Romans 3:1-20

1-8

1-2

In chapter one Paul shows that the Gentiles who even though they did not have the revealed word of God, the law, did not have an excuse for not knowing that there is a God and knowing his eternality and power through creation. In chapter two Paul then turns to the Jew and disproved the false notion that they are automatically justified and righteous before God just because of their heritage and the physical sign of their covenant with God, circumcision, in fact knowing the law makes the Jew more responsible for any transgression because they had the full law given to them, to whom much is given much will be required. Chapter 3 starts off with Paul asking a question he may have heard many times from the Jews and he probably knew that the Jewish Christians in Rome were probably asking to themselves when they heard this letter. Does being a Jew and being circumcised have any upside? Much in every way. The only reason Paul lists here is that they were entrusted with the oracles of God. While the translation of Logion to oracle is a legitimate translation, its deeper meaning is that of important sayings or messages, especially supernatural ones. Oracle today may have a occult or pagan connection though. But the Jews were given the very words of God from God. Although Paul goes no further there are many more advantages to being Jewish, they are the chosen people of God and through their lineage came Jesus Christ. God also made several exclusive covenants with them, they as a people are special in God’s eyes.

3-4

17-18 ext question Paul has is about those covenants God made with the Jewish people. Some of the Jews were unfaithful to their end of those covenants, does this mean that God will not fulfill his end? Will God not be faithful and honor his promises? Absolutely he will honor his promises! God made promises to the Jewish people but not to every individual Jew though. Each Jew could claim security in God’s promises through repentance and personal faith in God, which results in obedience from the heart. Isaiah 55:6-7“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” But if they did not have repentance and seek God with their hearts they would not have the security of the promises. Amos 3:2 ““You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.” God is always true and does not change so if every man says that God will not fulfill each and every oath and promise that He made, God would be found true and every man would be a liar. No words of man, no matter how many say it, will disprove the truthfulness of God. Paul quotes Job 9:32

5-6

When we sin and are punished by God, that is righteous, God is right to punish the wicked. The question Paul is either anticipating or has heard is does God allow us to sin so that he can show his righteousness? If that was the case it would be unrighteous to give punishment on us because our sinning us what God wanted in the first place. That is completely false. God’s plan or desire is not for us to sin but to obey, it is our sin nature that leads us to not obey the words of God, and God is righteous and Holy and just and all our transgressions can not be overlooked or tolerated. If God were not always right and true how could God judge the world?

7-8

The next question is brought up twice in Romans here and in Romans 6:1-2 “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” , no doubt he has heard this charge before. This question is asking or saying, the more faithless a person is, the more faithful he makes God appear, the more a person lies, the more he exalts God’s truthfulness. If this is the case then why would that person be condemned as a sinner? And if this is the case shouldn’t we all do evil so that the glory of God will be magnified? This is similar to the last question and the answer is the same, it is in no way good to sin, God wants and demands our obedience, God is truth and does not need untruthfulness for that the be shone. Paul says that there are some people saying that this is what Paul is teaching about the gospel. They will be condemned and their condemnation will be justified.

9-20

9-10a

In verse one the question was what was the benefit of being a Jew, or was there any benefit to being a Jew, and the answer was yes, so now the question asked is the Jew any better off? While the Jew does have benefits to being the chosen people of God, being automatically made righteous is not one of the benefits though. All are under sin, Jew and Greek, Greek is used to mean all non Jews, or Gentiles because of the prevalence of Greek culture and language under Roman rule. All are under sin as we have previously charged, the Greek word Proaitiaomai, translated already charged was used as a legal term to describe a person previously indicted for an offence. Paul then quotes several passages from the Old Testament, as it is written. Thirteen charges in all concerning the character of man, the speech of man, and the conduct of the accused man.

10b-12

The first charge concerning the character of man in the second part of verse 10 is from the Septuagint translation of Psalm 14:1 “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good.” Paul uses “is righteous” instead of “does good” to show we are not right before God and adds “not even one” to make sure that no one thinks that they are an exception, there is no exceptions humanly speaking apart from Christ the God man. Verse 11 “There is none who understands” Taken from Psalm 14:2 “The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.” Man is spiritually ignorant, man has no innate ability to fully comprehend God’s truth or His standard of righteousness. 1 Corinthians 2:14 “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” The second part of verse 11 “There is none who seeks for God” also from Psalm 14:2 There may be many religions in the world but all of them are attempts to escape from the one true God and to remake God into something that they want. Apart from God seeking us and empowering us with the Holy Spirit we would never seek Him, just illusions of what we want God to be, a god that serves us and not us serving God. Verse 12 is from Psalm 14:3 “They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.” Everyone is wayward and turns away from God and will chose to live apart from God’s will, everyone is headed in the wrong direction. “Together they have become useless” Together, all of fallen mankind as become without use, the Greek term translated as useless was often used to describe milk that had turned sour and rancid, unfit to drink or to be used to make butter or cheese or anything edible. Without the saving grace coming from a relationship with Jesus Christ fallen man is a spiritually dead branch unable to produce any fruit, fit only to be thrown into the fire and burned. “There is none who does good, there is not even one” No fallen man who is under or a slave to sin who can do anything good in God’s eyes. They may be able to do some moral earthly works but the reason for them will be a selfish or self serving one and not for the glory of God.

