Romans 3.1 - 3:20

Romans — Steve Gregg

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Romans 3.1 - 3:20

RomansSteve Gregg

In this passage, Paul challenges the prejudice Jewish people had towards Gentiles based on Jewish identity and circumcision, arguing that they aren't inherently better than non-Jewish people. He explains that access to the oracles of God doesn't make them superior and explores why they haven't been saved despite their advantages, reminding them that they should blame themselves for their unbelief. The passage sets the stage for the concept of justification by faith, introducing the idea that the righteousness of God is revealed through faith and grace in Jesus Christ rather than by the deeds of the law.

Transcript

All right, let's return to Romans chapter 3. And as I said at the close of the last session, Paul has set us up to pretty much think pretty negatively about any advantages there might be in being Jewish because he's been trying to deflate the opinion, the self-opinion of most Jews who felt that being circumcised, being Jewish made them a better species of human being than anybody else. And it made it hard for them to give the same kind of respect and brotherly love to what was probably the majority of the members of the churches they attended, which were Gentiles. So Paul is trying to make it very clear that the whole basis for that prejudice is fallacious.

There's no basis for thinking being Jewish is better than not being Jewish. So he starts chapter 3 by introducing a series of rhetorical questions. They're not entirely rhetorical because they do have answers to be given, but they are nonetheless given in order to assert something more than to seek information.

That's what a rhetorical question would be. A rhetorical question is a question that's really trying to say something more than inquire into something. But he says, what advantage then has the Jew or what is the profit of circumcision? Much every way, chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God, by which he means the Old Testament scriptures.

For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Certainly not. Indeed, let God be true, and every man a liar, as it is written, that you may be justified in your words and may overcome when you are judged. But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust who inflicts wrath? I speak as a man.

Certainly not. For how then will God judge the world? For if the truth of God has increased through my life to his glory, why am I still judged as a sinner? And why not say, let us do evil that good may come as we are slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say their condemnation is just. Now, he starts by saying that notwithstanding all that he may be seeming to say that disparages special status of the Jews in the previous chapter, he would not deny that the Jews have had some specialness in a certain way, namely that God has chosen to give them a revelation of himself earlier than the Gentiles have, giving them a head start, giving them the opportunity at least to have a head start.

They have not used it well, but they had that opportunity. There is an advantage they have had, chiefly the oracles of God. Now, chiefly means not entirely, but mostly.

If we want to know what other advantages we think Paul thinks they had, you can turn to Romans 9 briefly, because here he is actually going to begin to talk more at length about something he introduces in these verses we read in chapter 3. But you can see in Romans 9.3 Paul says, For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh. I'd trade my salvation for theirs if it were possible. I'd let them be saved and me not.

He says, They are Israelites to whom pertain. Now, here's the advantages they've had, not just the oracles of God, but these as well, much in every way, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenant, the giving of the law, the service of God, which means the tabernacle and the priesthood, and the promises of whom are the fathers, as they have a great heritage going back to the fathers, which other nations don't have, and from whom according to the flesh Christ came. That's the greatest advantage they've had.

It was from their lineage and in their society that Jesus arrived. You can see that Paul sees a lot of advantages that Israel has had. However, in Romans 9, he's going to be exploring the question, so why aren't they saved? That is the Jews as a class, why didn't they all get saved? God gave them all these advantages.

Seems like they would be the first to be saved in large numbers, maybe in mass. But as it turned out, only a small remnant of the Jews actually came to Christ. And it turned out that Gentiles seemed to be more attracted in larger numbers to Christ.

That's ironic. And so Paul in Romans 9 is going to discuss why is it that the Jews are not saved? And underlying his whole discussion in chapter 9, which we won't get to today, but much later in our studies in Romans, is the subtext that, you know, God did promise to save Israel. You'll find it.

Many scriptures in the Old Testament talk about how God will save Israel. He's the salvation of Israel and so forth. And yet Paul's addressing a situation in which he's talking about salvation and Israel isn't in it.

So what happened to what God said? Did God lie? And that's the question that Paul needs to address in Romans 9. And he answers in verse 6, it's not that God's word has failed to take effect. In fact, God's promise has not failed to come true. It looks like it did because Israel is not saved and the promise was that Israel would be saved.

So Paul has to spend three chapters, Romans 9 through 11, explaining why, although the nation of Israel is largely unsaved, God's promise that he would save Israel is not false and has not failed to come true. Now that's a tricky one, but he does it masterfully. But you'll see that even in this, he almost goes there.

But then he stops himself and gets back on his present concerns. But having said what he has said about Israel, deflating them of their national pride, he realizes there is still something to be explained here about God's promises to Israel. Because he says in verse 3, for what if some did not believe? Okay, that's the case.

That's what we see. Israel is not believing the gospel when they should have. That's what he tries to explain.

How come they're not saved when God said they would be saved? In Romans 3, he says, Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? In other words, did God fail to keep his promise? He said Israel will be saved. Here we are, salvation has come through the Messiah and they aren't saved. They're unbelieving.

The fact that they're unbelievers and unsaved, does that mean that God has been unfaithful? He has not kept his promise to save them? You see, it's the same question he's going to address at length in chapters 9 through 11. He knows where he's going to go. Chapter 9 through 11 is not, as some people see it, a side issue in Paul's concerns.

Some people think that Paul talks in Romans 1 through 8 about his main concern, which is the gospel. And then he just has some extra ink and space on the parchment. So he says, well, there's something else I've been thinking about lately.

Let's talk about Israel a little bit. As if it's a side issue unrelated to his main concerns. No, it's almost in truths right here.

It's a very serious concern. If he's saying that circumcision doesn't amount to anything in itself, then we're going to have to ask, what then about all those promises that were made to those who were circumcised, the Jews? And he's tempted to go there right now. But he realizes, I think I'll put this off and give this a somewhat more detailed treatment after I get to a better stopping point for what I've been saying.

So here we have the hint that Romans 9 through 11 is going to come, but it doesn't come at this point. So the great benefit God has given Israel that they didn't give the nations, among others, chiefly, that they have the oracles of God. By the way, the fact that we have the Bible is our chief earthly advantage too.

The Jews had many advantages, and they certainly had a greater advantage than the scriptures, and that was in God himself. Having God is even more of a privilege than having the Bible. But when it comes to earthly advantages, having the Bible is as good as it gets.

Because you have God's word, although he is in heaven and you're here, you have his word sent down through his prophets, through the oracles of God. What an advantage it is for people living on a fallen world to have God's communication coming directly to their town, to their country, to where they live, through their spokesman of their race. That's the chief interest.

Now, we, of course, have a similar advantage in that we have the Bible. And I think we could say it is our chief earthly riches. We have Jesus in heaven, who's our greatest riches, but his word, I can hardly think of anything else on earth that gives us a greater advantage than having access to the Bible, which, of course, some people don't have.

But not because God chose some of us and not others, but because we just haven't taken it to him yet, which is being done. But as the Jews could have no greater earthly advantage than having God's word, so that would be true of us as well. And he says in verse 3, Now, this comes directly from the fact that God gave them oracles.

What an advantage they've had. God spoke to them, but turns out they didn't believe it. So was that really an advantage at all? What if they didn't believe what he said? He blessed them incalculably by giving them his word, but they're not believing it.

So if they don't believe and they don't get saved, does that mean his word wasn't true? Well, no, he's not. He's not lying just because they're not believing him. God's faithfulness is not determined by whether we believe him or not.

He's faithful. Let God be true. And every man a liar.

Men do lie. And God doesn't. It says in Titus 1.2 Titus 1.2, Paul says, God who cannot lie has promised.

God is not the liar. He can't lie. Man can lie and does lie regularly, but don't say that because people have been unfaithful that God is unfaithful.

And I mentioned this in an earlier lecture yesterday, I believe, that Paul raises the same kind of a point in 2 Timothy 2, verse 13. He says, if we are faithless, he remains faithful. For he cannot deny himself.

The idea being that God is faithful steadily, consistently, and man's responses to God's word. Don't change the thing about their reliability. If I believe his word, well, the better for me.

He's faithful and I'm believing in what is trustworthy. If I don't believe his word, that doesn't change the fact that he's faithful. His word is true nonetheless.

And that's the same issue that Paul's raising with reference to the Jews being unfaithful. Are they unfaithful? Well, God isn't unfaithful. If they be faithless, he remains faithful.

So instead of blaming God for the fact that the Jews are not saved, blame themselves. They could have believed they didn't. And then Paul quotes from the Old Testament, actually from Psalm 51.

And in that Psalm, he says that you may be justified in your words and may overcome when you are judged. What does that mean? And why is it quoted here? Psalm 51, 4, David is repenting of his sin that he committed with Bathsheba. And he's saying very plainly, you know, I'm guilty.

Okay. Now, if I'm guilty, then your judgment against me is just. If I was innocent and you judged me, then you wouldn't be just.

But I am guilty. That's his point. Psalm 51, 3 and 4, David says, I acknowledge my transgression and my sin is ever before me.

Against you, you only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight so that you may be found just when you speak and blameless when you judge. What David is saying is whatever you do to me, you're righteous in doing it because I deserve it. I sinned.

And when you judge me, I can't complain. I can't say you shouldn't do that. I can't say you're being too harsh.

I can't say you're being unjust. I have to justify you. I have to declare you're righteous when you judge me because I'm not righteous.

So what David is saying is David's own guilt, in a sense, justifies God in his judgment. This plays into Paul's discussion in Romans this way. The Jews are guilty of not believing.

That doesn't make God look worse. That just makes them look worse. God in judging them is judging them rightly.

They don't believe they deserve to be judged. God is faithful. It does not impugn his character.

If anything, the sinfulness of the people that God judges only makes his judgment more obviously correct. It only vindicates God's judgment more. If God judged people and they seemed relatively innocent, we might say, hey, what's up with that? What's up with God's judgment? These people didn't do anything really bad.

