Entirely Guilty but not Hopeless

Introduction

This section of Scripture is quite condemning. It reveals how wicked we are. It is devastating to our thoughts of we are good enough. It devastates our thoughts that we are good with God because we do more good than bad. It reminds me of a story of a street preacher and a homeless man.

There was this street preacher in a big city up north. He found the busiest corner in the city and began preaching. He stood and preached everyday all day long. Across the way was a homeless man who had been watching him daily. He finally decided to approach the preacher. He walked up to him and the preacher asked him what he could do for him. He said to the preacher “give me your Bible.” The preacher was taken back a bit. He said why do you want my Bible? The homeless man said because the pages are thin and would make perfect rolling papers for my cigarettes. The preacher thought “no way, I don’t want to give him my Bible for that.” But then he had an idea. If you promise to read each page before you smoke it, you can have it. The man agreed and they separated. A year later the preacher was back and a well dressed man approached him. The well dressed man asked, “you don’t remember me do you?” “No” said the preacher. The man said “I was the homeless man you gave your Bible last year.” “What happened?” asked the preacher. The man said, “I smoked Matthew, I smoked Mark, I smoked Luke, but John smoked me.”

Although, this is not the gospel of John, I believe that this section of Scripture will smoke all of us. It is a heavy and convicting section. It reveals that none of us are good. We are all wicked. We are all out for our own well-being. We care not who we destroy to get what we want. This is our guilty charge. We may do some good and claim we did it for God, but did we? Isaiah 64:6 states that, “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.”

He does not say they are not righteous deeds. No, they are righteous deeds. They are good works. This is why atheists can do good and be moral people without believing in God. We can do “righteous deeds” “good deeds” but they are like a polluted worthless garment before God. If they are not done under the righteous covering of Christ’s blood, they are worthless and demeaning to God. They are because we do them to gain a good standing before God. This is not possible. As will be shown in the following section of Scripture.

The Charge

Paul makes it clear that no one is free of the charge. Everyone, regardless of their ethnicity, is under the charge of sin. The Jews had an advantage by being entrusted with the oracles of God. It is these same oracles that Paul uses to demonstrate that they are just as guilty as everyone else. Those oracles and the Law of God they describe are not, and cannot, and were not how one was saved ever. No, they only demonstrated and taught that no one can save themselves because of their wickedness.

Paul uses selective verses of the Old Testament to demonstrate we are all unrighteous before a perfect and holy God. For your reference the sections of Scripture utilized through this condemnation are not complete quotations. Paul uses the sections in correct context but he weaves them together to make his point. This is called a catena: a closely linked series. Here it is of biblical quotations all dealing with the same subject given one after another.

In this section Paul draws from the Psalms, Proverbs, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and has allusions to Ecclesiastes. From this catena of Scripture, we see the agreed voice of the Old Testament about the sinfulness of the world.

This is a clear demonstration that the Jews should have known that they could never attain righteousness on their own. The whole of the Old Testament demonstrates that they were not able too. It clearly teaches that all mankind is wicked and unable to save themselves. There is no room for any other conclusion.

But, we as people make room. Don’t we? We make excuses and loopholes. We live for loopholes, don’t we? Loopholes in taxes, contracts, loans, anywhere we can find one. We love them, and when there is not one, we simply devise one of our own liking. Don’t we? This is what has been done by humanity.

We are not that bad.

We are okay with God.

We do good things.

We give to the needy.

We go to church.

We read our Bible daily.

We do, do, do, do, do, do and do some more.

Therefore, we are good and worthy of God and His glory.

Wrong!!!!

Paul just devastated these arguments.

These loopholes.

We are not Good at all.

We are wicked and unrighteous.

So much so that our righteous deeds are as a polluted, filthy, worthless garment.

Let us examine what this section says about us and what all it condemns of us.

10-18 teaches our depravity as humans with three themes.

FIRST: THE CHARACTER OF HUMANS.

We see our Character in verses 10-12.

