Text- Romans 3:9-20
Title- The Reality of Our Unrighteousness
Romans 3:9-20 9 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, "THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; 11 THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD; 12 ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE." 13 "THEIR THROAT IS AN OPEN GRAVE, WITH THEIR TONGUES THEY KEEP DECEIVING," "THE POISON OF ASPS IS UNDER THEIR LIPS"; 14 "WHOSE MOUTH IS FULL OF CURSING AND BITTERNESS"; 15 "THEIR FEET ARE SWIFT TO SHED BLOOD, 16 DESTRUCTION AND MISERY ARE IN THEIR PATHS, 17 AND THE PATH OF PEACE THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN." 18 "THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE THEIR EYES." 19 Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; 20 because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.
1. We are all “under” sin- vs. 9-12
a. No one is righteous
b. No one understands
c. No one seeks for God
d. All have turned aside
e. All have become useless
f. No one does good
2. Our speech is evil- vs. 13-14
a. Throat
b. Tongue
c. Lips
d. Mouth
3. Our actions are evil- vs. 15-17
a. Feet hurry to shed blood
b. Destruction is in our path
c. Don’t know peace
4. Our motives are evil- vs. 18
a. No fear of God
5. The law doesn’t make us righteous- vs. 19-20
a. The law reveals our unrighteousness
Please turn in your Bible to the book of Romans 3:9-20…
Before we read the passage, let’s take a minute to pray…
The passage that we will be reading today is the conclusion of Paul’s long explanation of the sinfulness of man. It is the capstone. It is where he ties everything up nicely. Just in case we somehow missed his point in the previous two chapters, he highlights his point here.
Paul has already used a number of different evidences to prove his point. He has used nature, experience, and culture to prove his point. But like any good teacher or preacher, he isn’t finished until he uses scripture to prove his point.
In this text Paul will quote from a number of different OT passages to drive the point home to us. Let’s read it…
The first thing we see from this passage is that we are all under sin. We looked at this passage briefly last week, but in the verses that follow, Paul explains exactly what it means to be under sin.
I find it interesting that he uses the Greek preposition “hupo” here which is commonly translated “under”. He doesn’t simply say that we commit sin, or that we are sinful people, he says that we are under sin. This word generally refers to being subservient, to being a slave. To be under the control and authority of someone else. We are not merely sinners, we are under sin. It controls us and enslaves us.
Paul then goes on in verse 10 to say, “as it is written”. He follows up this assertion that we are all sinners by offering a whole host of scripture.
First of all he says, “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE”. SO the first evidence that we are under sin is that no one is righteous. Paul uses the words “none” and “not even one” a total of six times in these verses. He seems to have abandoned all subtlety and is now beating the concept of mans sin into our heads with a mallet.
The word righteous here simply means right in the sight of God. It means acceptable and clean by God’s standards. It means to be in right relationship to God. Paul clearly declares that there is none righteous.
…but what about the pope?... none. What about my pastor?...nope, none. What about my saintly mother who never said a mean word in her life?... none. With all the billions of people who have lived over the thousands of years there must have been someone who was able to hold it together right, Paul says, not even one.
There are some theologians who have claimed that man has the ability to climb their way out of the pit of sin they are in through obedience to God and faithfulness. They believe that they can merit salvation based on their righteous actions. But there is none who are righteous, not even one.
Paul takes it a step further by declaring that there is no one who understands. Not only are we completely lacking in righteousness, but we don’t even understand what it is. We have no ability to understand spiritual things on our own. Our minds are darkened and clouded by sin. We don’t have the ability to even understand God on our own.
In 1 Cor Paul puts it this way…
1 Corinthians 2:14 14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.
Sin prevents us from even being able to comprehend the truth of God. Ephesians 4 talks about how our understanding is darkened by our own ignorance and hardness of heart. Not only are we unable to understand, we don’t want to understand. We just want to do it our own way.
Next, in the second part of verse 11 Paul explains that there is no one who seeks for God. This is a huge one. I know that in the past I have shared with you about the new thought out there that salvation is available to people in other belief systems as long as they are seeking after their concept of God. As long as people are earnestly reaching out to God through whatever religious means available to them, they will be saved.
Let me read this paragraph from the catechism of the catholic church…
I agree completely with this statement. Those who do not know the gospel, but seek God with a sincere heart will achieve eternal salvation. The only problem is that there is none who seeks for God. No one is capable of doing this. It’s not possible.
Salvation does not come from being faithful to Buddha, because that’s the only god you know. It comes from being faithful to Jesus Christ, because that’s the only God that’s real.
People don’t seek God. Even with all the millions of people who adhere to their various religious systems, they are not seeking God. People don’t seek Him, they create idols and find ways to worship their own concept of God. None of us go looking for God, in fact we try and avoid Him.
Last night on the way home from church Camille asked me, how can that be. There are people who seem to be seeking for God. There is a whole philosophy of church that is called “seeker sensitive”. But according to Paul here there is no such thing as a seeker.
How does anyone ever find God if we don’t even know how to look for Him? We will talk about this question in greater detail today during the Sunday school hour. I’ll also deal with it next week.
Fourth, Paul says that all have turned aside. Every single one of us has turned away from God. We have deviated from the plan. We are not in line with God’s will, we are far from it.
Isaiah 53:6 6 All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way
Next, Paul says that we have become useless. Now he’s just being mean. Not only are we unrighteous, we don’t understand things, we are unable to seek for God and we have turned away from Him, but now he says we are useless. We are good for nothing.
Spiritually speaking, we are good for nothing. We can not produce any fruit on our own, we can do nothing good on our own, we cannot offer anything to God. We are useless. We are like a dead branch on a tree, unable to produce any fruit or serve any purpose. We will ultimately be thrown in the fire.
There is no one does good. Not even one. We don’t do anything good or righteous in the sight of God. We don’t even want to. We are incapable of doing good. We are unable to produce even the smallest good work.
In the next few verses Paul moves from a general description of how we are all under sin, to some more specific examples of the different ways we are sinful. He shows that our speech is evil, our actions are evil, and our motives are evil.
First of all, our speech is evil. Look at verses 13-14 with me again…
In these verses Paul lists four different parts of the body that are associated with speech in some way. He starts out with the throat. This comes from a passage in Psalms 5:9…
Psalm 5:9 9 There is nothing reliable in what they say; Their inward part is destruction itself. Their throat is an open grave; They flatter with their tongue.
Our throats are open graves. What an unpleasant word picture. The full picture is of a corpse lying in an open grave. The stench of death and decay pour out of it. In the same way our heart as a dead and rotting corpse. It smells bad, it looks bad, it is ugly and vile. The stench of death fills everything that comes out of our mouth.
We are rotten to the core, and our words reflect that.
Next Paul talks about the tongue. “With their tongues, they keep deceiving”. We’re liars and deceivers and flatterers. We don’t tell the truth. We don’t even know the truth. All we know is lies and evil and sin. Even when we think we are being honest, we are still filled with selfishness and deception.
The next one is similar; he says that the poison of asps is on our lips. The imagery here is of people who are dangerous and deadly and likely to strike at any moment.
I read one description of an asp that said…
“The fangs of such a deadly snake ordinarily lie folded back in the upper jaw(kind of like where their lips would be if a snake had lips), but when the snake throws its head to strike, the fangs drop down and it injects its poison.”
Lastly Paul mentions the mouth. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Cursing is a kind of a prayer. It is a fervent wish that something bad would happen to someone. It comes from a heart of hatred and jealousy and selfishness. There is no love, no respect, no patience, only bitterness in our mouths.
Next, Paul explains that not only are our words filled with evil, our actions are evil too. Look at verses 15-17 with me again…
Our feet are swift to shed blood. In Genesis, the first sin committed after the fall was murder. The story of Cain and Able is found in Genesis 4. It’s amazing how quickly Cain went from disappointment to anger and then from anger to murder. His feet were swift to shed blood.
For the sinful man, hatred, violence, and even murder are common. Destruction and misery are in their paths. That’s another very vivid description of humanity. We leave a wake of destruction in our path.
It’s just like my two girls when their stuck in the house on a rainy day. They play with every toy they own for about four seconds. Lilly changes clothes about ten times an hour. By the end of the day there are trails of clothes and toys all around the house.
In the same way, everywhere we go and everything we do seems to result in a mess. Sinful man does not know how to build up or encourage, all they can do is destroy and cause pain.
It says that the path of peace they have not known. We don’t know how to bring peace, only pain. We don’t really want to bring peace, we only want to get our own way.
Finally in verse 18 Paul gives us some indication as to why we are like this. What is our motive for our sinful speech and actions? Verse 18 says…
Why is humanity so evil? Because we no longer have any fear of God. When you look out into the world today it is clear to see that people have no fear of God. They deny His existence. They blame Him for their problems. They get angry with God like a child who throws a tantrum when they don’t get their way.
