Romans 3 is a ruthless passage of scripture. “As it is written… ‘There is none who does good, there is not even one’” (Rom. 3:10, 12). That’s a scathing condemnation, made all the harsher by the fact that no one at all is exempt from it. But sure enough, it’s in our Bibles, and so we have to deal with it. But when was the last time you stopped and considered the kind of thing that is being said here? Can a statement like this one really be true? Is there really not one single person on all the earth who is capable of doing any good? To be honest, it sounds a bit extreme.
Now, to anyone who has grown up Christian, the following concept is likely familiar: man, born as a sinner, cannot be righteous in God’s sight; this is standard Christian fare, and a more-than-decent explanation for the seeming harshness of this passage from Romans. However, that isn’t exactly what Paul said in verse 12. To generalize “doing good” into “being righteous” isn’t an accurate use of biblical vocabulary. In verse 10 he does say that “there is none righteous,” but in verse 12 he makes a clear distinction that “there is none who does good.” While it is possible that the difference between these two is only a surface level one, I think that this distinction is quite deliberate. Let me use an example to draw the distinction into focus.
Take the case of an atheistic scientist who spends his days researching and developing water purification systems for use in third-world countries. He dedicates all his working hours and funding to this project, and even makes regular international flights to help install his equipment and to teach people how to use it. Is he “doing good”? Well, we don’t want to say that his deeds are evil, and we wouldn’t want to call them neutral either. Somehow, we feel he must be doing good. Sure, we know that his deeds, no matter how helpful, cannot earn him a right standing with God, because “by works of the law no flesh will be justified” (Rom. 3:20). But what he is doing certainly seems in line with what God calls good, so maybe his good works are still good, just not able to save him.
This line of reasoning might sound compelling at first, but think about the implications for God’s justice. For God to be just, good deeds must be rewarded and evil deeds must be punished. “In the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgement of God, … [He] will render to each person according to his deeds” (Rom. 2:5-6). If someone does good, they must receive a reward. If this scientist is doing good, God must reward him for his actions, and specifically “in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgement of God.” But if he’s on the doorstep of hellfire for all eternity, that doesn’t leave much room for rewarding. Hypothetically, he might receive his reward and then immediately have it taken away as he is thrown into hell, but that just isn’t how God relates to his creatures. That’s an incredibly shallow view of God’s generosity (by which I mean His propensity for giving), not to mention that the hypothetical just sounds absurd. God does not reward anyone begrudgingly; He delights in justice and uprightness. But if, for example’s sake, this man spent his whole life hating God and did all his deeds in order to prove that he did not need God in order to motivate him to do good, how will God treat him in the judgement? God will not, in one moment, joyfully give him a reward for his work but then flip around in the next to bring the full force of His wrath for his unbelief. Our God is certainly just, but He is also consistent in His dispositions. If this man is not going to be saved, then he is not going to be rewarded, which must mean that he did not, in the final analysis, do good. The claim of Romans 3:12 that no one does good doesn’t just sound extreme. It is, in fact, quite extreme.
At this point in the discussion, it is important to take a step back and acknowledge that the scripture does also refer to acts of service, such as those of our hypothetical scientist, as “good.” If that’s the case, though, what gives? Doesn’t that introduce a contradiction? Calling what he does “good” and “not good” at the same time is the definition of a contradiction, and if one interpretation has to go, dismissing my strange ideas might seem like an easy solution. However, I would contend that my argument stands well enough that we can’t just dismiss it. To resolve the supposed contradiction, I offer an alternative, a simple proposition: the word “good” is used in more than one sense in the Bible. Now, some folks (myself included) have an impulse to say, “good means good, you can’t just redefine a word” and therefore resist that conclusion; this is generally a positive. However, if the Scriptures leave us no alternative interpretations and force our hand into interpreting this way, we ought to be content to follow their lead. This is not the only example of the Scriptures forcing this kind of interpretation; the Trinity, for instance, is not something we believe because of a direct quote from the Bible, but rather we confidently believe it because there’s no other way to consistently interpret the Scriptures. In the case of the word “good,” it simply won’t do to interpret it to mean “morally upright” in every case where it is used. Its basic meaning is similar or the same across its various uses, but the specific sense in which the word is used changes. The basic idea of “goodness” is still there, because the word still means the same thing at its root, but context can put some serious spin on a word’s meaning. So when we read Romans 3:12 and see that “there is none who does good,” our response should be something like, “I know what ‘good’ means, but I don’t get what this verse means. What then does Paul specifically mean by ‘good’ in this verse?”
