Romans 3.20-The Final Verdict-Humanity is Never Justified Before God by the Works of the Law
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Wednesday November 7, 2007
Romans: Romans 3:20-The Final Verdict-Humanity is Never Justified by the Works of the Law
Lesson # 93
Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 3:19.
This evening we will note Romans 3:20 and complete our study of the Supreme Court of Heaven’s verdict that the entire human race is guilty before a holy God based upon the evidence presented against them by the Old Testament Scriptures.
In Romans 3:20, Paul teaches that no one in the human race is ever justified before God by performing the works of the Law.
Romans 3:19-20, “Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.”
Corrected translation of Romans 3:19-20: “Now, we know for certain that whatever the Law says, it speaks for the benefit of those under the jurisdiction of the Law in order that each and every mouth may be silenced and in addition all the unsaved inhabitants of the cosmic system may be demonstrated as guilty in the judgment of God. Because each and every member of sinful humanity will never be justified in His judgment by means of actions produced by obedience to the Law for through the Law there does come about an awareness of the sin nature.”
“Because” is the conjunction dioti (diovti) (dee-ot-ee), which functions as a marker of cause introducing a statement that explains the “reason why” the entire human race is guilty in the judgment of a holy God.
“Works” is the noun ergon (e&rgon) (er-gon), which is used of unregenerate humanity in a negative sense and in the plural form with reference to “actions” that are produced by obedience to the Old Testament Scriptures, which as we will note is designated by the term nomos, “Law.”
In Romans 3:20, the noun ergon, “actions” functions as a genitive of means indicating the means by which the verbal action explicit in the verb dikaioo, “will be justified” is accomplished and the meaning of this verb is emphatically negated by the negative adverb ou, “not.”
As a genitive of means, ergon indicates that the entire human race is guilty in the judgment of God because no one is ever justified before God “by means of” actions produced by obedience to the Law since the presence of the sin nature renders man powerless to be perfectly obedient, which the Law requires.
James 2:10, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.”
“Law” is the noun nomos (novmo$) (nom-os), which does not refer simply to the Mosaic Law, i.e. the Pentateuch but rather the entire Old Testament Scriptures including the Pentateuch.
This was indicated in that in Romans 3:10-18, Paul quotes from “the Writings” and “the Prophets” and not the Mosaic Law or Pentateuch in order to illustrate that both Jew and Gentile are under the power of the old Adamic sin nature.
The noun nomos, “Law” contains a figure of speech called “metonymy” where the Law is put for obedience to the Law and functions as a “genitive of production” meaning that obedience to the Old Testament Scriptures “produced” these actions.
The entire human race is guilty in the judgment of God because no one is justified before God “by means of” actions produced by obedience to the Law since the entire human race is under the power and control of the old Adamic sin nature.
Romans 3:9, “What shall we conclude then? Are we (Christians) as an eternal spiritual truth, superior? By all means, absolutely not! Since, we have already previously indicted both Jew and Greek, with the result that each and every one is under the power of the sin nature.”
Therefore, the human race does not have the capacity to obey the Word of God perfectly, which a holy God requires in order to be accepted into a relationship and fellowship with Him.
In Romans 8:3, Paul explains that God sent His Son to fulfill the requirement of the Law because obedience to the Law could not save humanity because the human race does not have the capacity to be perfectly obedient to the Law.
Romans 3:20, “Because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.”
The next word in the Greek text of Romans 3:20 is the emphatic negative adverb ou (ou)) (oo), which is emphatically negating the meaning of the verb dikaioo (dikaiovw) (dik-ah-yo-o), “will be justified.”
In Romans 3:20, the verb dikaioo refers to God declaring a person as righteous as He is as a result of God imputing or crediting to that person His Son’s righteousness, the moment they exercised faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.
The word refers to the doctrine of “justification,” which by way of definition is a judicial act of God whereby He declares a person to be righteous as a result of crediting or imputing to that person His righteousness the moment they exercised faith in His Son Jesus Christ.
Consequently, God accepts that person and enters that person into a relationship with Himself since they now possess His righteousness.
