How many times have you heard someone make that statement, insisting it means everybody on earth? Yet God says to Noah, “Thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation” (See Genesis 7:1). The Bible also speaks of “righteous Abel” (Matthew 23:35) and says of the parents of John the Baptist, “They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless” (See Luke 1:6). Then why did the apostle Paul write, “There is none righteous, no, not one?” (See Romans 3:10). This is one of those classic verses Peter might have had in mind when he spoke of how Paul wrote “some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned (in the scriptures) and (spiritually) unstable wrest (twist, pervert, distort), as they do also the other scriptures (not just Paul’s epistles), unto their own (spiritual) destruction.” (See 2 Peter 3:15-16).
The context shows that Paul is making reference to the unsaved, the unconverted when he writes, “there is none righteous, no, not one,” for he writes of those who “are all under sin,” hence, unsaved. (See verse 9, Romans 3). He speaks of how “they are all gone out of the way” and are deceitful and swift to shed blood, “and the way of peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes” (See Romans 3:13-18). Yet how many times have I heard some novice in the scriptures, or some deceived false teacher say Paul was speaking of all humanity when he said, “there is none righteous, no, not one!” l would suggest that you prove all things of a spiritual nature instead of swallowing hook, line and sinker everything some supposed Bible teacher says just because they quote a verse or two of scripture – even a handful of scriptures that seemingly support that man or woman’s view.
Christ’s Aged Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),
Donald Wiley