Universal Depravity, Culpability, & Inability

INTRO: Who’s ready to dive back into Romans? These last few weeks of guest preachers have been excellent and impactful challenges from God’s word. Now, even as we continue to reflect on and apply those lessons, we turn our attention back to God’s message through Paul in his letter to the saints in Rome.

PRAY: Before we study and apply what God has revealed in Romans 3, let’s pray and ask God to use his powerful truth to remake us and shape us, being sure that we set our hearts in the right place, trusting in him and not in ourselves. - Glorious triune God over all things, magnify yourself to us and in us by your word this day. Let us see you and ourselves with clarity and truth. Don’t let us leave here exactly the same as we arrived. May each one here say to you now, even as I pray it, “God, show me your glory, that I may live by it.” We pray these things with faith in you alone, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

In our study we have come to Romans 3:9, and Paul is reaching a conclusion for a lengthy section of his argument that began at 1:18: that a righteous God is justified in his wrath against human unrighteousness.

Context: The Need of God’s Righteousness (OR The Universal Reign of Sin, OR God’s Righteous Wrath Against Sinners) – Romans 1:18-3:20

Human unrighteousness manifests itself in willfully ignoring the God who clearly deserves that we should glorify him, a willful ignorance that further leads to idolatry and all manner of wickedness in our practice. And even those who received further revelation from God—namely, the Jews who have not only the Mosaic law but indeed much revelation from God, collected and preserved in the Hebrew Scriptures (the OT)—even this chosen people group who knows so much about God, transgresses God’s law at various points and with frequency.

Paul, himself a Jew, demonstrates that the Jews will not be saved from God’s wrath merely by past connection to God’s covenants with their people group. Paul declares to fellow Jews that outward circumcision does not help them be right with God while their transgression of God’s law demonstrates that their hearts are far from God. (Rom 2:28-29)

So Paul anticipates (at the beginning of ch. 3) Jews wondering then if there’s any benefit to being a Jew at all, of being the people group with whom God covenanted (in order to bring about his purposes on the earth). And he answers that the Jews have great privileges, especially in receiving God’s revelation of himself through the prophets and the law. What’s more, even though they have been unfaithful, God remains faithful to his covenant. But his faithfulness also means that he is faithful and consistent in judging their sin as sin.

Therefore, when Paul comes to verse 9 he uses a further rhetorical questioning to ask, in essence, “Are we [ultimately or inherently] any better off in terms of meriting salvation and escaping God’s judgment?” The answer is an emphatic, NO!

Romans 3:9–20 ESV

9 What then? Are we [Jews] any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” 13 “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” 14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are ruin and misery, 17 and the way of peace they have not known.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” 19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Who then has (inherent) advantage in judgment and salvation? No one. Why? Because all are under sin; no one is righteous. The law proves that we all stand guilty before God.

We all live under sin’s dominion. The law, rather than justifying us, reveals our guilt before God.

Paul is preparing the way for the proclamation of God’s righteousness provided in Christ Jesus (Ro 3:21-26). Paul is leading to the only way to have right standing with God… through trusting in the atoning death and resurrection life of Jesus, who is the Messiah.

But here first, he draws to a conclusion this argument he has been building upon to help us see our need for God’s righteousness in Jesus: “What then? Are we any better off?”

Does anyone (even the Jew) have an inherent saving advantage? Paul has been clear that the Jews do in fact have historical privileges and revelatory advantages that place them in closer proximity to the knowledge of God. But the fact remains, do yet even they have meritorious advantage in terms of God’s judgment of sin and salvation by his grace? The answer is another emphatic, “By no means!” “No, not at all!”

We can understand Paul’s point by analogy to our own situation: Does attending church make you a Christian, a true follower of Jesus Christ? Does growing up in Christian home automatically make you a sincere believer? No. Each individual must respond in repentance to God and faith in him by submission to the sacrifice and Lordship of Jesus Christ. We must be personally transferred by God into the kingdom (into familial relationship with him, adopted as heirs) and transformed by God into saints, who are in new standing with him and continue to grow into the image of Christ.

