We have come to the middle of chapter 3 in Romans and Paul has been endeavoring to prove that all of mankind is a sinner, and that every man is condemned without excuse before the standard of God's righteousness. Though it’s difficult to hear, Paul doesn't add any honey to his message to make it go down easier because he knows that in order for mankind to be saved he must be shown conclusively that he is completely without hope before God.
So in chapter one Paul has shown that the Pagan is without excuse. In chapter 2 he showed that the so-called good people or the moral people are without excuse and in chapter 3 that religious people as typified by the Jews are without excuse before God. Now there is one more class of people that Paul presents after the religious people and that group is identified by the word in verse nine which is “we.” He says “what then are we better than they? Not at all for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin.” Now the question arises who is he speaking about? Who does “we” refer to?
And the answer to who he is speaking of becomes clear looking at the context. The Jew is referred to earlier in the 3rd person. So “we” is not the Jew he just got through speaking of. The clue comes in verse 8, where he says, “we are slanderously reported.” Paul is obviously talking in verse 8 about himself and other believers. Verse nine continues with the use of “we” as Paul affirms that “we charge that both Jews and Greeks are under sin.” So it seems clear from the context that the “we” used by Paul is referring to himself and other believers.
Here's the point that Paul is making then. That we the believer are no better according to our nature then all of the others in regards to sin. We didn't have some inherent goodness by which God chose us to be saved. As Ephesians 2:3 says that we too are by nature children of wrath. So according to our human nature, we that are Christians are sinners, under the judgment of God. In fact, I will stress the fact that you cannot be a true Christian unless you have come to realize that you are a sinner, without hope, and under the judgment of sin. All men are sinners, and there is no one that is able to come to God on the basis of their righteousness.
So in this passage we're looking at today Paul is going to wrap up this argument. It’s kind of like a trial where the prosecution brings forth charges against the accused, provides evidence and then at the end of the trial the lawyer makes a final closing argument. That's what we have here in this passage. Mankind is on trial before God, and Paul is making his final argument. Notice, Paul even uses court room language. He says in verse nine that he has already charged us all. This is what we're being charged with, that man is a sinner, condemned under the law of God, and the judgment of sin is death.
So Paul's charge against humanity is this: that all men are sinners. He says in vs 9 that “all are under sin,” or some versions say “under the power of sin.” The power of sin refers to being under the dominion of sin, and the dominion of sin includes being in captivity to sin as well as being under the condemnation of sin. Sin controls us, and dominates us, and condemns us. Now Paul is going to use a rabbinical teaching method in his argument, which is to string together a series of scriptures in order to bring his case to a conclusion. And notice that he goes to scripture for his evidence.
You know, this reinforces the fact that scripture is the ultimate authority. That the word of God is the power of the gospel. You can try reasoning with people, and you can try to convince them according to what is rational. But we must never lose sight of the fact that the foolishness of God is greater than the wisdom of men. The power of God’s word is greater than any human reasoning or prose, or literature. People love to try to find answers to their questions or problems in some book, even Christian books, rather than simply relying on the word of God. But since the Holy Spirit is the author of scripture, He uses scripture to convict the world of sin.
As Paul told us in chapter 1 vs 16, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. But the primary way that Satan tries to deceive men to reject the gospel is by denigrating the word of God. Ultimately, he wants to replace the truth with a lie. Satan asked Eve, “Has God really said?” And he has been using the same methodology ever since. The second prong of Satan’s deception is to attack the divinity of Jesus Christ. What makes a cult a cult is that they refuse to believe that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. They say He is a son of God, but not the Son of God. They say He was a prophet, but they never say He was God.
But to believe in Jesus unto salvation means that you must believe who He claimed to be. Either He was God in the flesh, or a mad man who claimed to be God. Jesus said, “I and the Father are One.” And “if you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.” Only by faith in who He is, and what He has accomplished, can we be saved. A mere man cannot atone for the sins of the world. Only God could do that, by becoming man in the flesh, and offering Himself as a substitute for sinners on the cross. So the basis for our faith must be grounded in scripture, and it is the power of God to bring men to repentance resulting in salvation.
