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22. Romans 3: “A Darker Kind of Equality”
Salem County Correctional Facility in Woodstown, NJ –
Men’s Evening Chapel Service on 9/23/2012
(edited November 2019)
We are truly EQUAL in God’s sight. We should
all share the same rights and privileges before God and man, but we also share
the same basic faults before the Lord. Let’s jump into Romans chapter 3, as the
Apostle Paul speaks to the believers, Jew and Gentile, at Rome:
“What advantage then hath
the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every
way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. For
what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God
without effect? God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it
is written, That thou mightest
be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome
when thou art judged.”
Jews in Paul’s day seemed to have a
special “in” with the Lord. And there was some undeniable good that came from
the Old Covenant between God and the Nation of Israel. But,
they fell. The Jews could not keep the Law or the Old Covenant. That doesn’t mean the Gentiles kept the Law.
Paul is declaring that both the Jews
and the Gentiles have equally failed to obey the Lord.
Verses 5-8: “ But if our
unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God
unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man) God forbid: for then how
shall God judge the world? For if the truth of God hath more abounded through
my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner? And not rather,
(as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do
evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.”
So neither group (no one, actually) in their own
strength, can please God. But that doesn’t excuse any of us from seeking to
obey Him. We can’t just surrender to a life of sin. At least we shouldn’t!
Verses 9-10: “What then? are we better than they? No,
in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all
under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous,
no, not one:”
Next, he will present a whole series
of Old Testament quotes about disobedience to God and evil living back in
ancient times:
Verses 11-17: “There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh
after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become
unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an
open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used
deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is
full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction
and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known:
Paul’s point, I think, is that this also applies
to ALL of us in the New Testament era. That isn’t a good thing. What could ever
cause a person to stoop to this low-level living? It’s right here in the next
verse:
Verse 18: “There is no fear of
God before their eyes.”
Let’s
drill down into one of these Old Testament quotes: “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” The context of the original
verse is in Psalm 10:7-11 which goes like this:
“His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his
tongue is mischief and vanity. He sitteth in the
lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder
the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor. He lieth in wait
secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth
catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net. He croucheth, and humbleth himself,
that the poor may fall by his strong ones. He hath said in his heart, God hath
forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it.”
The writer of the Psalm, David, knew
something about the darker side of mankind. Beginning with Goliath, he saw the
attitudes and actions of many men in times of war, and peace. And the depravity
of his “friends” as well as his enemies. At times He even reveals the depravity
of his own soul. See Psalm 51, for an instance of that.
But, again, long before we can condemn
David or his contemporaries, we must look into the mirror of God’s Word and His
Spirit at ourselves. Even if you can say you have refrained from overt
violence, what about the exploitation of others? Aren’t we all guilty of that
in one form or another before the Lord? Don’t even the general iniquities of
our Health Care System, for instance, smear immorality onto many of us who may
never have actually shed blood or even met “victims” personally. You may say,
well, that’s very abstract, John. That’s a little too deep for me to really
consider. But is it too deep for God to consider or monitor? Let’s go on:
Verses 19-20: “Now we know that what things soever the
law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be
stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore
by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by
the law is the knowledge of sin.”
If sin is so pervasive within all of us, and
if we are all LAW BREAKERS by God’s reckoning, then according to His law, no
one in here tonight is any more INNOCENT than anyone else, be it you, me, the
Chaplain, no one!
Can anyone be righteous, then? There is a way:
Verses
19-26: “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested,
being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God
which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for
there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of
God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his
blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past,
through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his
righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth
in Jesus.”
By
faith in Christ, we can be justified before God regardless of our performance
of the Law.
Verses
27-31: “Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works?
Nay: but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude
that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Is he the God of
the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: Seeing
it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and
uncircumcision through faith. Do we then make void the law through faith? God
forbid: yea, we establish the law.”
The
message is not to ignore the commands of God. The message is that a faith
relationship with God through Christ and a new heart can enable ANYONE to obey
the Lord. Let’s pray:
“O Jesus, what a Savior You are. What a
glorious expression of the Righteousness and the Grace of Almighty God.”