Why do you do that to them? You know, there are people who actually have that problem with some of the things God did in the Bible, like killing the Canaanites, having Israel kill the Canaanites, or maybe having Uzzah drop dead because he touched the ark. People say, hey, what? What's up with that? The guy was just trying to help. You know, he's not really guilty of anything serious.

Well, God is just. Therefore, we cannot say the man was not guilty of anything serious. If God judged him, the guy was guilty of something serious.

Now, we might have to do a little bit of thinking and searching and analyzing to figure out what it is that made his offense as serious as it was. Because it may at first seem like it was a small thing to us. But the fact that it seems a small thing to us raises questions about, is God really just to judge when the person didn't really do that bad a thing? Nadab and Abihu offering strange fire, for crying out loud.

Fire from God comes out and destroys them. Is that really called for? Ananias and Sapphira, they just lie about how much money they're giving to the church and God strikes them dead. Isn't that a little excessive? You see, when God judges people whose guilt is not obvious to us, his own righteousness is called into question.

I'm not going to go into that now. But of course, my contention is all of those things are in fact as bad as God thinks they are. And there are ways for us to investigate that to see why the guilt of those people actually justified the judgment.

That's just the point. Someone has to be shown to be guilty before a negative judgment against them can be justified. Now David said, I've sinned blatantly.

I've sinned horrendously. I've committed adultery. I've killed a man.

So you are righteous when you judge me. My sinfulness puts on display the justice of your judgment of me. No one can say you're not just because my sin makes your justice evident.

Now, Paul thinks that there's people who are so corrupt, they're going to turn that around. In verse 5, he says, but if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God. Now see, in a vacuum, that statement wouldn't make any sense at all.

How in the world could you argue that my unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God? Well, in connection with the psalm he quoted. David said, my sinfulness makes your righteousness evident in judging me. In a sense, I've given you a good name, God.

My sinfulness is going to demonstrate to everybody that you're just when you judge me. And so some corrupt person, well, okay, then if my evilness makes God look better, then what's he got against me being evil? It only makes him look better, right? I can remember when I was a very young Christian, still very much wrapped up in the kind of, I don't know, Baptist type theology that I was raised with, where I had the once saved, always saved doctrine, and things like certain ideas of grace that didn't involve holiness necessarily, and things like that. Just because I hadn't been taught very much about the Bible, and hadn't read it thoroughly yet, I was still a teenager.

I remember being out witnessing with a person who was an older Christian than me, and a non-Christian was talking to them, and pointing out the sins of certain Christians, as unbelievers like to do when you're witnessing, they point out sins of other Christians. And the person who was with me said something like, well, that just shows the greatness of the grace of God, that these people whom God has forgiven are so unworthy of forgiveness. These people that you've said are so sinful, well, look at that.

God's grace has covered that, and they are saved. And I remember thinking what a great thought that was, that the sinfulness of Christians makes God, His grace look better. And yet, that's a dangerous thing to think about, or to go very far with, because it could transmute into, well, then God should be glad when I sin, because everyone can see how gracious He is in forgiving me.

That's not what David meant, but it is something that a corrupt mind could take from it. My sinfulness makes God look better, because, frankly, it contrasts with His greatness. If I held a pearl up here, up to this white curtain, you might say, is that a good pearl or not? I can't even really make it out.

But you put it against a black background, suddenly its perfection is shown brighter, because of the contrast. And so the idea is, my sinfulness puts God's goodness on display, because of the contrast. And so there are actually people who think like Paul is talking about here.

He considers them to be slanders. He says, if our unrighteousness demonstrates that God is righteous, what should we say? Is God unjust, who inflicts wrath? I speak as a man. Now, a person who isn't on God's side, and is just trying to pick apart ramifications of what they think Paul's teaching might lead to, they say, well, this would seemingly mean that God can't judge anyone.

Because when I stand before God as a sinner, I can simply make Him say, God, hey, I just live for your glory by sinning. My sinning glorified you by the contrast. Everyone should say, wow, this person is so bad, God must be, I should appreciate God more, because He's not like this person.

And you know, then God would be unjust to punish me for doing that. And Paul said, I speak as a man. Now, of course, he speaks as a man, he's not a woman or a child.

But when he says, I speak as a man, he's making reference to human reasoning, specifically, that is unenlightened. He uses that kind of expression also in 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 3, verse 3, Paul says, For you are still carnal, for where there are envy and strife and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like men? The New King James puts in the word mere in italics to give the sense of it.

But Paul says, are you not acting like men? Well, in certain circumstances, acting like men is not a negative. If you're a man, you should act like a man. But he means you're acting like men who are not enlightened.

Like men who think in natural ways, rather than ways that God teaches us to think. In human reasoning. And so he means it here, he says, I speak as a man.

That is, as a mere man, as a man who's unenlightened would speak. I'm not saying there's any validity in what I'm saying. This is just the way I think some people would reason, he's saying.

That God is unjust when he judges sinners, because actually their sin made him look so good by contrast. And then he says in verse 8, or verse 7, excuse me, If the truth of God has increased, or that has been put on display more, shines brighter through my lie to his glory, why am I still judged as a sinner? I'm a sinner, but why should I be judged for being a sinner if my lying, my dishonesty, my disobedience casts such a contrast on the virtues of God, who isn't any of those things that I am, and who therefore is glorified by the contrast. And Paul says in verse 8, And why not say, let's do good that evil may come? I mean evil that good may come, excuse me.