The mechanics of justification are as follows: (1) God condemns the sinner, which qualifies them to receive His grace. (2) The sinner believes in Jesus Christ as His Savior. (3) God imputes or credits Christ’s righteousness to the believer. (4) God declares that person as righteous as a result of acknowledging His Son’s righteousness in that person.
Justification is God declaring a person to be righteous as a result of acknowledging or recognizing His righteousness in that person, and which righteousness He imputed to that person as a result of their faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.
Justification causes no one to be righteous but rather is the recognition and declaration by God that one is righteous as He is and is based upon God’s grace.
Titus 3:5-7, “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
The voluntary substitutionary spiritual death of the impeccable humanity of Christ in hypostatic union on the Cross is the basis for justification since His unique spiritual death propitiated or satisfied the demands of God’s holiness, which required that sin be judged.
This unique spiritual death also redeemed mankind out of the slave market of sin, fulfilled the righteous requirements of the Law and reconciled the human race to God.
Redemption and deliverance from the Law and reconciliation are appropriated through faith alone in Christ alone.
The imputation of divine righteousness at the moment of faith in Christ and the believer’s resultant justification was made possible because the Lord Jesus Christ’s spiritual death on the Cross dealt with the issue of the sins of the world and fulfilled God’s righteous requirements for man.
The perfection of Christ’s Person and Work are the foundation of the imputation of divine righteousness and resultant justification.
The Scriptures teach that the only way that a member of the human race can ever be declared righteous by God is through receiving the gift of divine righteousness by grace through faith alone in Christ alone (Romans 3:21-26; 5:1-21).
Galatians 2:16, “nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified.”
The emphatic negative adverb ou emphatically negates the idea that any member of the human race under the power of the sin nature could ever be justified in the judgment of God since the presence of the sin nature renders the human race powerless to obey perfectly the Scriptures, which the Word of God requires.
Romans 3:20, “Because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.”
“Flesh” is the noun sarx (savrc) (sarx), which refers to the entire human race under the power of the old Adamic sin nature.
Now, in the Greek text of Romans 3:20, the nominative feminine singular form of the adjective pas (pa$) is modifying the noun sarx, “sinful humanity.”
However, the adjective pas is not translated by the New American Standard and many other English translations since they don’t interpret the negative particle ou as negating the meaning of the verb dikaioo but rather negating the noun sarx.
The adjective pas is used in a distributive sense for “each and every member of” sinful humanity.
The word emphasizes that there are no exceptions in that no one in the human race can ever be justified before God by actions produced by obedience to the Law since the Law requires perfect obedience, which the human race has no capacity to do because they are under the power of the sin nature.
“In His sight” refers to the fact that no human being will be justified by conduct produced by obedience to the Law “in the judgment” of the Lord Jesus Christ at the Great White Throne Judgment since their obedience does not measure up to His perfect obedience.
Romans 3:20, “Because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.”
“For” is the “causal” use of the conjunction gar (gavr), which presents the “reason why” no human being will ever be justified in God’s judgment by means of actions produced by obedience to the Law.
The word introduces a purpose of the Law, i.e. the Old Testament Scriptures.
“Through the Law” refers to the fact that the Law, i.e. the Old Testament Scriptures are the means or the instrumentality by which unregenerate man becomes conscious or aware of sin.
“Knowledge” is the noun epignosis (e)pivgnwsi$), which is used in relation to the unbeliever and means, “awareness, consciousness” of sin.
“Sin” is the noun hamartia (a(martiva) (ham-ar-tee-ah), which refers to the old Adamic sin nature.
Therefore, the Old Testament Scriptures give a person an awareness that they possess an old Adamic sin nature and are under its power.
The old sin nature produces mental, verbal and overt acts of sin through the function of human volition.
The fact that the Law makes man aware of sin in his life is why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:6 that the “letter kills.”
2 Corinthians 3:5-6, “Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
The fact that the Law makes man aware of sin in his life is why he says in 1 Corinthians 15:56 that “the power of sin is the Law.”
1 Corinthians 15:56, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.”
In Romans 7:1-13, the apostle Paul develops this concept in greater detail that one of the purposes of the Law was to make man aware of or conscious of the sin nature in his life.
Romans 7:1-13, “Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man. Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter. What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COVET.’ But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead. I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.”