The Weight of Sin

Romans 3:9–20 ESV

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, as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; 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.” 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. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Scripture: Romans 3:9-20

Sermon Title: The Weight of Sin

           As you came in this afternoon, back by the Catechism books, there was a sheet with smaller print that has a lot of Bible verses on it. I am sorry it is so small, but it is the only way it would fit on a single page. I put this sheet together as I was preparing earlier in the week because I think it is helpful to have those passages that are quoted side-by-side with what we are reading so that we can know these sayings are being drawn from and why.  If you have that sheet, you can see that most of the quotations are from the psalms, but we have a couple from other Old Testaments books that Paul was drawing from.  Feel free to use this as we go through this afternoon and also maybe in your personal devotions this week. 

Brothers and sisters in Christ, to live and die in the joy of the comfort in belonging to Christ, we must know, first, how great our sin and misery are—even to the point of recognizing our natural tendency is to hate God and our neighbor. Where the catechism begins to tell believers and all of humanity of their condition is not the place where most of us want to start. If it is up to us, we would most likely rather jump from the comfort that we belong to Christ right to the second section—how we are set free from all our sins and misery. We want Jesus to come into the picture and solve all our problems. We do not want to dwell on the guilt of our past or our present. It is not all that comforting to address our sin, our depravity, our unrighteousness—and the authors of the Catechism knew that. Zacharias Ursinus, in his commentary on the Catechism, wrote that this section likely alarms us, but it is necessary.

I have heard it said that if we want to experience the grace of God, which is the medicine for believers, then we must first deal with the bitter taste of taking the medicine—the bitter taste in our case is recognizing our separation from our God. To talk about and admit our sin is not something that only the Catechism encourages, but God’s Word reveals throughout its pages what sin is and how it is dealt with. Sin is anything that gets in the way of our relationship with God, anything that gets in the way of our seeking after him. Sin displeases God and he is the just judge bearing punishment for sin. Sin also creates misery in our lives. So often we know that we ought to change—yet we do not. That is the sinful nature pulling us back—it not only wants us to do its deeds, but the sinful nature wants to pull us down to death. That is why in places like Romans 8 and Colossians 3, Paul says, “Put to death the misdeeds, put to death whatever belongs to the earthly nature.” The devil puts a nice looking mask on so many sins; we only realize how bitter it is to our lives and our relationship with God and others after we have been taken by it.      

Our passage from Romans 3 shows us that our sin is no small thing; we encounter just how far off we really are from God. “There is no one righteous,…no one who understands God, no one who seeks God—[people are not just standing still and not moving towards him, but] all have turned away [and go in the opposite direction.] No one does good, not even one. Paul draws heavily here in verses 10 through 12 from Psalms 14 and 53 which are almost word for word the same. In those psalms, David mainly was focusing on people who say, “There is no God,” the sons of men, and evildoers. But Paul is putting forth that the way God looks at what humans are—and he says, these things are naturally true of everyone.  Jew or Gentile, all need to know what it means that we are under sin.

This is our human condition, because of the fall back in the Garden of Eden: we cannot understand God or seek after him on our own. Not only are we born into the world and then come to sin by falling to temptation or by imitating others who are sinning, but we are born with original sin. Our identities are stained by unrighteousness, even before we have the chance to do anything in our lives. The first sin was man and woman choosing to go their own path, and because they did so once, we will always tend towards doing and finding things our own way. 

Paul puts before us that we need to grasp that—we need to look at our lives and to recognize the trouble that we are in. Because there is a God and he is perfect and holy, none of us have any hope of getting back to what he intended, on our own. Sin also has such a hold on humanity that every desire is to not go back to what God offered, but to seek out what we in our sinfulness would want. If it is up to us, we will seek out that which has no value, and so we will become worthless. 

From the condition, Paul offers concrete examples of sin being lived out. The first way is what comes out of our mouths. “[The throats of all people] are open graves, their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. [They have mouths] full of cursing and bitterness.” Here we find the apostle quoting from Psalms 5, 10 and 140. The ESV Study Bible points out that it is certainly intentional that Paul lines these up to describe the pollution as it works its way from the inside of the body to the outside of the mouth. Again while David may have only intended these to be in regards to his enemies, God says this is the case for all people. 

Think for a moment about the images; they are not pleasant ones. An open grave—that is to say that what comes out of people, what is intended to be said to God and to others in our sinful nature are only things that are rotting, that are dead. There is no true hope and no true nurturing or life-giving in what is produced by all who are stuck in sin. The tongue holds deceit, or lies, the lips have poison. What comes out of the mouth is meant to harm, and it does not take much to hurt or kill. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness—words that do not bless, tones that lack grace, messages without love. 