Here we see five negative statements that leaves no hope of righteousness in us that can be fanned into a flame.

i. None is righteous, no not one.

Ecclesiastes 7:20 says that there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

We are not righteous of our own. We are “corrupt” and do “abominable iniquity” (Psalm 14:1; 53:1).

Simply put, we in our own power cannot be righteous.

ii. Because of our not being righteous we do not understand.

We are spiritually deficient and left without understanding. We don’t understand that we cannot do it ourselves. We are further deficient in the knowledge of what is right or wrong. We will do something and call it right and righteous when it is wrong and evil and not good.

iii. As a further result of our not understanding no one will seek God.

No man will seek out God of his or her own accord.

We may have a religious inclination, but it will not be of the one true God.

Look at all the pagan religions in the OT. Look how Israel fell in with them foot and step at the first opportunity. We do not want there to be a God actually. A God of our making, yes. The true God, No. Because of this...

iv. We have all turned aside and become worthless.

We pursue empty and futile pursuits. We try and find worth in the world.

We accomplish nothing worthwhile because our pursuits are self-directed efforts.

They are apart from God and are profitless. We are worthless in the grand scheme of things because we pursue our own desires instead of God’s. And because of this...

v. no one does good, not even one.

The good we do is not good because it is apart from God and ultimately done for our own good.

We are individually and collectively unprofitable producing nothing worthwhile, because we are tainted utterly and completely by sin.

That is our Character. Not a good picture. Not what we may think of ourselves.

SECOND: OUR CONDUCT

We see our conduct in verses 13-17.

Our throats, tongues, and mouths will betray our inner condition of our heart. As Jesus said in (Mark 7:18-21; Matthew 15:1-20) that it is not what goes in a man that defiles him but what comes out. James says that our tongue is not able to be tamed but is a restless evil, full of deadly poison (James 3:5-8).

Simply stated, we speak evil.

We lie.

We spew poison and deception.

We speak hate and condemnation before we would ever praise. That is unless our praise will get us something. That is back to deception.

Our speech is as offensive as an open grave smells. The stench of death is rancid. It is highly offensive to our nostrils. This is our speech. We seek our well being and care not who we hurt. We speak death, not life when we speak without God.

Our actions are also against God.

Our heart is our character, our throat, tongues, lips, and feet quickly carry out what the heart desires.

We are swift to attack and cut down others. Our natural instinct is to get offensive and attack anyone against us.

We think this is appropriate and right.

We do not bat an eye before assaulting another with insults and vile hurtful things.

We quickly do this without a thought.

We will quickly mislead someone down a path that is wrong.

I have. I had a friend that did not drink at all when we were younger. He was clean and sober. I drank then, a lot too. I eventually convinced him to drink just like the rest of us. I felt it was correct. It was not. I led him down a ruinous and miserable path.

That is what we do. We mislead people intentionally because it is what we want.

We are not peaceful people.

We do not know the way of peace.

We may say we want peace, but only if it benefits us.

Peace will never come to us without God.

We may strive for it constantly, but it will elude us constantly.

Bloodshed is the way of man.

We are a violent and cruel people.

We are the reason for evil in the world.

What happens in places like WWII Germany was humanity being humanity. The same can be said about Rwanda and Russia under Stalin. Mankind desires evil and is evil, we are not peaceful.

Finally we come to why we are this way.

THIRD: THE CAUSE

We see the cause of our character and conduct in verse 18.

There is no fear of God before us.

The bottom line is that we refuse to determine our course with reference to the wishes of our creator. We singlemindedly pursue our own agendas rather than God’s. Our paths are not God’s paths.

Our words and actions are rooted in the fact that we have no fear of God.

This final remark is the closing out of the argument that Paul began back in 1:18. Which is, “ For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18).

This conclusion is like the closing argument of an attorney.

He has stated in the proceeding chapters and verses that everyone is full of sin.

Those who exchange the glory given for what they want. Those who do and celebrate the wickedness of others. Those who think they are moral and right before God. Jew and Gentile alike are all exposed.