Even those of us who are believers have no real fear of God sometimes. We know God’s word. We know what He expects from us; but we still do things our own way. We aren’t worried about honoring Him, or angering Him.
At the heart of the person who doesn’t fear God lies a disbelief that God really exists. Deep down inside we don’t really think there is a God. We don’t really believe there will be any punishment for our actions.
In our sinful state we act sinful and selfish and evil because we have absolutely no fear of God. We just don’t care what he thinks.
In verses 9-18 Paul wraps up his case. He makes his closing arguments. The charge is that all mankind is sinful and unrighteous and inherently evil. Paul convincingly argues that every human being, gentile and Jew, man and woman, good guy and bad guy, are all sinful. No one is righteous.
In verses 19-20 Paul offers the verdict, guilty as charged. No one can be made righteous by the law. Look at verses 19-20…
Even though everyone has the law, and in the Old Covenant their duty was to keep the law, no one is able to become righteous through obeying it. The law reveals our sin, it doesn’t fix it. The law was never meant to fix the problem. In plain language Paul says, no one will be justified by keeping the law. The law merely shines a spotlight on our sinfulness.
That’s the way God intended it from the beginning. The law was never meant to save, it was only meant to help show us the way to faith. Look at this passage in Galatians 3…
Galatians 3:23-25 23 But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. 24 Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
The law does not save anyone. Those Jews who felt that their were saved because they had been given the law were wrong. Those gentiles who thought that they were Ok because they kept to some form of moral law were wrong. The law doesn’t save, it shows us how sinful we are and how much we need a savior.
Paul finally finishes this long indictment against humanity. The conclusion is that all mankind is in slavery to sin and separated from God. No one is righteous in His sight. All men are deserving of divine judgment and wrath. Righteousness does not come from the law.
Looking ahead to verse 21 Paul finally says that word that we have been waiting for him to say, “but”. The conclusion is that all mankind is unrighteous. If that’s where he left it it would be very depressing. We’re all guilt as charged and deserve death. The end. No, we know that there is more to the story, we know that there is some light at the end of this dark tunnel.
All mankind is unrighteous, but, now, apart from trying fruitlessly to keep the law, there is a righteousness that has appeared.
Just when we think all hope is lost. Just when we are about to give up. Paul says, but wait, there is a righteousness available to you. It isn’t found in the law, it’s found in Jesus Christ.
How exciting! After two chapters of depressing condemnation we see that there is hope! There is a way for us to be right with God. Not by working for it, but through faith in Jesus Christ.
I’m excited because this means that we can start to construct another wall in our doctrinal house. So far we have laid the foundation, which is the doctrine of revelation. And for the past few weeks we have been dealing with the doctrine of sin. Now that the problem has been diagnosed, we can move on to talking about the doctrine of salvation.
In the remaining ten verses in chapter three we find this high concentration of important key salvation words. In the next ten verses Paul mentions righteousness 4 times, justification 5 times, faith 6 times, he mentions grace, redemption, and even propitiation, which is a very important salvation word.
Next week we will put all these pieces together so that we have a clear understanding of how and why we are saved.
When it comes to going to the doctor, men are sometimes stubborn. I know I can be. I’ve been having this weird chest pain for about two weeks. At first I thought it was just indigestion or something, but it wasn’t going away. Camille and my other friends encouraged me to go to the doctor, but I didn’t really want to. I figured that if it was a heart attack I would have been dead weeks ago.
Part of me didn’t want to go to the doctor because I didn’t want them to find something wrong. I think a lot of times guys ignore things and avoid the doctor because they are afraid of the diagnosis. We would rather be ignorant and in pain, than have the knowledge that something is wrong.
I did end up going to the doctor. It turns out that it was probably just a pulled muscle or some torn cartilage in my sternum. So I’m not dying; well, I’m dying, but not as quickly as I thought I was.
But without a proper diagnosis there can’t be a cure. And ignoring the problem doesn’t make it go away. If I was having a heart attack, taking antacids isn’t going to help a whole lot.
The reason that Paul spends so much time talking about our sin is because he knows that there needs to be a proper diagnosis before there can be a cure. He knows that we don’t really want to think about what’s wrong with us. We would be perfectly happy to self-medicate, or try and solve the problem on our own. We are content to use good works, or the law, or some other band-aid to try and fix our broken heart.
At our core we are sinful, that’s Paul’s diagnosis. And no matter how much we try to ignore it, the problem is still there. Fortunately Paul doesn’t just diagnose the problem; he also gives us the cure.
The grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ is available to all who believe.
