Our Problem--The Divine Diagnosis Series

As I was about to write my message this past week, I read an unusual editorial on the Orange County Editorial page. It was congratulating a politician on being boring. Actually, it was congratulating a California state office holder for being scandal-free in the midst of a sea of scandals rocking governing officials in California—all the way from governor Gavin Newsome’s now infamous and almost proverbial meal without masks and social distancing at the elite French Laundry restaurant to the lieutenant governor establishing a charity so she could decorate her office for $300,000 to the State Superintendent of Education turning his office into his campaign headquarters for his next election.

Of course the news wherever we hear it or read it or see it is not boring, for precisely these kinds of reasons. It’s dominated by bad news, and we really have to work to find a feel-good story to be happy about on any news channel.

Imagine me asking any of you this question: Have you ever gotten the feeling that something is really wrong with this life? That something is really wrong with this world?

We would all regard that as a dumb question. The answer is so obvious, that we don’t even need to pose the question.

But what really is the problem? Why is the world such a mess? And what is the solution to it?

Those are much more difficult issues. And today we come to a profound passage which defines the problem and provides a divine diagnosis. Part of resolving a problem, as any medical doctor can tell you, is the ability to appropriately diagnose precisely what is wrong before you’re able to prescribe a solution. And the book of Romans more thoroughly than any other book of the Bible diagnoses the problem with the world and issues a solution.

The message in verses 18-20 this morning is this: We desperately need God’s righteousness—via the Gospel—because our unrighteousness provokes God’s worth.

Now the verses we’re covering this morning are absolutely profound. In the course of diagnosing the world’s problems, this passage also addresses just a few other major questions which we have all asked. Among them, for instance, is how can we know that God exists. Paul provides an incredibly cogent answer to this question in the course of diagnosing the world’s ills. Another question often asked goes something like this, “What about the heathen in Africa.” Truth told that question is now outdated, as Africa as of 2019 has more Christians, 631 million, than any other continent on earth. But the question, “what about those who have never heard” is still one that is often asked and that this passage answers.

We have just finished examining the introduction to Paul’s letter to the Romans. And in verses 15-17 he has defined what his subject for the letter will be. It is the Gospel of God, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Good News that Jesus Christ the God-man came and died for our sins and rose again so that by faith, and by faith alone, and not by works, man could gain a right-standing with God.

Beginning in verse 18, for the next two chapters Paul will be devoted to proving that all mankind, both Jews and Greeks, desperately need this righteousness from God. Because all of them are unrighteous and ungodly, according to their works, and thus they need this free gift of righteousness which is now available to them through faith in Jesus Christ.

And He boldly states his theme for the next couple chapters in verse 18: He in effect says, “You need God’s righteousness because your righteousness provokes God’s wrath.”

Now as we read verse 18, you might wonder exactly where Paul makes this point, and the truth is, that the point is made from the context of verse 18. He writes, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness.”

Now this is one of those occasions when we need to pay attention to that little word “for” at the beginning of the sentence. We need to ask how verse 18 is related to the statements that came before it. Paul here is explaining why He is not ashamed to proclaim the Gospel. He has already given several reasons in verses 16 and 17 which we reviewed last week. They were that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation, and that the Gospel is also the means to a right-standing with God or a righteousness from God that comes by faith, and faith alone. Now these are incredibly persuasive reasons as to why no one should be ashamed of the Good News of Jesus Christ. It’s life or death for eternity, and it provides the only way a man can be regarded as righteous in God’s sight—through faith in Jesus. Now we have a third reason why Paul refuses to be ashamed of the Good News of Christ. It is because it provides the very thing men do not have, and desperately need, righteousness, a right-standing before God. In fact, he says what men possess instead of righteousness is its exact opposite—unrighteousness. And that unrighteous is and will provoke God’s wrath, his settled and expressed anger and judgment against unrighteous mankind. In other words, because God is holy, we as men in our unrighteous state, are presently experiencing some level of hell because of our unrighteous and ungodly behavior.