Dr Greg Bahnsen - Paul's View of the Gospel: Silenced by Sin - Romans 3:1-20 (Part 1)

This recording has been released into the public domain by the Bonson Institute, where we aim to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

Please turn with me in your Bibles this morning to Romans the third chapter, where we'll take as our reading the first 20 verses. Romans 3, verses 1 through 20. As you know very well, if you heard last Lord's Day's sermon, Paul has just at the end of chapter two in the book of Romans, indicted the hypocrisy of those who are Jews, and prided themselves in having great privilege before God. And indeed, having a great privilege before God, being called his people, and yet being just as guilty as the Gentile world about them, and therefore blaspheming the name of God before the nations, because they did not live according to the privilege and according to the word that they had been given. And so Paul continues his indictment now and deals more deeply with the subject. And we begin our reading in verse one of chapter three. Hear God's word. What advantage then hath the Jew? Or what is the profit of circumcision? Much every way. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God. For what if some were without faith? Shall their want of faith make of none effect the faithfulness of God? God forbid. Yea, let God be found true. But every man a liar. As it is written, that thou mightest be justified in thy words, and mightest prevail when thou comest into judgment. But if our unrighteousness commendeth the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous, who visiteth with wrath? I speak after the manner of men. God forbid. For then how shall God judge the world? But if the truth of God through my lie abounded unto his glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? And why not, as we are slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say, let us do evil, that good may come whose condemnation is just. What then? Are we better than they? No, in no wise. For we before laid to the charge, both of Jews and Greeks, that they are all under sin. As it is written, there is none righteous. No, not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God. They have all turned aside. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good. No, not so much as one. Their throat is an open sepulchre. With their tongues they have used the seed. The poison of ass is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet Are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways and the way of peace. Have they not known there is no fear of God before their eyes? Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it speaketh to them that are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and all the world brought under the judgment of God. Because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight. For through the law comes the knowledge of sin and thus far the reading of God's word. Interesting newspaper clip that I picked up a couple of weeks ago. A story out of Beaufort, South Carolina. Fred Turner says he set out walking across America to prove that most people are good. He only got as far as the state line. He was robbed and pushed off a bridge that links South Carolina and Georgia. That incredible. It's this kind of thing that ought to go on the front page. I mean, talk about the naive and the absurd. Here's a man who's going to walk across America to prove the goodness of man and he gets to the state line and he's robbed and shoved off a bridge by the people that mugged him. And so he was convinced finally, you know, down to earth human experience showed him the naivete of his philosophy of life and what he thought about mankind. And he went back and he became a Calvinist and understood the gospel, right? No, that isn't the way it happened. It says here that after he got pushed off the bridge and the state troopers came by to help him so forth that he had to revise his philosophy. And I guess he feels that it's only one in a hundred that's bad now. And he met his one at the state line. He only got as far as the state line. I thought that was just too choice to overlook. The Apostle Paul didn't share that kind of naivete about human nature and its experience. So you would think, well within the boundaries of the church, people don't have this kind of Pollyanna view of how good we are and how basically kind and loving and helpful human nature is within the church. You're going to hear, of course, the Declaration of Sin. You're going to find out about man's want before God, his lack before God, his pollution before God. But, you know, in our day and age, stories this silly that we find in the newspaper stories just this naive, or stories about the naivete of people in the world regarding human nature can be reproduced within the walls of the church as well. It's really appalling. I hesitate to even mention in the pulpit, because I think it's so, you know, lacking in credibility. But you need to be aware of the views of a man like Robert Schuller. 10 years ago wrote a book entitled Self Esteem the New Reformation. And in this book Robert Schuller tells us that we need to understand sin differently than we have. Let me read just a few comments that he has given us here. It's very possible for theologians, although I hesitate to call this man a theologian, it's possible for theologians to outwardly say the right things, to have, if you will, the form of their theology look alright, and then to pour poison into the bottle. You know, all the labels look correct, but instead of getting health, giving medicine, we get poison instead. And I think a good illustration of that's found in this book by Schuller. Let me read. He says, I am convinced that the deepest of all human needs is, is salvation from sin and hell. I see sin is all pervasive in humanity, infecting all human behavior and polluting the social institutions and systems at every level. The result of sin is death and hell. You read that and you say, well, this man's an evangelical. That's exactly right. That's what the world needs to hear. Mankind's pervasive problem is sin, and that leads to hell. Sounds like Paul in the book of Romans until you read a few sentences down. And now this theologian would be theologian tells us what he means by the word sin and what he means by the word hell. You see, it's one thing to say that all mankind is sold under sin and that results in hell. And it's another thing to understand sin and hell in a biblical way. So let me continue reading. He asked what do I mean by sin? And he says, sin is any act or thought that robs myself or another human being of his or her self esteem. And what is hell? It is the loss of pride that naturally follows separation from God. And then he defines God as the ultimate and unfailing source of our soul's sense of self respect. So what does he mean by sin? Sin is anything that robs me or any other human being of self esteem. And the result of that which he labels hell is a loss of pride. And so here you have a man who formally tells us that sin is the problem, hell is the result, and then turns right around and redefines sin and hell so that we don't hear what's in the Bible at all. This gets very depressing, I must say, because here's a man calling for a new reformation but he tells us that the reformation of the 16th century in classical Christian thinking is wrong when it talks about sin. It's wrong when it calls people back to a gospel that cleanses of guilt and makes men right with an angry God. When we don't want that kind of message anymore. The church is dying because it has tried to preach that kind of message and it won't work in the 20th century. He says classical Reformed theology, that's our theology. Classical Reformed theology declares that we are conceived and born rebellious sinners. But that answer is too shallow. It ignores the tough question, why would love meeting persons resist, rebel against and reject beautiful love? The answer, we are born non trusting. Deep down we feel we are not good enough to approach a holy God. It is a perverted perfectionism that keeps us from coming close enough to God to believe in Him. You realize that of course, the reason why you were alienated from God is that deep down you didn't feel you were good enough to approach a holy God. Well, you know what? You're not good enough to approach a holy God. And that kind of alienation that you felt from God, that kind of guilt and separation was very real and it's objective if we hear what the Apostle Paul has to say. But here we have a man who is calling for a new Reformation and telling us we've got to get rid of that kind of thinking. That's what's really messing us all up. How can you possibly approach a person who feels inferior and unworthy with an invitation to believe in a holy God who hates sin and wants to punish the sinner? People don't want to hear that God hates sin, that God sees sin for what it is and that he's going to punish him. If you try to invite people to church with that kind of message, you're not going to get anywhere. And so Schuller says, what is our hope? It is reconciliation. How can this happen? It will happen, I am convinced, when we redefine our doctrine of sin. Exactly. At least he's willing to say what I'm accusing him of from the pulpit here and prophetically saying he will answer to God for these lies. He says he is redefining sin. That's the hope of the Church. The new Reformation will come when we don't see sin in the old fashioned way that we've seen it. Classical theology defines sin as rebellion against God. Actually, the Shorter Catechism does much better than that. But that's good enough. Rebellion against God. The answer, he says, is not incorrect as Much as it is shallow and insulting to the human being. Every person deserves to be treated with dignity, even if he or she is a rebellious sinner. And then. I know you'll get tired of hearing this kind of stuff from the pulpit, but I need to continue just a paragraph more. He says the core of original sin is lack of trust. Or it could be considered an innate inability to adequately value ourselves. Label it a negative self image. That's original sin, a negative self image. But do not say that the central core of the human soul is wickedness. If this were so, then truly the human being is totally depraved. But positive Christianity does not hold to human depravity, but to human inability. Some people have to get shoved off bridges, and even then they don't understand. Other people make mega bucks writing books and building cathedrals by telling people exactly what they want to hear. You're not as bad as you feel like inside. In fact, your whole problem is that you feel bad inside. You shouldn't be feeling that way about yourself. You know, you're alienated from the source of all pride and good, warm, fuzzy feelings when you do that kind of thing. So stop that. And then you start valuing yourself and other human beings and we'll be on the way to a new Reformation. I probably should have read for you as well. I will in just a few minutes. What he has to say about the Protestant Reformation. See, the Protestant Reformation got things all wrong because it preached about sin. Went to the Book of Romans, of all things, instead of to the Lord's Prayer, to find out how we should look upon human nature. Well, I want to contrast the reading of that book with another experience I had many years ago when I was in high school. My children will tell you that was many years ago. I was a senior and we were in our senior literature class and the teacher assigned to us a book entitled the Lord of the Flies. William Golding. I'm curious how many of you have read the Lord of the Flies. So you have some idea of what I'm talking about. For those of you who have not read the book, Essentially a novel about a group of British schoolboys. They get stranded on an island and so they're there. They think anyway, by themselves and being British schoolboys, I mean, those who had been brought up in a very proper way and they knew the principles in democracy and so forth, they knew they had to organize themselves into a society, they attempted to do this. But as you read the book, and I can't give you all the details you read the book, what you see is the progressive disintegration of any unity among these people to the point that they are willing to kill each other. These are young boys willing to kill each other. You see the same kind of political problems, problems with pride or all sorts of human aberrations that we think come from exposure to civilization and being a grown up found in these young, impressionable, innocent schoolboys. I remember as a senior, sadly, in a public school at that point, reading this book and thinking to myself, boy, this sounds familiar. What is this all about? Here is this man who makes no profession of faith. He's not trying to push a Christian message or come to a revival. At the end of the week. He's writing this novel and he's saying from his own pagan, non Christian perspective, human nature is really messed up and we're really fooling ourselves if we think it just would require a few changes in our civilization and people would be all right. It says children learn to kill each other and hate each other and play all these political games just like adults do. And so we have the Gentiles giving us a purer theology than we find within Crystal Cathedrals. Because, you know, you don't understand and you cannot understand the good news that God has until God closes your mouth with the message of sin. It's a really simple way of putting it, but I think it's correct. There isn't any good news until you first hear the bad news. And Paul the apostle in the book of Romans is very interested in exalting the grace of God that we might hear the good news, the gospel that is given to us by God. But Paul is very aware that we cannot hear that good news until we first hear the very bad news about human sin. Why is it that so many human beings are naive about human nature? Why is it that we have this tendency to whitewash what we are like as human beings? Where does this naivety come from? Well, I suppose there are two things that might be worth mentioning in our short time this morning. First of all, it comes from wishful thinking. The wishful thinking that there's a spark of goodness in each of us. And if there's a spark of goodness in each of us because of our pride, then we're willing to say that all the other things we see in ourselves which are inadequate, all the other things that we see in ourselves which are really shameful, all the other things that we find in ourselves that are contrary to the holiness of God are just periphery, you see. You can then assign Those things which are ugly and displeasing to God and disobedient to his law, to the outer edges of your life. Because still in the middle there is this spark of goodness. And everybody's got that spark of goodness first you carry the spark of goodness theology out. What that means is you have to fan it a bit and then the spark you see will flame up and you'll get people that are really good. The spark of goodness was within each one of us. That's a wishful thinking that we find in a lot of different places. But I think added to that, to be honest, is the enticement of grading on a curve. Your teachers are not going to like me for what I'm going to say for the next few minutes. So if you came this morning only wanting to hear what you already believe, then you can stop listening for about two or three minutes here. But I have to talk to you about grading on a curve. There may be a place for that in schoolwork, but you know, there's no place for that. When we start thinking about how God treats mankind. We have the idea throughout our society. We see it in our courts all the time. It is incredible the stories you hear. And if I get onto this, people will think, well, there he goes again, that theonomous, talking about, you know, politics and things like that. But are you not concerned when you read the paper about these people that can commit crime after crime after crime and then be let off after a few months of jail time? What's going on in our society? Well, I'll tell you what's going on. You have judges that see this kind of wretched human behavior day after day after day. And what they eventually do, especially with crowd in jails and prisons, they eventually have to start grading out a curve, don't they? Even when the law says there's not to be leniency on certain things, they end up having to show leniency because there's just too many bad people. And so when you get a lot of bad people, you tend to think that those who are, quote, unquote, less bad are not to be punished even in the way the law dictates, because there are so many people that are more bad than those who are less bad. And we ended up grading on a curve. We do that all through our society. But worst of all, we do that when we think about how God looks upon human nature. We all have a tendency, and I'm going to say this to you who are Christians this morning, we all have the tendency to look at our neighbor and say, well at least I don't do that. And we grade on a curve. Or we think maybe God will grade on a curve. And God takes a look and he says, well, you know, there's a lot of problems down there, a lot of sinful people. And you people, well, you're not quite as sinful as the other. So that's okay. We had the statement that to err is human, you know, well, because you're a human being, you're going to make mistakes. How many counselors are there in this world that coddle people in their sin and their self destructive patterns of behavior, their unrighteousness by saying, well everyone makes mistakes. Yeah, there's that wishful thinking, that spark of good theology. There's the enticement to grade on a curve. And then we have to ask, what does God say about this? What does God say through the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans about human nature? And I mean this. If you came this morning to be encouraged about your self esteem, you ain't going to get it. Because we're going to look at what Paul says. And I think you already know because you've heard the scripture reading already. Paul was not real positive about human nature and about the tendencies in human cultures. Paul saw it as pretty shameful. It wouldn't surprise you then, I suppose, to know that a man who writes a book on self esteem and tells us we shouldn't think this way tells us we have to avoid what the Apostle Paul says. Isn't that amazing? Listen to these words from Robert Schuller. Where the Protestant Reformation was a reactionary movement. The 20th century Reformation must be a reconciling movement. Luther and Calvin, we know, looked to the book of Romans. They looked to the book of Romans in the Bible for their primary inspiration. Were they unknowingly possessed more by the spirit of St. Paul than by the spirit of Jesus Christ? Are we not on safer grounds? If we look to our Lord's words to launch our Reformation, as we focus on Jesus Christ, we shall discover a new theology. One that offers salvation from shame to self esteem. That's right. When you have trouble with the theology actually find in the Bible, then you have to do something to marginalize what you're reading, push it out to the edge and then say, well of course Paul, here's this guy who was kind of a manic depressant. Anyway, there's this guy who had all kinds of Jewish guilt built into him, you know, from his mother undoubtedly. And so we can't listen to what he says in Romans. Push that to the margin and let's go back to Jesus. How did this man ever get a reputation for being an evangelical? How did anybody in Bible believing churches ever trust what he had to say? For you see, though he puts it very mildly and dresses it up in ambiguous phrases, what he is giving here is nothing more but the kind of obscene theology for over 100 years that dominated the church, that there's a conflict between Jesus and Paul. And so we've got to go back to Jesus to get our Christianity. Paul, of course, brings in some kind of a revolutionary interpretation of Jesus. But that's just Paul theology. We don't need to follow Paul, we need to follow Jesus. Exactly what this man's telling you. And he's telling you that because if he had his way, he would take scissors and paste and he'd cut Romans chapter three out of the Bible. Now that's what God has given us to study today. Romans chapter three. If you have any thoughts about the goodness of human nature, I would suggest you try to walk as far as the stage state line. And if you like the theology of Schuller and his new reformation of self esteem, you're going to have to cut this out of your Bible. For those of you who are still here and want to hear what the Bible has to say, what God has to say, then we're going to look at Romans 3 and understand that very simply, Paul tells us three things in the 20 verses that we have read this morning. He tells us that God is faithful, true and just. He tells us who God is, and he tells us that those characteristics of God are unchallengeable. And then he secondly tells us of man's pervasive unrighteousness. And then finally, why? The Bible tells us of God's character and man's contrasting sinful character. And very simply. So you know where we're going to be ending up this morning. The reason the Bible tells us that is to close our mouths. The Bible wants us to be quiet before God. And not just quiet with the kind of gentle holiness that says, because God is who he is, I am silent before Him. But to shut our mouths from all of our rationalizations and all of our excuses and to admit that we are really in deep trouble. We are in bad shape, spiritually and morally speaking. Paul begins by talking about the justice of God in the opening verses of chapter three, verses one through eight. He has finished in chapter two, declaring the hypocrisy of the Jews not realizing that true circumcision is of the heart. To be a true Jew, truly to be the people of God is a matter of the heart, not a matter of outward privilege. And all the hypocrisy that goes with the Jewish attempt to keep the law in its own pride. And so, having put the Jews down, it's very natural that Paul would ask this opening question in chapter three. What advantage then does the Jew have? Somebody might say, well then what? Big deal. What does it mean to be a Jewish? Or what's the profit of circumcision? Obviously, it doesn't make any difference if God calls people to belong to him. It doesn't make any difference if he gives them religious institutions like circumcision because they fall short. They don't do what God wants. And so there really isn't any difference between those who are called to be God's people or those who are in the world. Also, it's natural to ask that question because he is going to end up saying they're all under sin, Jew and Gentile alike. So what's the big deal? So you're circumcised, so you're a Jew, so what? And Paul answers in verse two in a kind of surprising way. He says, well, actually, in every way they had advantage. There was great profit in circumcision. There was a great advantage in being a Jew. And what was that advantage? Particularly, he says, chiefly it wasn't they were entrusted with the oracles of God. By the oracles of God, Paul means the Scriptures. He said, the great advantage of being a Jew is that you were given the word of God. And not only given it, not only was it in your possession that is accessible to you, but it was entrusted to them. They were, as it were for the world, the keepers of God's word. To use the derisive language of modern theology, they were the blessed possessors. They really were. They possess the very oracles of God. Notice that scripture here is seen as oracle. You know what an oracle is? Oracles are what prophets pronounce or what wise men show up. They show up and they will speak an oracle to you. An oracle is a matter of personal address. It's like preaching a sermon that's oracular to give an oracle. And Paul here speaks of the Scriptures because he's speaking of what was entrusted to the Jews. You can't really be entrusted with an oracle. You can't hold on to the spoken word and give it to other generations as the spoken word. You know what I'm saying here, I'm preaching a sermon to you right now. And when I'm done talking, it's all over. That's the end of the oracle. But now if someone were to inscribe that oracle or put it on a tape or something like that, then it could be entrusted and passed on from one generation to another. Paul here speaks of the Jews being entrusted with something. Obviously it has to be what was in written form. He's talking about the Scriptures and yet he talks about the scriptures as being oracles. Why do you think he does that? Let me tell you something about the nature of God's word. Also tell you something about the nature of your sin and ignoring it. Paul says, what is written here is not appropriately put on the shelf to gather dust because this is the very personal speaking of God to you. It's not like a book by Winston Churchill which you can pick up, put down, you can ignore for a while. It doesn't have any living power, any. There's no personal insult in not reading it. But this is the very oracles of God. It is God speaking personally to you. He says that was the chief advantage of being a Jew, that they had God's word entrusted to them and New Israel has the word of God entrusted to it. I wish God could give me the words to express to you in a very short period of time the wonder of the Christian religion in having an objective verbal revelation from God. You don't spend as much time perhaps as others or as I have to doing the defense of the faith, studying world religions, studying what other people offer in their theology. And they happen. Except those that ape Christianity, like the Muslims, they don't have a word from God. We do. What advantages are in being a Christian? I mean, we have these guys that embarrass us. The Crystal Cathedral. We have all the hypocrisy in the church, we have all the politics, we have all the problems and so forth. People look at the church and put it down and people would be inclined to say, well, what advantage is there then in being in the church right here? The advantage in being a Christian is that you are entrusted with God's own word, powerful, living, direct address to you when you open it up and pay attention to what God is saying. And the Jews had that privilege, and we have that privilege as New Israel. And how do we handle that privilege? How did they. How did they handle the privilege of having God's word? Well, they went to two extremes. On the one hand, they so disregarded the Word. It's as though it didn't exist. You know, there were long periods of time in Old Testament history for the Jews when they didn't even have a copy of the law available to them. I'm not talking about a copy of the Law in their homes available to them. I'm talking, if you look throughout the land of Judah, no one had a copy of the Bible. And when they found it, as they're, you know, refurbishing the temple, someone, you know, opens his back closet and says, whoa, what's this? A scroll? It's the law of God. You remember, that's in the Bible. That happened. Can you imagine that? They find one copy of the law, and all of a sudden, of course it brings reformation. Contrary to what Mr. Schuller tells us, the Word of God does bring reformation when it's discovered. But the Jews would have that tendency to so ignore it. They can go periods of time when there wasn't even a copy available. Then they went to the other extreme, too. Then they so valued their copies of the law, and they so wanted to honor the content of it that they, as we say, built hedges around the law to make it hard to get to it. To break the law, they would add their own laws and their own regulations. And so now they, as it were, put the law of God aside and focus on their own human religion, their own human morality as a way of protecting the word of God. How do you handle the Word of God? Is it possible that those two tendencies could be found in you at one time or another? Is there ever a time when you've just gone, dare I say it, a week without reading the Bible? I already warned you you might not like this sermon, so I'm not going to hesitate to step on some toes. You know very well you have gone a week without reading the Bible. Is it possible you could ever go a month without reading the Bible? Now, remember, it doesn't count when someone in your family reads the Bible or reads it to you at devotions or you come to church and you hear it from the pulpit. I mean, it's important that we hear the Word of God from others. But I want to know, have you handled the Word of God as though it's something a great privilege entrusted to you by God? The chief advantage. Do you go a month without reading the Bible? Will you be surprised to know that in my pastoral counseling, I have talked to people who have gone years without picking up the Bible to read it on their own? Probably not, because you know that tendency as well. Don't you? What do pagans do with their privileges? You know, I realize it is rationally absurd. It's religiously shameful. Pagans believe that little blocks of wood and stone that they've carved are their gods. How do they treat their gods, this great privilege of their religion? You know what they do? They polish them, they dust them, they make sure they're not even knocked over at night. They value them. They pay attention to them. They're precious to them. And this is the value of being God's people, that we have been entrusted with his Word. What do we do with it? Do we treat it like the pagans do? They're idols. Now obviously it's not an idol. I don't want you to bow down to the Bible. Do you get my point? We have this great privilege and we go put it aside. Then there, there's the other tendency too. We, we have the word of God. And though we have God's own word to pay attention to, we govern our lives by the words of men and by our own traditions. You know, in talking to many Christians, I hate to say it, I don't have the statistics to prove it, but my feeling is proudly and talking to most Christians, they are more adept at understanding the expectations of American culture, courtesy and so forth. We understand more what you can get away with at work and how you're supposed to treat your neighbor and be a good American. We understand that much more than we understand the teaching of God's word. I have Christians who have come to me for counsel who are very successful in the business world, they're very successful in success society. They've made their way, they know the ropes, they're not ignorant people. And then they'll call and they'll say, like my daughter is pregnant out of wedlock. What should I do? By the way, I'm glad to minister to people. That's what God has called me to do. So don't take this as my personal feeling, but I have a tendency to say, well, open the Bible and read it. That case is brought up right in the law of God. Do what the law tells you. But they're not even aware that it's brought up. Oh, you mean the Bible speaks exactly to that situation? Yeah, it does. And so here we've learned all the other rules of life and all our man made traditions. And we are abysmally ignorant of the content of God's word. What advantage then as the Jew chiefly they were entrusted with the oracles of God. And then Paul goes on, but what if some were without faith? Shall their want of faith make of that effect the faithfulness of God? God forbid. Yea, let God be found. True, though every man is a liar. Someone say, well, okay, they didn't handle their privilege very well. They had the word of God, but they were unfaithful. And so what do you do with their unfaithfulness now? What becomes of God's plan? Paul says, well, think about that. You think their unfaithfulness makes God any less faithful? Their unfaithfulness has nothing to do with God's character. And, boy, there's an important lesson there too. Our tendency is to think. Well, in our day and age, the feminist movement or the gay liberation movement or the abortion movement or whatever it may be, has shown us that we can't be too uptight about certain things. And we expect that our changed opinion, our character, is going to be reflected onto God. And so we have people who pray to God as mother. We have people who pray to God to bless abortions. We have people who actually say that a monogamous gay relationship is just as pleasing to God as a monogamous heterosexual relationship. What's wrong with us? We think that what's in us and the character of our lives reflects upon God. And Paul's talking about that here when he says, would you think that the unfaithfulness of the Jews shows that God is unfaithful? Absolutely not. Notice, Paul says some of the Jews have been unfaithful. You love these little insights to Paul's personality and jealousy. Here. Paul says, I'm a Jewish. Don't say all are unfaithful to the gospel. There are others like me. The gospel came first to us. But yes, some of the Jews are unfaithful. What does that say about God? It says nothing about God because God's not influenced. God is not changed by human behavior, human attitudes. It's interesting. In verse three, Paul says, for what if some were without faith? But then in verse four, when he says, God forbid that his faithfulness would be affected by the unfaithfulness of some. He goes on to say, yea, let God be true, though every man is a liar. Paul says, the faithfulness of God is not canceled by some Jewish defection. And then in verse four, he says, the truthfulness of God is not affected. Even though every man, Jew and Gentile alike, every single one of them, if they were to gang up and together say that what God said is not correct, God would be found true anyway. That's how unchallengeable the word of God is 100% human. Vote against the word of God counts for zero. Yea, let God be found true, though all men are liars. Then in verses five through eight, Paul puts down the consequentialist ethic that is so easily fallen into by people. A consequentialist ethic is one that says we should do whatever will bring about the ends that we want to accomplish. If there are good ends we can accomplish, then what we're doing is acceptable. You know, it's like the end justifies the means. And so Paul says, but now, if our unrighteousness commends the righteousness of God, what shall we say? It turns out that the unrighteousness of men magnifies the righteousness of God. By contrast, Paul says, well, now, what will we reason from this? Is God unrighteous who visits with wrath? He says, I'm talking like a man might talk after the manner of men following the logic of the world. He says, God forbid. For how shall God judge the world? I want to tell you something that may seem disrespectful, but in the end it's going to be the highest mark of respect for the word of God. Paul here commits a logical fallacy. If you were in a debate, if you were debating with Paul, you'd say, paul, you begged the question. The question was asked. You just answered it in the same way that it was asked. Because the question is, how can God judge the world with justice if he's that kind of God? Paul says, what do you mean? How can God judge the world if he's not just? Yes, that's the question, Paul. Paul says, no, that's the affirmation. That's where I begin my thinking. Nothing will be allowed to challenge the justice of God. That's rock bottom. Everything else is going to be evaluated on the basis of that. I will not allow anything to come into our consideration that would take that away. So I won't even debate it with you here. I will in fact beg the question, because this is going to use a big word. This is my presupposition. This is where I begin all my thinking, with the justice of God, verse 7. But if the truth of God through my lie abounded unto his glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? And why not let us do evil? That good may come. But he says, well, if God's going to get the glory from my sin, if my unrighteousness magnifies his righteousness, if my lie abounds to his glory. That is, if it brings about a good result, then of course God must approve of the means. Right? Paul willing to dialogue with that kind of thinking? Paul willing to say, well, you know, there's got to be some truth in every position, and so let's find out what's true about that. He just out and out says, we are slanderously reported to saying this kind of thing. And those who say it, their condemnation is just. Paul's not going to diddle with this. He just says, that is outrageous for you to think that the end justifies the means. Yes, God will be glorified even through your unrighteousness, but that doesn't justify your unrighteousness. That just shows how good and how great and sovereign God is, that he takes wretched material like you and takes your terrible behavior and attitudes and still turns them to accomplish his godly, righteous purposes. And it says nothing wonderful about you. And it doesn't justify what you're doing. So Paul has argued that God is just. His character is unchanging. His character is unchallengeable. And in verse nine, he turns to the character of man and he asks specifically with respect to the Jewish Gentile question, are we then better than they? He says, no, by no means. For already we've laid to the charge, both of Jews and Greeks, that they are all under sin. When did Paul do that? You've been listening to Pastor Wagner preach. You should know the answer. He did that in chapters one and two, didn't he? In chapter one, he showed that the Gentile world is under sin. In chapter two, he said, you Jews aren't any better. That's my quick paraphrase. He says, I've already told you. I've before laid to the charge, both of Jews and Greeks, that they are all under sin. And then he says, as it is written, let me stop just for a moment to comment on what you're going to run into here now as a piece of literature, if nothing else, but also to make a spiritual point from it, what you have in the next few verses is remarkable. There are some passages in the Bible that might come close to it, but very few. Because Paul here now has a cantata of Old Testament quotations and allusions, one after another, integrated and woven together. I look at that and I say to myself, well, hey, I could do that. I've got a concordance. There are even, you know, word processing programs that have the Bible on disk and so forth. I could look up a name's topical and find out about sin and then go back and get all these verses and kind of put them together. But, you know, in reading these, one, you know that Paul didn't do that because his quotations in about half the cases are not exact. That doesn't mean they're wrong. This means that he's going for the essence of what is said there. And he's not trying to reproduce the Hebrew or even the Greek translation exactly. Most commentaries will point that out to you. Two, Paul jumps all over the place, which you wouldn't do. So you know what this is right here? This is a reflection of how Paul lived in the atmosphere of God's word. He knew the literature of the Old Testament so well that when he wanted to talk to you about sin, all sorts of things come flooding into his head now, and he starts putting them out to us. Now they're organized. It's not like some ecstatic utterance that doesn't have any order or rationality. But the point is, he has this expression from Isaiah and this expression from the Psalms and so forth. He just starts putting these things in here. How is he able to do that? He was able to do that because he lived on the word of God. I feel bad when I, as a Christian, am talking to somebody else, and I know what the Bible tells me on a certain subject, But I'm like, what is the verse that I want to give him on that? You know, have you ever had that experience? He read it and read it and read it and read it. What do you think the answer is? If you don't have the ability to pull these things out of the Bible and prove them to people, you need to read the Bible more and more and more and more. And when Paul read the Bible, you know, one of the messages that came through loud and clear. Man is unrighteous. Man is sinful, and under the wrath and the curse of God. In verses 9 through 12, he tells us of the universal reign of sin. And in verses 13 to 18 of the pervasive reign of sin. And by that I mean two things. The universal reign of sin is that everyone is caught in the neck. Everyone, Jew and gentile alike, blacks and whites alike, fat people and skinny people alike, men and women alike, adults and children alike, rich and poor alike, Everyone is caught in this net. And then, having caught the whole world in this net of sin, Paul says, and not only is the reign of sin universal, it's pervasive. It's in every part of your being. Every individual finds sin from beginning to end. Let's look at those verses real quickly here before we end this morning, 9 through 12. This cantata of Old Testament text, Paul says, as it is written, there is none righteous. No, not one. There is none that understands. There's none that seeks after God. They've all turned aside. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good. No, not so much as one. It's like Paul gets redundant, right? He keeps saying it over and over again. Why does Paul have to be redundant? Because we don't want to hear this. And so we'll hear the generalization say, oh, yeah, it's like the guy pushed off the bridge. Okay, there's none good. No, not one. Well, okay, everyone's good except for one. Remember what he said? He said, one in a hundred. You know, there's one bad guy out there. Paul says, no, you got it wrong. There's none good. And you hear that and say, yeah, but members of my family are pretty nice. No, there are none that please God. But there are people out there who are so religious, they look like they want to please God. They want to know more about God. They study about God all the time. I deal with this in apologetics. One of the things people don't like about the school of thought that I represent is that we tell them all men are suppressing the truth and unrighteousness. And even though they study and want to get a Philosophy of Religion degree at the university, they are not seeking God. They are not seeking the living and true God. They are seeking an idol. They are seeking of something that will please them and because it comes from their own imagination, will deflect them and divert them from attention to the holiness and the justice of the living and true God. They are not really seeking after God. People don't want to hear that, believe. Oh, yeah. It's like if there was just enough evidence, we'd all believe. Paul says, forget it. There's evidence plenty in the world. But no one is seeking God. They're all seeking their own ideas. Now, that isn't to say people aren't seeking something called God. Well, sure, they'll call that highest thing that they're looking for their God, but they're not seeking Jehovah. They're not seeking the Holy One of Israel. They're not seeking that personal Creator with whom they have to do. They're not looking for that one that's going to bring them under judgment. In fact, every man's looking for a way to avoid that judgment. So there's none that seeks after God. They've all turned aside. They've all together become unprofitable. And then Paul just brings the hammer down completely. There is none that does good. Not so much as one. You say, I know people who do good. They are Christians. They feed their children. They buy them nice Christmas presents. They may even contribute to orphanages. They do a lot of philanthropic work, charitable work in this world. They have wonderful personalities. They're very kind. Their heart goes out to those who are hurting. I know a lot of very nice people. They are not Christians. A number of evangelical Christians that I dealt with over the years have said things like, well, I just can't believe that my best friend's not going to be accepted by God. He or she is just such a wonderful person. You say, well, why do you think you're going to be accepted by God? Well, because I believe in Jesus as my savior. They say, wait a minute. If you have to believe in Jesus as your savior to be right with God, why do you think that your friend doesn't? Well, he or she's so nice. You know, we got a problem here. Because you know what? The people we're talking about are in one sense, nice. It is much better to give nice gifts to your children than to be a child abuser. It's much nicer to have a heart that goes out to people that are in pain than to be somebody who says, hey, I don't care. And so we look at that. But now what are we doing? I told you early in the sermon, what are we doing? We're grading on a curve. We're saying, well, this person is nicer than that person, therefore this person must be totally nice. Wrong person may be nicer than he or she could be. They could be worse than that. We have to admit that there's a certain civic or outward goodness that we see in people. But, you know, I can say that and I can be very glad that my next door neighbor doesn't burn down houses and loot. I am very glad. I can say that and still say my next door neighbor and myself does not come up to the standard of God's holiness and righteousness. The Bible tells us that when wicked men do nice things for others, they don't do it to glorify God, they do it to glorify themselves. Or they do it because of the general worthiness of humanity rather than the glory of God. And so in every way, it is not out of a heart of faith that they do these things in every way. It's not to glorify God. And what is sin? It is falling short of the glory of God. It is not living out of faith and submission to God. And so all these people who are doing outwardly nice things, relatively speaking they are nice, are nevertheless falling short of the glory of God. They have all turned aside. There is none that does good, no, not so much as one. And. And then Paul drives it home even further. Having looked at the universal scope of sin, Paul now looks at the universal reign of sin within every individual. And he says, now look, consider your throat, consider your tongue, consider your lips, consider your mouth, your feet, consider your eyes. All of those things by which we interact with the world. And Paul again notice how Bible verses just keep screaming into his head. He says, with their throat, it's like an open sepulchre. We have nice funeral procedures here in America. We embalm bodies. We bury them before they look too horrible. Do you have any idea what an open sepulcher would be like? How putrid it would be? Paul says, that's your throat. And with their tongues they've used deceit. In fact, under their lips, what you'll find is not just poison, but the poison of an asp. You know how dangerous an asp is? Asp is much more dangerous than a bow constrictor. Boa constrictor is far more powerful. But they're slow and they're big and they're obvious. Not the asp, the asp, just a little black snake slithers here and there. And I'll bet you know that's true of you too. I know it's true of me. The poison of asp is under our lips. Not big obvious sins that everyone can pick out, but the very subtle, clever, easy to rationalize sins that nevertheless are sins of the mouth, whose mouth is full of cursing. And bitterness, you say. I look at that and I say, well, yeah, well, I tell you, I know people whose mouth is full of cursing. I went to high school with people who it seemed like they couldn't utter a sentence without two curse words in it. So I think of those and then you read on. It says, and bitterness, you say. Whose mouth is more bitter than mine? Who is more prone to self pity, who is more prone to complain and to murmur. Paul's got all of us here in the net, doesn't he? Cursing, bitterness. How do we use our feet? You know, our feet are very slow to do things which are good and righteous and helpful to others. We tend to be hesitant. We call it cautious, but we tend to be hesitant to get out there and to do the sorts of things we should be doing that are right. But you know, when an opportunity comes up to do that which is not pleasing to God, but very pleasing to us man, we are quick to it. But Paul's got our number. He says, your feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways the way of peace. Have they not known? And you know, he caps it all off. And I think he intends this to be a crescendoing effect. He gets to the end of his description and he says, to sum it all up, you know, what's wrong with human nature, with all mankind, Jew and Gentile alike, it all comes down to this. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Our mouths are an open sepulcher of rancidness and sin. Our feet are very quick to do those things that are destructive. And when all is said and done, we don't live as though we see God. You're saying, well, Dr. Bahmson, you can't see God, he's invisible. So that's okay. Paul here, of course, is using a figure of speech. I try to use this figure of speech when I deal with people. My children know that I try to use it with them, but I use it with others too. When you find somebody who just seems to be blocked off from considerations of holiness, when you try to encourage them to do something that is right and they just seem to be constantly coming back to what does it mean for me and how are things going to work out and so forth, you have to kind of say, step back and ask, if you could see God, God were in this very room, would you talk like this? Would that be your first consideration? What would take the priority if you were in the very presence of God and could see him, they say, well, yeah, I guess if you put it that way, I'd start thinking about him more than about me. And what I'm supposed to say, well, you know what, though you can't physically see him, he's here and he expects you to live your life with the fear of God before your eyes, as though it's at the forefront of your mind and controlling everything you do and everything you say. Paul says, that's what's wrong with mankind. There's no fear of God before their eyes. Now why did Paul bother to tell us all this? We have to bring this to an end. Paul says in verse 19, we know that what things soever the law says it speaks to them that are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God. The question has arisen lately in theology whether the law of God was for the Jews only or whether the law of God was for the whole Gentile world as well. I've had people tell me in response to a thesis that's not crucial to today's sermon, but I've been arguing that the law of God was the universal standard even in socio political matters in Old Testament Israel. And the answer has come back no, that law was only for the Jews. And what I want to know is how do you reconcile that view with this verse? Paul says we know that whatever things the law says, it says to them that are under the law. And then he goes on to tell us who's condemned by the law and who is condemned by the law. The whole world is condemned by the law. The law spoke to all mankind. Hey, but there's something else here. To be honest with you. I don't think when Paul says law here he means specifically he's including. But I don't think he's making it exclusively the commandments of God by the law. I think he means the Old Testament because he's just quoted from the Psalms and Isaiah and so forth. I think when Paul says law here, he means the revelation of God, the oracles of God. That's what we started our consideration with this morning. And who are those oracles of God for? Who are under those oracles? Who's in the sphere of their authority and jurisdiction? The whole world. And why has God reminded us of that, that the whole world might be silent? Because if you've heard it all, the holiness of God in today's sermon, if you know from reading the scripture the high demand of God's righteousness, if you know your own sin when you stand before God, close your mouth, what can you say? What can I say? The proverb speaks about men who are able to come up with seven reasons, seven excuses, meaning by that those who are really good at rationalizing. But you know the best of the rationalizers among us, standing before the holiness of God and the indictment of his holy word. The best of the rationalizers are going to close their mouths. Because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight. For through the law comes the knowledge of sin. That's what I've been trying to communicate to you this morning. The knowledge of sin. Not your neighbors and not even mine, although I've referred to mine, but yours. And if you know your sin and you know the demand of God's word, then you're going to be quiet. But there's good news in that quietness. There's good news because when our mouths are stopped by our guilt and our shame, then our ears can be opened to hear good news from God. And that's what we'll get next Lord's Day. Lord willing that I can be here. Having been silenced by sin, Paul goes on to say, we can be justified by faith. Let's pray. Our heavenly Father, we come into your presence this morning and having heard these words from your word, it's difficult even to speak because we truly are ashamed of our defection from your righteousness and character. And we know when all is said and done, we should just be quiet before you. We have nothing to say. There are no excuses we can offer. We are sold under sin without your grace. We are lost and we are polluted. And we are not less polluted than those who around us have more manifest public expressions of their rebellion against you. We are just like them. Our mouths are horrible, controlling our very bodies and sin. And our feet are so quick to do the evil thing. And we do not live with the fear of God before our eyes. What can we say? We can only cry out that we are hopeless and helpless. If you will not save, if you will not, by your grace, show us mercy. If you will not provide a righteousness that does not come of our own effort, that does not come of the law, if you will not provide a way of escape, there is none for us. And we thank you that you close our mouths, that we might, in realistic appraisal of our sin and without concern for our self esteem, be humbled before you that you might lift us up, that you might be able to tell us somehow you love sinners and are willing to provide a way of escape. Lord Jesus, you have shown and demonstrated in your own character not only your abhorrence of sin, but your love for your people, so that you would pay the dreadful price that your people would belong to you forever. Help us to hear that when our mouths are closed, for we pray in your most precious name. Amen.

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