The twentieth century has been punctuated by a series of extremely controversial court verdicts. Consider the O. J. Simpson trials. O.J.’s criminal trial in 1995 acquitted him of the accusation that he murdered his ex-wife and her boyfriend. But his civil trial in 1997 find him liable for $8.5 million dollars for these same deaths. Simpson’s guilt or innocence continues to be a matter of controversy among Americans. According to a Gallup Poll conducted on February 7, 1997, Americans are still divided along racial lines over O.J.’s guilt or innocence. Among whites, 71% believe O. J. is guilty. Among African-Americans 28% believe he’s guilty.
We had a guest speaking a few years ago who started his sermon by telling an O.J. Simpson joke that assumed he was guilt. That Sunday we had an African American family visiting the church for the first time, and they found that assumption so offensive that they didn’t hear anything else the guest speaker said and they never came back. The O.J. Simpson verdicts continue to be controversial.
But in some ways the O.J. verdicts pale in comparison to the acquittal of the four officers who beat Rodney King during a traffic stop in Los Angeles in 1991. When that not guilty verdict was announced in April of 1992 violence erupted in our cities, leading to 58 people being killed. Our cities have yet to heal from that horrible event.
But even that verdict pales in comparison to the controversy surrounding the Supreme Court’s verdict in the 1973 Roe v. Wade case. That verdict legalized abortion in America, and has continued to create heated debate among Americans. Entire organizations were started to either work for the overturning of that verdict or to try to ensure that it’s never overturned. I think abortion is one of the most weighty moral issues of our day.
We could go on to list other verdicts in the 20th century that have been controversial or significant. But from the perspective of human history, perhaps no verdict is as controversial among people as the Bible’s claim about God’s verdict on the human race. More people reject and debate this verdict than all the other controversial verdicts combined. In fact, many believe that God doesn’t have a verdict on the human race, and that the idea that God has passed judgment on humanity is an invention of religious people who want to oppress the public.
Today we’re going to explore what the Bible says about God’s verdict on the human race. We’re going to look at what this verdict is, the extent of this verdict on our lives, and then the proof of this verdict. This is part of our continuing series through the New Testament book of Romans called GOOD NEWS FOR OUR TIMES.
1. The Content of God’s Verdict (Romans 3:9)
Let’s start by looking at what God’s verdict actually is in 3:9. Paul’s just finished talking about how people who have a religious heritage have certain advantages. But here we find that even with these advantages, religious people aren’t immune to the charge Paul’s made. The charge Paul’s talking about here is the line of reasoning that he started back in 1:18 when he said God’s judgment was being revealed from heaven against the entire human race. Paul has relentlessly reasoned point by point to show that all people are part of a mass rebellion against our creator.
Paul’s claim is that the entire human race is "under sin." Paul’s saying more than nobody’s perfect or that everyone sins. By using the singular word "sin" here, Paul personifies sin as if sin is a person or a power that has the human race under its control (Cranfield 1:191). Paul is using the word picture from the world of slavery to picture sin as a cruel tyrant who holds the entire human race captive to guilt (Stott 99). Later in Romans Paul will continue to personify sin in this way when he describes sin as reigning over the world (5:21), enslaving people (6:6), ruling over our desires (6:12) and exercising dominion over humanity (6:14).
So here we find the Bible’s claim about God’s verdict on the human race. EVERYONE IS HELPLESS UNDER THE POWER OF SIN.
All people-Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, young and old, regardless of race or religion, irrespective of creed or conduct, all are captive to sin. Sin isn’t just an action or an attitude, but it’s a state of being, a condition. Sin is like a prison that’s caged the human race. It’s like a tick that’s burrowed into the human race, and the harder we try to remove it the deeper it digs in (Plantinga 88).
Now this isn’t a very popular opinion in our world today. The "s" word has dropped out of our vocabulary for the most part, unless we’re talking about a "sinfully delicious" chocolate dessert. As Calvin College professor Cornelius Plantinga says, "Where sin is concerned, people mumble now" (x). We talk about failures and dysfunctions, hurts and syndromes, diseases and addictions, but we fail to relate these concepts to the Bible’s teaching about sin.
