Since our dog chewed up the old one, last week I had to go get a new backwash hose for our pool. So when we were at Wal-Mart picking up a few other things, we grabbed the only one they had. Although the package said the hose would fit the 1-1/2” pipe on my pool filter it turns out it wasn’t nearly big enough to do that. So I had a choice, I could either try to stretch the hose to fit the larger pipe or I could get a reducer for the pipe that would reduce it to the same size as the hose.
While it sounds like either of those options might work, in reality only one would be a lasting solution. I could try and stretch the hose, but even if I could stretch it enough it to fit the larger pipe, it wouldn’t be too long until it burst. So I chose to get a reducer and conform the pipe to the hose rather than to try and conform the hose to the pipe.
During that process, it occurred to me that my dilemma was a perfect illustration of the two options we have when it comes to applying the Bible in our lives. We can either attempt to conform our lives to the Word of God or we can try to conform the Word of God to our lives. And only one of those two options works in the long run. This morning as we examine God’s Word we’re going to discover that…
The Bible is an advantage
only when we conform our lives to His Word
rather than conform His Word to our lives
This morning we’re going to return to the Book of Romans. Hopefully, you’ll remember that last fall we began our look at that important book of Scripture with the idea of returning to it every year for several months in the fall. So last fall, we spent about three months looking at the first two chapters of Romans. My plan is that between now and the end of November, when we start a series of Christmas messages, we’ll cover the next three chapters of Romans.
Since it’s been a while, it’s probably a good idea to briefly summarize the first two chapters of the book. Paul began in chapter 1 by introducing the gospel and then he proceeded to show why that gospel was needed. At the end of chapter 1, he primarily addresses the Gentiles and argues that even they have no excuse for their rejection of God because His nature and character is revealed in His creation. His audience, which likely consisted primarily of Jewish Christians, certainly had no problem with that.
But then in chapter 2, Paul lays out his case that the Jews are also equally in need of the gospel because God is more concerned with their hearts than with outward signs of their religion. And their hearts were no more righteous than those of the Gentiles.
As we come to chapter 3, Paul is going to address some of the objections he expects from his audience by using a teaching method known as a diatribe, which is basically a series of questions and answers with an imaginary opponent.
I hope that you’ve taken some time to read this passage before this morning and if you have, you may have had a hard time following Paul’s line of thinking here. If you did, then you have a lot of company, including me. When I first began looking at this passage a couple weeks ago, I struggled to follow Paul’s logic here and I thought maybe it was just me. But then as I began to read some other sermons and commentaries, I found that I, too, was in good company and that many men much more learned than I consider this to be the most difficult passage in Romans. So we’ve got our work cut out for us this morning. But I’m confident that we’re up to the task.
Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 3 and follow along as I read beginning in verse 1:
Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written,
“That you may be justified in your words,
and prevail when you are judged.”
But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie God's truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just.
(Romans 3:1-8 ESV)
In this diatribe, Paul presents three objections that he expects his audience to raise in their minds and then he answers each of those objections. If we’ll keep that structure in mind, it will help us understand and apply this difficult passage.
Objection #1 (verse 1):
• There is no advantage in being God’s chosen people
Paul has just finished making the case that the Jews are just as much in need of the gospel as the Gentiles because they, too, have rebelled against God in their hearts, even if they do look religious on the outside. So Paul is addressing here the first objection he would expect from these Jewish Christians: If that’s the case then is there any advantage at all in being a Jew and following the law when it comes to things like circumcision?
That was certainly a legitimate question to ask. Today we might phrase this objection a bit differently:
If things like baptism and the Lord’s Supper and being a member of a local church won’t make me righteous before God or save me, then what is the advantage of participating in those things? That, too is certainly a legitimate question to ask.
Paul’s response (verse 2):
• You have the advantage of God’s Word
Paul is going to resume his answer to this objection in chapter 9, verse 4, where he lists many other advantages that the Jews have as God’s chosen people. But here, he focuses on what he considers to be the greatest advantage of being a Jew – being entrusted with the oracles of God.
