<p>3:19 <i>Now we know that whatever things the law said, it speaks to them that are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped</i><i>- </i>&ldquo;The law&rdquo; here seems to be used in the Rabbinic sense of &lsquo;the OT scriptures&rsquo;. There seems no sense if Paul is saying that the Law, the Scriptures he has just quoted, speak only to those &ldquo;under the law&rdquo;, and that therefore the whole world is condemned and guilty before God. I think we have to read in some ellipses here; the Message seems to get it right: &ldquo;This makes it clear, doesn't it, that whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first place&rdquo;. This would be continuing the theme of 2:2,3- that we are not to give in to the human tendency to assume that the consequences for all men because of sin will somehow not come upon us personally. See also on Rom. 2:21.</p>
<p>Those verses Paul has just quoted, speaking of the worst of sinners, apply to us all (3:9,10). Paul realizes we are prone to respond that no, that&rsquo;s not quite me&hellip; I&rsquo;m not&nbsp;<i>that</i>&nbsp;bad. And so he has warned: &ldquo;Whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about&nbsp;<i>others</i>&nbsp;but to&nbsp;<i>us</i>&rdquo; The Message. The intention is that &ldquo;every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God&rdquo;. The Greek for &ldquo;stopped&rdquo;, according to Vine, refers to &ldquo;the effect of overwhelming evidence upon an accused party in court&rdquo;. It is the speechlessness of the rejected of which the Lord speaks in Mt. 22:12. Each of us should so know our sinfulness that we really feel as if we are standing at the judgment seat of Christ and have been condemned. We, along with all the world, &ldquo;become guilty&rdquo;, become sentenced Gk. before His judgment seat, right now. Only by having some sense of this will we be able to have any emotion of relief, joy, gratitude, praise, exaltation etc. at the wonder of having been declared right, accepted, by God&rsquo;s grace in Christ.</p>
<p>We can however interpret &ldquo;the law&rdquo; as the Law of Moses. Its&rsquo; purpose was &ldquo;so that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God&rdquo; (Rom. 3:19). Paul is quoting here from Ps. 63:11: &ldquo;the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped&rdquo;. He&rsquo;s reasoning that because we&rsquo;re all sinners, we&rsquo;re all liars- for untruth is the essence of sin. We are not being true to ourselves, to God, to His word, to our brethren&hellip; we profess covenant relationship with God, to be His people, and yet we fail to keep the terms of that covenant. And the Law of Moses convicted all God&rsquo;s people of this, and in this way led them to the need for Christ. Yet Is. 52:15 prophesied that the crucified Jesus would result in men shutting their mouths. The righteousness and perfection displayed there in one Man, the very human Lord Jesus, has the same effect upon us as the Law of Moses- we shut our mouths, convicted of sin.&nbsp;</p>
<p><i>And all the world- </i>Rom. 3:19 (A.V.mg.) defines &quot;all the world&quot; as those &quot;subject to the judgment of God&quot; - which is only the responsible. The Lord Jesus took away the sin &ldquo;of the world&rdquo;, but the Jews died in their sins; &ldquo;the world&rdquo; whose sins were taken away is therefore the world of believers. &quot;Every knee shall bow to me... every tongue shall confess... so then every one of us shall give account&quot; (Rom. 14:11,12) is another example- 'all men', 'every man' means 'every one of us the responsible'. &quot;The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men&quot; (Tit. 2:11)- certainly not to every human being that has ever lived; but to the &quot;all men&quot; of the new creation. For not &quot;all men&quot; will be saved. The Lord tasted death &quot;for every man&quot; (Heb. 2:9)- for every one who has a representative part in His sacrifice through baptism. Christ &quot;reconciled the world&quot; in that He obtained forgiveness for us (2 Cor. 5:19)- we are &quot;the world&quot; which was reconciled, we are the &quot;all things&quot; purged by His blood (Heb. 9:22). 1 Cor. 4:9 seems to make a difference between &quot;the world&quot; and &quot;men&quot;, as if Paul is using &quot;the world&quot; here as meaning 'the world of believers'. The Lord was &quot;a ransom for all&quot; (1 Tim. 2:6), although it was only us, the redeemed, who were ransomed by Him out of sin's slavery (Lk. 1:68; Tit. 2:14; 1 Pet. 1:18; Rom. 8:13; Rev. 5:9; 14:3,4). The &ldquo;all flesh&rdquo; upon whom the Spirit was poured out in the first century was clearly enough a reference to those who believed and were baptized (Acts 2:17).</p>
<p><i>May be brought under the judgment of God- </i>Sodom being a type of latter day events, it is not surprising that Scripture provides a wealth of detail concerning Sodom. The Genesis record summarizes what we glean from later revelation by saying that &quot;the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly&quot; (Gen. 13:13). &quot;Before the Lord&quot; recalls the earth being &quot;corrupt before God&quot; prior to the flood (Gen. 6:11), another clear type of the last days. Indeed their sin being &quot;before the Lord&quot; may hint that Lot (or Abraham?) had preached God's requirements to them, and therefore they were consciously disobeying Him. Thus Rom. 3:19 speaks of the world becoming &quot;guilty before God&quot; (AV) by reason of their having the opportunity to know God's word (cp. Rom. 2:12,13).&nbsp;</p>