ROMANS ROAD
to RIGHTEOUSNESS |
Romans
1:18-3:20
|
Romans
3:21-5:21 |
Romans
6:1-8:39 |
Romans
9:1-11:36 |
Romans
12:1-16:27 |
|
SIN
|
SALVATION
|
SANCTIFICATION |
SOVEREIGNTY |
SERVICE |
NEED
FOR
SALVATION |
WAY
OF
SALVATION |
LIFE
OF
SALVATION |
SCOPE
OF
SALVATION |
SERVICE
OF
SALVATION |
God's Holiness
In
Condemning
Sin |
God's Grace
In
Justifying
Sinners |
God's Power
In
Sanctifying
Believers |
God's Sovereignty
In
Saving
Jew and Gentile |
Gods Glory
The
Object of
Service |
Deadliness
of Sin |
Design
of Grace |
Demonstration of
Salvation |
|
Power Given
|
Promises Fulfilled |
Paths Pursued |
Righteousness
Needed |
Righteousness
Credited |
Righteousness
Demonstrated |
Righteousness
Restored to Israel |
Righteousness
Applied |
God's Righteousness
IN LAW |
God's Righteousness
IMPUTED |
God's Righteousness
OBEYED |
God's Righteousness
IN ELECTION |
God's Righteousness
DISPLAYED |
|
Slaves to Sin |
Slaves to God |
Slaves Serving God |
|
Doctrine |
Duty |
|
Life by Faith |
Service by Faith |
|
Modified from Irving
L. Jensen's excellent work "Jensen's
Survey of the NT" |
AS IT IS WRITTEN : kathos
gegraphtai (3SRPI): (4;
11:8;
15:3,4;
Isaiah 8:20;
1 Peter 1:16)
|
Paul is quoting from the
Septuagint (LXX)
Ps14:1-3 (see also Ps 53:1-3 below) primarily from verses 1b, 2-3.
|
Psalm 14:1 (For the
choir director. A Psalm of David.) The fool has said in his heart,
"There is no God." They are corrupt, they have committed
abominable deeds;
There is no one who does good.
2 The LORD has
looked down from heaven upon the sons of men,
To see if there are any who understand, Who seek after God.
3 They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
There is no one who does good, not even one. |
Psalm 53:1 (For the
choir director; according to Mahalath. A Maskil of David.) The
fool has said in his heart, "There is no God," They are corrupt,
and have committed abominable injustice;
There is no one who does good.
2 God has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men,
To see if there is anyone who
understands, Who seeks after God.
3 Every one of them
has turned aside; together they have become corrupt; There is no
one who does good, not even one. |
Paul has just said all men are "under
sin". In this section it is as if he says "Are you still not
convinced? Let me show you further proof the Old Testament!" He is
bringing his arguments to a climax demonstrating that the totally sinful
state of both the Jew and the Gentile is repeatedly confirmed by the
testimony of the Scriptures. Paul begins by quoting from Psalm 14:1-3
which shows the universality ("no one...good...all turned aside")
of sin.
Paul as in a judicial procedure is
making an indictment of the Jews and the Gentiles. An
indictment is defined as a formal charge or accusation of a crime.
The KJV Bible Commentary adds
that...
An indictment is then a formal,
written charge and every indictment must have at least one count, one
specific charge to it. The more serious the crime, the more counts to
the indictment. Paul immediately follows this pattern by quoting from a
series of Old Testament passages which demonstrate, in no less than
fourteen counts, the perversity and depravity of the entire world. (Dobson,
E G, Charles Feinberg, E Hindson, Woodrow Kroll, H L. Wilmington: KJV
Bible Commentary: Nelson)
Newell subtitles Romans
3:10-18 as "Fourteen Horrible Things about All Men" and observes that we
find God speaking...
in these fourteen counts (1) first,
as a Judge: Ro 3:10-12; next, as a Physician: Ro 3:13-15;
and third, as a Divine Historian: Ro 3:16-18... This awful
list of fourteen facts about the human race, quoted from the Old
Testament Scriptures, describes, of course, humanity as it is by nature.
Therefore if we have believed the gospel, and are thus righteous before
God in Christ, we have double reason to study these truths: first, that
we may by understanding the facts, as God sees them, about ourselves,
have a correct estimate of humanity, which, of course, unenlightened men
never gain; and, second, that we may be constantly moved to give praise
to God for His measureless grace that reached even such as we were! (Romans 3: Sermons)
"It is written" (1125)
(grapho) is the common introduction to OT quotations (click
for 60 NT occurrences of "it is written", 16 of which are in Romans).
The
perfect tense
indicates that this is
a completed state and the continual authority of the written Word. The
idea is that
"It has been written, with the
present result that it is on record" or "it stands written". The perfect
tense then speaks of permanence
and reflects the truth echoed by David when he wrote...
