Righteous or not Righteous

[Sirach14]

Scripture uses the term “just’ or “righteous"for Joseph ( Matt. 1:19)
John the Baptist ( Mark 6:20); Simeon ( Luke 2:22). Elizabeth and Zechariah ( Luke 1:5-6)
All of these people are called " righteous and Holy”; but St. Paul says in Romans 3:10 that there are " none righteous, no not one.”
" How can God view the whole human race as unrighteous sinners in Romans 3:10 and yet speak of Zechariah and Elizabeth as ’ righteous before God’?

 

[Pax]

In Romans 3:9-12, Paul is quoting from Psalm 14:1-5. Paul makes reference to the Psalm by saying, “as it is written,” and he would not have made that remark or quoted so much of the passage word for word, if he did not intend for us to look to the psalm in order to place his own statements within the Old Testament context. The context of Psalm 14 is made clear in the first verse which states, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none that does good.” Then in verse four and five the psalm reads, “Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon the Lord? There they shall be in great terror, for God is with the generation of the righteous.” Psalm 14 clearly distinguishes between the evil doers (i.e. the fool that says there is no God) and “my people”….”the generation of the righteous.” Romans 3:22-23 and Romans 11:32 merely reiterate what Paul speaks of in reference to Psalm 14.

While these verses clearly show that men are under the burden of original sin and that men commit personal sin, they do not mean that “no one” is righteous. The generation of the righteous spoken of in Psalm 14 is not an empty set.