You wrote:
I know that it appears so to you, and I even understand why it does. What you did not notice in the context of the passage is the phrase (in verse 6): "We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature..." This message for the "mature" is what Paul refers to as the "wisdom of God in a mystery" (v.7) and "things of the Spirit of God" (v.14). These are the things which Paul says that neither natural (v.14) nor carnal (3:1) men can grasp, because it requires a level of spiritual maturity to conceptualize them.Steve, it appears to me that "the natural man without the Spirit" can not understand in respect to the verses preceding verse 14 are very contextual.
These "spiritual things" do not refer to the Gospel itself, which Paul summarizes in the phrase, "Christ, and Him crucified" (v.2). This simple message, Paul says, was possible for even carnal and immature people (like the Corinthians) to receive (vv.9-11, 13; 3:1).
The whole thought of 1 Corinthians 2 is that there are basic things (like the Gospel), which Paul also calls "milk" (3:2), and which represent the things that even unspiritual men, like those in Corinth, have the capacity to digest. But there are also what Paul calls the "deep things of God" (v.10), or "solid food" (3:2), or "things of the Spirit of God" (v.14)—which none but spiritual men can really receive.
Paul's complaint, in this chapter and the next, is that the Corinthians were not such spiritual men as to allow him to impart such "mysterious wisdom" to them (3:1-2), and all he could give them was what any unspiritual person might receive—just Christ, and Him crucified (2:1-2).
Thus it is not within Paul's range of concerns, in the passage, to say that the Gospel cannot be received other than by spiritual men. In fact, it affirms the opposite: that the Corinthians, though unspiritual, had in fact received the Gospel—but little else! Paul's point is that only spiritual men can be entrusted with the "deep things of God," which Paul enjoys teaching to more mature audiences, and would like to have shared with the Corinthians, had they been capable of being taught them.
As for Romans 3, there is a standard way of reading Paul's train of thought that has, for many generations, influenced commentators to interpret the collage of Old Testament texts, to which Paul appeals in verses 10-18, in a Calvinistic manner. The standard assumption sees Paul's writing Romans as an evangelistic tract (strangely, since the letter is addressed to those who are already "saints in Rome").
In chapters one-through-three (so goes the default interpretation), Paul is laying down the first two of the "four spiritual laws." Paul is trying to convict his audience of sin (again, strangely, since they are believers!). On this view, Paul's main goal is to prevent any human being from being able to deny that he is a sinner—so he implicates the Gentiles (in chapter one), the Jews (in chapter two), and combines the two, in chapter three.
The litany of verses from Isaiah and the Psalms, found in 3:10-18, is read as if it is establishing Paul's imagined thesis, namely, that ever single man is a sinner.
Of course, if these verses are being quoted to make that specific point, then they establish far more than merely that every man is a sinner. They go much further—declaring that every man is a monster of iniquity. Not a single soul seeks after God. Not one does anything good. They are all deceivers, as dangerous to their victims as is a deadly viper. Their feet all run to shed innocent blood! Wherever they go, they spread misery and destruction, and there is no fear of God to be found among them!
Now, if Paul truly is trying to say such things about every unbeliever, so be it. I will then have to assume that every unbeliever runs around shedding the blood of others, fatally deceiving them, spreading destruction and misery in their train. I will further have to assume that everyone who ever apparently feared God, sought God or did anything "good" were either fakes, or were regenerated. Of course, this is precisely what Paul would be affirming, on the standard view of Romans, and those who are wedded to that view find ingenious explanations that turn seemingly harmless non-Christian grandmothers and philanthropists into secret murderers—and every religious person, who appears to be seeking God (including the psalmists that Paul cites) into hypocrites.
There is no reason to make such uncharitable assumptions about our fellow earth-dwellers, unless we feel compelled by our view of Romans-one-through-three to do so. No wonder so many, seeing it this way, have been so willing to consign all unregenerate people to eternal flames of hell, and to see every unbeliever as an enemy of God worthy only of our contempt! The fact that there are some non-disciples who would "give a cup of cold water" to a disciple, and thereby secure an inalienable reward does not easily fit this scenario. Neither does reality as any of us have ever known it.
When we look again at Romans, and see the pastoral intentions of Paul toward the church in Rome, we can stop transmogrifying this church epistle into an evangelistic tract. The church of Rome clearly had problems, like all of the other churches Paul wrote to. It was his pastoral concern for the well-being (especially the unity) of the church that motivated Paul to write most (perhaps all) of his epistles—including this one.
In the Roman church, as in most churches, there were both Jewish and Gentile believers. In Rome, there was a special tension between these two groups, and Paul wrote intending to remedy that malady in the Body.
The cause of the tension came from both sides. On the one side, it has been convincingly argued, the Gentile believers were not fully welcoming the returning Jewish saints, who had lately arrived back in Rome from their earlier banishment under Claudius. The Gentile Christians, who had held, for some years, a racial monopoly on Roman Christianity until then, were "despising" the Jewish believers, who were coming back in among them and bringing with them their traditional practices like the observance of dietary codes and holy days (Rom.14-15). It seems that Gentile believers were arrogating themselves against the Jewish believers, perhaps on the basis that most Jews were unbelievers, whereas the Gentiles had been "grafted in" to replace them (Rom.11:17-22). Paul rebukes these Gentiles for their uncharitable and unhumble attitudes.
