May the Lord add his blessing to the reading, hearing, and teaching of his holy Word today.

Prayer:

Our gracious heavenly Father, we have read your Word, and it is open before us. You inspired the Apostle Paul to pen these words for the church at Rome and for the church in all ages, even to us today. Lord, we need the help of our Holy Spirit to understand your Word, to make it come alive and real and powerful in our lives. So, teach us and feed us today on the revelation of your scriptures, that we may know your truth, and in hearing and knowing, may mature as Christians, in our knowledge and service of you. In Jesus’ precious name we pray. Amen.  

Between 1346 and 1353, seven years, a mysterious death gripped Europe and stealthily and quietly killed between 50-85% of its population. It was called the Black Death, also known as the bubonic plague. Its symptoms included painful lymph node swellings in the groin, armpits, and neck, followed by acute fever, vomiting, and sometimes bleeding. Death usually occurred in two to seven days after infection.

It was a mystery disease. No one knew what caused it. Guesses were made but they did not have the scientific means of research at that time to determine the cause. It wasn’t until 1894 that the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin isolated it during a deadly plague epidemic in Hong Kong. He discovered that the culprit was a bacteria carried by infected flees from rats.

There is another disease that is alive and well and even more dangerous than the bubonic plague. And it has infected every human being who has ever lived.  No one can escape it. It is already in us. It is called sin.

Sin entered our first parents of the human race, Adam and Eve, when they disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden. Their sin was disastrous for not only themselves but for the whole human race: every man, woman, boy and girl born after them. The sin of Adam, the Bible tells us in Romans chapter 5, brought condemnation and guilt down not only on Adam, but on the entire human race. He was our representative head and what he did affected to the core not only him but also us. We are sometimes affected by the actions of others. For example, when our president implemented tariffs on many foreign goods it caused prices to go up that you and I have to pay. 

It wasn’t the bite of an infected rat flee that is causing humanity’s greatest problem but it was Adam’s sin and all of our sins ever since then. We all inherited Adams sinful nature, and we cannot help but sin, it is ingrained in our nature, we are born with this propensity to sin, this attraction to sin, this comfortableness with sin, and we cannot escape it. We are captive to sin, we are slaves to it, and we are slaves to the devil.

Someone might say, “Jeff, you are offending me, you are speaking too harshly, you are too radical.” I’m only telling you how the Bible describes our spiritual condition before God. Listen to Ephesians 2:1-3: “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course[a] of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

This is the condition of all of us before Christ finds us: “dead in trespasses and sins”…(we’re walking around physically alive but in the eyes of the holy God, we are spiritually dead – without spiritual life – we’re breathing air and eating food, but the life of God, the Spirit of God, fellowship with God is totally absent) …we were following the prince of the air, that is, the devil …sons of disobedience…carrying out the desires of the flesh and mind and our destiny was to suffer the wrath of God against us for our sins.

After being a Christian for many years, one day when I read this passage again and understood in a clearer way how utterly lost, I really had been and how far from God I had been and how I had been in such captivity to Satan, I was horrified. “Oh, Lord, this was me. This is a description of me.’ And it is also description of you - before you came to Christ and of you now if you are outside of Christ.

How did the Apostle Paul, who wrote these words in Ephesians 2, know this about the condition of humanity outside of Christ? Where did he learn this? We know two sources: Paul had met the risen Christ, evidently on more than one occasion, and he had taught Paul the great truths of the Gospel. But the other source of Paul’s knowledge of humanity’s lost condition was found right there in Paul’s home synagogue in Tarsus, and probably in his own home, since he was the son of a Pharisee, and his father may have had a copy of the sacred text, the Old Testament, in his home. He learned the scriptures from his father, and no doubt from the rabbis in the synagogue and later from the respected teacher Gamaliel in Jerusalem.

All this study was not an accident, but it was the plan of God.  When Paul became a Christian, he was able to use his extensive knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures to preach Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah.

In our passage today, Rom. 3:9-20, Paul, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, pulls together his knowledge of the Scriptures to how desperate, how deep, and how total humanity’s captivity to sin is.

Paul begins this passage by repeating what he has been showing in chapter 2 of Romans. He says in v. 9,

“…all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin.” In chapter 2 he showed that not only the Gentiles, but also the Jews were guilty of sin because they had broken the holy law that was given to them by God through Moses.

What does Paul mean when he says that both Jews and Greeks “are under sin”? Douglas Moo says it means that both groups of people “are helpless slaves to the power of sin…sin is an enslaving master.” (The Wycliffe Exegetical Commentary, Romans 1-8, p. 204).

John R. Stott in his commentary on Romans says “Paul appears almost to personify sin as a cruel tyrant who holds the human race imprisoned in guilt and under judgment. Sin is on top of us, weighs us down, and is a crushing burden.” (p. 99).

It’s like a man in Afghanistan or Turkey living on the first floor of an eight-story apartment building and one of those 9.5 earthquakes hits and the whole apartment building collapses on top of him. He is under the building, he is trapped, he cannot get out. The tons of cement and steel and wood are on top of him.

