This morning, we are continuing our series on Romans title Paul’s Magnum Opus. And in this series, we will be going verse by verse through what is arguably Paul’s greatest work, and that is saying something considering Paul wrote over a third of the New Testament.
And so far, we have seen Paul begin to unpack what he means when he talks about the gospel. And surprisingly, Paul didn’t really start this discussion by talking about God’s love or anything like that. Instead, Paul starts his exposition of the gospel by discussing God’s wrath.
And much of Paul’s argument about God’s wrath has been centered on our sin problem as humans. Because of sin, we are all separated from God and will face His wrath and judgment. And Paul has really taken the time to focus on the Jews and, specifically, his Jewish audience, who may have felt like this all applied to the gentiles within the church but not to them.
But Paul has shot that down because he has made it clear that all humans will face God’s wrath and judgment, and He will be right in His judgment of us. So just having the law and a practice like circumcision, though they are directly from God, aren’t enough in themselves.
It would require perfect obedience. So in and of themselves, these things the Jewish Christians hold dear are not going to save them or give them special treatment.
And last week, we saw Paul take time to answer some objections that could be brought up as a result of what he has been saying. Still speaking about the Jews and to his Jewish audience, Paul took time to answer a potential objection about the point of things like the law and circumcision.
If what Paul has said is true, is there no point or advantage to being a Jew? Paul dismisses this way of thinking. There is still the incredible reality that God chose them as His people and gave Him His will and His way. Also, they can’t overlook God’s promises to His people.
Though God’s people haven’t been faithful and have faced judgment and many will ultimately face judgment for their sin, God is faithful even though they aren’t. God will be faithful to what He promised His people, and that promise still stands.
And so, in the verses we are going to look at this morning, Paul will begin to sum up and bring together all the different things that he has been saying about God’s judgement and wrath, our sin, and things like the law.
Romans 3:9–20 ESV
9 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” 13 “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” 14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are ruin and misery, 17 and the way of peace they have not known.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” 19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
Paul starts bringing things together and summarizing them by starting with another potential question or objection, just like we saw last week. After just highlighting that God isn’t done with His people, and there is still an advantage and incredible reality that comes with being a Jew, Paul begins bringing it back to the overall point he has been making.
He highlights this potential question that could be asked. If what Paul just said is true, does that mean that the Jewish people are better off? I mean, if they have God’s promise and the incredible reality of God’s will and way along with a practice like circumcision, that must mean they are, right?
But Paul corrects that abruptly. He doesn’t want them to miss his overall point, so he reminds his readers again of what he has been saying all along … and he begins to make it abundantly clear … boiled down succinctly … all people, both Jew and Gentile, are under sin (v9).
Of course, this seems weird considering what we talked about last week, but what Paul is trying to do is to get his readers to hold both things he has been saying together. Being a Jew isn’t meaningless, but there is a bigger problem at play here than whether the Jews are special.
And it is not a Jewish or gentile problem. It is a human problem. And it is our sin problem. That is the underlying and bottom-line issue we all face as humans. Below all other things like any advantage or greater reality that the Jews might have is this sin problem.
And starting in verse 10, Paul starts using Scripture to back his point. This overall point about our sin problem isn’t something he has been making up. Paul is trying to show that this has always been the case and has always been the problem we have as humans. That has never changed. “No one is righteous … not even one.” (Ps. 14:1-3 and 53:1-3)
All have turned from God. No one does good … not a single person. And these are strong words. But Paul is using them to drive everything he has been saying home. There is not a single person, whether Jew or gentile, who can claim to be righteous.
They can never make that claim on their own strength or merit. Paul makes it clear that there is not one person who can do it. Paul says that not a single person does good on the basis of righteousness (v11). He shows that even our speech is sinful (vv13-14). And then we are selfish and violent … hatred (vv15-17). No one fears God as they should because of sin (v18).
Starting in verse 19, Paul continues making his point by switching up the imagery he has been using. Again, Paul is really working to get his readers to understand their sin problem, the extent of it, and how … as a result … they are facing God’s wrath.
