Conrad Commentaries

Excerpt from Chapter 6: An Appeal to the Prophets (3:10-14)

   This claim was rather unique to Paul, and it strikes at a rooted misinterpretation in Jewish tradition.  It is essentially the same claim that he made in Romans 3:23.  All people have sinned willfully.  Laying aside any talk of an age of accountability and such, the statement is very clear.  All people at some point, young or old, have sinned by choice.  Paul knew the Mosaic Law left ample room for people to find forgiveness for sins committed in ignorance or on accident.  But Paul’s claim was that the Mosaic Law left no room for people who sinned willfully, even once.  Consequently, all people are under the Mosaic Law’s curse.

            Paul’s claim denied his own Jewish traditions about willful sin.  The clearest passage in the Mosaic Law concerning willful, presumptuous sin was Numbers 15:30-31.  It declared no sacrifice or chance for forgiveness when a person willfully transgressed the Mosaic Law.  They were to be “cut off,” “extirpated,” killed.  Significantly, Jewish tradition reinterpreted this passage to have the death penalty applicable only when a person committed idolatry or blasphemed the Name of God.  In the Jewish list of 36 sins that merited the death penalty, willful sin in general was not listed.

            In 3:11-12, Paul moved to two other passages in the Scriptures to further prove this same point that the Mosaic Law was not designed to guide people to be justified at the Judgment Day.  Paul even states boldly that this conclusion was “evident,” unmistakably clear to understand.  He made his self-evident conclusion by comparing a verse from the Law with a verse from the prophets.