13-14

The next set of charges against fallen man is their conversation, or how fallen man’s character is shown in what they say. The first part of verse 13 is from Psalms 5:9 “For there is no truth in their mouth; their inmost self is destruction; their throat is an open grave; they flatter with their tongue.” An open grave pictures an exposed dead body, all of the stench from a rotting corpse is exposed through men’s speech, constantly being foul in speech. Also the foulness of fallen man’s speech exposes the his condition of spiritual death. The Greek word translated “keep deceiving” has the meaning of luring, like baiting a hook with a worm for a fish to think it will have a mean and instead becomes the meal. Psalm 5:9 describes flattery, the words of someone who deceives someone with honeyed words luring who they talk to into being used and abused. The last part of verse 13 comes from Psalm 140:3 “They make their tongue sharp as a serpent’s, and under their lips is the venom of asps. Selah” Their words and mouth always ready to strike and deliver venomous speech aimed to hurt, like a deadly viper who’s poison sacs are under the folded hollow fangs in the serpents mouth and is always ready to strike at anything that is perceived as a threat. Verse 14 is from Psalm 10:7 “His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression; under his tongue are mischief and iniquity.” It is a common ailment in fallen man is bitterness to anyone and everyone, always desiring the downfall, cursing, of other men. Being filled with bitterness and openly hostile using words as weapons to harm others.

15-17

Verses 15 through 17 are from Isaiah 59:7-8 “Their feet run to evil, and they are swift to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their highways. The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths; they have made their roads crooked; no one who treads on them knows peace.” Fallen man is swift to murder his fellow man. All through history and today wars and murder run rampant all over the earth, in the U.S. since the turn of the twentieth century twice as many citizens have been killed in private acts of murder than have been killed in all the wars of its entire history. In 2002 the World Heath Organization said that every 60 seconds someone in the world is murdered, its not an everyday occurrence its an every minute one. “Destruction and misery are in their paths” Destruction is translated from a compound Greek word meaning the breaking into pieces and completely shattering causing total devastation. Misery denotes the resulting harm that is always in the wake of fallen man’s acts of destruction against his fellow man. “and the way of peace have they not known” Paul is not referring to any inner peace that fallen man may find in his sinful fallen state, but man’s ingrain path away from peace. Everyone seems to want peace but the same people chanting peace, peace are the ones bitterly cursing those who they think are responsible for not having peace. Apart from God and the work of the Holy Spirit helping changing the hearts of men, no one would ever truly desire any kind of peace, especially feel the desire or need to be at peace with God. The bible makes clear that peace will never dominate the earth until the return of the Prince of Peace Jesus Christ to establish his kingdom.

18

Verse 18 comes from Psalm 36:1 “Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes.” This is the reason or motive for fallen man to commit all of the previous charges laid out by Paul. Fallen man does not fear God, even if he acknowledges that there is a God there is no fear of judgement, or the god that is conjured up is one of his own making and that god would never keep a perfect angel such as himself out of heaven. Pastor Isaac brought this up Sunday when he quoted Psalm 10:4 “In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”” The fear of God does not just apply to the unrepentant, even born again Christians still need to fear God, the fear of God brings about wanting to walk in Godly paths and keeps us repentant when we do fall aside. But without fear of real eternal judgement and damnation the unrepentant sinner does every one of the things just listed, and more.

19-20

Verses 19 and 20 are the verdict to all of the charges brought up in verses 10-17. Now we know, refers to complete and certain knowledge, that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law. The Jew is under God’s written law delivered through Moses, and the Gentile has the law written on his heart so that he knows that there is a God, and that He is the creator, sustainer, and Lord of the entire universe. So this is talking about everyone, Jew and Gentile, every mouth will be closed and no one will be able to have the excuse that they did not know the law, and all the world, every single person is accountable to God. This is the final verdict for unredeemed mankind and there is no defence or excuse, everyone is guilty. Paul adds in anticipation of the argument that following the law will redeem you, by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight. No flesh, no man or woman. The law is perfection, holiness and through it is the knowledge of sin and how sinful we are. Under the law there can be no sentence other than death.

Now we know that all are under the law and everyone under the law is accountable to God for all of our failures in the law, but next is the good news of righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ.