Romans No.5 A Guilty World

Nice to have you here, glad you made it. Let's go to Romans and chapter 3. The Apostle Paul, continuing this mighty argument, Romans chapter 3. What advantage then is there in being a Jew? Or what value is there in circumcision? Much in every way. First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God.

What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God's faithfulness? Not at all. Let God be true in every manner, liar as it is written, so that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge. But if our unrighteousness brings out God's righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? I am using a human argument.

Certainly not. If that were so, how could God judge the world? Someone might argue if my falsehood enhances God's truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner? Why not say, as we are being slanderously reported as saying, and as some claim that we say, let us do evil that good may result? Their condemnation is deserved. What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all.

We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written, there is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.

All have turned away. They have together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one.

Their throats are open graves. Their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips.

Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.

There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God, therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law. Rather, through the law, we become conscious of sin.

The Apostle Paul didn't have an easy task as he was spreading the gospel around the Roman world. You remember ethnically by birth, he is a Jew. He's converted to Christianity, and as a result he has lost credibility amongst the contemporaries with whom he was brought up in earlier years.

His conversion to Christianity was one of the great miracles of the early church, and sometimes as he went around preaching, not just in Palestine, for he, you recall, was an apostle to the Gentiles, he would commence his ministry. I say sometimes, he would invariably commence his ministry amongst the Jewish group in that particular area where he happened to be. And sometimes the Jews of the dispersion, as they were called, would take Paul to task.

They would not accept what he had to say. Very often in the 13th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, in the 17th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, you get a feeling that the Jews that Paul is first reaching with the gospel have become somewhat belligerent. You see, here is a man who is saying that the Jewish nation have put to death God's own son.

Here is a man who is arguing that merely to be possessors of the Mosaic law and to bear the mark of circumcision in one's body, assuming you are a male, is not sufficient to guarantee your well-being. Indeed, he's going beyond that. He's saying that you can have the law and you can have this mark of circumcision, and in the sight of God you are considered as an unbelieving pagan who has no trace of ancestry back to Abraham whatsoever.

Now, the Jewish nation have not been the quietest nation that God ever made. In fact, it's their resilience, it was their toughness that at the human level preserved their national identity when they have been threatened on so many, many occasions down the centuries. So, the Jews were not obliged to take what this converted Jew had to say just at face value.

They sometimes would cross-question Paul. They sometimes would take him to task in putting to light an estimate on what it meant to be recipients of the law and bearers of the mark of circumcision. And so, Paul is often engaged in argument with his own flesh and blood as he moves around Asia Minor preaching the gospel.

Why do I say that? Well, it seems to me that when you come to the third chapter of Romans, he is going through in his own mind some of the arguments that have already been put to him time and time again by Jews who have not received what he has wanted to describe to them in terms of this great way of making men right, this message of salvation which has come about through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus. So, he assumes a Jewish arguer, antagonist, opponent in this third chapter, putting up various objections to what Paul has been teaching in the opening chapters. What was the great problem of the Jew? It was the problem of his pride, a pride in his national identity.

There is nothing so insidious and so powerful as the pride of orthodoxy, says A.W. Tozer. Another Puritan preacher says, the sun should not set upon our anger, neither should it rise upon our confidence. Now, the problem with the Jew is that he had so much confidence in his own national identity and in the fact that religiously he had been favoured over against all the nations.

You know that one of the things, my brothers and sisters, that kept you from coming to the Lord Jesus in the earlier years of your life was probably your pride. When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain and I count but loss and poor contempt on all my pride. It's easier to sing Watts' hymn than to eliminate pride.

Pride is one of the great obstacles that prevents us coming to a knowledge of salvation. It was with the Jew, it is with the Gentile. So here Paul has to deal with the root of Jewish pride as he turns on his opponent and answers the questions that often have been put his way in regard to objecting to the gospel of Christ.

And it seems to me that there are three objections posed in those opening eight verses or so. In fact, actually there are four, but the last one is a recap on number three. The first objection, verse one of chapter three, what advantage is there in being a Jew? What value is there in circumcision? And you might have expected the Apostle Paul to say, well, there's utterly no advantage at all, bearing in mind all that he's argued in the second chapter.

But Paul is never a man that you can anticipate. Instead of coming in with a negative, he comes in with a positive. And he says there are many advantages, much in every way.

First of all, and you think that he was going to mention a second and a third and a fourth, but he never does get there, at least not until you get to the ninth chapter and the opening verses. First of all, he singles out this as being the great blessing that the Jews had over against any other nation. First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God.