So, Paul says that both Jew and Gentile are all under this tremendous weight of sin. It is so heavy that they cannot escape it. The weight of it holds them trapped forever.

What is the extent of human sin? We do not understand serious it is, how offensive it is to God, how utterly opposed to the character and will of God. David said in Psalm 51:3-4,

For I know my transgressions,

    and my sin is ever before me.

4 Against you, you only, have I sinned

    and done what is evil in your sight…

King Solomon, in his prayer to Yahweh at the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem that he had built, said, “if [your people] sin against you - for there is no one who does not sin…”  Solomon, in his observation of human nature was correct, “there is no one who does not sin.” Only one person in the history of the world never sinned – that was the Lord Jesus Christ. To him be the glory forever!

James said in his letter, chapter 2, verse 10, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.” If we commit just one sin, no matter how small or insignificant it might seem to us – is not insignificant to God, and he will judge it with righteous judgment.

What Paul does in our passage here in Romans 3 is to verify his statement about the desperate plight of sinful humanity by showing from several places in the OT, especially the Psalms, that this all-encompassing, pervasive entanglement and enslavement to sin is universal. We say that Christ’s church is “catholic,” meaning “universal” in that it extends to every nation, tribe and tongue on the fact of the earth. We could use the word “catholic” to describe sin in the human race. It is deeply seated within the hearts and minds of all people. We could say we believe in the “catholic” presence of sin in all people.

What does Paul say about humanity in general in Romans 1: 21? He says,

“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” This is true for both Jew and Gentile. This was true of you and me before we came to Christ, our “foolish hearts were darkened.” Oh, what a terrible condemnation from God! How does he see us outside of Christ?  With darkened hearts – that is, hearts full of sin and selfishness and corruption.

Let’s look at how Paul bolsters our understanding of humanity’s desperate plight under sin by some passages in the OT. There are several descriptions or classifications of human beings “under sin” in this passage. Let me summarize them for us:

• No one is righteous

• No one seeks God

• No one does good.

• Every person is active and deliberate and cruel in their wickedness.

• Every person has no fear of God.

In this description of humanity in verses 10-12 Paul is drawing from Psalm 14:1-3, which reads,

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”

    They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;

    there is none who does good.

2 The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,

    to see if there are any who understand, [a]

    who seek after God.

3 They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;

    there is none who does good, not even one.

These people in Psalm 14 are fools because they deny the very existence of God. But God is revealed everywhere in his creation – we see his creative and artistic hand all around us. The psalmist says twice in this Psalms that there is “none who does good.” What does that mean? It means people do not live in a vacuum. If they are alive, they have to do something. They have to act; they have to use energy. They have to think and talk and communicate. In all these very common and everyday activities people are not “doing good,” they are doing evil. Psalm 14:1 says they are corrupt. They have taken what is good, and spoiled it and ruined it.

Psalm 14: 2-3 says there is none “who seek after God’… not even one.” You would think out of the millions, billions of people who inhabit the four corners of the earth, that there might be a few who seek after God, who seek his face, who seek his presence. But the scripture says “not even one” seeks God. What are they seeking? - their own agenda for their lives, what they want to do whether God likes it or not. They are seeking the pleasures of the world, of the flesh and of the devil. They are far from God – they are heading the opposite direction!

Another prominent mark of depraved and corrupted humanity is that…

They are active and deliberate and heartless in their wickedness.

Romans 3:13 says 13 “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.”

What does it mean that their throat is an “open grave”? I think it may mean that with their mouths and tongues they slander and disparage people and destroy them and would bury them to get rid of them.

They don’t accidentally fall into evil, they go looking for it, they pursue it. They’ll overturn every rock in their path to find it.

Even as a vulture flies overhead with his sharp eyes scanning the entire landscape, looking for a glimpse of some form of dead animal, so do humans scour their surroundings looking for the first opportunity to sin: to tell a lie, to slander a neighbor, to express jealousy and hatred and anger, to lust after and covet things or persons that do not belong to them. They deceive others with no thought of remorse. They flatter people to get something out of them. As sin erupts in people, it is like an active volcano that spews out and gushes forth thievery and cheating and adultery and murder and pride and arrogance and hatred. The longer a person lives, their skill in sinning and deception is sharpened and they become experts in it. But they are stirring up the judgment of God that will be poured out on them on the Judgment Day. No sin will go unnoticed and unpunished by God. Judgment day is coming and there is no escape from it. The only escape is to flee to the Lord Jesus Christ and hide in him.

Verse 13 in our passage goes on to say that “The venom of asps is under their lips.” That is, when they open their mouths to speak to others, they spew out poison - they seek to malign and destroy others.

Verse 15 here says, 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood…” Paul is probably quoting from Prov. 1:16 – “for (A)their feet run to evil,

    and they make haste to shed blood.” They don’t walk to do evil, they don’t just nonchalantly go by it, but they run after it, like a greyhound dog runs after the mechanical rabbit at the dog race track.

Another key description of humanity’s desperate spiritual condition before the holy God is seen in verse 18, “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Again, Paul is evidently quoting from Psalm 36:1,

Transgression speaks to the wicked

    deep in his heart; [a]

(B)there is no fear of God

    before his eyes.

Think about this description of sinful humans: they have everything else before their eyes – they see all of God’s beautiful creation, all that he has made and given to them, but they don’t see him. They don’t see him because they don’t want to see him. They don’t fear him or honor him or reverence him. God is not in their frame of reference, not on their radar. They may fear other humans and honor them, but not God. This is true of Jews and Gentiles, of Americans and Russians, of Hispanics and Chinese and Africans. Humanity is “catholic,” “universal” is their lack of fear of God. If we had nothing else in life but the fear of God we would have the most important thing.

There’s a song that the Cameron family Scotland used to sing,

“Well, I don’t want houses, and I don’t want land,

I’d rather feel the touch of the nail-pierced hand

Give me Jesus and I’ll be satisfied.”

Where is real satisfaction in life? It is found in knowing Jesus Christ our Lord, in fearing him, in loving him.

So, Paul is bringing the hammer down hard on humanity. He is calling on the OT scriptures to verify humanity’s desperate plight. This is his case; this is his indictment against humanity.  He has laid it out before us.

What is mankind to do? Let’s see what solutions are out there in the world.

1)         Secular culture denies there is a problem. They bury their heads in the sand, refuse to acknowledge God and pursue their selfish pleasures until death finally catches up with them.

2)         The various world religions try to stack up their good deeds against their bad deeds, feeling hopeful that their gods will accept them and forgive them of their faults and take them into their version of heaven.

3)         The communist philosophies which dominate large populations are atheistic – substituting the worship of the state and its dictators for the living God. Their judgment is coming.

4)         What about the Roman Catholic religion that dominated Europe for centuries and is still a major religion in the world? What is their solution to the humanity’s desperate plight because of our sin?

What were they teaching at the time of the Reformation in the 1500’s and what are they still teaching today?

RC’s sees salvation from sin as a cooperative process involving faith, human works and participation in their so-called seven sacraments. Salvation is a life-long process which is really never complete. There is no assurance that a person will ever be received into Christ’s kingdom after death. If I commit a serious sin the day before I die and don’t get to confess it the priest and receive his pronouncement of forgiveness and his prescription of rituals to perform, that is, acts of penance, I will go to hell.

In actuality, the organization, the institution of the RC church, holds its people’s eternal salvation in its own hands, in its own power. In effect, it has substituted itself as the foundation, the source, the basis of salvation, for the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Christ is robbed of his position as supreme head and savior of the church; he is pushed off his throne and replaced by a man-made organization with its own rules for humanity’s salvation.

Over the centuries, as it accumulated more and more doctrines that departed from the Word of God, it became more and more spiritually dangerous to the people of God.

Peoples’ focus for salvation was deflected from the Lord Jesus to itself and its rules and requirements. Salvation in Jesus Christ alone became hidden behind the rules and doctrines of the RC Church.

This is why the Reformation arose. This is why it had to arise. The Church of the Lord Jesus had to be rescued from an unbiblical and tyrannical system. Martin Luther called is “the Babylonian Captivity of the Church.” Just like the ancient kingdom of Babylon had overrun and conquered Israel and carried her captive to the far-off country of Babylon, so the RC church had hauled the church away from the supremacy of Jesus Christ in all things and substituted itself for the authority and glory of the Lord.

The Reformation was the greatest event in the history of the church since the days of the apostles and the writing of the NT. It was desperately needed because humanity’s plight in sin was so great and the RC Church’s solution did not solve the problem of humanity’s need for absolute forgiveness of sins and the certainty of the gift of the bestowal of eternal life on all who repent and believe the Gospel.

What is the solution in the Gospel to the plight of humanity’s enslavement to sin? I will just give you one scripture text: John 3:16,

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

God did something radical to save his people. He sent his Son from heaven to live among us, to die for our sins, on the cross, and to rise from the dead on the third day. How do we come into saving relationship with his Son? We don’t have to do good religious works that we do in our own strength, but we just believe in his Son.” We believe that his sacrifice on the cross was totally sufficient to pay the price for our sins. We don’t do anything but accept and receive what Christ did for us. We can’t add anything to it. The institution of the church cannot add additional requirements.

Christ did it all – all that was necessary to save his people. We just believe it and receive it. We embrace Christ as our Lord Savior and follow him in Christian baptism. Then we grow as his disciples all the days of our lives in fellowship with his people, in the local church.

Here is the solution to humanity’s desperate plight from their immersion in and slavery to sin and evil.

Our sin is great, but the grace and mercy of God is greater and more powerful and will able to save us and bring us safely to his eternal kingdom. As Ephesians 2:8-9 says, 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

To God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus, forever and ever. Amen.

Prayer:

Eternal God, sender of the Lord Jesus Christ, and rescuer of your people from all our sin and iniquity, in your mercy you sent him to save us from the desperate plight of our enslavement to sin. The way to heaven is now open and free to us who believe and receive your Son. Please accept our unending thanks. In the precious name of Jesus, we pray.