Which leads to another point...

None can avoid this Condemnation

This is Jew and Gentile alike.

Everyone is guilty before God.

The law that the Jew had only served to show them this, not save.

Whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law.

All are under the law.

The Jew had the law.

The Gentile had a law of their own that was written upon their hearts (Romans 2:14).

Every mouth will be stopped.

No one will be able to say, I did not know.

God had planted something in everyone to let them know something is wrong.

Yet, it did not stop them. They still did what they wanted.

They are without excuse. God has made ways for people to know He exists.

Nature, the implanted law in your heart, and His written Law that the Jews had.

No one will be able to say they did not know.

No can be justified by the law because the law gives knowledge of sin.

Since no one seeks God, or does good, or understands, God gave them a law that demonstrates that they needed redemption.

It does not save.

It only condemns.

Not because it is unholy, but because it is holy.

The perfect holy law of the most high and perfectly holy God.

It is to remove our blinders, not save us.

It is to reveal our wretchedness.

Much like a child’s honest remark did for a certain emperor.

Swindlers approached an emperor offering to weave for him a rare and costly garment that would have the marvelous capacity of making known to him the fools and knaves in his realm. Because of the magical quality of the threads, the garment would be invisible to all but the wise and pure in heart. Delighted, the emperor commissioned the weaving of the royal robes at great cost, only to find, to his dismay, that he obviously was a fool and knave, for he saw nothing on the looms. On the day set for the grand parade, the clever swindlers collected their royal fee, dressed the emperor in his potbellied nakedness, and skipped out of town as the parade began. The whole populace joined the courtiers in praising the king’s garments, none daring to admit that they saw nothing but the emperor’s nudity, lest they be branded as self-admitted fools and knaves. The entire parade of folly collapsed, however, as the shame of sovereign and people was exposed by a child’s honest remark, “The emperor has no clothes!”

This is exactly what the Law does. It exposes us and makes us see that we are really naked. We thought we were covered and good. Dressed as royalty, but ultimately we are naked and exposed.

You may be thinking now.

I am guilty.

I cannot defend myself.

What can I do?

I am entirely guilty and naked before the Holy God.

Is there any hope?

What can I do?

We may also ask as Job did, “how can a man be in the right before God?” (Job 9:2).

Or we may say, with Job, “If only there were someone to mediate between us, someone to bring us together” (Job 9:33 NIV).

Oh but there is. It is here that we are not left without hope.

Hope Through Faith in Christ

Although we are entirely guilty, we have hope.

vv. 21-23

God has not just told us we are condemned without a way out.

This righteousness has been revealed apart from the law.

The same Old Testament that has shown us we are condemned and utterly unrighteous, also revealed this righteousness of God.

This righteousness of God is found through faith in Christ.

You have to believe in Christ to receive this righteousness.

It is not just given out to everybody.

No, you have to believe in Christ and know he has completed the work needed for you to be righteous.

This is to be done because everyone is guilty.

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

No one can justify themselves.

It takes believing upon Christ.

This righteousness of God is a free gift to those who believe.

It makes us justified because we were bought at a price by a satisfying sacrifice.

Let us look closely at a few words in this text.

vv. 24-25a

JUSTIFIED: means made righteous. Not necessarily ethically good or virtuous, but that we are in right standing before God, cleared of crimes committed, acquitted completely in God’s court.

Since it is through God’s grace what is grace?

GRACE: unmerited and free favor of God when we deserve punishment instead. This is God giving us freedom but not only that but taking the punishment for us as well. It is completely free to us but it cost God tremendously. The costliest free gift you will ever see.

REDEMPTION: means basically to buy slaves in the market place to set them free. As well as drawn from the OT concept of the redemption of Israel from slavery.

PROPITIATION: This is the appeasement of our sins to God. The satisfying of God’s holy law, the meeting of its just demands, so that God can freely forgive those who come to Christ.

To receive the amazing gift of God’s grace to be redeemed, made justified, there was a satisfaction that had to be met.