What advantage is there in coming to church? What advantage is there in your baptism? What advantage is there in coming around the Lord's table? First of all, the basic advantage is this, that you as a Christian person have been introduced to the Bible and you have accepted it as being the Word of God, the vehicle of God's revelation, God's utterance. That's what the Bible is. That's what the Jews had, at least in part, in the Old Testament scriptures.

What advantage of the Jew? Is there no advantage at all? Indeed there is. It's the advantage of being custodians, recipients of the Word of God. But our Jewish antagonist, our Jewish opponent goes on, putting up a second obstacle before the apostle.

Does not the unfaithfulness of the Jews cancel out God's faithfulness? That's what's said in verse three, is it not? What if some did not have faith? Doesn't that mean that the whole package deal is therefore cancelled out? And the argument is ridiculous. Let me set it through in this way and then you'll understand what Paul is arguing for and what he's arguing against. Let's take a marriage relationship, all right? Now one of the parties plays fast and loose.

In other words, there is the offending partner of the marriage who, shall we say, goes off with someone else, commits adultery. Now that does not in any way, does it, negate the faithfulness of the non-offending partner. Just because one breaks the contract doesn't mean to say that the other is guilty of breach.

Now that's precisely what the apostle is here saying. The Jews, they had the advantage of the law and God was willing to enter into a relationship with them that was special on certain premises. The fact that they didn't keep the premises in no way can be turned as an assault on the character of God.

No, says the apostle, using very strong language, verse four, not at all. Let God be true and every man a liar. God is impeccable in his justice.

His word is his bond. He remains true. And the apostle quotes from the Old Testament to endorse that particular position, as you will discover, especially those of you who are working from the NIV, when Old Testament quotations are more easily detectable as they're set off in a paragraph.

So that when you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge. So the second objection has been put down by the apostle Paul. Here is the third, and this is subtle.

I would say this is devilish. Verse five, if our unrighteousness brings out God's righteousness more clearly, what should we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us. I am using a human argument.

What's Paul there saying? Well, if your sin accentuates the grace of God, are you not what one Puritan preacher called a serviceable sinner? In other words, the apostle has been arguing that the Jews will never be saved by keeping the law of Moses because they have been utterly unable to keep the minute details of that law. The Gentiles, they're not saved by the moral law, by the law of conscience, because they've broken the law of conscience time and time again. They have an evidence of the existence of God in the work of nature, but that they know of God's purpose in their lives, what he demands of them, they have not delivered.

And so this argument is adopted by the apostle Paul. Unless there is a righteousness, a way of being made right that has nothing to do with the law of Moses and nothing to do with the law of conscience, then there is no salvation at all. But he goes on to say that this way of righteousness has been made possible by God in sending the Lord Jesus into the world.

And there's nothing that you can do to attain forgiveness apart from accepting the fact that your sins were paid for by Jesus Christ on the cross. Now, this is the perverted logic that is offered in response to Paul's teaching. All right then, if that is so, then my sinfulness accentuates, makes stand out in greater relief, the grace and the forgiveness of God.

I am a serviceable sinner. Let me sin so that God's grace may stand out in greater and greater relief. Now, the immorality of that argument is such that the apostle has to apologise even for using his ink on something that to him is so unacceptable.

I am using a human argument. Verse 6, certainly not. Or as it's put in the authorised version, God forbid.

Or as I would translate it from the Greek, perish the thought. Perish the thought. It's utterly impossible.

If that were so, how could God judge the world? The very character of God in his justice and his fairness would be questioned if anyone might argue cogently from that viewpoint. But you see, this Jewish objector has not been put down. He comes back with a further application of his objection.

Someone might argue if my, verse 7, if my falsehood enhances God's truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner? Now, you see how that's just a variation on the previous point. Have you got the argument? Here is this man taking Paul to task. There's no argument.

There's no advantage in being a Jew. Let's revise on those verses. Yes, there is, says Paul, but it's not to do with wearing the law as a sort of lucky charm around your neck.

It's got nothing to do with having the mark of circumcision as though there's magic in that surgical operation on the male body. That won't help at all, but you have got the advantage of recourse to the Word of God. But if everybody has not kept what's in the Word of God, doesn't it nullify God's Word? Not a bit.

If God keeps his bargain, then his honour remains utterly intact. Then, on the other hand, if I sin, the love of this God is increased, is accentuated, as he has more mercy to shower upon my sinfulness. If I tell a lie and he forgives, then his grace is enlarged.

Let me do evil that good may come. And Paul says, no, you've utterly misunderstood the whole basis of the gospel, and anyone who argues in that fashion, says the apostle, the final part of verse 8, their condemnation is deserved. Now, of course, you good folk here may feel, well, that is so ridiculous that, really, it doesn't need to be contemplated as an argument.