In fact the history of the human race is a history of people trying to come up with other solutions to the human dilemma. Maybe you saw the movie "Grand Canyon" with Kevin Kline and Danny Glover (Plantinga 7). Kevin Kline portrays a wealthy attorney whose expensive sports car breaks down at night in the inner city. As he uses his cell phone to call for a tow truck, five gang members surround his car and threaten to beat him up. Just in time the tow truck driver arrives, and when the gang members won’t let the tow truck driver do his job, he says these words:
"The world ain’t supposed to be like this. Maybe you don’t know that, but this ain’t the way it’s supposed to be. I’m supposed to be able to do my job without askin’ you if I can. And that dude is supposed to be able to wait for his car without you ripping him off. Everything’s supposed to be different than what it is here."
What a telling description of the human condition: Not the way it’s supposed to be.
What are some of the alternate explanations for what’s gone wrong with the human condition? In ancient Chinese culture it was thought that human beings were essentially good and virtuous, so the solution to the human condition was to give people a MORAL EDUCATION to bring out that goodness (Thomas and Chethimattan 41). This is why someone like Confucius was so important. If we could just teach people right and wrong the world would be different.
In India it was thought that human beings were essentially divine (Thomas and Chethimattan 38). The reason the world isn’t the way it’s supposed to be is because humans have forgotten that they’re divine, so the solution is to help people get ENLIGHTENED TO THEIR OWN GODHOOD. So religions like Hinduism and some forms of Buddhism attempt to get people in touch with this supposed godhood that resides in every person. We see this propagated today all around us from people as diverse as Oprah Winfrey to John Travolta.
In ancient Greece it was thought that human beings were essentially immortal souls imprisoned in a mortal body. Our problem is our body, the fact that our immortal self is locked in the prison of the body. So philosophers like Plato tried to help people find LIBERATION FROM THEIR BODIES through philosophy. Death was thought to be liberation in ancient Greek philosophy.
With the rise of the Enlightenment it was thought that ignorance was the root of the human condition. Many historians connect the philosopher Rene Descartes with this approach. It was thought that once we learned enough about our world and developed technology we’d be able to solve the problem of the human condition. Yet three hundred years of REASON and TECHNOLOGY have created even bigger problems and the Enlightenment seems to have failed terribly.
Karl Marx thought that human beings were essentially workers. So the solution to the way things are is to be found in REVOLUTION that leads to economic equality among workers. Yet this communist system has failed miserably in our lifetimes, as we saw in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
The philosopher Fredrich Nietzsche claimed that humans are essentially beings who exert power to control other powers. For Nietzsche our problem is that we haven’t dominated the world enough, and Nietzsche looked forward to the coming of a "super man" figure who would DOMINATE THE WORLD and free us from the human condition.
The rise of modern psychology in the writings of Sigmund Freud claimed that humans are essentially a collection of unconscious drives. The solution to the human condition then is to LEARN TO COPE with these unconscious drives through therapy so we can fulfill them in ways that are socially acceptable. This has led to a therapeutic culture that describes things that at one time were labeled as sinful as now being called dysfunctional.
Finally, the rise of the advertising industry pictures human beings as consumers who have unmet needs. So the solution to the human dilemma is to help the consumer PURCHASE GOODS AND SERVICES to meet these unmet needs. Marketers promise us personal fulfillment and happiness if we buy the right kind of car, belong to the right health club, and so forth. This has led to the most consumer driven culture in human history.
So the idea that all humans are helpless under the power of sin has been challenged by other solutions. Some of these alternative solutions contain an element of truth to them, yet none of them are sufficient to describe the depth of the human condition. Things like moral education, reason, technology, economic equality, therapy, and consumer goods have created as many problems as they’ve solved. The Christian faith claims that these other solutions may contain some truth, but that things aren’t the way they’re supposed to be because our entire race is helpless under sin. According to the Bible this is God’s verdict on the human race.
2. The Extent of God’s Verdict (Romans 3:10-18)
Now this leads us to wonder just how bad this condition truly is. What’s the extent of this verdict? Well in vv. 10 to 18 Paul quotes a bunch of verses from the Old Testament in the Bible to show us just how bad our problem is. Paul’s uses a technique called pearl stringing, where he quotes verse after verse to prove his point (Moo 202). We’re going to find three ways to describe the extent of God’s verdict.