Paul explains why there is ‘no inherent advantage’ for anyone: “For we have already charged [made the formal accusation in the court of our standing before God] that all, both Jews and Greeks are under sin.” We are all, each and every person, under sin—subject to the rule of sin in our lives.

(Apart from God’s righteousness by faith) All people are under sin’s dominion. (verse 9)

Paul makes this declaration, and then to prove that sin reigns over us, he strings together quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures that testify to the comprehensiveness of our unrighteousness.

But first, what does it mean that “we are all under sin”? This would have been understood by Paul’s audience as an idiom for being subject to its rule. To be under sin means that the power of sin has dominion over us. It is not just that we sin, but we are “helpless pawns under sin’s power.” (Douglas Moo, NICNT Romans, 3:9)

And Paul shows no exceptions to this… unless one has experienced the gift of God’s righteousness that comes by faith, which is the climactic point to which Paul is coming: justification by faith and not by our works. It is a justification only made possible by the work of God himself through his Messiah, God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Apart from this, we all live under sin’s dominion. Apart from the gift of God’s righteousness by faith, we all remain under sin’s dominion.

So… Paul brings legal charges against all of us, accusing us all of being dominated by the rule of sin in our lives, and he seeks to bring finality to this conclusion with a string of Scriptural quotes that resoundingly confirm sin’s grip on us. This was a practice also used sometimes in homilies in Jewish synagogues, called “pearl stringing.” Although these are very brief texts that come from various places and different contexts in the Hebrew Scriptures, they share a common thread that holds them together in a single resounding point.

- Scripture testifies of humanity’s universal and comprehensive unrighteousness. (verses 10-18)

The first few verses, and the concluding verse, show the universality of our sinful condition (10-12, & 18). Evidence of sin’s comprehensiveness is stated from Scripture about our sinful speech (13&14), and about our sinful conduct that is harmful & violent (15-17).

Paul’s quotation from Psalm 14:1-3 (Ps. 53 begins with almost identical wording)… but this first quote reveals that sin’s dominion is a universal condition—it applies to every person. “There is none righteous; not even one.” …not one who is perfectly ‘in the right’ before God and lives righteously, doing good.

(It continues… please be following along in the quotation… v. 11 now) Because of sin, there is not one human who truly understands the depths of what it means to fear God. In sin there is not one who seeks after him with a pure, whole heart.

All people have turned away from the glory that God deserves. By the sin that pervades our lives, together (all alike) we become useless and worthless, in terms of truly worshipping and serving God.

So too, in sin there is no one who really does the good that he ought to do, because all is mingled with sin. True good must be pure good and wholly good, but even the good that we do is tainted with sin… such that the Scriptures can also say that, in Isaiah 64:6, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all of our righteous acts are as filthy rags. We all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.”

To prove the impact of sin’s dominion in our lives, Paul’s string of quotes now emphasizes sins of speech (in vv. 13&14) and sins of harmful and violent conduct (in vv. 15-17). Notice too that these sins of speech move progressively upward and outward through the organs of speech: throat, tongue, lips, mouth… also revealing that the sin arises from the corruption within.

The first two lines of v. 13 quotes from Ps 5:9. The throat as an open grave probably suggests the decay and corruption from where sinful speech emanates, like dead, decaying, smelly, filthy bodies rotting in a sepulcher, now opened to reveal what’s inside. The second emphasis on the tongue involves flattery and deceitful speech for personal gain.

The venom of asps quote comes from Ps 140:3, describing what hides behind lips of sinful speech: a deadly poison, intent to do harm. The final mouth quote is from Ps 10:7, which emphasizes that it isn’t as though this is a rare thing, but rather that sinners mouths are full of cursing God and others, and of bitterness toward God and others.

Lest we should gloss over it without considering ourselves, does this apply to how we are inclined to use our mouths because of sins pervasiveness in our lives? - We lie, we deceive: even by telling not quite the whole truth, to our own benefit. In anger we say hurtful, spiteful, mean things. We slander and gossip, tearing people down in their absence to build ourselves up. We share and laugh and joke about inappropriate topics that promote impurity. We find that even the most mature among us will still manipulate with our speech to try to get things to go our way. So yes, the pervasiveness of sinful speech applies to all of us.

