Sunday Morning Service

Romans 3:1-20 (Click scripture reference for audio access)

"Condemnation pt. 3"  •  3.18.12  •  Sunday Morning Service, Calvary Christian Fellowship

Intro.

- The Apostle Paul has been building God's case against all men everywhere. All men are condemned. From 1:18-1:32, Paul consigns the party pagan as condemned before God.

- In Romans 2:1-16, Paul writes that the religious moral pagan fell under the same sentence.

- From verse 17-29, Paul argues that the Jews who trusted in their heritage and rituals for their salvation, were also lost and under the pending wrath of God.

- Today, mercifully, is our final foray into the doctrine of condemnation. If this were a courtroom drama, what we find here might be considered Paul's closing argument and God's final verdict.

- Paul ends his case by answering some common objections to the teaching of the gospel.

Text

•  Romans 3:1,2  :  "What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way! Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God." : The first objection that Paul deals with is the gospel's affect upon God's people.

- The Jews responded to Paul's doctrine like this: "What is so great about being from the nation and living in the religion of the Jewish people if all are equally condemned?

- They were condemned by God for not living up to their Jewish privilege. They rested in their rituals, but not in the fulfillment of them.

- Aside from their feelings to the contrary, they were and are an incredibly blessed people!  

- Their first and primary benefit is that God has spoken directly to them and given them His Word to steward to the nations! The word "oracles" refers to the very utterances of God.

- Those words were not bad. God's Word, His thoughts contained in scripture, are good.

- God's Word to them is not the problem. People not obeying them is the problem!

- Paul is telling them that the Word of God contains all that they need to move out from under the wrath of God!

- If they would simply believe what God had told them about their Messiah. If they would look to Jesus and see the very purpose of God's communication, they would be saved.

- Sadly, they were under the condemnation of God because they refused to believe God's Word to them.

•  Romans 3:3,4  :  "For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Certainly not! Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar. As it is written: 'That You may be justified in Your words,
And may overcome when You are judged.'"  : The second objection deals with God's promises. The Jews were promised great things, but would their unbelief void God's promise?   

- The word is powerful, but some have not believed. That does not effect God in the slightest!

- God's promises to the Jews are not put away. They are simply postponed! God will be faithful to carry out His promises to the Jews, just as He said that He would!

- The Lord is faithful because that is what He is! Paul is saying here that even though we are untrue to Him, He will always remain true to us!

- Paul will later tell that explicitly to Timothy in II Timothy 2:13, where he says that if we are faithless, He will be faithful, because He cannot deny who He is!

- Your obedience or lack of obedience does not alter the fundamental excellence of God's character or His Word. If the whole world believes a lie, that does not make Him any less true!

- His Word is true and that which is contrary merely exposes a lie, but His word will always be vindicated and will always stand as truth!

- What is Paul's proof of that point? He points to this very well known scripture from Psalm 51, which is the Psalm of David's confession of his affair with Bath-Sheba!

- David says that His sin was against God and God alone. He admits that God's law was right to condemn him.

- The NLT translation of verse 4 reads like this: "You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just."

- The Greek version reads, "and you will win your case in court!" God will win the case, no matter what case anyone brings against Him.

•  Romans 3:5,6 : "But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust who inflicts wrath? (I speak as a man.) Certainly not! For then how will God judge the world?"  : The third and final objection deals with God's purity.  This is the most twisted of the three objections.

- One commentator noted that the objector that Paul is conversing with is like a bug suddenly exposed to the light, who runs as quick as possible to find the next dark hole to climb into!

- Paul notes that this is a man's argument and it certainly is. Men love to put forth this argument! "I can't help what I am!"

- How can God be right in pouring out His wrath? If we can only be wicked, how can God punish those who cannot be anything but wicked? It's our nature!

- In fact, it's our unrighteousness that shows how great His righteousness is! We should get credit, not condemnation for that! How can a scenario like this prove that God is just?