This was not possible by the law.

It had to be a perfect and holy person that maintained and fulfilled the law.

This was Jesus. He made the sacrifice for us.

vv. 25b-26

This makes God righteous.

In the OT people were saved by faith just as we are.

God overlooked the non redeemed propitiated for sins of the OT saints.

When Christ came and died for all sins, these sins were redeemed and propitiated for.

Jesus’ propitiatory death first shows that God is really morally righteous. God showed restraint (forbearance; Gk. anochē, Rom. 2:4) in not visiting wrath upon our sins in the past ages before Christ came when “He passed over” (v. 25 NASB) our sins. Yet it was not due to moral indifference toward sin that He restrained Himself. Though the “sins committed beforehand” may be understood as sins in a person’s life before one became a Christian,12 most understand Paul to refer to the sins committed in former ages before the governmental act of God occurred in Jesus’ death. In days past God did not exercise His full wrath on human beings for their sins; He was patient and merciful with them (Acts 14:16; 17:30). But in Jesus’ death God manifested the truth that He was yet not any less wrathful against sin. The supreme penalty for our sins was borne by Jesus. This allows God to remain God—morally perfect—and yet forgive and receive sinners.

Jesus has borne all our guilt and shame.

The perfect and holy Son of God has taken all our sins on Him.

He did this so we can all have salvation.

So we can all be found righteous before God. Seen as no criminal record as holy.

Jesus did this for you and me. He did it for everyone. All one has to do is believe Jesus did it all and through that you have eternal life.

Jesus has accomplished everything. All we must do is in faith believe it and you will be cleansed and no longer without God.

vv. 27-31

This removes all boasting.

We cannot boast and brag about something we did not do.

Jesus has purchased salvation for all of us.

We do nothing but believe.

We do not work.

Works cannot do nothing for you but condemn you.

As previously shown, we only do works for our own selves.

We are not and cannot be perfect as we are to be to be in God’s presence.

Habakkuk 1:13 states “Your eyes are too pure to look upon evil, and you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.”

Jesus said in Matthew 5:48 “You must therefore be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect.”

None of us are perfect.

Only Jesus was and is and it is through Him alone that we find salvation.

That we can be redeemed, and found righteous before a perfect and holy God.

vv. 29-31

Paul emphasizes that the God he speaks of is the one God. The only God.

The Israelites would have known that God is one (Deuteronomy 6:4).

Since God is one, then this Jesus has made possible the redemption of all people before this one true God.

Everyone Jew and Gentile alike will be justified by faith alone.

It is nothing else but faith in Christ that saves.

Faith in the propitiation made by Christ.

v. 31

This does not overthrow the law at all.

The law is holy and righteous.

It has to be met before anyone can be seen as righteous.

We cannot do this.

But, Christ did.

He fulfilled the law and through faith believing in Him the law is upheld. It is perfectly kept through Jesus Christ and our faith in Him makes us uphold the law. We do not uphold it but our perfect redeemer does for us.

Conclusion

The charge is up. The jury has returned. The verdict is guilty. We are all condemned. We are all sentenced to die and suffer in torment. There is nothing we can do. We plead and say that we did good. We say we were nice people. We say we did good deeds. That being loving and nice was all that was required.

How are we guilty?

How? We were good.

Still the verdict is guilty.

Sentence death and torment.

But wait....

Jesus has entered and said he takes all punishment and offers His righteousness for all who will believe through faith in Him.

What do you do?

That is the question of your lifetime.

WHAT WILL YOU DO?

I pray that this message has shown you your utter deficiency in saving yourself.

I pray that you see that we cannot do anything to save ourselves.

We are totally insufficient and totally wicked.

We need Jesus.

We must have Jesus.

There is no other hope.

It is Jesus and Jesus alone.

He has accomplished everything for us.

We do nothing but believe through faith that what He has done for us has satisfied The One True Holy Perfect God.

WHAT WILL YOU DO?

BELIEVE

OR STAY TRYING TO DO IT YOURSELF?