Excerpt from
The Law stands
Romans 3
When someone suggests to an evangelical Christian that the Law of God still stands today, one of the first defenses to refute the suggestion comes from Romans 3. We are quickly informed that no one is able to keep the Law, and all are guilty of breaking it and are therefore forever unrighteous.
As it is written: "There is none righteous, no, not one". Romans 3:10
This verse is part of Paul's quote from Psalm 14 that he used as proof that man cannot keep the Law to become righteous. Here is the entire piece of Scripture that Paul uses in Romans 3.
As it is written: "There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seek after God. They have all gone out of the way; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no not one. Their throat is an open tomb; with their tongues they have practiced deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes." Romans 3:10-18
This is Paul's apparent direct quote from Scripture that is supposed to prove to us that no one is righteous, but all are full of evil. Now guess what? No such passage exists! What Paul quotes is a compilation of no less than six separate passages that have been jerked out of their original context from the Psalms and the book of Isaiah, given an interpretation that cannot be found there, and strung together to appear as one quote. We have seen this deceptive practice of Paul's before when we looked at Romans 9 where he pasted together two short passages from Genesis and Malachi concerning Jacob and Esau!
Paul's accuracy in quoting from the Psalms is no better. The first passage he quotes in verses 10-12 comes from Psalm 14. Here is his version again.
As it is written: "There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all gone out of the way; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one." Romans 3:10-12
Now here is the passage quoted accurately, and in its context.
The fool has said in his heart, "there is no God". They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call on the Lord? There they are in great fear, for God is with the generation of the RIGHTEOUS. Psalm 14:1-5
Guess what? In David's picture there are no atheistic fools who do good! This passage is obviously not speaking of every human being, but of a distinct group of people whom David describes as fools, atheists, workers of abominations, corrupt, ignorant, and workers of iniquity. Of course, not one of them do good. And these evil people are contrasted with a second group of real people known as "my people" and "the generation of the righteous". Right there in this very Psalm that Paul quotes from, there are obviously those whom God calls "righteous"! This is hardly the picture Paul wants us to get from this Psalm. Notice also Paul's embellishment of this passage. He would have us believe the phrase, "no, not one" is used twice when it is only used once. The first time Paul uses the phrase is where it doesn't exist, and it is coupled with the word "righteous". This word does not exist in this part of the Psalm, or anywhere near the words "no, not one". The word "righteous" only shows up later in verse 5, and there it directly implies that there are those who are righteous! So much for "no, not one".
In Paul's string of quotes, he continues to take snippets of Scripture out of their context from Psalm 5:9, Psalm 140:3, Psalm 10:7, Isaiah 59:7,8, and Psalm 36:1. In each and every case, the unrighteous individuals spoken of in these passages are specifically evil men, and in the greater context of these passages, the evil men are contrasted with those who are called "the righteous", "the upright", and "the innocent". Please check for yourself. Not only is there no support for Paul's picture in these passages, but in their proper context, the exact opposite is firmly established.
Paulinists like to refer to this practice of gluing a number of passages together as "pearl-stringing". Considering the fact that each part is given what is a lie for an interpretation, a more fitting metaphor than "pearls" should be used to describe what Paul is actually stringing together!