The word “oracles” described important sayings or messages, especially supernatural utterances. It is used 4 times in the New Testament and in each instance it is used as a synonym for the Bible to stress that the words in Scripture are actually the utterances of God.
God had entrusted His Word to the Jews and given them the responsibility of communicating His Word to the world around them with their lips and their lives. But instead they had used the Scriptures as a basis for claiming special privilege rather than focusing on the great responsibility that came with the blessing of being entrusted with God’s Word.
We need to keep that in mind as well. Certainly being a disciple of Jesus does benefit us personally. But being a disciple is more a position of responsibility than a position of privilege. We are reminded here of the words of Jesus:
… Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.
(Luke 12:48 ESV)
The greatest advantage we have as disciples of Jesus is that we have been entrusted with the Bible – not just for our own personal benefit, but for the purpose of honoring and cherishing the Word of God and unapologetically communicating that good news to a lost world around us with our lips and our lives.
Objection #2 (verse 3):
• God gives up on His people when they sin
This second objection flows from the first one. In essence, this objection goes something like this: “Paul, let’s just suppose for a moment that you’re right and that all of us Jews are sinners. Doesn’t that mean God is going to renege on all His promises to us as a people? After all, God made a deal with us, and if you’re right, we didn’t keep our end of the deal, so doesn’t that mean God won’t keep his either?”
Today, we see that same objection, just in a slightly different form. It might go something like this: “You’re absolutely right. I am a sinner. In fact I’m such a horrible sinner and the things I have done are so terrible that God couldn’t possibly forgive me. I’ve offended Him to such a great degree that I’m sure God has given up on me.”
Paul’s response (verse 4):
• There is nothing you can do that will cause God to give up on you
This is the first of several places Paul is going to use this phrase “By no means!” in his letter. This is one of those phrases that is almost impossible to translate into English. It consists of a strong negative construction in Greek that conveys the idea of impossibility.
Paul is empathic here that it is impossible for the faithlessness of man to somehow nullify the faithfulness of God. All the way back in Genesis 12 God had made a promise to bless Israel as a nation – a promise that was not conditional and which rested solely on God’s character of being 100% faithful. And even though over the years every single individual that had been part of Israel had been unfaithful to God in some way, that did not negate God’s promise to the nation as a whole.
Paul quotes from Psalm 51 to prove his point. Psalm 51 was written by David after his sin with Bathsheba. In the verse Paul is quoting, David is acknowledging that what happened to him was a demonstration of God’s justice. David sinned and God judged him, proving that God is righteous in all that He does. But after God judged David, He also forgave him to show that God’s grace is greater than man’s sin.
We see two important principles at work here.
First, it is clear that all the sins of the Jews – and there were many – could not cause God to break His promises. As Paul put it here, even if every man is a liar, God will be true to His Word. The same thing is true for each one of us personally. Our sins – though they be many – cannot cause God to break His promises. There is nothing you can do that will cause God to give up on you. God is always willing to forgive.
But at the same time, not everyone automatically receives the forgiveness that God offers to all. While God made an unconditional promise to the nation of Israel as a people, He never promised that any individual Jew, no matter how pure his or her lineage from Abraham was, could claim security in God’s promises apart from personal repentance and faith. We certainly see that from David’s example in Psalm 51. It was only once David confessed and repented from His sin and put His trust in God’s faithfulness and not what he could do, that he received God’s mercy and forgiveness.
So while God is willing, and even anxious to forgive you, going to church regularly or begin baptized or giving money or participating in the Lord’s Supper or any other act of external religiosity can never earn that forgiveness. It is only when we are willing to confess that sin without making any excuses for it and to repent and place our faith in Jesus that we can actually experience that forgiveness.
Objection #3 (verse 5):
• If my sin reveals God’s righteousness, then how can He judge me?
This third objection is one that Paul is going to deal with again several times in his letter in slightly different forms. The argument goes something like this: “Paul, you’ve really played right into our hands now. If David’s sin gave God a chance to demonstrate His righteousness and His mercy, then wasn’t it a good thing that David sinned? And since David’s sin was actually a good thing, then how could God judge him for it and how can God judge us for our sin?”