This is exactly the question that gave me the idea for this article. In the process of answering it, we will very quickly get to the heart of the issue. Let’s begin with a bit of exegesis from our intro passage, Romans 3. It might get a bit technical, so buckle up, and away we go. In this chapter, Paul explains why no one is able to be righteous before God, and the fact that “no one does good” he uses as evidence. Saying “no one does good” is not just his way of restating the point that no one is able to be righteous, but rather a way of proving that fact. So what then if someone was able to “do good”? If there was someone out there actually able to “do good,” then Paul’s evidence that “no one is righteous” would be faulty. That would mean it would actually be possible to be righteous in God’s sight. From this we can deduce that when Paul said no one “does good,” he had in mind doing something that would make you righteous before God; that is what “doing good” means in this passage. With that said, what is the one thing in the Scriptures that is consistently said to bring about righteousness before God? The answer is faith: “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to Him as righteousness… to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his (e.g, his own) faith is credited as righteousness.” And as the reformers said, faith alone is able to make man righteous before God. Now take these two ideas and hold them side by side: “doing good” is something that makes us righteous before God, and faith alone can make us righteous before God. The answer to the riddle presents itself clearly: “doing good” and faith are effectively the same thing.
But what on earth does it mean to say that faith and “doing good” are the same thing? Faith is a noun and “doing good” is an action; how could those possibly be the same? The best way to resolve that tension is with Galatians 2:20, which says: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (emphasis added). Living by faith means trusting God in everything you do. It means trusting His word when it comes to making decisions; it means relying on the strength He provides for tasks both great and small; it means asking for His wisdom and guidance in every area of your life; it means giving thanks to God for every blessing that comes your way, no matter how small. Living by faith is defined by active trust and obedience to God, and there is no problem at all with saying that faith and “doing good” are one and the same if we see faith as an active trust in God. With that in mind, what then is “doing good”? To summarize, “doing good” means entrusting every part of your life to God, relying on Him and His word to do all things. And yes, this means all things, every little thing that you do.
If you haven’t ever heard a claim like this before, this idea will probably sound just as extreme as the passage from Romans. But remember, we are dealing with the supreme creator God of the entire universe, after all. We should probably expect things to get a little extreme here and there. And living by faith in such a radical way isn’t just something God tells us to do for no reason; it’s actually a natural product of the way that God made us. We are intentionally made so that we can’t ever live full, meaningful lives apart from moment-to-moment reliance on His grace and power, which Paul expressly tells us in chapter 4 of 2 Corinthians. He explains that “we have this treasure (the gospel of Christ) in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves”; the obvious implication is that we were made weak on purpose, such that we would need to depend on God for strength and power. This Divinely ordained weakness is an opportunity for God to make Himself known in our lives, and as such it should be cause for our rejoicing. Paul says exactly this as he describes his experience with the “thorn in the flesh” in 2 Corinthians 12. God tells him that “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness,” and Paul says that this caused a dramatic shift in his outlook; rather than resenting the weakness that God had sent him, he now saw it as a cause for rejoicing because it meant God had more opportunities to work in his life. According to Paul, the best thing to be given is more opportunities to see God at work in us, and God-ordained weakness is a sure-fire way to give God those opportunities.
Mirroring these statements about how faith is required for a successful and fulfilling life, the New Testament also makes some very explicit statements about the absolute necessity of faith for righteousness and goodness. Hebrews 11:6 begins with, “And without faith it is impossible to please God.” That’s quite the forthright statement, and it leaves very little room to argue that faith is not required to make a deed good or righteous. Our God delights in uprightness and truth, and so arguing that a deed could be good or righteous and yet not be pleasing to God just isn’t plausible. If a deed is good, it is pleasing to God, and whatever is pleasing to God is also good. And with that structure in place, we are finally able to say what makes a deed “good”: in order for a deed to be considered righteous and good, e.g., pleasing to God, it must be done in faith.
I would like to quickly return to Romans 3:12 to make one final observation about “doing good” as it relates to living by faith. We have established that acting in faith is the only way to do good and please God, but we are able to go one step further and explain not only that faith is required, but also why this is the case. The first half of the verse says that “All have turned aside, together they have become useless.” There is some notable textual weirdness to the word translated as useless here, but for our purposes just note that the choice to use that specific word is intentional and significant. If all “have become useless,” that begs the obvious question: useless for what? What were they supposed to be used for that they now cannot be? The answer has already come up in our study, from the book of 2 Corinthians. Paul says that the reason we are weak and that we must live in faith is so that the surpassing power will be of God and not of us, and so that He might make His power and glory known. But a sinner who rejects God and His grace isn’t going to cooperate with that plan. The unrepentant sinner wants nothing more than to block God out of his life for good; they would never dream of humbling themselves to accept God’s grace and power. That sinner has become useless for demonstrating God’s empowering grace and is only useful for demonstrating how much of a fool they are in comparison to God. And if all things are truly summed up in Christ, as Ephesians 1:10 says, then anyone who refuses to demonstrate His glory and grace is ultimately useless for anything, just as Romans 3:12 says.