Let's do evil that good may come. Let's sin because God will be more glorified. Now Paul is saying how ridiculous this gets.

The Jews were given the advantage of the oracles of God, but they didn't believe. Well, even their belief in a sense shows that God is righteous and judging them. So even there they win.

Even there they're doing the wrong thing. Their non-response to the oracles of God glorifies God in a sort of a backhanded sort of way. And therefore, you know, we could even argue for doing the wrong thing for this.

This is very much like the argument in Romans 6, verse 1. It said, Shall we sin that grace may abound? Now what that really means is, shall we sin so that grace may become more evident? And that's like I was thinking when I was witnessing with that guy. I thought, well, you know, it's, you know, the sins of Christians really show the grace of God to be more wonderful because they're so bad. And he is, you know, forgives them anyway.

So it glorifies God. And in Romans 6, he's responding to a misunderstanding that could arise from what he says in chapter 5 just before. Two verses earlier he says, where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.

Well, this is a fact that the greatness of sin amplified the greatness of the grace that covers the sin. That is a fact, but it's not something you try to engineer. You don't say, okay, let's do more sinning so grace can abound more.

It's just that God, in spite of sin, was able to still get the upper hand and magnify His grace. But that doesn't entitle us to seek that situation where there's more sin so that there's more evidence of grace. That's foolishness.

A Christian can't think that way and Paul says, certainly not. And that's the same thought here too. So we can see that what he brings up in chapter 3, verse 8, is going to be discussed more in chapter 6. So this little segment of rhetorical questions and answers in verses 1 through 8 of chapter 3, it actually anticipates some of the later discussions in the book.

He's moving largely through a particular line of argument which alludes to things that he's really going to want to spend more time with later, but he dare not detain himself now. For example, when he says, why not say, let us do evil that good may come? You might think that he would immediately say, well, I'll tell you what's wrong with that argument. Well, he does in Romans 6, but it would seem almost like an irresistible temptation at this point.

Once he has said, should we say, let us do evil that good may come? He almost would feel like, no, I'll tell you why that's wrong. Instead, he just puts it on hold. All he says is that those people who say that we're saying that they're slanderers, they're falsely saying that that's what we're teaching, their condemnation is just, and we're not going to deal with that right now.

It's not even worthy of our time and consideration to get into that. The argument is self-condemned. When he says, whose condemnation is just, commentators say that it could refer to the people who say that, their condemnation, or the condemnation of that particular argument they're making.

The argument is self-evidently wrong. It's a self-condemned argument. It just doesn't, there's no way that it could be justified.

And so, anyway, some of these points he makes in this brief section in verses 1 through 8 are going to be revisited in later passages and with considerably more attention and explanation. But he wants to get back to his main point. And what was his main point? I've argued that his main point is that the Jews have had advantages.

They haven't really been any better than Gentiles. And that's exactly what he gets back to. Verse 9, what then? Are we better than they? We certainly means Jews.

Paul's a Jew. And they are the Gentiles. And this is the very question that I've said is his theme.

Is it so that being a Jew, simply being part of that solidarity of the circumcised, puts you in a higher class with God than those who are not in that class? Are we better than they? He says, not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. Now this statement, we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks, is often thought to justify the standard outline that I mentioned that most commentaries use.

That chapter 1 was about the Greeks. Chapter 2 is about the Jews. And Paul now says, now we have previously shown that the Jews and the Greeks, the Jews in chapter 2, the Greeks in chapter 1, that they're all under sin.

So it's as if he's summarizing the previous two chapters and saying, you see, this is what we've covered. The Greeks and the Jews, they're both under sin. We've got the Greeks in chapter 1, Jews in chapter 2. However, it's not necessary to see it that way.

Once again, he assumes all of his readers, Jews and Gentile Christians, have never doubted that the Gentiles are under sin. He has never had to demonstrate that. What he has demonstrated is that not only the Gentiles, but the Jews too.

He has spent his entire argument showing that the Jews are under sin. It would be a waste of ink to try to show that the Gentiles are. There's never been any doubt whatsoever about that.

So when he says, we have declared previously that both the Jews and the Gentiles are under sin, he means we knew already the Gentiles were, and now we've added the Jews to that list of people who are under sin in our previous argument. As it is written, and this is where Paul goes through a litany of verses, or parts of verses from the Old Testament, which talk about the evil people. And as I've mentioned, I believe this is a reference to showing that the Jews are as evil as the Gentiles.

This group of verses is more commonly viewed as Paul's laying out the doctrine of total depravity. And you can imagine who it is who usually takes it that way. But they are the ones who write the most commentaries on Romans.

So most commentaries on Romans are going to say, here Paul proves our doctrine of total depravity, namely the Calvinist doctrine. And look at what it says. I mean, it certainly sounds like it proves total depravity.

It says, as it is written, there's none righteous, no not one. Now that's a sweeping universal statement. This takes in everybody.