But there were problems on the Jewish side as well. The mentality of the Jew at the time (including many Jewish believers), was that there was some special status in being a Jew, as opposed to being a Gentile. They still thought that circumcision and the possession of the Torah set the Jewish race, as a class, above the uncircumcised races who lacked the Torah. This situation might be seen as parallel to white Christians, in the first generation after the liberation of slaves in the South (who had been taught all their lives that blacks were sub-human) being in a position to accept black Christians into their assemblies—but still harboring secret (or not so secret) attitudes of superiority over them.
Paul crafts his argument of the first four chapters of Romans so as to eliminate this Jewish racial snobbery. In chapter one, he starts discussing the extreme wickedness of certain people (he does not specify race) who suppress the truth that they have received. Though every thing he says in chapter one applies as much to certain Jews as it does to certain Gentiles, Paul assumes that his Jewish readers will think he is describing the idolatrous pagans, and will track favorably with him.
However, in chapter two, he tells them that he is talking about Jews as much as about Gentiles. He points out that, though the Jews are circumcised and have the commandments of God, the disobedience of many Jews to those commandments (Paul gives, as examples, "stealing," "adultery," "robbing temples"—vv.21-22) practically nullifies any benefit of their being Jewish (that is, their circumcision).
In chapter three, then, he asks rhetorically whether the Jews are entirely lacking any advantage over Gentiles. Paul's answer is, they indeed have always had a great advantage, in their possession of Torah (v.2), but they have miserably failed to live up to their privileges, and are thus "no better" than the Gentiles (v.9). In order to prove this point (i.e., that being a Jew does not make one any better than a Gentile), Paul quotes a string of Old Testament verses (vv.10-18). Of course, there is no way that these verses could make this particular point, unless they are verses describing the behavior of Jews that are no better than Gentiles. Thus, Paul's point in citing them is to assert that these statements from the Old Testament are not describing Gentiles, but wicked Jews (the context of most of the verses would confirm this), showing that, however bad pagans may be, the Jews are capable of being every bit their equals in wickedness.
If there is any question that Paul's implication is that the wicked men described in vv.10-18 are Jewish men, all doubt is dispelled by his concluding remark— verse 19: "Now we know that whatever the law says (that is, the verses cited in vv.10-18), it says to those that are under the law (that is, the Jews), that every mouth (the mouths of Jews as well as the pagans) may be stopped."
Now the common current practice of particularizing Paul's statements to apply to "every last man" may serve the modern evangelist in presenting the "Romans Road" to the unbeliever, but it would be counter-productive for Paul to attempt, by his chosen argument, to make that point to his target audience. Why? Because there would be some Jews as well as some Gentiles who could honestly say, "I have been faithful to my wife, so your reference to adultery does not apply to me, and I have not robbed temples, bowed to images, nor committed homosexual acts, as have those you have described. Therefore, my self-righteousness remains unscathed by your arguments!"
Paul's target is not the man (Jew or Gentile) who is claiming to have never sinned, since Paul's argument, as he presented it, seems to mention only exceptional sins, which some readers could see as belonging to others, and not to themselves. Paul's target is the Jew, who (although he does not necessarily deny that he may have sinned, now and again) believes that being in the category of "the circumcised" places him in a special class (unlike the Gentiles, a lesser breed without the law) and in a group less deserving of condemnation. The core of Paul's argument, in chapters one-through-four, would be as follows:
Okay, you say you are a circumcised Jew, and you think that that in itself places you in a favored light before God. However, it is evident that (though no one contests the fact that pagans do detestable things) some Jews have done equally horrendous deeds—no less horrendous than the very worst that the pagans have done (chapter 1, with 2:1)! Now, if a circumcised Jew is capable of being as wicked as an uncircumcised pagan—how can one pretend that being circumcised and Jewish represents a condition in itself that is superior to being uncircumcised and Gentile? Clearly, God is no respecter of persons (2:11). He rewards those who do good and those who do evil, according to their respective deeds—not how much skin has been removed from their reproductive organs (2:5-10)! Furthermore, an uncircumcised Christian Gentile, who keeps the commandments from his heart (2:14-15), shows more signs of the right kind of "circumcision" (2:28-29) than does a circumcised Jew who otherwise breaks the law (2:26-27). It is clear that one is justified by faith, regardless of being circumcised (3:21—4:7). After all, the very righteousness of our ancestor Abraham was declared at a time when he himself was still an uncircumcised Gentile (4:9-22).
Thus, Roman 3:10-18 is not making a point about the sinfulness of every individual, but it is making a statement about the exceptional sinfulness of some Jews, no less than that of some pagans (whose sinfulness goes without saying among his audience). That all people (including every last individual) are sinners is also a biblical teaching—and observable in any group of people that one may wish to scrutinize. But that is not Paul's point.
If he is trying to say that all people are like those described in these verses, then he would apparently be making an inaccurate claim—or at the very least, would not be making a convincing argument, since most unbelievers could legitimately deny being homosexuals who have made and bowed down to images of animals (as per chapter one), or being eager to commit murder, leaving only carnage in their wake (as in Romans 3:10-18). To establish that any circumcised Jew might be found committing such sins is enough to establish Paul's intended point here.
When our interpretations of scripture end up affirming things that anyone can see to be false, it is time to question our interpretations. In this case, that turns out to be a fruitful venture.