We reminded in James 3 that believers are to tame their tongues. When we think about the messages and the words that come out of our mouths, we recognize that all of us who can speak intelligently have the ability to process before we speak. Whether we are believers or not, we have the ability to check ourselves, to form a message, to think through what we are saying—but here we see that the sinful nature will be geared towards speaking lies and hate.

The second way we see the sinful condition lived out is where our feet and actions take us.  “[Everyone’s] feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery [are the signs that they have been there], and [they do not know peace].” Paul draws here not from psalm from a declaration of God against his people in Isaiah 59; these are words that the Lord used to describe how the Israelites, his chosen people lived in rebellion. They want to kill, they want to devastate; they would rather have war and ruin than any peace. 

Here we see that the heart of God for his creation is for all things to live in harmony. Yet the sinful nature has led humanity to live against one another. We see it in the first children of Adam and Eve, when Cain kills his brother Abel out of envy for the favor that he received from God. We see the distrust of one group against another in the Egyptians taking Jacob’s descendants into slavery. It is in this thirst for blood, to determine the lifespan of other human beings that has led dictators like Hitler to seek and order the killing of millions of people. These might seem like extremes, but we are told that all will naturally seek after these things due to sin.

“There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Verse 18 is strong summary of the condition of man and the way of living out the sinful nature. There is no fear, no respect, no honor, no desire or pleasure found in serving the one who has created all things. In Psalm 36, where that line is from, David speaks regarding the sinfulness of the wicked—literally he lays out that wicked man’s whole life is focused on evil and his only desire is to flatter himself. The fear that should be directed towards God is completely wrapped up in seeking out whatever one wants. Again, Paul uses this is as the general statement of all people. 

But this is not simply Paul’s ideas about sin; this is God’s Word, God’s truth. This is the weight of sin—the heaviness of the burden existing in the life of every person who has ever lived. It is an ugly picture that is painted for us. We know there are a few really bad apples on earth—we are fine with saying this describes horrible dictators, those who have done despicable things to women and children, and those who take pleasure in torturing others.  But God says this is the condition and direction of living for all people, including us, if we are on our own. 

The closing verses bring us back to the third question and answer of the Catechism—how can we know how bad things really are; how do we know our sin and misery? The answer that we find in our text is that the law holds all the world accountable to God, and it makes us conscious of sin. What that means is that God has a way that he intends for his creation to live in relation to him and to one another—and he describes that way for us in his law. What is his law? That we would love him with every bit of who we are all the time and in all that we do, and that we would also love our neighbor in the same way that we love ourselves—that we would not be selfish or only self-seeking. 

Once we recognize the law for what it is and for what God intends by it, we are forced to realize just how far short we come. Our shortcoming is not just meant to cause us distress, but in not wholly loving God and loving neighbor, we come to see we have hated them. Our natural tendency, what we by nature, on our own will do is hate God and others. That is a hard pill to swallow. Have we really hated God? By not loving God fully and by not loving our neighbor as ourselves indeed we have shown that we would rather serve ourselves or rather serve some created thing than God. But we also have hatred towards God that he would require something of us who want total freedom.

Some of you saw a quote that I posted on Facebook earlier this week as I was studying. It is out of a book called “Guilt, Grace, and Gratitude,” a commentary compiled back in the 1960s, and a Reformed theologian, Jerome De Jong, had this to say about the place of the law.

“Can man keep the law of God perfectly? Can he love God with heart and soul and mind and his neighbor as himself? Many answer the question by saying, ‘I am trying. I am doing the best that I can. Surely God does not expect more than an honest effort.’ But he does! God requires that we keep his law perfectly. He asks that every day and every hour we love him without reserve and our neighbors as ourselves. The result is that we find among men a hatred of God. The creature hates the Creator”

“It is from the law of God that we know the true source of our misery, but from the law we learn an even more valuable lesson—that we cannot of ourselves keep the law. The law at once marks out the terrible extent of our bondage, but in teaching us to look not to ourselves, but to another for the way out, the law is the necessary beginning on the road to the cross.”

The law is the necessary beginning on the road to the cross. This covenant that God made with an already sinful people, requiring them to fully follow it even though he knew they would not gives the beginning for the path to a Savior. Brothers and sisters, we cannot and must not forget how massive an assault to God the sin of humanity is. This is the nature that all of us come out of—it is only by the grace of God through the living out of the law perfectly in Jesus and his sacrifice that we can receive true hope. As we continue through the Catechism we will continue to learn about man’s guilt and sin, but we do so always knowing that in Christ there is freedom from sin and misery, and that freedom gives us the opportunity to live in thanks to God for what he has accomplished for all who receive his grace. Amen.