Romans 3
Notes
Transcript
Review
Review
Beginning at Romans 1:18 “18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;”
This 1st section of the book from Romans 1:18-3:20 and Paul’s purpose is to show us that all mankind stands guilty and is condemned before God. Because of that condemnation all of mankind desperately needs a way to cancel the guilt and be justified before God.
This is the bad news before the Good news!
Using a diatribe, or the literary method of having an imaginary “debate” in the writing that shows the questions of the objector and Paul’s answers to the questions. Paul has been explaining to us man’s failure to be righteous before God.
The Message of Romans 3. Some Jewish Objections (3:1–8)
‘It often becomes easier to follow Paul’s arguments’, writes C. K. Barrett, ‘if the reader imagines the apostle face to face with a heckler, who makes interjections and receives replies which sometimes are withering and brusque.’
He began with the Gentiles in Romans 1:18-32.
Paul continued through the moralist in Romans 2:1-16 explaining even those that know, teach, and judge the law are still lost without a genuine faith in Christ. That the only true and good judge is God.
Romans 2:17-29 has Paul telling us that even the ethnic Jew, the race that God chose to give the Law to, the circumcised people of God are under the same condemnation as the rest of humanity because they cannot truly keep the Law.
Romans 2:25-29 “25 For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. 26 Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? 27 And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law? 28 For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: 29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.”
There is no fundamental difference between Jews and Gentiles. The law and circumcision doesn’t keeps neither the Jew from the judgment of God nor Jewish identity as the people of God. This seemed to call in question God’s covenant, promises and character. It prompted four distinct but related questions.
This brings us to Chapter 3.
Continued Self Confidence of the Jews
Continued Self Confidence of the Jews
Paul will anticipate and answer some of the objections the Jew would have in those questions:
Objection 1: Paul’s teaching undermines God’s covenant.
Objection 1: Paul’s teaching undermines God’s covenant.
1 What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? 2 Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.
If Paul and his objector agree that Israel was chosen out of the nations, if what Paul teaches is true, then what benefit is there?
Much value in every way (chiefly isn’t “most important” but that he’ll list in more detail later [starts in Chapter 9])
The value is responsibility not security
The Jew has been trusted with the very words of God in the Old Testament and by speaking directly with Israel has entered into a special relationship with them compared to the nations around them
Objection 2: Paul’s teaching cancels God’s faithfulness.
Objection 2: Paul’s teaching cancels God’s faithfulness.
The Message of Romans 3. Some Jewish Objections (3:1–8)
‘If some to whom God’s promises were entrusted (episteuthēsan, 2) did not respond to them in trust (ēpistēsan, 3a), will their lack of trust (apistia) destroy God’s trustworthiness (pistis, 3b)?’ If God’s people are unfaithful, does that necessarily mean that he is?
3 For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? 4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.
Objection 3: Paul’s teaching criticizes the character of God’s judgement.
Objection 3: Paul’s teaching criticizes the character of God’s judgement.
5 But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man) 6 God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world?
I speak as a man. This argument is from someone who doesn't understand spiritual things, a lost man
God is just in punishing sin. Paul’s answer to the rhetorical question is: “If, as you imply, God is unrighteous to punish sin, how then shall God judge the world?” In other words, if God cannot condemn the unrighteousness of the Jews, He cannot condemn the unrighteousness of anyone else!
Objection 4: Paul’s teaching falsely glorifies God with sin.
Objection 4: Paul’s teaching falsely glorifies God with sin.
7 For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner? 8 And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.
Objector: “Why am I condemned as a sinner if my sin commends the righteousness of God? I f my sin glorifies God’s forgiveness, why not sin more?”
C. H. Hodge puts it well: ‘According to this reasoning, says Paul, the worse we are, the better: for the more wicked we are, the more conspicuous will be the mercy of God in our pardon.’
The Radical Corruption of Man (Total Depravity)
The Radical Corruption of Man (Total Depravity)
Paul sums up all of humanity by briefly restating his main point of the 1st main section:
9 What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
“What then”: What has all this proved? This is the basic universal truth summed up in a sentence. ALL ARE UNDER THE CONDEMNATION OF GOD FOR SIN! 10-18 will show this universal bondage
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: 11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. 12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
What mankind has not done, negative
Even though God has shown himself to every person in nature and conscience;
No one understands God
No one is looking for God
Nobody does one good thing 12b (all selfish none to please God)
Ecc 7:20 “20 For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.”
13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: 14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: 15 Their feet are swift to shed blood: 16 Destruction and misery are in their ways: 17 And the way of peace have they not known: 18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
What mankind has done, positive
12a All have ran in the ditch
12a All have become corrupt (unprofitable)
7 OT quotations; Rabbinic practice of string them together like pearls:
Psa 14:1-3 “1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. 2 The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. 3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”
Psa 15:1-3 “1 LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? 2 He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart. 3 He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.”
Psa 5:9 “9 For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue.”
Psa 140:3 “3 They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders’ poison is under their lips. Selah.”
Psa 10:7 “7 His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity.”
Isa 59:7 “7 Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.”
Pro 1:16 “16 For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.”
Psa 36:1 “1 The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes.”