Let me just give you the first one: WE FIND OURSELVES ALIENATED FROM GOD. That’s what we find in v. 10-12a. The word "righteous" here is a legal term that means "standing right before God" (Moo 203). "Righteous" describes our status before God as our creator and our judge. In other words, no human being can stand right before God based on his or her own merit.
By saying "no one understands" Paul focuses on the effect of sin on our capacity to think. In our natural condition, we’re incapable of understanding truth about God because being under sin has impacted our ability to reason. Even our minds are corrupted by the power of sin.
By saying "no one seeks God" Paul focuses on the effect of sin on the human will, on our ability to choose. Our ability to choose God has been shattered by sin, so we find ourselves immobilized apart from God’s help.
We talk a lot about seekers here at this church, and some people have wondered if there’s such a thing as a seeker because of this verse. Here we learn that apart from God’s help, no one would seek God. If a person’s seeking God it’s only because God is giving that person the capacity to seek. Left to our own resources, without God’s help, we’d never seek him.
Now let me give you the next way of describing the extent: WE FIND OURSELVES HURTING OTHER PEOPLE. That’s what we find in v. 12b to 15. No one does the kind of good that counts with God. This doesn’t mean that no one is moral from a human perspective, because obviously some people are more moral than others. In fact, some atheists are more moral than some people who claim to be Christians. But this is talking about ultimate good, the kind of God that ultimately counts before God.
Using the imagery of body parts, Paul describes some of the ways we hurt other people. We hurt people with our words, with cursing and resentment that spills out of our mouths like poison. We’re quick to retaliate and even to shed blood. According to historian Will Durant, in the last 3,421 years of recorded history, only 268 years have seen no war (Hughes 77). Humans keep trying to destroy each other.
Perhaps not all of us are killers, but we all struggle with doing things that hurt other people. The people we love the most are often the people we hurt the most, whether with our words, our actions, or our attitudes. Slander, gossip, lying, cursing, verbal abuse…human’s are all prone to these things.
Finally, we also realize that WE HAVE LOST OUR WAY in the journey. That’s what vv. 16-18 are saying. The word "way" in v. 16 and 17 is the word Greek word for "path" or "road." This pictures life as being like a journey. The path we find ourselves on is a path of ruin and misery. In book called The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, alcoholics are characterized as being like tornados in the lives of the people who love them. Really, all of us can be like that, leaving broken people in the wake of our life decisions.
But it’s also ruin and misery for us as well, as we find ourselves broken and devastated by our own decisions. Sin both causes and often results from misery (Plantinga 3). We’ve strayed from the pathway of peace, the road that God laid out for us to walk. We realize that all paths don’t lead to God, but some paths lead to misery and despair, ruin and brokenness.
By describing the extent of our problem this way, Paul is giving us a very dismal picture of the human condition.
Theologians sometimes call this picture "total depravity." Now total depravity doesn’t mean people are as bad as they could be, but that sin has impacted each human in every aspect of his or her being (Stott 101). Sin not only effects my ability to choose, but it also impacts my capacity to reason, by emotions, my memories, my desires, and so forth. Think of it this way: If sin were the color blue, then total depravity means that every dimension of our personality is some shade of blue (Hughes 75). Some areas are more blue than others, and some people are more blue than others, but every part of every person is some shade of blue.
The extent of human sin is TOTAL, alienating us from God, hurting those around us, and causing us to lose our way.
3. The Proof of God’s Verdict (Romans 3:19-20)
Now Paul turns to talk about the proof of this verdict in v. 19 and 20. The Jewish people of Paul’s day thought this description didn’t include them. They knew that they sinned, but they thought they had diplomatic immunity from God’s judgment because they were Jewish. Of course those irreligious are corrupt to the core, but not us religious people.
So Paul reminds them that the verses he quoted from the Old Testament are talking about them. Paul’s saying, "Let no one say these words apply to Gentiles only" (Bruce, 191). Since the Jewish people are the ones addressed in the Old Testament, the dismal description Paul’s given applies just as much to them as it does to non-Jewish people. The result of this is that every person is left without an excuse before God’s judgment seat. The idea of having a mouth silenced is another word picture taken from the ancient law courts back then, and it refers to a defendant in the courtroom, who, given the opportunity to speak in his own defense, is speechless because of the weight of evidence against him (Cranfield 1:196-97). Even the most religious person is speechless before the indictment that the entire human race is captive to the power of sin.