I know most of us immediately recognize the convoluted thinking in that argument, but I’m not sure that we don’t use this same kind of thinking in the church more than we would care to admit. I’ll address that in a moment when we talk about Paul’s response to this objection.
Paul’s response (verses 6-8):
• Your judgment is just because you are twisting God’s Word
This third objection is a slick argument, but it is also a sick argument. This objection accuses God of using sin for His advantage. But Paul makes it clear, in no uncertain terms, that this kind of clever twisting of the Scripture in order to make what is inherently evil appear good is not to be tolerated. Once again, he uses the phrase “By no means!” to leave absolutely no doubt that this kind of thinking has no place in the life of a disciple of Jesus.
The first three objections that we’ve seen this morning are relatively straightforward, but when we get to verses 7 and 8 it’s much more difficult to figure out how they fit into this passage. Is this actually a fourth objection or is this part of Paul’s answer to the third objection that we’re looking at right now? I think the key to making that determination is to look at the pronouns that Paul employs as he goes through his argument.
In verses 1-4, Paul speaks of the Jews in the third person – he calls them Jews or uses the pronoun “their”. So the first two objections are presented in a way that they are coming from the Jews as God’s chosen people who have the advantage of having been entrusted with the oracles of God.
Then in verses 5-6 Paul switches to the first person plural – “our”, “we”, “us”. It seems that Paul does that because he wants his readers to understand that he considers himself to be unrighteous and deserving of God’s wrath just like all his fellow Jews. He doesn’t want to in any way imply that he is not in need of the gospel.
Finally in verses 7, he switches to the first person singular – “my” and “I” to refer to his teaching and the personal condemnation he is experiencing from the skeptics in his audience as a result. Even the “us” in verse 8 appears to refer only to Paul and some of his associates and not to the Jews as a whole.
With those differences in mind, it becomes pretty clear that this is not a fourth separate objection, but merely an extension of Paul’s response to the third objection.
Essentially here is what I think Paul is saying in verses 7-8: “You think that I’m teaching that we should do evil so that good may come, right? That’s not what I’m teaching at all, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume your accusation is true. So you’re condemning me as a sinner because you claim I am lying to you, right? So doesn’t my sin, as you’ve argued, serve to reveal God’s righteousness and His mercy? And if that’s the case, how can you think it’s OK to judge me for my sin, but it’s not OK for God to judge you for your sin?
Then Paul concludes this section with this statement:
Their condemnation is just.
The key question we must answer here, is “who is ‘their’?” Whose condemnation is just? Given the totality of this passage I think the answer to that question is pretty clear. “Their” identifies those who have been twisting God’s Word to try and claim that they don’t need the gospel. But I don’t think it’s a stretch at all to look at this kind of mindset in even broader terms. That is why we began this morning with this overall principle:
The Bible is an advantage
only when we conform our lives to His Word
rather than conform His Word to our lives
I am convinced that is Paul’s main point here in presenting and refuting these objections. As disciples of Jesus we do have a potential advantage over those who are not disciples because we have been entrusted with the Word of God. But the Bible only becomes an actual advantage to us when we choose to conform our lives to God’s Word rather than try to twist the Scriptures to conform them to the way we want to live our lives.
For the Jews, that meant they had to give up the unbiblical idea they had been holding onto that as God’s chosen people they were somehow privileged in a way that meant they didn’t need Jesus and His gospel.
They had twisted the Scriptures to fit their own idea of what it meant to be God’s chosen people. They had completely ignored the fact that as God’s chosen people they had been entrusted with the responsibility of proclaiming God’s Word to the surrounding nations through their lips and their lives. Instead they had twisted the Scriptures to make them feel good about themselves, living according to their version of the letter of the law, but missing the heart of the law.
As a result, they had turned the advantage of being entrusted with the oracles of God into a curse.
Unfortunately, we see exactly the same thing in our world today. Those who claim to be Christians often twist the Word of God to try and make it conform to the way they have decided they want to live. But in the long run that doesn’t work any better than me trying to stretch a hose that’s too small to fit a larger pipe.
