Sermon Tone Analysis

Romans is all about the righteousness of God provided to the unrighteous through faith in the Gospel.

And we have been studying so far up to v. 9 in Romans 3 where our passage picks up today.

For our study this year we have broken our study into 5 parts

Romans 1:1-3:20

- The Proclamation of Righteousness with the Gospel

Romans 3:21-5:21

- The Provision of Righteousness by the Gospel

By the end of this morning, we will have studied the 81 verses Paul set out to proclaim truth about the righteousness of God.

Now we turn to Rom 3:9-20 and have the context of the immediate verses leading up to these.

Paul concluded in (2:17-29) - Righteousness is not achieved through external considerations like race and religion.

Therefore, we rest in the truth that God is at work in us on what matters most - heart change.

He then transitioned into 3:1-8 where he spoke on the specific blessings of the Jews being:

1. It’s a really big deal to have the gift of God’s Word.

2. The unfaithfulness of man does not alter the faithfulness of God.

3. Sin is not justifiable, but will be held accountable by God.

Therefore, God is justified in all of His ways, and therefore, just in His judgements.

With that in mind we read in 3:9

Paul here asks the question, are we (Jews implied) better off than the non-Jews?

With which he replies - No way!

He says that we have already charged (filed a legal charge) for both the Jew and the non-Jew

The charge filed is this - we are all under sin.

This is where the conclusion of these 81 verses gets really clear.

There is a problem that all people have - and it’s called SIN!

Paul then emphasizes verses you will find in

Psalm 14:1-3 and Psalm 53:1-3

where he writes:

There is a threefold understanding within these verses.

On and of our own, no human being:

1.

Is righteous to the perfect standard of God

2. Understands the righteousness of God

3. Seeks after God.

We understand that this teaches that no human being on his own seeks for God or does any good that merits salvation.

In fact, our actions, our understanding, and our desires have all been tainted.

Paul is not denying the common grace of God bestowed on creation that constitute externally good deeds, but even our best of deeds are stained with sin.

Solomon wrote in Ecc.

7:20:

All are under sin and our actions, understanding, and desires prove this to be true.

And Paul takes it a step further:

Paul again affirms here the authority of the OT scriptures tying in Psalm 5 and 10.

The tongue is a great thermometer for what’s going on in the heart.

In fact, Jesus taught:

And if the words we speak tell us about our hearts, Paul explains, we are guilty.

He uses words like death, deceit, poison, cursing and bitterness.

Our words matter - they can be used to build up and they can be used to tear down.

and our choice of heart meditations will eventually be vocalized in how we speak.

And as a whole, the natural man is under sin and it is seen through how we speak.

So, our actions, understanding, desires, and words all prove that we are under sin, but Paul doesnt stop there.

Think with me for a moment to the reality of our day.

During the past century more than thirty-nine million people lost their lives in wars.

And by conservative estimates, human governments killed an additional 125 million people—led by Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and others.

According to the World Health Organization, every year in the world there are an estimated 40-50 million abortions.

This corresponds to approximately 125,000 abortions per day world wide.

Friend, humanity is littered with murder and warfare.

And in our wake we have left devastation, ruin, and misery.

The natural man’s actions, understanding, desires, words and legacy all are under sin and it is grounded in v. 18

Fear here meaning respect or reverence.

The root of the tainted actions, understanding, desires, words, and legacy is found in the natural man’s irrevernece of God.

Think with me back to Genesis 3.

Satan comes to Eve in the form of the serpent

And from this fall, the human nature became tainted and obstinate toward God.

So generation after generation have lived and died with little to no regard to his Creator.

Not thinking through the truth that we will all stand before God.

William McDonald put it this way:

This, then, is God’s X-ray of the human race.

It reveals universal unrighteousness (3:10); ignorance and independence toward God (3:11); waywardness, unprofitableness, and lack of any goodness (3:12).

Man’s throat is full of rottenness, his tongue is deceitful, his lips are venomous (3:13); his mouth is full of swearing (3:14); his feet are bent on murder (3:15); he leaves behind trouble and destruction (3:16); he doesn’t know how to make peace (3:17); and he has no regard for God (3:18).

Here we see the total depravity of man, by which we mean that sin has affected all of mankind and that it has affected every part of his being.

Obviously every man has not committed every sin, but he has a nature which is capable of committing them all.

So, the problem of every person is sin!

It is a universal epidemic, and the indictment is driven deeper by God’s sentence of guilty.

And this guilty verdict explains the purpose of the law.

Paul says:

Sometimes when the New Testament writers speak of the law, they are referring to the books of Moses, sometimes specifically to the book of Exodus, sometimes to the ten commandments and sometimes to the many laws that we find throughout the Pentateuch.

Who are those who are under the law?

Look back to verse 9, where Paul says, ‘We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin.’

They couldn’t be under the judgment of sin unless first they were under the pronouncement of the law because, as the apostle labours in this book, where there is no law, there is no sin.

The point he is making is that every human being is under the law of God to some degree, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

R. C. Sproul, The Gospel of God: An Exposition of Romans (Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 1994), 70.

RC SProul puts it this way:

Paul is drawing a courtroom scene, and God is sitting on the bench.

The indictment is being read to the defendant—fallen man.

Can you imagine being brought into a courtroom, having an indictment read and then having the judge say to you, How do you plead?

As you start to give a defence, suddenly the judge cuts you off in mid sentence and says, You may not speak!

There is a certain sense in which the judgment scene of the human race will happen like that.

R. C. Sproul, The Gospel of God: An Exposition of Romans (Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 1994), 70–71.

There is no objection to the reality that it is this bad.

And in turn, there is nothing we can do to fix it.

Look at v. 20

Paul concludes, the natural man’s actions, understanding, desires, words, and legacy and reverence toward God are all tainted.

There is no objection that we can give.

And there is no amount of good works we can do to fix it.

You can’t fulfill the OT and earn righteousness.

In fact, the whole purpose of the law is to bring to the surface, your knowledge of sin.

Paul said in Gal 3:21-22

Dear friend, if there were enough laws that could be given and kept to earn a right standing with God, then Jesus would have never had to come.

But He did because good deeds don’t merit righteousness.

Weekly Focus:

There is no amount of righteousness that we could accomplish to be right with God – we all stand guilty before Him.

Thankfully, this truth is countered with the Gospel.

How are you responding to that grace?

Initially for salvation?