So Paul gives us this string of scriptures in a pattern of stanzas, that are like a lawyer presenting evidence in the closing argument of a trial. And exhibit A, or stanza 1, is the universality of sin. And as I said, the evidence is scripture, what Paul refers to as the law, but not the 10 commandments, but texts from Ecclesiastes, Psalms, and Isaiah. And yet he refers to all of it as the law. All of it, of course, being the inspired word of God.
Paul will show that the scriptures declare the universality of sin. Sin is not just the condition of a certain class of people, or race, but it is the condition of all men. And he gives three lines or quotes to support that point. Vs 10, “as it is written, ‘There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one.”
Now that is a quote from Psalm 14:1 and Psalm 53. And notice that he gives five negatives here and one positive. First negatively, he says, “There is no one, no one, no one, no one, not even one.” Five times Paul says no one. I think he is trying to make a point, don’t you?. And that point must be reiterated because innately we all want to declare, “Well, I may not be perfect, but deep down I really am a good person.” But Paul says no one is good, no one is righteous, no one seeks after God, no one does good, not even one. There is nothing good in you or me. He indicts all of us.
See, the problem is that we think we are not all that bad, and so we don’t really need to be totally transformed. We think that we can just add a little good, add a little religion, and we are good to go. But the truth is that we are totally corrupt, hopelessly sinful, and we need to die to our old nature, and be reborn with a new nature, a spiritual nature, that we might be a new creation, a new person. So without complete recognition of our sinfulness, and the following repentance, which is to renounce everything about ourselves as sinful and recognizing our need to be forgiven and changed, then we cannot be actually saved. Being saved is not just being forgiven, but being transformed, being made new.
Then Paul states the positive; he says “All have turned aside.” This idea of turning is helped by looking at Heb. 4:12 which says, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” The scriptures are that point of the truth which pierces the heart and separates it to the right or left. That’s why it’s so important that we do not dull or blunt the word, but apply it with all it’s power to reveal the intentions of the heart. The Holy Spirit is saying that all have turned aside from the truth. Everyone has turned. And we all turned the wrong way. We all turned aside after our own desires. No one does what is right. And in our turning aside we have thwarted the purpose of God in making us. We have become worthless and worthy of being destroyed. We have become worthless because we have denied our Maker and the purpose for which we were made, which was for His glory.
The second stanza or exhibit B is illustrated by two lines of scripture regarding our speech. Man’s heart, or nature, is revealed by his speech. His sin is evidenced by his speech. Vs 13, “Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of asps in under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” Paul is basically saying that if you want evidence that man is a sinner, then listen to his speech. Listen to what comes out of his mouth. It’s interesting that of all the sins which Paul might have put forth as evidence of our sinfulness, what he choses to spotlight is the sins of the tongue. All of us show our sinfulness by our speech. Our own mouths condemn us.
Once again, for evidence, Paul goes to the Old Testament. “Their throat is an open grave” is a quote from Psalms 5:9. What a picture of the mouth revealing the heart. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and desperately sick, who can understand it?” And the picture that he makes is that the heart is dead, spiritually corrupt and foul, and the mouth is like an open tomb that reveals the spiritual deadness of the heart.
“With their tongues they keep deceiving” comes from Psalm 5:9 as well. Jeremiah just said that the heart is deceitful, so the tongue is going to deceive as well because it is the tool of the heart. Literally, Psalm 5:9 says a smooth tongue. That means a flattering tongue that speaks to deceive and take advantage. Men are always looking for an angle that benefits themselves, and usually to the detriment of others. Jesus said in John 8:44 "You are of [your] father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own [nature,] for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
Paul’s next stanza says, “The poison of asps, or vipers, is under their lips,” which is a quote from Psalm 140:3. The words of our mouths result in the destruction of others like the way a serpent’s bite releases the poison that is in their fangs. Our words are deadly, they tear down, they destroy.