- To that objection, Paul answers definitively: Certainly not! LIterally, God forbid! If God were unjust, how could He be in a position to stand in judgment over the world!?

- If God were unjust, He would not longer be qualified to be God! The Jews would never concede such a point, but that is where their twisted logic led them!

- One of God's attributes is His perfect justice, something that all Jews deemed evident. If He was unjust, one would need to stand in judgment over God. They would take it further though.

•  Romans 3:7,8  :  "For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? And why not say, 'Let us do evil that good may come'?—as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say. Their condemnation is just." : It's incredible to think that anyone would postulate this thought, but not only was this presented, people had claimed that the Apostles spoke this way!

- It's not hard to believe that Paul's gospel was taken and twisted by some who heard him. I have heard people say to me, "It's like you said" and then say something completely unbiblical!

- In those days, there were self-seeking Jews who sought to pervert the straight teaching of the gospel, which asserts that Christ is our righteousness and that His behavior is what matters!

- Can you see how one might twist Paul and the Apostle's message? The twist went like this: God truth has blossomed and has come to full bloom because of a person's lie.

- His truth increasing has brought God glory, increasing His reputationm bringing glory.

- The argument is that man's wickedness actually increases God's glory profile, so why not sin even more to bring more glory to God!? More good will come to His reputation from that action!

- What a ludicrous way of thinking! Paul doesn't even answer their argument directly, except to say that their condemnation is righteous.

- Paul is saying that they would bring glory to God but not because of their sin. They would bring glory to God's justice as recipients of His righteous judgment!

•  Romans 3:9  :  "What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin." : Their final argument was against God's partiality. The "we" here is Paul and the Roman Christians.

- The world is guilty, they recognize it and yet, here comes Captain Christian claiming to be righteous even though their sinful past looks a lot like their present.

- Are they even sinners? They must be better than us! That's not at all true. No Christian who understands the gospel will ever have a superiority complex over another person.

- Paul makes this clear: Whether it's Jews or Greeks, all are under sin! All men are under the power of sin! Paul does not simply make this statement as if it's his opinion. He takes us to the Word.

•  Romans 3:10-12 : "As it is written: 'There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.'"  : How does Paul respond to human objection? It is written!

- For the Jews, this is a reminder of what they already claimed to believe. These are God's Words. These are part of His oracles!

- For the Greeks, they can now argue with the book and realize that it is not our word that they are fighting with! They are fighting with what God's Word says.

- I have watched and unfortunately, have missed several opportunities with this phrase: "I feel or believe that such and such a thing is the case!"

- How vital is it to quote scripture and even moreso, literally open a Bible and point to it so that they could read it for themselves!

- Paul is going to throw a group of verses together in Rabbinic fashion to give God's final verdict regarding the scope of man's sin. When a Rabbi did this, it was called "a string of pearls!"

- He begins by quoting Psalm 14:1-3, leaving out the infamous first verse, which begins with saying that "the fool has said in his heart that there is no God."

- The Psalmist writes there that there are none who are righteous, not even one! Consider what Paul is saying. None does that which is right in the sight of God.

- This does not mean that a person is incapable of doing earthly, temporary good. What it does mean is that man cannot do good by God's definition!

- The implication is that nobody does what is right in the sight of God all of the time and even when they stumble upon righteousness, they immediately ruin it by thinking of themselves!

- There is nobody who understands. The word that is used in the original refers to one who does not put the evidence together in his mind. Sin's knowledge doesn't connect to him.

- None naturally see themselves as sinners needing a Savior! This does not occur to them!

- This next phrase is startling: There is none who seeks after God! There are none who investigate or crave after the presence of God!

- What about the guy who climbs the impossible mountain, wearing only an orange jump suit, who hasn't talked for seven months, but has quietly been contemplating god's consciousness!?

- What Paul is saying here is that that guy is not seeking after the true god, but simply a god of his own making!

