Please turn in your Bibles this evening to Romans chapter 3 as we continue our study through the Word of God.  As we have seen in our previous studies, Paul is acting as a prosecuting attorney condemning the whole world before God because of their sin. In Romans 1:18-32 Paul shows how the unrighteous heathen are condemned by creation. Then, in Romans 2:1-16 he shows how the self-righteous moralist is condemned by their own conscious. And lastly, in Romans 2:17-29 Paul shows how the super-religious person is condemned by the Law of God.

            Now, as we will see in Romans 3:1-20 that Paul is going to condemn all humanity, that no one can stand before God in their own righteousness no matter how good they may be or seem to be!  All are guilty before God but Paul is not going to leave us in that condition with no way out.  From Romans 3:21 through Romans 5:21 Paul is going to speak of justification and how the righteousness of God is revealed from heaven apart from the works of the Law.  With that in mind, let’s begin reading in Romans chapter 3 starting in verse 1 and see what the Lord has for us this evening.

VERSES 1-2

            Think of this section like this, Paul is asking a question that some might have regarding what he has said and then he will answer that question. We have seen in chapter 2 that Paul speaks of the Law and circumcision as having no advantage for the Jew in the sense that it won’t save them. Thus, what is the point of being a Jew?

            Paul says that there is an advantage of being a Jew for the oracles; the Words of God “were” entrusted to them.  Notice that it is in the past tense, but it still was a privilege, an honor to have the Words of God entrusted to them and yet they did not apply those things to their life and thus, they were accountable to God!

            We as Christians have been entrusted with so much by God and it is an advantage if we apply these things to our lives, if we can live what we believe, otherwise it is just a bunch of head knowledge that won’t save you or help you in your walk with God.

VERSES 3-4

            Just because some did not believe doesn’t make God unfaithful, that His Words will not come to pass!  To this question of the unbelief of man making God unfaithful, Paul says “Certainly not!”  And in the Greek it is the strongest negative Greek expression and it carries the idea of it being impossible!  God can never be unfaithful to His promises, it is not in His nature, it is not in His character.  It is as Psalm 119:89-90 tells us, “Forever, O LORD, Your word is settled in heaven.   Your faithfulness endures to all generations; You established the earth, and it abides.”

            Here in Romans Paul is quoting out of Psalm 51:4 where David came face-to-face with his sin with Bathsheba praying for God’s forgiveness. The idea is, God is faithful, He will forgive and when He judges, He is fair, He is righteous. Now as people look at this world, as they see all the devastation and tragedy that takes place, they like to blame God. We tend to call storms or other tragedies “Acts of God” but we need to understand that before the flood there were no storms, no rain. But ever since sin occurred in the Garden of Eden, the wickedness of man continued to grow and grow until we are told in Genesis 6:5-8, “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.  So the LORD said, ‘I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’  But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.”

            Thus, God spared Noah and his family to re-populate the earth, destroying sinful man but the nature of sin was sill in Noah and his descendants. Thus, after the flood, in fact after the sin of Adam, the death and decay process began and continues on until Christ comes and redeems this world or as Paul said in Romans 8:22-23, “For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.  Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.”  Christ paid in full the penalty of our sins but we still see the effects of sin in this world and we are still in these bodies of flesh, but, as I have said, Jesus will return and restore this earth to the way it was when He created it in the first place!  It is as we are told in Isaiah 11:6-9, “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, The leopard shall lie down with the young goat, The calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little child shall lead them.  The cow and the bear shall graze; Their young ones shall lie down together; And the lion shall eat straw like the ox.  The nursing child shall play by the cobra's hole, And the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper's den.  They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD As the waters cover the sea.”

VERSE 5

            The next question is interesting for some believe that their evil ways demonstrate the righteousness of God, it brought glory to Him and thus, how could God judge them!  I don’t have to tell you that is just plain foolish, but let me give you an example and I think you will see what I mean.

            “Can you hear Judas make his case?  ‘Lord, I know that I betrayed Jesus, but You used it for good.  In fact, if I hadn’t done what I did, Jesus wouldn’t have gone to the cross at all. What I did even fulfilled the Scriptures.  How can You judge me at all?’  The answer to Judas might go like this: ‘Yes, God used your wickedness but it was still your wickedness. There was no good or pure motive in your heart at all.  It is no credit to you that God brought good out of your evil. You stand guilty before God.’”

