Law Breakers

Romans 3:9-17. What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; 10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” 13 “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” 14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are ruin and misery, 17 and the way of peace they have not known.” (ESV)

People generally like to believe they are basically good. That belief is continually reinforced by psychologists, counselors, and a great many religious leaders. But deep in the human heart people know there is a problem. No matter whom or what people may try to blame for that feeling, we cannot escape it. There is the evident reality of guilt, not only about things we have done that we know are wrong but also about the kind of person we are on the inside.

As the Apostle Paul has already forcefully declared in the first two chapters of Romans, both the pagan Gentile and the religious Jew are sinful and stand condemned before a holy God. But human nature strongly resists that truth. Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse said, “It is only stubborn self-pride that keeps man from the confession to God that would bring release, but that way he refuses to take. Man stands before God today like a little boy who swears with crying and tears that he has not been anywhere near the jam jar, and who with an air of outraged innocence, pleads the justice of his position, in total ignorance of the fact that a good spoonful of the jam has fallen on his shirt under his chin and is plainly visible to all but himself” (Donald Grey Barnhouse. God’s Wrath: Romans 2–3:1–20 [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953], p. 191).

People feel guilty because they are guilty. The guilt feeling is only the symptom of the real problem, which is sin. All of the psychological counseling in the world cannot relieve a person of heir guilt. At best it can only make them feel better, superficially and temporarily, by placing the blame on someone else or something else. That, of course, only intensifies the guilt, because it adds dishonesty to the sin that caused the guilt feeling in the first place. Human guilt has only one cause-our own sin-and unless our sin is removed, our guilt cannot be. That is why the first element of the gospel is confronting people with the reality of their sin. The word gospel means “good news.” But the good news it offers is the way of salvation from sin, and until a person is convicted of their sin, the gospel has nothing to offer. The gospel therefore begins by declaring that all people in their natural condition are fundamentally sinful and that the greatest need of our lives is to have that sin removed through trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The apostle Paul was well aware of the human disposition to deny sin. Therefore, from creation, from history, from reason and logic, and from conscience, Paul has already presented powerful testimony of human sinfulness. Now he presents the ultimate testimony, the testimony of Scripture. Paul introduces before the court, as it were, the testimony of God’s own Word as revealed in the Old Testament.

The charge in verse 9 begins with two questions. The first is simply, What then? The idea is, “What is the point of further testimony?” Paul has already condemned the immoral pagan, the moral pagan, and then both the moral and immoral Jew. Anticipating what some of his readers would think, his second question asks rhetorically, Are we better than they? That is, “Do we have a better basic nature than those who have just been shown to be condemned? Are we made from a different mold, cut from a different piece of cloth than they?” It seems that the “we” here directly refers to Paul himself and his fellow believers in Rome, both Jew and Gentile. The question would then mean, “Are we Christians, in ourselves, better than the other groups of people already shown to be condemned before God? Are we intrinsically superior to those others? Were we saved because our basic human nature was on a higher plane than theirs?” Immediately answering his own question, Paul unequivocally asserts, Not at all. “No, we are not in ourselves any better than others,” he says. He has already pointed out the condemnation of everyone, from the most reprobate, vice-ridden pagan to the most outwardly moral and upright Jew. In other words, the entire human race, with absolutely no exceptions, is arraigned before God’s court of justice: For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. Proaitiaomai (already charged) was often used as a legal term to designate a person previously indicted for a given offense. Hupo (under) was a common Greek term that frequently meant not simply to be beneath but to be totally under the power, authority, and control of something or someone. That is obviously the sense Paul has in mind here: Every unredeemed human being, both Jews and Greeks are all under, completely subservient and in bondage to, the dominion of sin. Therefore, the problem with people is not just that they commit sins; their problem is that they are enslaved to sin. What is needed, therefore, is a new power to break in and set people free from sin—a power found in, and only in, the gospel of Jesus Christ (Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans (p. 201). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.)