Its common for people today to excuse their faults with the attitude, “He nobody’s perfect!” True enough. People can only be expected to be human which means fallible. Unfortunately, though, few people take that reality seriously enough. Indeed when it comes to their standing before God, all too many people take a different stance: they may not be perfect but they’re “good enough.” This is nothing more than spiritual arrogance. The question is, Are they good enough for God? Romans says they are not. That’s what Paul means when he writes, “all are under sin” (Romans 3:9) and then cits a number of OT passages to back up his claim (3:10-18). It’s not that people are evil through and through, or that they never do any moral good. Quite the contrary. People are capable of impressive acts of courage, compassion and justice. But in light of God’s holy (morally perfect) character, which is the ultimate standard against which people’s goodness is measured, people are indeed far from perfect. Their good behavior turns out to be the exception rather than the rule.
Paul concludes his indictment of mankind with this summary: Jew and Gentile alike stand guilty before God.
Romans 3:9, “9What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.”