To close this discussion, we can finally return to answer the question from the title: what makes sin sinful? What is it about sin that makes it so bad, so worthy of God’s wrath? To answer that question, consider the inverse again for a moment. What makes a deed righteous? Doing it by faith. Why is acting by faith good and righteous? Because it magnifies the glory and power of God. Unrighteousness, the definitional inverse of righteousness, is the practical inverse of righteousness: a failure to magnify and glorify God. And if good deeds are all done in faith, unrighteous ones are all done apart from faith. For some time now I have been using the second half of Romans 14:23 as my working definition for sin, which says exactly that: “whatever is not from faith is sin.” This isn’t exactly a common interpretation of this verse, but I would contend that the grammar and the context do allow us to take this verse as a definition for sin. If you don’t think that holds up and/or think that’s an interpretive mistake (which I might be willing to grant), I would point to the discussion thus far as more than sufficient to supply that definition, with or without this particular verse. A deed is righteous (e.g., “good”) if it glorifies God through faith, and a deed is unrighteous (e.g., sinful) if it fails to glorify God because of a lack of faith.
So what’s so bad about acting without faith? We are made to glorify God by faith, and sin is a failure to glorify God by faith; the evil of sin is a failure to bring God the glory He deserves. Sin is us going against what God made us to do as aggressively as possible. Sin is high-handed rebellion against the purposes of God for our lives. God’s purpose for us is that we live by trusting Him day by day and moment by moment for grace and strength to accomplish the works He has prepared for us to do (Eph. 2:10), and sin is our way of telling God, “no way, not interested.” And when our God freely offers us infinite love, intimate relationship, and peace beyond all comprehension, just to name a few blessings, acting in sin is nothing short of a cosmic slap in the face. That is what makes sin evil. We have a generous and wise Creator God who has carefully crafted us for this pattern of living by faith, and He promises to meet our every need as long as we are turning to Him in faith, and we choose instead to kick Him to the curb of our lives and reject all that He offers us. We are saying in our sin that God’s promises aren’t worth it, and our own vision for our lives is better. We are doing our best to make God look like a fool, intentional or not, every time we act without faith. He means to guide us and to protect us every step of the way; all we have to do is let Him. Now that’s easier said than done, given our hard, selfish hearts, but somehow, God’s love for us remains the same despite our constant failings. Praise be to Him for such amazing love! Let that never-failing love become the motivation that draws your heart nearer to Him and encourages you to surrender more and more of your life to Him in faith. Live near to Him by asking for His guidance and His grace in every area of life. He is more than delighted to provide it every day and every second of your life. Will you trust Him for His grace? Or will the fatal pleasures of sin choke out all that He has offered to you by faith?
Hey, thanks for reading to the end! I sincerely hope this post was engaging and that you found it useful. Sorry it took so long to get this post out after my intro piece… life has a funny way of happening. My goal going forward is to have at least one proper post every 2 weeks, and possibly more if I’m really on top of things, so look forward to that. There were some ideas I originally wanted to include as appendices here at the end, but I decided they weren’t adding that much to the argument as I ended up writing it; however, I do still want to write them out, so I will have a new column for “the cutting room floor” where I will post them, along with some comments on the writing process. If you’ve read all of this, you have my gratitude, and so here’s a sneak peek at what’s to come. The title of the next piece will be “Worry is Worshipping the Problem,” being the first article in my “fables of the times” series. More info on the series is coming soon (within a week), but I am really excited to get this next piece out. It should be a good one.
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Pro Rege,
Josiah
I finally got around to reading this and found it very interesting. I think it's a cool way of parsing out what it means to sin and be good. I think it's important to emphasize that the only way to please God is through faith. However, there were a couple parts that gave me pause, but maybe you could clarify if it was just me misunderstanding your argument.
The declaration of Paul in Romans 3:12 that "there is no one who does good, not even one" is held in the context of attaining righteousness through the law. Even our righteousness are like "filthy rags" according to Isaiah. Because of this, I may go even further and oppose the idea that one can actually "do good" by practicing faith in God. After all, Paul didn't say "the only ones who do good are those with faith." That is, if one could truly "do good" by having faith, then it seems faith itself would become meritorious, and therefore a work. If faith truly merits anything, then what was the purpose of the cross? On the other hand, the scripture consistently pits works and faith against each other. That they are antithetical to each other. Faith is nothing in itself, and clears us of no wrongdoing. For example, just because a criminal confesses his crimes, feels sorrowful, and asks for forgiveness means nothing in the court of law. It would only be because of the great mercy of the judge that he would forgive this repentant criminal and take the punishment on himself. Consequently, WE aren't the ones doing good when we have faith, but Christ's goodness being imputed to us. We are called righteous, not because our faith obligated God to call us righteous, but because of the righteousness he freely and undeservedly gives to those with faith.
This slight critique may be aimed at my poor reading of the text, so let me know if I represented you well! Overall, I found it incredibly insightful and a great way to share the gospel.
Lovely post Josiah! I've not seen this argument made quite this way before. Very creative (and probably right). I do wonder how your definition of sin fits within the two ways Paul sees sin within Romans. On the one hand, moral failings are certainly one sense of sin. The other, commonly recognized by scholars of all stripes, is Sin as cosmic power to which we are enslaved. In what sense is enslavement to sin a lack of trust?
I also think your definition of faith leaves something to be desired. Trust is certainly a foundational element, but it doesn't seem like a sufficient basis for ethics. Indeed, that which ultimately comes from faith is "doing good" but is there something that happens between faith and works?