What about the conduct of those who are dominated by sin? (15-17) For Scriptural evidence of humanity’s harmful and violent behavior, Paul quotes some lines from Is 59:7-8(a). In sin we run toward evil and are swift to shed blood; yes to kill another person. Lest we should think that is not the trajectory of our sin: After the fall of Adam and Eve, what is the very next sin explicitly recorded in Scripture? Cain murdered his brother Abel. Do we not think that moving toward sin will necessarily lead to greater sin?

So too, the sinful lives that we lead forge of path of destruction and misery in the wake of our sin. Sin is not harmless, it destroys us and everything and everyone that it touches. Instead of knowing a path of peace, sinful humanity sows conflict, disorder, and confusion.

And then the closing quote in the string is one that is both culminating and foundational. Quoting from Ps 36:1, “There is no fear of God before their eyes” allows Paul to again identify the root cause of all human sin: a failure to revere God and honor him and thank him and submit to him. In short, we do not worship and give glory to God, trusting him above all our own inclinations. Paul has said that that’s what is at the root of all of your sin… even now.

Now Paul’s point here is, do the Hebrew Scriptures leave room for the righteousness of some? No, sin is universal, encircling even the most devout Jew. And how much of our lives does sin touch? All of it. Our sin is comprehensive. Depravity touches every aspect of our lives; we cannot escape its influence… which is why Paul uses the image of sin ruling over us. We are under its dominion. We do not have mastery over sin. It has mastery over us. Apart from Christ, sin dominates us.

From this universality and comprehensiveness of sin Paul anticipates that Jews, as he himself once did, will look to possessing the law and being zealous for the law as a possible remedy to their unrighteous condition. After all, it was given to them by God.

So now Paul transitions from the formal charge, that all are under sin’s dominion, to the fact that the law, rather than providing an acquittal, it testifies to our sin (it highlights our sin) and thereby confirms our guilt before God.

The law does not justify but instead reveals everyone’s accountability to God for sin. (verses 19-20)

Paul’s logic is sound in v. 19a: whatever the law says it speaks to those other the law. The law applies to those over whom it has authority. Paul is almost certainly emphasizing the Mosaic law particularly, as he has been working hard to show Jews that they too are law-breakers who deserve judgment. But Paul has also demonstrated already that Gentiles are in no way free from accountability for their sin, since they ignore the evidence of God, including an innate sense of God’s moral law “written on their hearts,” so that their own conscience will bear witness against them on the day of judgment before Christ (Ro 2:14-16).

So, Paul can say that the result applies to everyone. Every mouth is stopped and the whole world is accountable to God. - The law God gave in his covenant with Israel isn’t some sort of protection against judgment. Instead, Paul can say here that every mouth is shut/stopped in terms of trying to use the law to our benefit.

The law is testimony against us, not for us! The law identifies and delineates the requirement and thereby the trespass. (The law enables us to see our sin with sufficient detail, that we can mark it out and recognize when the law is being kept and when it is broken.) So the law only further reveals God’s just judgment of sin, our accountability, our culpability.

Paul now shifts from the universality of human depravity (vv. 9-18) and universal culpability/accountability (v. 19) to the universality of human inability (v. 20). In fact, the comprehensiveness of our depravity directly correlates to our inability to be sufficiently righteous to merit salvation rather than judgment.

“by works of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight” - Even the law, which is good, serves to us as a mirror, not a shower. It is a test, not a cure. One does not try clean oneself with the mirror that shows where there is filth. One does not look to the test one is failing to be the remedy. - If it could be done (living up to God’s moral character by the law), the Jews (at least some) would have done it. But Paul demonstrates here universal inability to live up to the law. Standing on our own achievement is our enemy. It will be our downfall.

