words in Psalm 14:3 describes what God found when he searched humanity looking for any righteous—sinless—people. Of course, God already knew the outcome, but Scripture states this to emphasize that it's something clear and obvious. We have all turned aside from following God's path. We have all become worthless; we are all corrupt. Not one single person is found to do good, by the standards of a holy and perfect Creator.
Neither of these Scriptures implies that no human ever does anything that can be described as good. Of course, people do isolated good things all of the time, at least by our standards. We are capable of knowing the difference between right and wrong, and choosing what is right…when we want to. The ultimate problem, as David wrote and Paul agreed, is that nobody's heart is naturally oriented toward doing good. We are all, every one of us, pointed in a self-serving direction and away from God's definition of goodness.
The bottom line is that humans are capable of doing good, but we universally choose not to, by God's standards. We want what we want and not what He wants.
Romans 3:9–20 contains a string of quotes from the Old Testament Scriptures. Paul uses these to demonstrate that both Jews and Greeks alike are under sin. After establishing that ''there is none who does good'' from Psalm 14:1, Paul uses quotes from Psalms and Isaiah to show ways we have always used our bodies—throats, tongues, lips, feet, and eyes—to express our sinfulness. He concludes the section with his strongest statement, yet, that no human being will be justified in God's sight by following the works of the law. The law can only show us our sin, not save us from it.
Romans 3 begins with a question-and-answer scheme. These are responses one might expect from someone opposed to what Paul wrote in Romans 2. Next, Paul quotes from a series of Old Testament passages. These Scriptures show that those writers also agreed that nobody, not one person, deserves to be called righteous. Paul declares emphatically that no one will be justified by following the works of the law. Finally, though, he arrives at the good news: righteousness before God is available apart from the law through faith in Christ's death for our sin on the cross.
