Paul misrepresents Psalm 14
By Jeff Ward
If you’ve ever heard the “Roman Road” to salvation as presented by Baptists, Pentecostals and many others, it includes the following as it’s first point taken from Romans 3:10.
… as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one";
Now wait, Paul is suggesting he didn’t even author this concept. He’s describing that it’s written, and it’s therefore authoritative. So, “as it is written”, written where? Paul is apparently loosely quoting this from Psalm 14:1-3.
This becomes the first point establishing that no person in history has ever been considered “righteous” to Yehovah except for Jesus. Loosely quoting is okay as long as the meaning stays intact. Unfortunately, the meaning does not stay intact.
To WHOM does this refer? To the entirety of mankind? Or to the fool?
Notice the first part of Psalm 14:1.
…The fool says in his heart, “There is no God”. They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none that does good.
This is NOT a statement about the entirety of mankind. Hopefully, it’s about a wretched small subset of mankind. It’s a statement about the atheist fool. (Why did Paul selectively cut this verse?)
Okay, maybe Paul got confused. No, I don’t think so. Read just a few verses further to Psalm 14:5 and you get this:
There they are in great terror, for God is with the generation of the righteous.
Generation of the righteous?? Just a few verses down are described a people-group that Paul says don’t exist. So Paul knew this verse explicitly describes righteous people, yet he decided to convey it to you with a whole different meaning.
And no surprise, even New Testament authors knew there was a such thing as righteous people as described in Luke 1:1-6.
Does it make you angry that Paul deceived you this way? Well, maybe it should.