So in order to really get them to understand, Paul starts to use courtroom imagery. At the end of verse 19, you see the whole world is accountable to God. So every human will stand before God being accountable to Him.
Or … playing with the imagery Paul seems to be using … you can imagine that every human in this courtroom scene where he or she is the defendant with God as the judge and the law as the plaintiff. And this imagery is really important to understand because it helps us understand everything that is coming next.
You have to see yourself and every human as the defendant before the all-righteous and all-good and all-powerful God of the universe who is going to judge you. And across from you is the law who is making a case against you that you are guilty deserve God’s wrath.
And that last part can be kind of hard to understand … that the law is like the plaintiff who is making the case against us to God that we are guilty. Seems pretty weird, but to understand, look at verse 20.
Through the law comes the knowledge of sin. In other words … and Paul will go on to expound on this later … the law was given so that we could understand our sin problem. Sin came before the law, so the law is not what causes sin. Instead, God’s law shows the standards, demands, and will and way of God.
But here is the critical part … the law was not given as a way to God … to earn our way back to Him … to justify ourselves and make ourselves righteous again. That was never the point of the law, and it was never the point because it could never happen.
Look at the first part of verse 20, no one can be justified or made right with God by doing the law. It is impossible. No one can get to God or earn His favor or acceptance or anything like that through the law. Instead, the law gives us knowledge of our sin and sin problem.
So this is a real problem for us as humans. We are all under the law in one way or another. As Paul said earlier, the basics of the law are written on man’s heart, so every person, whether Jew or gentile, is under the law … which means God’s standard for us and will and way.
Well, as the first part of verse 20 says, doing what the law says will not result in our justification … being right with God. It cannot because it is impossible for us to do it perfectly because of sin. And God knew this when He gave it, so we can’t think doing the law will justify us.
Instead, again, it shows the standards, demands, will and way of God, and demonstrates clearly to us that we cannot live up to that standard and its demands on us. And because of that, we are guilty as sinners who reject and rebel against God … His will and His way. And what is the result of that? We rightfully face God’s judgment and wrath.
So going back to the courtroom imagery, think back to how we are on the defense stand while the law … which is given by God … makes its case against us. And its case is flawless because it demonstrates clearly that we are guilty of sin … missing the mark of God’s standard for us … not glorifying Him as we should.
So regardless of if his readers were Jew or Gentiles, everyone is under the law. And our sin causes us to fall short of it … we do not do good … we do not fear God as we should … we simply aren’t righteous but instead helplessly unrighteous. And sin is the issue.
So through the law that He gave, God can demonstrate clearly that we are worthy of His wrath. As a matter of fact, in verse 19, Paul says every mouth is stopped. And going back to the courtroom imagery, it is as if we have no defense … that we are standing there about to face the judgment and wrath of the God of the universe and we can’t muster even one word in our defense.
And honestly, how can we? There really is nothing we can say in light of the case against us that is presented by God’s law. We are all unrighteousness standing before a perfectly righteous judge with a terrible and unsolvable sin problem. So what is there to say when it is so obvious?
All we can do is be silent before the reality we all face … God’s rightful judgment and wrath as made clear by the fact we cannot and never could keep His law … His will, way, standards, and demands.
Again, what is there to say? Anyone sitting in the courtroom would see it clear as day … the verdict is guilty … that’s all it could be because it’s so obvious.
And this is all of us … both Jew and Gentile … every human. Whether you were reading Paul’s words then or now … this is all of our stories. We are the defendant standing before the righteous and all-powerful judge, facing the irrefutable case against us by the law.
We have no shot of being justified on our own … of ever having a righteousness of our own. We are simply left standing there … accountable to God for our sin … and the case against us is so strong that we cannot even muster a word in our defense.
So what do we take away from all of this? Well, the point Paul has been making is absolutely clear, and he has boiled it down to this imagery. We stand before God absolutely guilty. We have no defense.
There is no way around it … each and every one of us deserves God’s rightful judgment and wrath. No one is righteous … not even one. No one does good … not even one. You may not think all of this applies to you, but I assure you, it does.