Declares the ungodliness of sin
Teaches the pervasiveness of sin
Teach the universality of sin
It’s not that every person sins totally, even Hitler loved his mother. But that sin has totally corrupted everything about a person
19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
Tell us exactly why the Mosaic Law was given;
The Gentiles weren’t given the Law so the Law can’t save them
If the Jews want to be judged by the Law, they should hush because it’s impossible for them to keep the Law
The idolatrous and immoral Gentiles are ‘without excuse’ (1:20).
All critical moralists, whether Jews or Gentiles, equally ‘have no excuse’ (2:1).
The special status of the Jews does not exonerate them. In fact, all the inhabitants of the whole world (3:19), without any exception, are inexcusable (hypodikos) before God, that is, ‘under accusation with no possibility of defence’.
And by now the reason is plain. It is because all have known something of God and of morality (through Scripture in the case of the Jews, through nature in the case of the Gentiles), but all have disregarded and even stifled their knowledge in order to go their own way. So all are guilty and condemned before God.
Justification by Faith
Justification by Faith
Until now it’s all crushing bad news. We have been told how sick we ALL are. We have been told how hopeless our situation is and how desperately wicked we are…But now!
The second major section of the book of Romans from Romans 3:21-4:25, shows us the righteousness and grace of God to man by making a way of justification through a Savior.
Romans 3:21–25 (KJV)
21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; 22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: 23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood,
3:21-26 have been called “the center and the heart of the whole main section of the letter” -Cranfield; Leon Morris “possibly the most important single paragraph ever written”
21 A righteousness from God has been made known to man
22 righteousness comes through Christ to all who believe; offered to all because every human being needs it!
23 Every person was made in God’s image and every person fails to live up to it! Bishop Handley Moule put it dramatically speaking of God’s glory: ‘The harlot, the liar, the murderer, are short of it; but so are you. Perhaps they stand at the bottom of a mine, and you on the crest of an Alp; but you are as little able to touch the stars as they.’
24 justification is not JUST forgiveness; it’s God giving His righteousness to you while judging Christ for every one of your sins in your existence!
25 propitiation means to appease God’s wrath
need: God’s holy wrath rests on evil; wrath isn’t our pagan inspired idea of anger. God wants more and angry if we don’t do it
author: God is the only one that can appease God’s wrath. We have nothing in ourselves to offer that can! The love, the idea, the purpose, the initiative, the action and the gift were all God’s.
nature: How has propitiation been accomplished? By God giving what we couldn’t; Himself as His own perfect sacrifice!
According to the Christian revelation, God’s own great love propitiated his own holy wrath through the gift of his own dear Son, who took our place, bore our sin and died our death. Thus God himself gave himself to save us from himself.
25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Charles Cranfield has expressed it with care and eloquence:
“God, because in his mercy he willed to forgive sinful men, and being truly merciful, willed to forgive them righteously, that is, without in any way condoning their sin, purposed to direct against his own very Self in the person of his Son the full weight of that righteous wrath which they deserved.”
27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. 28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Paul reopens the diatribe
boasting is the language of our fallen self-centeredness
29 Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: 30 Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith. 31 Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.
What the Jews forgot, was that their privileges were not intended for the exclusion of the Gentiles, but for their ultimate inclusion when through Abraham’s posterity ‘all peoples on earth’ would be blessed. This covenant with Abraham has been fulfilled in Christ. He is Abraham’s ‘seed’, and through him the blessing of salvation now extends to everyone who believes, without exception or distinction.
Conclusion
Conclusion
“The principal point … of the law … is to make men not better but worse; that is to say, it sheweth unto them their sin, that by the knowledge thereof they may be humbled, terrified, bruised and broken, and by this means may be driven to seek grace, and so come to that blessed Seed [sc. Christ].” -Luther
What’s the response to Paul’s devastating exposure of universal sin and guilt?
1. Make it as certain as we possibly can that we have ourselves accepted this divine diagnosis of our human condition as true, and that we have fled from the just judgment of God on our sins to the only refuge there is, namely Jesus Christ who died for our sins. For we have no merit to plead and no excuse to make. We too stand before God speechless and condemned. Only then shall we be ready to hear the great ‘But now’ of verse 21, as Paul begins to explain how God has intervened through Christ and his cross for our salvation.
2. These chapters challenge us to share Christ with others. We cannot monopolize the good news. All around us are men and women who know enough of God’s glory and holiness to make their rejection of him inexcusable. They too, like us, stand condemned. Their knowledge, their religion and their righteousness cannot save them. Only Christ can. Their mouth is closed in guilt; let our mouth be opened in testimony!
Justification in Christ Jesus is not only being forgiven for our sins. Not even “just as if I’d never sinned”!
Justification is “just as if you have sinned, as a matter of fact done nothing but sin, found guilty of your sin, and sentenced to death! “But now..”
Justification is not only pardoned, but pardoned and Christ’s righteousness has been applied to you!
With that righteousness is acceptance in fellowship with God broken from the garden and extended through all eternity.
With that righteous not ONLY the duty, but the privilege to tell everyone else the cure after we have allowed the Bible and the Holy Spirit to show them their disease!
PRAISE THE LORD FOR THE BIBLE’S “BUT GOD” AND “BUT NOW”
8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; 22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: