Romans 3

intro

— Review ch 1 and 2…

— In ch 1 and 2 Paul explains the deplorable condition of man.. How God’s wrath is “being revealed” against humanity, how the unrighteous have no excuse

Romans 1:19–20 “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”

— But the “self-righteous” have no excuse either!! They don’t get off the hook from God’s wrath..

Romans 2:1 “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.”

— how this underscores the need for the Gospel “Good News” which is the theme of this entire letter to the Romans..

— He is leading his listener so they are grasping at straws.. The Jew who is listening who has done his best following the Mosaic law no better than the reprobate wicked heathen?

— He is driving them in essence to a solution the GOOD NEWS, to Jesus only for salvation.

— You still doing good? Well, you won’t be by the end of this message! The first 3 chapters are difficult!! He is being like an honest doctor. No bedside manners. He doesn’t want you to leave the doctors office thinking you are ok.. He wants you to turn to Jesus alone to alleviate your broken condition to lead you to life..

a. Difficult for the reasons I just mentioned, Paul is destroying any confidence we may have in ourselves. He is shining a light on our sinfulness as humans, wether we have religion in our lives or not!

b. Difficult as well because some of these writings are hard to understand!! But you are not alone, another Apostle Peter wrote this in 2 Peter 3:15–16 “And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.”

— Peter is confused, that makes me feel a little better!!

— Paul is

Growing up in Tarsus, a "university town," he had access to excellent Greco-Roman education. Paul studied under the renowned rabbi Gamaliel in Jerusalem, receiving what could be considered an "Ivy League" education of his time. He was multilingual, fluent in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and possibly Latin. His writings demonstrate advanced rhetorical skills and a deep understanding of both Jewish and Greco-Roman cultures. Paul's intellectual prowess is evident in his ability to engage with various audiences, including quoting pagan poets when addressing the Athenians. While some scholars view Paul as an intellectual giant capable of holding his own among advanced Roman and Greek thinkers, others suggest his education was adequate for his mission without necessarily being exceptional. Regardless, Paul's combination of Jewish, Greek, and Roman influences uniquely positioned him for his role in spreading Christianity throughout the ancient world.

Setup:

So CH. 3 is pretty much reinforcing how bad humanity is, how desperate we are. What he does in the first part of chapter 3 is quite brilliant. He expects that his audience, a lot of them religious Jewish people, would have some questions. He is anticipating those questions. And he poses them himself.. He is employing a method Rabbis used during that time which is the “Socratic” method taught by Socrates. That is to ask rhetorical questions to help the listener along, to help bring illumination to questions that come up in the mind.

Transition

He’s answering to the Jew who is thinking, “What is the point or advantage to being God’s special people if it won’t even save us?

Objection #1

There is no value in being engaged in church life

Romans 3:1–2 “Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.”

Prayer

Story: Value in the Word of God. As a teenager, my parents took us to a church. This was no ordinary church. The setting was more of a compound then a typical church setting.. The leader of the males wanted me to join the “brethren”.. But was spanking his new born child.. He started arguing with one of his followers right in front of me.. I was not living for Jesus at the time (even though I was going to church. But I had been exposed to the Word. I went to 1 Corinthians 13:4–7 “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

— What Paul is saying here is that yes there are advantages to being Jewish!!

— Paul brings right out the biggest advantage. What other people had God directly speak with them? Who else had the prophets?

— They have the words of life!!

— Now, just because Jesus was spoken of in the law and the prophets didn’t automatically help the Jews automatically put their trust in Him when He came.. No, many of them outright rejected Him!

— But, Paul is saying, there is value in knowing the Word. Now, many of us grew up in the Word. That is a huge advantage. You have a baseline about right and wrong. About living a wise life.

— Proverbs 14:34 “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”

— You can live out the principles of the BOOK and you will have good results. Like the reason God gave the 10 commandments “SO IT WILL GO WELL WITH YOU IN THE LAND”

— So, there’s huge advantage to having

Objection #2

I know a lot of hypocrites

Romans 3:3–4 “What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, “That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.””

— The pushback here that Paul is dealing with is that God made a covenant with the Jewish people..

— Some of the Jewish people were going to say to Paul, just because some Jews were unfaithful we are all going to be punished for it?

— By the way, God has not forgotten the Jewish people. Later on in Romans 11:25–27 “Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”; “and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.””

— We may have seen Christians who started out in the faith and did not continue. They fell away.

— Does that mean that God failed? No! God is still faithful even when we are not.

— How many of us have found that God has been faithful when we have not?

— “Even when we are faithless God is faithful”

— If you are an unbeliever, God is faithful to judge you.. If you are a believer, God will Bless you

— He is faithful. Paul is driving us towards Jesus so we avoid judgement..

objection 3

A loving God can’t punish people

Romans 3:5–6 “But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world?”

— We live in a day and age where everyone likes to sit on their throne and judge others.. We don’t like being judged, but we don’t mind the seat of judgement.

— Also, It is a common thing today for people to judge God. You will hear things like, “If God is really that way, I am glad I am not a Christian, that goes against my conscience”

— What Paul is saying is that God is perfect. He is the only one qualified to sit on the throne of heaven and judge, He is the only one worthy of the task..

— And, what Paul is getting us to understand is that when we face the throne of Heaven it is either we put our hope in Jesus or hell! There is no in between.

— God put all His wrath on Jesus, He bore our sin. Even though He was perfect and sinned not, He took our punishment…

Obliterating all hope in our “goodness”

— This next section you might be asking if Paul is ok. Did he eat enough that day? Has he had his snickers bar?

— He is really demonstrating how God is right in judging humanity..

Romans 3:11–18 “no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.””

— Paul is stressing that we are not essentially good. We are essentially bad. We have what is called a fallen nature..

— No one SEEKS GOD… : Man this is offensive.. We seek Him because He was seeking us.. Starting in Gen 3, we hid from God. But God came to seek us out! I am thankful that He was working in my heart while I had turned away from Him!

— All have turned aside.. This has to do with our will. WE don’t want to do what God wants us to do. That is not our nature! We don’t want to follow God’s way!

— Their venom of asps is under their lips: There is the power of life and death in our tongues. We have a world where it is easy to heap all sorts of verbal abuse on others that don’t agree with us. Curses like “I hope you die” “You will never change” etc. It is our nature to talk down to others. When we don’t have our way we jab like a sword with our tongue. Damaging people in the process.

— Their feet are swift to shed blood.. : Have you ever wondered why there is so much war? So many innocents caught in the crossfire? There is a Will Durant 3241 years of history only 268 total years where he could not find a war!

— Imagine God, who is subject day and night watching the horror of what we are doing.. He is just in bringing judgement on the world.

— So, we have taken the vast majority of the first 3 chapters of Romans just to get us somewhere. It has been brutal.

— I think of someone drowning in a lake. They go to a little floaty, that pops and they start to drown. They swim over to a liferaft, the liferaft gets eaten by a shark.. There’s nothing to save them. But what Paul is leading us to to is Christ walking on the water. He who overcame the dark waters of death. Reaching His hand to save..

— I heard of Jonathan Edwards who was a revivalist preacher who was a big part of the “great awakening” of the 1700s preached a sermon called “Sinners in the hand of an angry God”

— He preached on God’s coming wrath on humanity.. How when we die, or when He returns we face judgement.. Judgement that is coming for our lives.

— The sermon brought people to shrieking. Some people were holding on to the pillars inside the church crying out for salvation!

— That is what Paul is driving us to.. Now he makes this shift..

Finally..

Romans 3:23–25 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.”

— That word “propitiation” means in the original language “mercy seat”

— Propitiation: A theological term for making atonement for sin by offering an acceptable sacrifice. Often used to describe the death of Christ and related to the appeasement of God’s wrath.

— Paul uses language the Jews would’ve understood. Each year on the Day of Atonement the high priest entered the Holy of Holies to sprinkle the blood of the lamb on the mercy seat (propitiary)

— Paul is saying that is our saving grace. Jesus has become our sacrifice. Jesus once and for all died, went into the throneroom of heaven. And God sees His sacrifice and it was an atonement for sin that was acceptable.

— On Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand

APPLICATION

— True testimony. Sometimes I hear people say things like, “I attended church as long as I remember” “I give this much, or I do this for these people” Nothing else saves you but Christ alone!

— Pentecostal Question. What about holiness? Isn’t that important? Are we teaching once saved always saved? No.. That is along another question that Paul posed “why not do evil that good may come?” He says their condemnation is just.

— When we are saved there is evidence. You have been “reborn”. You have a new nature. You also have a flesh nature. But if you