πάντες (pantes) in Romans 3:23: Adjective Nominative Plural Masculine
πάντες (pantes) in Romans 3:23
Textual Witness
The witness reads πάντες in Romans 3:23, and the surrounding clause continues with plural verbs that match a plural subject.
How The Form Affects Interpretation
The form strengthens the universal reach of the verse and helps the reader hear the statement as applying to everyone in view.
How To Communicate It
For clear communication, translate the form with an inclusive collective term like all, letting the verb phrase carry the action and condition in context.
What Not To Say
- Grammatical form should serve context, not override it.
- Masculine agreement is grammatical, not a theological gender claim.
- The adjective does not change the lemma into another word or create meaning apart from the clause.
What Does The Label Mean?
Adjective: the word functions descriptively and can modify a noun or stand substantively, here giving a collective sense.
Nominative: the form normally marks a subject or a predicate-style noun phrase, and here it fits the clause-level subject sense.
Plural: the form refers to a plurality, so in this verse it points to a collective group rather than one individual.
Masculine: the masculine agreement class is grammatical here and does not by itself make a biological or theological gender claim.
What The Form Does In This Verse
πάντες
The form stands with the finite verbs that follow and functions as the clause subject in the statement that follows.
It presents the subject as a total group, so the verse reads as a broad claim about all those in view.
It does not by itself add a separate idea of quality, rank, or identity beyond the inclusive force already carried by the context.
How Much The Form Matters Here
High: The nominative plural adjective gives universal force to Paul's statement that all have sinned.
Nominative plural substantive adjective. identifies the whole group in view as the subject of the sinful condition and lack that follow. Attached to πάντες. Governed by ἥμαρτον and ὑστεροῦνται. The adjective marks scope, while the verbs state the condition.
Who is included in Paul's statement? The adjective marks all those in view as included in the subject of the clause.
Direct: The form directly supports rendering the clause with all as the subject.
The universal reach should be read within Paul's argument in Romans 3 rather than from the adjective in isolation.
All alone defines every doctrine of sin: The adjective marks scope; Paul's surrounding argument supplies the theological claim about sin and glory.
How The Interpretation Is Derived
The witness reads πάντες in Romans 3:23, and the surrounding clause continues with plural verbs that match a plural subject.
The lemma πᾶς commonly expresses all, every, or the whole, so the form contributes breadth rather than a narrowed subset.
Its nominative plural form fits the sentence as the subject of the verbal assertion, helping the reader hear the statement as applying to the whole group under discussion.
The verse states that all have sinned and are lacking in relation to God's glory, so the form supports the passage's universal scope.
Within the wider biblical pattern, the wording aligns with texts that speak broadly about human sin and need without turning the adjective into a doctrinal abstraction.
In translation and teaching, the form can be rendered with an inclusive plural such as all to preserve the verse's sweeping force.
Do not derive special theology from masculine agreement, and do not make the adjective override the sentence's actual subject and verb sense.