There is none who understands. There's none who seeks after God. That certainly sounds like total depravity.

Now notice it doesn't say there's none who can. The doctrine of total depravity says you can't seek after God because the nature of your depravity is such that seeking after God would never even sincerely occur to you. You can't want to.

You can't love God. You can't pursue God. He doesn't say anywhere here they can't.

He just says they don't. Okay, but that's nonetheless, it is a statement. There is none who seeks after God and on the face of it, it sounds very supportive of total depravity.

Further, they have all gone out of the way. They have altogether become unprofitable. There is none who does good, no not one.

Now all of that is from Psalm 14. It's not verse for verse the same as in the Hebrew text, but it's essentially the same material. He's quoting Psalm 14, 1 through 3. The same verses are repeated in Psalm 53, verses 1 through 3. So there's actually two Psalms that contain these verses, Psalm 14 and Psalm 53.

In both cases, they are the opening three verses of those two Psalms. Then when we come to verse 13 here. Their throat is an open tomb.

With their tongues they have practiced deceit. The poison of the asps is under their lips. Now notice how much of this has to do with the way they talk.

Sins of speech are listed as one of the great evidences of depravity. Whoever the depraved are that are here, their speech patterns are particularly offensive. When he says their throat is an open tomb, the assumption is that their voices are coming out of their throat.

An open tomb, for us a tomb might suggest the imagery of death. And we might look for some meaning where they cause death or they arise from spiritual death. But that's not really the connotation in the Jewish mind.

A tomb is a place of uncleanness. A tomb is a place where dead bodies are indeed. But the problem with dead bodies is not that they were afraid of ghosts or afraid of zombies.

It's that dead bodies are unclean. You don't touch a dead body. If you walk into a tomb, and by the way they were usually caves and you might accidentally do so.

You know that caves serve sometimes for tombs and sometimes for public restrooms. They didn't have outhouses in those days or public restrooms. And so even the king, Saul, when he wanted to relieve himself, he had to go into a cave if he could find one.

Or just have his soldiers stand back to surround him with their faces outward or something. But we don't know if he ever did that. He might have to if there's no caves around.

But a cave made a good place for certain practical purposes. But often caves were tombs. In fact, when Jesus told the Pharisees they were like whitewashed tombs.

Outwardly they're clean and white but inwardly full of dead men's bones. What he's referring to is an actual practice in Israel that since so many pilgrims from out of the area came to Jerusalem for the festivals. And they would of course make use of caves along the way as people necessarily did.

There was the danger or at least whether it ever happened or was only anticipated. It was a danger that people might go into a cave not knowing it's a tomb. And finding a dead body in there, they would realize I've become unclean and I've come into the festival.

I can't even participate in Passover. I can't even participate in any of the festivals because I'm now unclean. If you came near a dead body you'd be unclean for a week according to the law.

So in order to avoid inadvertent uncleanness during especially the festival seasons the Jews would go out and they would whitewash. They'd paint white paint on the outsides of the caves that happened to be tombs. That happened to have bodies in them.

This way travelers from out of the area who are coming would know we don't go in there. That's a tomb. That'll make us unclean.

That tomb is full of dead men's bones. We'll be defiled by going there. And Jesus said to the Pharisees you're like those whitewashed tombs.

Pretty pretty on the outside. Clean and tidy. But inside you're full of defilement.

You're full of dead men's bones. People come into contact with you it only makes them unclean. Even though you look clean on the outside like you've been painted white.

It's a veneer. It's a sham. You're really quite corrupt inside.

And as defiling to those who come into contact with you as if you were a tomb. And now when David says about the sinners that their throat is an open tomb. It seems to mean that what's coming out of them is uncleanness.

That's what's in a tomb is uncleanness. And what comes out of the throat is the words. So that they are defiling words.

They defile other people. That statement their throat is an open tomb is from Psalm 5 verse 9. And then the next line is from another Psalm. The poison of asps.

That's like a like a cobra. Is under their lips. They're venomous.

Their words are toxic. That's from Psalm 140 verse 3. He's quoting that one line from Psalm 140 verse 3. Then verse 14 here he says whose mouth is full of cursing and bitters. Notice how much of this is a focus on what they're saying.

He's trying to describe how evil people are. And a great amount of what he's talking about is how they talk. It just shows that evil isn't simply done by physical injury.

Or stealing property or sexually you know misusing somebody. Those are evil too. But Paul thinks and the psalmist thinks that the way people talk.

It can easily put them in the most corruptive categories. Why? Why? Because Jesus said in Matthew 12 out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Jesus said every idle word a man speaks.

He'll give account of it in the day of judgment. Why? Because he said out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. In other words the judgment is going to be about your heart.

But how in the world does anyone know what's in your heart? Just listen to you. Whatever your heart is full of. What is the abundance of your heart? Your mouth is speaking.

Therefore your words make a very good gauge for judging what's in your heart. So on the judgment day you'll be judged for your words. So we see that in chapter 12 of Matthew.

A whole discussion about that actually from verse 33 on to verse 37. Verse 37 says by your words you'll be justified and by your words you'll be condemned. It's amazing we think of words as relatively harmless.

Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me. I remember hearing that when I was a kid. But words can hurt a great deal.

And you can become very culpable and despicable in the eyes of God by very largely by things you merely say. After all if God created the whole universe by his word it gives us some idea of how much he thinks words can accomplish for good or for ill. The influence of words.

So anyway, Paul has quoted now from four different psalms up to this point. Because that last one, their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness is Psalm 10 verse 7. Then there's other stuff. They don't just talk bad, they act bad.

Verse 15. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways.

And they have not known the way of peace. These three verses together are a quotation from Isaiah. Of these six quotations of Paul, only one is from Isaiah.

The others are all from the psalms. Isaiah 59 verses 7 through 8. They're guilty of bloodshed. They're killers.

They destroy. They bring misery to people's lives by their actions. They don't know the way of peace.

They're not conciliatory. They don't know how to be at peace with other people. Remember what Jesus said to Jerusalem about that very thing? In Luke chapter 19.

He was weeping over Jerusalem. In Luke 19 verse 41 he says, Now as he came near, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, If you had known, even you especially, in this your day, the things that make for your peace, But now they are hidden from your eyes. You don't know what will make for your peace.

You don't know the way of peace. The Jews could have peace if they went the ways of God. They bring disaster upon themselves by rebelling against God.

They don't seem to know that. The way of peace would be the way of obedience to God. They don't know that way.

They don't know the things that would have made for their peace. But now they're hidden from their eyes and peace is taken from them. But Isaiah said, in Isaiah 59, 78, that they don't know the way of peace.

And therefore they will be deprived of peace. And then finally, verse 18 quotes from Psalm 36, 1. There is no fear of God before their eyes. If someone doesn't fear God, that means they're irreverent.

They don't have any reverence for God. This makes them careless. The Old Testament says in Proverbs, By the fear of the Lord men depart from evil.

In fact, in Proverbs 8, it says, The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. If you fear the Lord, you will hate evil and you'll depart from evil. If you don't fear God, you don't have enough good sense to hate evil and to depart from evil.

And you'll be careless, morally careless, because you don't have the good sense to be afraid of God's judgment. And people who have no fear of God before their eyes, they are definitely fools, because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. According to Proverbs 9, 10.

So, these are people who have lost their moral compass, because they have forgotten to fear God. There's no fear of God left in them, and they're morally careless, irreverent. Now this is a pretty bad description, but why does Paul give it? And as I said, the Calvinist concept is that Paul is trying to show that everybody is a sinner and everybody is so totally depraved that this describes every one of them, unless they're regenerated.

Only regeneration, which God unilaterally does of the elect, He regenerates them, makes them born again, so they'll believe and repent and change. Only regeneration can change people from being this way. On the other hand, I have met some unregenerate people who don't fit this description entirely.

I think you probably have too. For example, I wonder if Gandhi, who I believe was not born again, I wonder if he would fit this description. I don't think so.

I don't see him killing and wasting and causing misery and not fearing God and having foul, toxic speech and venomous speech. I mean, I only mention him because he's famous, a famous non-Christian. I'm not saying he was okay.

I'll let God judge that. I'm not trying to vindicate Gandhi as a Christian or anything like that. I'm simply saying there are people who aren't Christians who don't fit a description like this.

There must be many. Not all of them are well-known. Your neighbor next door could be one of them.

They don't do these things, but they don't know the Lord either. The Scripture does not necessarily teach, and this is not meant to teach, that the un-regenerate... And this is the point. The Calvinist insists these are only descriptions of the un-regenerate.

Well, what does Paul talk about, regenerate or un-regenerate here? He is not trying to teach a Calvinist doctrine that unless you are regenerate, you're like this. And all people who are un-regenerate are like this. He doesn't give any hint in anything he says that he's talking about a distinction between regenerate people and un-regenerate people.

In fact, if you look at Psalm 14, the first one he quotes, and the same thing would be true of others in the list, it says at the beginning, The fool has said in his heart, there's no God. Well, not every un-regenerate person says there's no God. Some do.

Not all. Not everyone is an atheist who isn't a Christian. He says they... Who? The fool who says there's no God.

The atheist. They are corrupt. They have done abominable works.

There's none who does good. Apparently among atheists, among those who are fools, who say there's no God. He's not describing every human being.

He's describing certain human beings. He says, The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. And this is where the idea there's none that seeks God comes from, though that exact line is not here.

Paul quotes it as there are none that seek God. And this does sound sweeping and universal, but we have to allow that it is, in fact, a hyperbole, as poetry is wont to employ. This is poetry, after all.

And it's very evident that David did not believe that there's no one who seeks God, since he describes himself in many of his psalms as a seeker of God. And he certainly was not the only one he knew. Maybe he knew very few.

You know, if you only know one or two Christians who are standing up for righteousness in your town, you might say, Nobody stands for righteousness anymore. There's no one out there speaking up for God. And you know very well there's a few, but you're using hyperbole.

You're just, you're ventilating the frustration of saying, Where did all the righteous people go? There's no one out there. They're all gone. And everyone talks this way when they're being emotional, and David's being emotional.

He's not making a theological statement. He's crying out in frustration about how far from God the people around him seem to generally be. There's none seeking God anymore.

They've all turned aside. They've all become corrupt. There's none who does good, not even one.

Now again, if he's being literal, we'd have to say that's absolute universal. David is a poet. He's not speaking literally necessarily.

And we know, how do I know that? How do I know that he doesn't mean this in an absolute sense? Well, look down at verse 5, same psalm. There they are in great fear, for God is with who? The generation of the righteous. Oh, there's some of them around too, are there? I thought you said there wasn't one who does good, but there's a generation of the righteous too.

David is not speaking absolutely that there's no good people. He knows some who are. He's one of them.

But see, this is where the Calvinists would say, well see, there you go. The generation of the righteous, that's the elect. Those are the ones that God has regenerated.

That's why they can be righteous. But the rest is talking about the non-elect. Well, maybe.

Let's see it demonstrated. Where does David mention any elect or non-elect? Where does he talk about regeneration? He just talks about people, the children of men. They've all gone astray.

Of course, with the exception of a few. The generation of the righteous. David is not teaching a doctrine of universal total depravity, and neither is Paul when he quotes him.

Paul knows full well, and so do his readers, that he's quoting poetry. He's quoting Psalms. He's quoting Isaiah.

They're all written in poetry, and they all use flamboyant, frustrated, angry hyperbole. That's what prophets did. And that's what poets, Israel's poets did.

And that's what Paul intends to be understood. He's not trying to argue for a doctrine that he's not talking about. He's not talking about the whole world here.

Who is he talking about? He's talking about Israel. The whole list of quotes is following verse 9, which introduces them. Are we Jews any better than those Gentiles? No.

Let me quote some scriptures that prove that we Jews are not better than Gentiles. In other words, these scriptures are about Jews. They might as easily have been about Gentiles, but they aren't.

David was not talking about the Gentiles. Isaiah was not talking about the Gentiles. They were talking about Israel's apostasy, Israel's failure to do what they knew to do.

These verses are about Israel. They are not about universal depravity, and I'm not denying universal depravity. I'm just saying that's not something Paul has in his mind to talk about here, and therefore we can't use these verses to argue that he thought that and that this is what he was trying to say.

And we know it because in verse 19 he says, now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, meaning the Jews. When he says whatever the law says, he means the scriptures, the Old Testament scriptures that he's just quoted. He's referring to these verses he has just rattled off that talk about how bad certain people are.

He says, you know who they are? It's the people who are under the law he's talking about. The scriptures are given to the Jews. What the law says, it's about those who are under the law.

And so Paul is pointing out, this is the scriptural assessment of Israel at many times in its history. It doesn't have to apply to every Jew, certainly, because it didn't. It doesn't have to apply to Jews at all times.

The issue is not, is everyone depraved? The question is, are the Jews any less depraved as a class than the Gentiles? And these scriptures are about as it turns out, Jewish people who are every bit as depraved. These scriptures are about those who are under the law, the Jews. And they are given to prove what he asks in verse 9. Are Jews better than others? Apparently not.

Which is what Paul's been saying all along. So verse 19, now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped, that is the boasting Jews who think they're better than the Gentiles, and all the world may become guilty before God. All the world, including the Jews who had kind of left themselves out of that equation.

Nope, they're in there too. They're part of that world. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight.

For by the law is the knowledge of sin. Two things here. And we're going to get no further today because actually verse 21, the next verse turns a corner and introduces justification by faith.

So we're not going to really try to get that into this session. But we'll take it because it actually continues through chapter 4. But here he's reached sort of a culmination of his main argument. There will be more to say about it in chapter 4, but he's kind of made his point here.

What is the point? Obviously what we've been saying all along. If you're a Jew, if you're circumcised, you have been conditioned to believe you are better for that reason and for no other reason than every Gentile who is not circumcised. That just isn't so.

And I've now laid out six passages from scripture. They could easily be multiplied beyond these few. That show that you are not, as a race, better because these scriptures are describing people of your race who weren't better.

Now you can be better, but it won't be on the basis of being Jewish. You can be better, but you won't be on the basis of being circumcised. It'll have to be on the basis of being better.

You'll be better if you're better. But if you're not better, being a Jew, being a Gentile, doesn't count at all. And by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight.

Now, the deeds of the law. Paul sometimes seems to speak negatively about the deeds or the works of the law. And yet, on other occasions, he surprises us by talking very well of the law.

In chapter 7 of Romans, he says, I know that the law is holy and the commandment is holy and just and good. He's talking about the Old Testament law. It's a good law.

It's not a bad law. Deeds of the law, works of the law, those have never been a bad thing. Jews ought to have lived by the law.

The problem is they didn't. But no one has ever been justified in God's sight by the deeds of the law, especially those deeds that set the Jews off from the Gentiles which are their rituals. Remember I said, the moral law that's in the law of Moses has many parallels in Gentile law codes.

You don't have to look far to find pagan nations that said that murder was wrong, that adultery was wrong, that stealing was wrong, that had criminal justice codes that would forbid those things. The moral aspects of the law have never been the distinctive of Judaism. Sure, they're part of it.

Sure, God required that. He requires that of everybody, that they behave well. But what was distinctive, what made the Jews different, was not those laws, but the ones about the feasts and the festivals and the circumcision and the clean and unclean foods, the things that aren't moral in nature at all, but are rituals that set them apart that Gentiles don't follow.

These in Jews do. And when Paul speaks disparagingly of the deeds of the law, I believe he's always referring to the ritual deeds of the Jewish law that made the Jews think they're better than others. Clearly, they were not thinking of the moral laws themselves when they said, we're better because Paul asked them, do you commit adultery? Do you steal? Those are moral laws, and lo and behold, you know very well that there are Jews who do those things.

But you think they're kind of okay, at least better than Gentiles because they're circumcised. What set you apart is clearly not your observance of moral law. It's the observance of ceremonial law.

And those laws do not set you apart as a better person in the sight of God or as having a better status than anyone else in the sight of God. This also is very prominent in Galatians, by the way, when Paul talks about the law and urges the Gentile Christians not to come under the law. He's largely talking, of course, almost entirely about circumcision.

Galatians is a rant against Gentile Christians being circumcised. But it's not only circumcision. It's because if you are circumcised, you're under the whole law.

Now, Paul didn't object to those laws that said you should not murder or not commit adultery. Paul gave those same upheld those same standards himself in his teaching. And so did Jesus.

That's not the law that God didn't want the Galatians to put themselves under. He didn't want them to put themselves under those laws that distinguished them as Jews instead of as Christians. That were the rituals that made the definition of a Jewish person.

So, as you read Galatians, as in Romans, although he doesn't always spell out which laws he has in mind, he gives plenty of evidence by reference to it. There's plenty of reference to circumcision as the non-issue with God in Romans chapter 2 and in Romans chapter 4, as we shall see. And in Galatians, circumcision is named all the time.

This is something that we need to really come to understand and appreciate in trying to understand the milieu in which the Bible is written. Just the way the Jews thought about circumcision and what they thought that meant about them. And this is what Paul said, the deeds of the law, getting circumcised, keeping the Sabbath, keeping the festivals, eating kosher food, those are deeds of the law.

Those have never made a person better. Those have never commended a man to God. Now that a man would live an honest life and a chaste morally pure life and would do good to his neighbor, that has always pleased God.

Throughout the Old Testament, God always was pleased with that kind of behavior. Still is. So, you know, what he's saying is, what you guys, you Jews are counting on is your ritual cleanness.

Those deeds of the law that distinguish you as law, people of the Torah, those things, they really don't count. No one's going to be justified even by measure on that scale. That's not the scale.

And he says, because by the deeds of the law is the knowledge of sin. Now, he doesn't develop that here. That's another thing he's going to develop in chapter 7. Basically, what he's saying is, we know there is sin only because someone has defined it for us.

If it's God who defined it, we know what sin really is, and the law is his definitions of sin. So, by having the law, we know we're sinners. That's the opposite of being justified.

Justification is being declared righteous. But having the law, once I have the law, it doesn't declare I'm righteous. It declares I'm a sinner.

So, it's the opposite of justification. The law doesn't function as a means of justification. It functions rather to clarify what I need to be forgiven of, what I need to stop doing, what I'm doing already that's wrong, what I'm condemned for.

That's what the law is there for. And he just says it in passing here at the end of verse 20. But then, of course, in chapter 7, he's going to pick up this strand again, and in Romans 7, 7, he's going to say, what shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not.

On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law said you should not covet, and so forth. So, he's going to develop that more.

He's going to say what the law does and what it doesn't do. To use the law as a means of justifying yourself is just not using it for the right thing. It's like Ray Comfort says.

He says, you know, he believes you should preach the Ten Commandments to people when you're witnessing. I don't believe that's always a necessity. I would differ with him on that sometimes, but I agree with him when he says you don't get saved by the law, but the law is like a mirror.

It shows you how dirty your face is. If your face is dirty, it'll do you good to find that out. It's like if there's a booger hanging out of your nose and you don't know it, or your zipper's down, or something embarrassing like that, it'd be nice to walk by a mirror and notice it before someone else does.

I mean, seeing something embarrassing or unflattering about yourself can be useful because it can lead to correcting. But if you look in the mirror and see that your face is dirty, you're crazy to take the mirror and try to scrub the dirt off with the mirror. That's not what a mirror is for.

You're going to need water and a washcloth for that. And the law is there to make you see how dirty your face is. It's not there to clean you up.

That's just not what it's for. You're not going to be justified by the application of the law. There's got to be a different solution than that.

But the law will give you the knowledge that you need to be cleaned up. By the law is the knowledge of sin, and that's why he turns the corner in verse 21 and says, But now there is a righteousness of God apart from the law that is revealed. And he goes and talks about justification by faith, justification through the grace of God.

And that's what Romans 3 verses 21 through 31 are going to be talking about, and it'll continue without a break into chapter 4, and that's what's going to have to wait until our next time.