All Have Sinned

DEFENSE

The passage doesn’t prove that Mary sinned.

Romans 3:23 occurs in a section where Paul is arguing that both Jews and Gentiles need salvation through Jesus Christ and that this is not achieved through the Law of Moses. This is the major thrust of Romans 1–4.

Thus he writes: “For there is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. . . . Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of their faith and the uncircumcised through their faith” (Rom. 3:22–24, 29–30).

When Paul says that “there is no distinction,” he means that there is no distinction between Jews and Gentiles. When he explains this statement by saying “for all have sinned,” he means sin characterizes both Jews and Gentiles.

However, his use of the term “all” is hyperbole, for Paul does not believe that this is an exceptionless norm. Thus later in Romans, where Paul appeals to the case of Jacob and Esau and speaks of the time when “they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad” (Rom. 9:11). Paul therefore recognizes that unborn children have not yet committed personal sin, making them an exception to the “all have sinned” norm he spoke of earlier.

Further, Paul would certainly have acknowledged the sinlessness in adult life of at least one man—Jesus! Paul elsewhere says that Jesus “knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21), and belief in Jesus’ sinlessness is attested in multiple passages in the New Testament (Heb. 4:15, 7:26, 9:14; 1 Peter 2:22; 1 John 3:5).

If Jesus, as the “Second Adam” (cf. Rom. 5:12–19, 1 Cor. 15:21–22, 45–49), is an exception to what Paul says in Romans 3:23, there may also be an exception for Mary as the “Second Eve” (CCC 411).

Romans 3:23 thus does not disprove that Mary remained sinless through a special application of God’s grace.