                                                            - David Guzik, Romans 3

            I think that drives the point home and as Paul concludes he says that he is speaking as a man.  In other words he is explaining this through the eyes of sinful man and the reality is, even sinful man would see this as foolish, and yet man tries to use it, at times, to justify his behavior!  It is amazing the things we will use to show we are not wrong, but in the end, it is just foolish.  Thus, Paul is going to respond in the next verse to this foolishness of thinking our sin brings glory to God and thus we shall sin so God is glorified even more, and listen to what he has to say.

VERSE 6

            Paula is saying, “Perish the thought!” if that were true, then God could never judge anyone!

VERSES 7-8

            Again, this thought goes deeper, to the extent of a person who lies about God, what God has done in their life and yet the other person is blessed by it and God is glorified, thus, how can God judge that person, good came out of it!  Seems like a situational ethics question but again it is foolish.  It seems like Paul was being accused of saying these things, but how in the world did people come to conclusions like that?

            It is very simple, God gives to us a beautiful gift and Satan comes and perverts it.  The gift is that God has given us salvation through Christ, as Paul said in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the [free] gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Thus, Satan comes in and says that as Christians we can do whatever we want, we now have a license to sin and as we do God gets the glory!  How wicked is Satan and how depraved is man!  If that is where your heart is at you need to do a heart check and see if you are truly saved!

            Paul makes this point in Romans 6:1-14, where we read “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?  Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?  Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?  Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.  For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.  For he who has died has been freed from sin. . . .

. . . Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.  For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.  Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.  And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.  For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”

            I think that is very clear and yet in some churches, they condemn grace for they see it as too much freedom for us to handle!  How ridiculous, God’s gift to us is free and we have liberty to do whatever we want, but our desire is to do those things that are pleasing to Him, our works don’t save us they just show that we are saved!

VERSE 9

            The Jews were privileged to be the instrument that God was using to speak forth His Word and to point people to the true and living God but it is not because they were better than the Gentiles. It is as we read in Deuteronomy 9:5-6, “It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD your God drives them out from before you, and that He may fulfill the word which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Therefore understand that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.”  You see, the bottom line is that all have sinned, both Jew and Gentile, and sin has them in bondage with no way to break free on their own.

            Now Paul is going to give a 14 count indictment against man, and in a sense, you can see this as God speaking this forth as these words come out of the Old Testament Scriptures.  Thus, this is how God sees man in his flesh apart from Christ.  Let’s read on and see how God sees us in our own righteousness.

VERSES 10-12

            According to God’s standard, how many of us are righteous before Him?  NONE!  In fact there has only been one righteous man and that is Jesus!  Apart from God no one understands God or the condition they are truly in. Unless God draws you, you would not seek after God on your own.  Man goes and does his own thing, not living to please God apart from Christ.  All their efforts apart from Christ are worthless before Him.  Thus, the heart of man is evil, not good. Now please, don’t get me wrong, some are better than others when you compare man to man, but that is not the standard, God is the standard and we all fall far short of that standard leaving only God to be good!

VERSES 13-14

            What is born in the heart will overflow and come out of their lips. It is amazing what can flow from the lips of man, and it is just a reflection of where a person’s heart is at!  It is as James tells us regarding the tongue, “For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body.  Indeed, we put bits in horses' mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body.  Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires.  Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things.  See how great a forest a little fire kindles!  And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell.  For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind.  But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.  With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God.  Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so.  Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening?  Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.”  James 3:2-12.

VERSES 15-17

            Not only is man’s heart evil, not only does his hands produce evil and his lips speak forth evil, but his feet are swift to run to evil.  Because of that, the wicked are not at rest, not at peace, but they toss and turn like a raging sea. Isaiah 57:21 tells us, “‘There is no peace,’ Says my God, ‘for the wicked.’”

            Why does man behave like this?  Look at the next verse and you will see why.

VERSE 18 

            When you don’t fear God, when you don’t have the proper respect for Him, then sin will flourish!  Robert Haldane wrote:

            It is astonishing that men, while they acknowledge that there is a God, should act without any fear of His displeasure.  Yet this is their character. They fear a worm of the dust like themselves, but disregard the Most High. . . They are more afraid of man than of God – of his anger, his contempt, or ridicule. The fear of man prevents them from doing many things from which they are not restrained by the fear of God. They love not His character, not rendering to it that veneration which is due; they respect not His authority. Such is the state of human nature while the heart is unchanged.