Nobody in their right mind would ever argue like that. Well, I could demonstrate to you from history that not only is Paul not guilty of engaging in a pure academic argument, but there was a time in the early history of the Christian church when a segment of Christianity was embracing this. It was known as the doctrine of antinomianism, living lawlessly so that the love of God might stand out the more.

But you say, I'm not interested in ancient history. Okay, well, actually, it's not ancient, but it's certainly getting on a little bit, biblical history. What about the children of God? Do you ever come across that sect? Made an impact in Bromley.

Took some evangelicals with it in its early days in this country. Have you ever heard of the name of David Moses Berg? Set up this organization, the Children of God, around the world. If you were to go into his theology, what he proclaims in the name of Jesus Christ, which has sucked hundreds of younger people in, in America and in Europe, you would discover exactly what Paul is teaching against.

I've read David Moses Berg's stuff, almost pornographic. It's come off the typewriter of his secretary and been reproduced and sold around the world. Exactly the same as what Paul was arguing against.

Do you remember the Jonestown saga in South America, not more than what, three or four years ago, when a hundred or so people, more than that, several hundred people committed suicide as a result of the hold that this one man had got on them? Maybe you never read of these things. I don't know. If you don't, then I just wonder where you have been in understanding what has been happening in the last decade or so in the so-called religious world.

I tell you that it is important that we understand what Paul has to say here in regard to the true gospel of Christ and how one must never pervert the doctrine of the grace of God. You see, you don't need to go to David Moses Berg. You don't need to go to the sort of situation that the Jonestown people got themselves involved in.

Any time that you deal lightly with sin on the basis that, well, God will forgive me, that's his business. So that on a Sunday you take communion, knowing full well that on a Monday or a Tuesday you might be into the same sort of sinfulness as you've engaged in last week. When you start to use the evangelical doctrine of justification by faith and take it cheaply, then you are in the category of moving dangerously near to that sort of opponent that Paul is taking to task in these first few verses of Romans 3, the objections that he counters.

Well, let's move on to the ninth verse and through to the 18th, where there are a little selection of texts pulled together from various parts of the Old Testament, a sort of mosaic. And the reason why Paul brings all these texts together is because he wants to show his Jewish opponent that when he has criticized the Jewish nation for ethically and spiritually being far removed from what God wanted them to be, he is not the first one to make this sort of criticism. He looks into the Old Testament and discovers that the psalmist and the prophets have been saying more or less the same thing.

So the question is put, almost the same as in the first verse, repeated in the ninth, but with a slight difference. What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? And now Paul's answer is no. Notice he's not contradicted his answer in the first verse.

The question in the first verse is, have we an advantage? And he says, yes. In the ninth verse, are we better? And he says, no. Yes, we have an advantage.

We have the law. We have the revelation of God in the Old Testament. Are we better? No.

Why not? Well, because we didn't keep that law. In fact, in one sense, we're worse than the Gentiles because they never had the full law of God. They'd only got the law in conscience, which is not as clear as the law in the Mosaic legislation.

What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? No, not at all. We've already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin, as it is written. Then he pulls out David as a witness and also Isaiah.

He appeals to these men to show that his case has been argued previously, and he demonstrates to us that the Jews are guilty on three counts. First of all, a faulty lifestyle. There is no one righteous, not even one.

Here's David speaking in Psalm 30 and so forth. There is none righteous, no, not one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.

Do you notice the repetition of the word no throughout that lengthy quotation? Did I say Psalm 30? That's wrong, isn't it? What Psalm was it? Psalm 14, verses 1 to 3, repeated again, or more or less, in Psalm 53, verses 1 through to 3. No one, not even one, none, all have turned away. They have together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one.

Faulty as far as the lifestyle is concerned. And then they have a foul mouth. That's what he's saying.

Their throats are open graves. Their tongues practice deceit. Paul, you're going a bit far there, aren't you, man? I mean, not everyone is as foul-mouthed as you're making out.

And yet, you know, when I read the Apostle Paul there, thinking that he's guilty of a sort of poetic exaggeration, I brought face to face with the prophet Isaiah. Now, Isaiah was a good and a godly man, probably of royal stock. And it was early in his life that he became a prophet.

In fact, his prophethood spanned some 50-odd years. He was prophet during the reign of several kings. He was really the only reliable, consistent voice in Judah for a long, long period of time.