“since through the law comes knowledge of sin” - We tend to think of the law as rules that keep our wickedness and foolishness in check. Don’t drive at reckless speeds that could cause harm to others (or don’t drive under the influence of alcohol or pot, which impede your reaction and good sense); don’t take stuff that belongs to someone else. But the law is much deeper than that, especially the law of God. The law draws our attention even into the intent of the prescriptions. The intent isn’t just don’t be a jerk to others: fighting, harming, stealing, murdering them. The intent is to actually do good to others. That’s what Jesus tells the Pharisee’s they are completely missing in their view of the law. ‘You [scribes and pharisees] make sure you even give a tenth of your herbs and spices, like mint and cumin, but you neglect the weightier (more important!) matters, like showing mercy and judging justly.’

“through the law comes knowledge of sin” - The problem isn’t with the law; the problem is with us. It isn’t that the law is insufficient or not good; the law simply is. What is insufficient is our ability to live up to God’s good law, and especially the law’s intent.

To show people their need for God’s righteousness through Jesus, Paul has demonstrated sin’s impact as universal. Every person is under sin’s dominion. Depravity is universal. And every person is accountable to God for that sin. Culpability is universal. The law, rather than helping us prove our righteousness, only makes our sin more evident. It cannot justify. Our inability is universal.

Paul wants people to understand God’s gospel clearly, for Jew and Greek alike. We all need God’s gift of righteousness through Christ Jesus. Salvation always has been and always will be through faith alone, righteousness as a gift from God, and no achievement of our own.

To conclude this for today, I want you to imagine yourself standing before…

[Conclusion] The Court of the Righteous Judge

Not only do we live in the realm of the God of all righteousness, one day we will in fact stand before this righteous Judge to be either acquitted or condemned for how we responded to him and lived in this life. Paul says, we have all been, and continue to be, unrighteous. Therefore we will be judged as unrighteous. What if we should try to bring evidence of our efforts to keep God’s law? The law only makes our unrighteousness more pronounced in clearly definable terms of our transgression. We actually don’t want to try to use the law; the law is against us.

That’s what Paul says, and its what he himself had to learn as a devout and zealous Jew. When we stand before God, we all stand condemned as sinners who will not be able to deny our guilt. To have any hope, there must be an extreme measure of grace and mercy from God, and it must come in the form of someone else’s righteousness, and by the forgiveness of our sin debt.

Although God’s word doesn’t make you feel better about yourself, it offers you something so much better. We need God’s righteousness to be right with God. Having no true righteousness of our own, and being incapable of earning it, we need God to mercifully rescue us from our desperate situation. His perfect plan was always to save by his own righteousness, which he has now done, Paul will continue, through the God-Man Jesus Christ, through his perfect life, sacrificial death, and vindicating resurrection. That is why it is Jesus who saves, and why each person must respond in faith to God’s Messiah, the Lord Jesus.

Back to our court of heaven image: But what if you stand before the judgment seat with the Judge as your Advocate? What if you stand with Jesus by your side (or in front of you), saying, “This one has no righteousness of his own (or her own), but she is mine. I exchanged my righteous life for her life of sin (by my death and resurrection), and I have forgiven her debt. Her faith is not in herself but in my righteousness.”

That is the righteousness of God that comes apart from the law and only through the Lord Jesus Christ. And the insanely good truth is that it is offered as a gift of God’s grace, to be received by repentance and faith, and not by any effort of our own merit.

Do you now live… even now… knowing that you already stand in the righteousness of Christ, that you have peace with God? Do you depend on him daily for joy and strength, knowing that Christ is your life, and that in him you will stand at the judgment? If so, rather than declaring you guilty based on what you deserve, by his grace to you he will say, “Enter into the joy of your Master.”

Even once we are in Christ, we dare not tinker with sin as if it is harmless. No sin seeks to devour you, it seeks to dominate you. And even though you will not be separated with the goats, but are one of his sheep, we will stand before him and give an account of how we lived our lives as members of his church.

And the law itself, the moral law of God, continues to have benefit in our lives if we look to it as a good outworking of a righteous God, such that we should use it to measure even our hearts, that we may make it our desire to fear God and truly do good to others as God would have us.

Finally, do not forget that, just as you are unable to save yourself, so you are unable to live pleasing to God without ongoing reliance upon Christ and not yourself. You have a new master, the Lord Jesus Christ. We must abide in Him, depending on him, to walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh, and to be useful for him, bearing his fruit for his glory.

PRAY

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