And as I mentioned earlier it’s easier to fall into that trap than we might imagine. Although this list is far from exhaustive, let me share some potential ways we could twist God’s Word to conform to our lives. Some of these are hypothetical, but some are actual things that I have observed within the church. My goal here is not to make you feel guilty if you’ve done something similar, although if the Holy Spirit uses these examples to bring conviction, I’m certainly not opposed to that. But what I do want to do is to remind us how easy it is for us to do exactly what Paul was warning about here.
o “I know the Bible teaches that we shouldn’t live together before we get married, but we decided that it’s OK because we’d rather find out we’re incompatible before we get married and end up getting a divorce because the sin of divorce would be worse that the sin of living together before we got married.”
o “I know that I don’t have any Biblical grounds for divorce, but I’m not happy in my marriage so I’m going to get a divorce anyway because I know God will forgive me.”
o “I know it’s wrong to not report all my income on my tax returns, but the Bible says that I’m worse than an unbeliever if I don’t take care of my family and I can’t afford to pay those extra taxes and still be able to take care of my family so that’s the lesser sin.”
o “When I went out to the bar with some of my friends and got drunk that was actually a good thing because now my friends know I’m just like them and that will make it easier to share the gospel with them.”
There are almost limitless examples, but I think you get the idea. Unfortunately, we can get pretty creative in attempting to conform the Bible to fit our lives. Here are a few of the common ways we do that we need to guard against:
1) Ranking the severity of sin. Several of the examples I just gave are based on this practice. We justify one particular sin by convincing ourselves that it’s not as bad as some other sin – usually one that we don’t tend to struggle with.
2) Ignoring the parts of the Bible that we don’t like. This is actually pretty easy to do. We can just skip over the parts of the Bible that address whatever sin we’re trying to justify. That’s why it’s so important to have a plan where we systematically read through the entire Bible.
3) Reading into the Bible instead of drawing out from the Bible. There’s even a technical term for this – eisegesis. We do that when we approach the Bible with some pre-conceived idea of what we want it to day and then try to force that meaning into the text. This is particularly a potential danger with topical preaching or teaching.
4) Applying the Bible to others, but not to myself. We tend to be really good at seeing how the Bible applies in the lives of others. If we’re honest, I think we’ve all been guilty of reading a particular passage and immediately thinking of how that applies to someone else and completely missing what it reveals about my life.
Let me just close with a couple of comments:
First, there is no such thing as “good sin”. All sin is evil through and through. Your sin and my sin is so serious that God had to send His one and only Son here to this earth to die on a cross because of our sin. So we must never underestimate the seriousness of our sin.
Second, because of His grace, God is able to bring about good in spite of our sin. But the fact that God is able to do that is never a justification for our sin. And even when God does choose to bring good out of sin, that doesn’t always mean He removes the consequences of that sin.
The example of David certainly illustrates that point. Although David eventually repented of his immorality with Bathsheba and God extended His grace and forgiveness, the child conceived as a result of that sinful action still died. And in the long term the nation of Israel ended up being split in two largely as a result of that sin.
The Bible is an advantage
only when we conform our lives to His Word
rather than conform His Word to our lives
Although the application of this message is simple, it’s not easy. Here are three things I want to encourage all of us to do this morning in response to this message:
1. Commit to systematically read all of the Bible. There are all kinds of Bible reading plans out there. And it’s really easy to find the best one for you – it’s always the one that you actually follow. It really doesn’t matter if you’re on a plan where you read through the Bible in a year or whether you’re using the plan I use to read through the Bible in four years. The main thing is to find a plan and stick to it.
2. Pray for God to help me conform my life to the Bible. I’ve found that if I’ll pray and ask God to help me apply what I’m going to learn from His Word before I read the Bible, it’s a lot more likely that I’ll approach His Word with the mindset that I want it to illuminate my life and show me where I need to make changes to align my live with what I’m reading.
3. Pray that as a body we’ll encourage and help each other to conform our lives, as a body, and as individuals, to the Word of God. We just got done with a 6 week sermon series on the church and we’ve seen just how indispensable being part of a local church is to our maturing as a disciple of Jesus. So let’s all pray that this body would be a place where we can all grow in our relationship with Jesus as we conform our lives to His Word.