                                                            - Robert Haldane, Exposition of Romans, p. 121

VERSES 19-20

            Paul is saying that the Law is just an instrument to show us our failure to be righteous before God; it is an instrument of condemnation not justification!  It doesn’t make the Law evil, it is good, the problem is that man is evil and the Law points us to that fact.  And think about it like this, you would never know if a line was crooked unless there was a straight line to show us – the Law is that straight line to show us!  When you look in the mirror and see your dirty face can the mirror cleanse your face?  Of course not, it can only show you that your face is dirty!

            Paul, in Galatians 3:23-29 tells us “But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed.  Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.   But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.  For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.  For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.”   You see, the Law points us to our Savior, it points us to Jesus. Now, if you try to live by the Law, obtain salvation by the Law, James tells us, “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.”  James 2:10.

            You see, I can keep the law of the land all my life and then, for whatever reason, I steal something and I get caught.  As I stand before the judge my defense goes as follows, “Your honor, I have kept the law all my life, and I have only transgressed this once, so that counts for something, I can get off, right?”  The judge would say, “You are guilty and have to pay the penalty, keeping the law all your life doesn’t win you any points, you were only doing what you were suppose to do!”  On the spiritual side, Paul says we are all guilty no matter how good we think we are!

VERSES 21-22

            Now we move from the judgment of man into a section on the justification of man apart from the Law, a righteousness that is from God, and we will see this in Romans 3:21 through Romans 5:21.  And please understand that this is not a new idea, for the Law and the Prophets spoke of this gift of God. As we move into Romans chapter 4 next time we will see Paul illustrate this for us from the Law as he speaks of Abraham (Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:1-3, 9-23) and the Prophets as he speaks of David (Psalm 32:1-2, Romans 4:4-8).  And please understand that God’s righteousness that has been given to us is not in addition to the Law but as Paul said, it is “apart from the Law.” Thus, the Law doesn’t save us, Jesus does and that gift is extended to all and then it is up to each individual to either receive it and believe it or reject it and not believe the gift that God has for them!

VERSE 23

            How many have sinned?  Paul tells us that “all have sinned” not most or just a few or just some!  In fact, in the Greek “fall short” is in the present tense stating an action or that we “keep falling short.”  The Greek word for “sinned” speaks of missing the mark and the mark is perfection. Thus, the idea is that none are perfect and all have missed the mark!

VERSE 24

            The word justify speaks of rendering innocent, to be righteous, and God has freely given us that verdict based upon Christ in us. Grace speaks of getting what we don’t deserve, God gives us life!  Mercy speaks of not getting what we do deserve, death!

VERSES 25-26

            Jesus, by His death, became the substitute sacrifice for us, a propitiation.  When He hung on the cross of Calvary He was judged in our place as the sins of the world were cast upon Him. Thus, the Father could demonstrate His righteousness in judgment against sin while sparing us who deserve His judgment!

            The word “propitiation” in the Greek is HILASTERION (hil-as-tay’-ree-on) and it is used in the Septuagint for the mercy seat which was the lid that covered the Ark of the Covenant where the Law of God was kept. And on the Day of Atonement, Yon Kippur the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies and sprinkle the blood of a goat upon the mercy seat to atone for the sins of the people, Leviticus 16:15.  But Jesus has come to be that perfect sacrifice and to take away, not cover our sins. It is as Isaiah 53:4-6 tells us, “Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.  But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

            It is as Clark said: “Here we learn that God designed to give the most evident displays of both his justice and mercy.  Of his justice, in requiring a sacrifice, and absolutely refusing to give the salvation to a lost world in any other way; and of his mercy, in providing THE sacrifice which his justice required.”

VERSES 27-28

            “Let me tell you how good I am, how lucky God is to have a guy like me!”  Forget about it! There is no room for boasting for our salvation is not based upon how good we are but how great He is!  It is all about our faith in Jesus, He saves we don’t!

VERSES 29-30

            It is as Paul said in Romans 2:11, “For there is no partiality with God.”  Not only is the righteousness of God in Christ available to both Jews and Gentiles, it is also received the same way, by grace through faith!   Remember the early church had a problem, some Jews were saying that the Gentiles needed to keep the Law of Moses and be circumcised and Peter speaks up at this meeting and says, “Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?  But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they.”  Acts 15:10-11.  Notice, the Jews are saved just as the Gentiles are saved, by faith in Jesus!

VERSE 31

            The Law is important and its purpose is fulfilled when it exposes to an individual their sin and their hopelessness to do anything about it, pointing them to Jesus, the only one who can help!  Let me close by sharing again what Paul said in Romans 3:21-26, “But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”  Praise the Lord for His indescribable gift that He has given to us, His Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the penalty for our sins!