This renders the entire human race accountable to God. Because of this, no one can gain an acquittal from God’s verdict by trying to do good things, even the good things commanded in God’s law. Although our actions got us into this condition, our actions are helpless to get us out of it. We’re like a person who’s stopped breathing; we can’t perform CPR on ourselves.
Instead of giving us a way to earn our way back to God, God’s law instead makes us conscious of sin. F. F. Bruce puts it this way: "The law brings people’s sin to light and teaches them that they are sinners" (191). In other words, God’s law names our condition, it gives it a diagnosis, a label, a name.
Here we find the proof of God’s verdict. GOD’S LAW PROVES OUR GUILTY CONDITION BEFORE GOD.
From God’s law we find that the root of our problem isn’t just ignorance, social problems, or dysfunction. God’s law names our condition as sin. Underneath all the layers of symptoms, our core problem is that we’re not right with God.
Now some people find this very depressing. In fact, some people don’t like Romans 1:18 to 3:20 because it’s all so negative and pessimistic. But I find this to be good news; let me show you why. Imagine with me for a minute that you start feeling sick all the time. You’re tired all the time, prone to infections, and have trouble sleeping. You go to doctor after doctor trying to find out what’s wrong, and each doctor gives you a different theory. But all the proposed treatments don’t work, and you realize that the doctors don’t have a clue what’s wrong with you. But imagine there’s one more test they’re going to try, and this last test reveals that you have a very rare, very unusual form of cancer. Now how would you feel? On the one hand you’d be dismayed that you have cancer, but at least you know what’s wrong now, at least you have a name to put with how you’re feeling. Once you know what the problem is you can start seeking the right solution.
God’s law diagnoses our problem, like an x-ray machine helps us see what’s beneath the surface. Of course you wouldn’t look to the x-ray machine to treat the disease, but it diagnoses the disease so we can then start thinking about treatment. If the root of the human dilemma were ignorance, or lack of technology, or sickness or maladjustment then we’d be left with the same old conventional solutions that haven’t been working all these years. But if the root problem is sin, then we can turn to God for a solution, and that’s what the rest of Romans is all about.
Conclusion
So here we find the verdict. God’s verdict is that the entire human race is helpless under the power of sin, that this condition is total, and that the proof is found in the x-ray machine of God’s law. It’s not just a disease, or a lack of education, or ignorance, but it’s fundamentally a spiritual problem.
Now there was a time when everyone in our society assumed that this verdict was true. But that’s all changed in the last fifty years or so. Back in 1948 Christian author C. S. Lewis wrote a little essay called "God in the Dock" (Lewis 329). In that essay, Lewis observed ancient people approached God as an accused person approaches his or her judge. But in his generation (and in ours as well) the roles are reversed. Now we humans have set themselves up as the judge, and God is the one on trial. We demand that God give us an answer for evil and suffering in our world, with us on the bench and God in the docket.
Lewis is right: More people have contested God’s verdict on the human race than any other verdict in human history. But as we look around us, we notice that our conventional answers aren’t working any better today than they were in C. S. Lewis’s generation. Education has merely shown us how little we still know and how theories constantly change.
Technology has given us the capacity to destroy ourselves and cause ecological chaos on the earth. Psychology has merely shown us how complex people truly are and how deep our inner drives go.
Perhaps its time to reconsider God’s verdict, that our entire race is captive under sin. Perhaps the reason we don’t feel helpless under sin is the same reason a fish isn’t conscious of how water feels. Perhaps what feels normal to us isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. Perhaps God planned something better, something bigger, something greater.
Sources
Brown, H. et al. 1995. Images of the Human: The Philosophy of the Human Person in a Religious Context. Chicago: Loyola Press.
Cranfield, C. E. B. 1975. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark.
Hughes, Phillip. 1997. Romans: Righteousness From Heaven. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.
Moo, Douglas. 1996. The Epistle to the Romans. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Plaintinga, Jr., Cornelius. 1995. Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin. Grand Rapids, Eerdmans.
Schreiner, Thomas. 1998. Romans. Baker Exegetical Commentary. Baker Book House.
Stott, John. 1994. Romans: God’s Good News for the World. InterVarsity Press.
Thomas, T. M. and J. B. Chethimattan. 1974. Images of Man. Dharmaram Publications.