And yet, do you remember in the opening chapters of Isaiah, he has a revelation of God, a most remarkable thing. In the day that King Uzziah died, I also saw the Lord. As I was in the temple, you recall? And suddenly, after he's been pulling down the woe and the wrath of God on various segments of Jewish society and amongst the citizens of Jerusalem, his seventh or his eighth woe is directed towards himself.

He sees the Lord, and he says, Woe am I, for I am a man of unclean lips. I am a dirty-mouthed prophet. My eyes have seen the glory of God.

You see, all the righteousness that you and I have compared with one another, well, it may vary, and we may have differing degrees. But when you bring your righteousness over against the righteousness of God, then it's like comparing man's attempt at producing white, the color white, with that of the natural snow. The best whiteness is always gray when put alongside the natural color of snow, as Mother Nature causes that whiteness to be.

Their throats are open graves. Their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips.

Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood, ruin, and misery. Mark their ways and the way of peace they do not know.

There is no fear of God before their eyes. They're people with a faulty lifestyle, with a foul mouth, with flawed attitudes. And the whole thing is summed up in that final verse, that final selection, the 18th.

No fear of God. Now, that to me doesn't sound purely ancient history. If you were to ask me the basic problem that there is that confronts British society today, I think it's locked up in that 18th verse.

No fear of God. He who does not fear God has need to fear everything else. And yet you can stand that on his head, as Spurgeon did.

He who fears God has nothing else to fear. Or you can take it in the words of John Bunyan, the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and they that lack the beginning have neither the middle nor the end. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and if you're like the beginning, then you've got neither the middle nor the end.

To what degree in British society do we fear God? To what degree does our broadcasting authority fear God? To what degree does the publication, media, newspapers, magazines, and what have you, have a fear of God in the editorial rooms? Well, I put you these questions, you can answer them for yourself. The sin of the 20th century. So the apostle has dealt with the objections to his opening argument.

He's cited David and Isaiah as men who have already diagnosed the Jewish problem as far as their religious contradictory way of life is concerned. And now he comes home with his verdict. In fact, he's anticipated it all the way along, but it comes to a pointed observation in the 19th and 20th verses.

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law. So the Jews can't opt out of that little selection of Psalms. From the Psalms and the prophets, it was directed specifically to them by men of yesteryear.

It says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world held accountable to God. Whether it's the law of Moses or the law of nature, whether you're a Jew or a Gentile, you have broken that particular revelation of God. You've not lived up, says Paul, to God's expectations.

Therefore, verse 21, verse 20, therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law. Rather, through the law, we become conscious of sin. The law points out, but it doesn't cover up.

The law illustrates, but it cannot eradicate. It cannot deal with the faulty lifestyle, the foul-mouthed person, the one with the flawed attitude. So where has Paul got us? Well, with his inevitable logic, he has brought us to the point that he wanted to bring us to, and that is of silencing everyone who objects to his proclamation of the gospel by showing the bankruptcy of the hope of the Gentile and the Jew.

It's a good thing when men are silenced, is it not? The apostle speaks about every mouth being silenced, and the whole world held accountable to God. When Job, in the book that bears his name, is brought face to face with the Lord as his sins have been exposed, he says in the fourth verse of chapter 40, I am unworthy. How can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth.

I spoke once, but I have no answer. Twice, but I will say no more. You know, the beginning of wisdom is often just to shut up.

The beginning of wisdom is often just to be quiet, to say nothing. Peter espies the Lord after Peter has been fishing, fulfilling the redirective of the Lord to go and to cast his net on the other side. And Peter realizes that the man who gave him that instruction is no ordinary man.

And when Peter gets out of the boat and he comes near to the Lord Jesus, he falls down on his knees and he says, depart from me. I'm a sinful man. Lord, I've got nothing else to say.

Paul is asking the world to be quiet before God. As one of the Old Testament prophets did, the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him.

And within the silence of God, after the earthquake of potential judgment has been heard, after the thunder has sounded out from heaven, within the silence of God, it might be, argues the apostle, that there could conceivably come a still small voice, another way whereby salvation can come to this world, not along the no-go areas of the law of Moses or the law of conscience, but a way that emanates from the heart of God, a righteousness from God, verse 21, apart from the law, testified to, predicted by, the men who wrote the law and the prophets, a righteousness concerning the faith that men and women shall have in Jesus Christ. It's to that glorious righteousness that the apostle Paul now directs us and takes us from the dark and the gloom of the first and second and third chapters and into the light and the warmth and the hope that there is within the gospel of Christ, which is available to Jew and Gentile on the basis of simple faith and belief, not on the base of faulty works and human endeavor. Well, more of that next time.

Oh glory Jesus father I am shielded by his word I will never die I will live forever I just want to praise you oh you are everything to me today you