You may not consider yourself a bad person or someone who deserves to face something like God’s wrath. I mean, that seems rather strong, doesn’t it? Sure, you may make some mistakes, but facing the judgment and wrath of the eternal God of the universe? Cmon!
You might be thinking that that is only saved for those really bad people like murderers, people who do bad things to children, those who take advantage of others in significant ways, those who abuse and abuse the powerless and vulnerable in the world.
I mean, those are certainly the ones who should be standing before God as the defendant about to face His wrath. You can think that surely all of the regular people who are all pretty good and decent people don’t deserve this reality, right?
And while that sounds good and maybe even seems right, it is unfortunately not the case. And this is what Paul has been driving at almost the whole time in his letter so far … culminating in the verses and imagery we are looking at this morning.
It does not matter who you are … how good or bad you think you are … how much you have kept the law or not kept the law … how many people would look at you and think you are a wonderful person or terrible person …
It does not matter what family you are from or not from … it does not matter how many or few obstacles you have faced … it does not matter if this is the first time you are hearing about this or the 1000th … and it does not matter if you are a part of God’s people as a Jew or a Gentile.
Paul’s point is simple … we are all unrighteous. We are all unrighteous and we have an infinitely righteous God, which is not good news for us. Because of our sin that makes us unrighteous, we are facing the judgment and wrath of God, which He is absolutely right and justified in doling out to us.
You are on the defense stand, and the law’s case against you … that you have not lived up to the standard that God set for us and have not come even close … is so strong and clear that it’s a waste of time to even say a word in defense of yourself.
That is your state. That is how unrighteous you are before a perfectly righteous God. That is what sin has done to you and the effect of it. Whew! Super encouraging, right? And of course it isn’t … it isn’t supposed to be like so much of this first part of Romans.
Really, it is a sobering reality. It is something that should all make us pause and realize how terrible our sin problem really is. Because here is the brutal truth … you aren’t good enough. No matter how much you think you are, you aren’t.
You can never measure up to the demands and standards of God’s law … His will and way … the demands to glorify Him … you can never do it in your own strength. As a matter of fact, the law shows us how helpless it is.
So can you see the foolishness of trying to earn God’s favor or get a special status from Him by living according to the law? You would have to do it perfectly, which you can’t, so the energy and effort that so many people put into being superior to others simply because they are better at following God’s law is so dumb and silly!
It flies directly against the purpose of the law, which we saw in part today was to give us knowledge of our sin. So the law is there in many ways to show us how we fall short of God’s standard and demands, and you would think that would cause us to go to Him more …
But instead, so many Christians and religious people miss the point and instead have all their worth and pride set on what they can do and accomplish in the law. This just goes to show another way that sin has absolutely broken us and messed us up so much that we can even take God’s law and miss the point and make it about us in so many ways.
Whewy! When you start to get this … to really get what Paul is getting at here … you can understand how he could say that the case against us by the law is so strong that we cannot even muster a word to defend ourselves. All of us are in a truly bad state because of sin.
But as I close, I want you to hold on to this courtroom imagery that Paul is using. Not only is it important to understand for what is coming up in a few verses, but it is also important that we understand the state and place we are in because of sin.
Now, you may hear that and think, “OK Bo, I thought you were going to try to end on a high note, but I guess we are staying on the bummer train.” And while it can seem like all of this is hard and difficult, realizing this about yourself sets you up for something absolutely incredible.
As you will see, God does not just leave us sitting there on the defense stand. Paul will slowly begin to unfold the absolute glory and majesty of God’s plan to make us righteous. And I said that right …
God has a plan … a plan He had from the beginning of time itself … to make the unrighteous righteous in Him … to fix the broken and take away our sin so we could be made right with Him and not face His wrath and judgment.
And church, if you know it or understand what is coming, it is truly good news. And what makes the news really incredible and life-changing is understanding the state we are all in … which is standing before God rightfully facing His judgment and wrath.
But that isn’t the end of the story if you are a Christian. Instead, through Jesus, we get life instead of death and a reward instead of judgment. Instead of being separated from God, we are made right with Him. And that is truly amazing, isn’t it? And the thing is that today, you can be made right with God if you haven’t been already. This is for you too!
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