ContradictionsReading order 89Bible context 11 min read
Has there ever been a righteous person?
The universal denial of righteousness in Romans conflicts with explicit descriptions of people who are righteous before God.
- Textual conflict
- Interpretive tension
- The passages pull in different directions, but the conflict depends on how their wording, scope, or narrative context is read.
- Importance
- Foundational
- A central claim about origins, salvation, divine justice, or religious authority.
Romans' sweeping denial contrasts with explicit righteous individuals, but the collection also treats righteousness as relative and compatible with later sin, leaving the moral standard uncertain.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
Romans declares that no righteous person exists
What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?
Job 15:14
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:Job 15
Context affects the comparison
These are Eliphaz's words in a debate with Job. In Job 42:7, God rebukes Eliphaz and his friends for speaking wrongly about him. Attributing every statement in this speech directly to God would change the argument.