- These have all turned aside. The word pictures a caravan which has left the trail completely.

- They have deviated from the course that would lead them to the right decision about God. They aren't even on the right road!

- They have become unprofitable or useless, unserviceable in their character. Those who used this word in Paul's time, used it to refer to milk that had spoiled.

- There are none who act with goodness or kindness! All of these speak to chacter and attitude of heart. Paul now speaks to that which was manifested in their conversation.

•  Romans 3:13,14  :  "Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit'; 'The poison of asps is under their lips'; Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.'"  :  Paul quoted in this verse from two verses, the first of which is Psalm 5:9. Their throat is an open tomb. Any time something comes from their mouth, it's death!

- Their tongues repeatedly speak words of deceit, about themselves and others.

- Paul takes us over to Psalm 140:3, where the scripture reads that the poison of serpents is under their lips, literally under the power of their lips.

- When they talk, the words that come out eventually end in poisoning the hearer. Asps or vipers of this sort hide their fangs until they are ready to strike.

- Psalm 10:7 speaks about the mouth of the guilty, as being full of cursing and bitterness. Their mouths speak and nothing but curses flow out against men and God.

- Their very heart is covered with not just bitterness, but the very root of bitterness that dwells within them. From their character and conversation, Paul moves us to their conduct!

•  Romans 3:15-18 : "Their feet are swift to shed blood; Destruction and misery are in their ways; And the way of peace they have not known.' There is no fear of God before their eyes.'"  :  Paul quotes from Isaiah 59:7,8.

- Their direction in life is toward destruction of other human beings. They literally rush to commit murder, human life meaning nothing to them.

- They are racing toward calamity and destruction and whenever they are done, calamity and harm follow in their wake.

- Peace isn't even a consideration, as they don't know how or where to find it and consequences of God's thoughts about them don't matter to them. It's not even in their vision!

- This section clearly speaks of men's depravity. From character to conversation to conduct, man apart from God is totally depraved, utterly ruined by the effects of sin.

•  Romans 3:19,20  :  "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin."  :  The law, God's Word is given not to give men a leg to stand on, but to pull the rug out from under them!

- This amazes me, especially among people who seek to relate themselves to God through His law. They cannot keep the law. The law only reveals guilt!

- Whatever law a man tries to live by, either by the law that it is in himself or the law of God, Man is condemned by whatever deeds he commits!

- Any law makes every mouth quiet! The word "stopped" literally means to have a fence or a blockade put out in front of it.

- The law of God silences sinners, quelling their case before Almighty God! That has been Paul's point from chapter 1:18. Every person on earth, Jew or Gentile has no case before God!

- They are all thoroughly guilty, under judgment before God, the Righteous Judge of the Earth!

- Therefore, based on everything that we have studied going back to 1:18, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in God's sight!

- Nobody can be proclaimed righteous by keeping the law because everyone has broken every one of them! You want to remember this when people talk about keeping the 10 Commandments!

- Speak this to those who think that they are keeping the Sabbath! They cannot stand before God and be justified on that basis, no not even one!

- The law only brings us a knowledge of our sinfulness! So where does that leave us? We'll look at just two more verses, which gives the theme for our next section.

•  Romans 3:21,22  :  "But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe."  :  But now! Oh what a beautiful word. Now. At this time. Something has changed and that is the good news.

- We'll just leave this here as a tease and look at it more closely as part of the next section next week, but there was nothing but guilt in human history. Now God is about to reveal His hope!

Conclusion

- God will be faithful to His promise, but we must first realize our faithlessness. God will give us security, but we must understand that apart from Him, there is no security.

- Paul has taken the time to bring us here, at the lowest ebb, so that he can raise us to the highest place. But before we do, be sure that you don't make the same mistake as the Jews.

- Be sure that your hope is built on a living relationship with Jesus Christ. As Paul has said: There is hope in nothing less!