Then Paul quotes, “Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness” which comes from Psalm 10:7. Our speech condemns us because of the type of language we use. James 3:6 says, “And the tongue is a fire, the [very] world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of [our] life, and is set on fire by hell. For every species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by the human race. But no one can tame the tongue; [it is] a restless evil [and] full of deadly poison. With it we bless [our] Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come [both] blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.” So our language condemns us because it reveals our evil heart.
For Exhibit C Paul says that men’s actions show that they are sinners. Exhibit B was their speech and so it naturally follows that Exhibit C is their actions. Verse 15-18 Paul gives another stanza of two lines. “Their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known.” That quote comes from Isaiah 59:7,8. An then he says, “There is no fear of God before their eyes,” which is from Psalm 36:1.
Proverbs 23:7 says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” All sin starts in the mind. And as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, if you hate your brother you are guilty of murder, and if you lust after a woman you are guilty of adultery. Sin begins in the mind, and when given an opportunity he consummates it in the flesh.
The problem is that man does not fear God. Without the fear of God, a man is emboldened to act upon his baser passions. Why not? “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” They believe there is nothing after death. There is no judgment. And man’s laws are relative at best. They change from culture to culture, and from one age to another. So why worry about the hang ups of the culture? If God doesn’t exist, then there is really no reason not to do whatever you want to do. You can act out your evil heart without fear of consequences. But just denying God does not negate God. Just redefining God does not nullify God’s judgment. God will judge the world, and His law is immutable. The scripture says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So contrarily, no fear of God is the mark of a fool. The fool has said in his heart there is no God. And so emboldened by that foolish belief, he thinks he can act with impunity.
So Paul has presented his evidence. And now he rests his case. Vs.19, “Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God: because by the works of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.”
In other words, the law condemns us all. All will be held accountable. Whether we hold to the law or reject the law, it doesn’t matter. God’s law is immutable. It has existed before creation and will continue throughout eternity. It’s like getting pulled over by a policeman for speeding and saying, “Well officer, I didn’t know the speed limit.” It doesn’t matter if you know it or not, the law was that you were supposed to drive a certain speed, and you are responsible to drive that speed whether you knew it or not. And in the same way, if you’re going to live your life the way you want to live, you need to know that you’re going to be held responsible for breaking God’s law. And Paul said earlier that God has written his law upon our hearts so we have no excuse.
Paul says in vs 19 “that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God.” Every mouth will be closed. That means there will be no defense on that day of judgment. The deeds of every man and woman will be revealed, their thoughts and their motivations, and the evidence of our sin will be so overwhelming and so condemning in contrast to the brightness of righteousness at the throne of God that we won’t be able to utter a word in our defense.
But even now, Paul has said, if we listen to our conscience, we know deep in our hearts that we are a sinner. You may not like thinking about it. You probably don’t like hearing me say it. You may try to bury it in the back of your mind, you may seek a therapist to help you forget it, or get over it. But the fact remains that all men are sinners, and all are under the condemnation of God’s judgment.
Listen, the law was never meant to be a stepladder to heaven. Vs 20 tells us that the law of God is given to show us that we are helpless sinners and in need of a merciful Savior who is able to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and make us new. Thank God that He sent Jesus Christ to save sinners, of which we are all guilty under the law. There is only one hope for escaping the judgment that is due to us. And that is found in the next verse, which will be more fully expounded in our next study. But I cannot leave you condemned without knowing the hope of the gift of God.
Vs.21, “But now apart from the Law [the] righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe.” That’s the only way out of the verdict of death that is due to us at the judgment. That we might claim the righteousness of God on our behalf. And we are able to appropriate God’s righteousness by faith in Jesus Christ.
2 Cor.5:21, “God made Jesus who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” We are saved by grace, as a gift of God, through faith in Christ; who He is, and what He did on the cross on our behalf. And by that gift of God, we confess our sins, and we are forgiven, made righteous by the blood of Christ, that we might be given a new life in Him, to live for Him, and with Him, forever.
Paul has shown that we stand condemned as guilty sinners under the law. But there is a way out. [ohn 3:16-18 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. "He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
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