"Forever, O LORD, Thy
word is settled in heaven." (Ps 119:89).
The following section (Ro 3:10-20) is a
veritable the scriptural resume and demonstration of the condemnation of
all men, Jews and Gentiles.
Are there no exceptions? Paul answers
quite sharply in (v10-12) with a barrage of negatives,
“There is none
… not even one… none … none … not even one.”
Paul now will demonstrate that by
nature all people, without exception, are under the power of sin. Notice
that in order to do so, he does not choose to remind his readers of the
gross immorality that marked the pagan culture. Why not? Because
doubtless many a Jew and even a few "moral" Gentiles might object saying
“I, for one, am not guilty of those
gross sins!”
Instead Paul
goes to the "heart" of the matter initially selecting man's tongue,
fully aware that the tree is known by its fruit, for out of the mouth
comes that which fills the heart.
In this section Paul "strings together" a series of OT passage (this
technique is called a charaz,
literally “stringing pearls” - as he explains, this "necklace" is
really a noose for all men!) was common at the opening of
synagogue homilies and in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Jews and early
Christians had Testimonia (quotations from the Old Testament) strung
together for certain purposes as proof-texts. Paul may have used one of
them or he may have put these passages together himself. In either
event, Paul here uses a catena or chain of quotations to prove his point
"that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin" (see note
Romans 3:9)
What we have in this statement and in the following verses is
the most explicit description of the total depravity of mankind in all
of Scripture. This does not mean man is as depraved as he could be, but
that there is always room for “deprovement” because he is under the
power of sin.
As an illustration of all men's
depravity (all born with the "genetic defect" called sin) by thinking of the color of sin
as blue. If that were true, then every aspect of every one of us would be some shade of
blue! The Latin precursor of our word radical is the word
radix, which
means “root.” We are all infected with this radical corruption called
sin as Paul explains later writing...
"Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the
world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because
all sinned" (see note
Romans 5:12).
We are
morally ruined at our very roots. Jesus said the fruit is corrupt
because the tree is radically corrupt (cf notes
Matthew 7:15-16,
7:17-20).
Robert Haldane
in his classic commentary on Romans sums up these 14 horrible facts true
of all men writing that...
"The first of them, verse 10, prefers
the general charge of unrighteousness; the second, verses II to 12,
marks the internal character, or disorders of the heart; third, verses
13 to 14, those of the words; the fourth, verses 15 to 17, those of the
actions; the last, verse 18, declares the cause "of the whole."
THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS : hoti ouk estin (3SPAI) dikaios:
(Ps 14:1-3;
53:1-3)
(23;
Job 14:4;
15:14,16;
25:4;
Jer 17:9;
Mt 15:19;
Mk 7:21,22;
Mk 10:18;
1Cor 6:9,10;
Gal 5:19-21;
Eph 2:1-3;
5:3-6;
Col 3:5-9;
1Ti 1:9,10;
2Ti 3:2-5;
Titus 3:3;
1Jn 1:8-10;
Rev 21:8;
22:15)
This sentence is like a summary for
the following discourse.
None
(3756)
(ou) which expresses direct and full
negation, independently and absolutely, and hence, objectively.
Nine times in this
section in Romans 3 Paul uses the words such as “none” and “all” to show the
universality of human sin and rebellion.
Newell
writes that...
First, then, as a Judge God describes
man's condition: Verse 10: To begin with, There is none righteous before
God, no, not one (Ps 14:1; 53:1; Job 9:2; Ecc 7:20). No human being has
in himself ever been righteous. Even Adam was not righteous: he was
innocent-not knowing good and evil. Let us put far from our minds the
fond falsehoods of philosophy, science, and human "religions, " that
there have been men of our race who have attained to a standing before
God in righteousness. (Romans 3: Sermons)
Righteous (1342) (dikaios)
is used in its basic sense of “conforming to a norm” and that norm is the
Law of God, in whatever form it is available and relevant to man. The
Jews had the written Law. The Gentiles on the other hand
"show
the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing
witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them."
(see note
Romans 2:15)
This
text says that absolutely not a single individual has ever conformed to this norm,
but that instead
everyone has broken God’s Law and thus ultimately everyone has sinned
(see note
Romans 3:23). There is not a single man
who is "right" with God. Sin has affected every aspect of every man -
his intellect, his emotions, and his volition. Everything and everyone
(= total) is tainted with sin. This state is referred to as
"total depravity" (depraved = marked by corruption or evil, thus
perverted). Don't misunderstand. The idea is not that every person is as
bad as they could be, but that every part of their being is contaminated
with sin and consequently there is nothing anyone can do to commend
themselves to a holy God.
Solomon concurs writing that
"Indeed,
there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who
never sins." (Ecc 7:20)
No
one is righteous in an absolute sense, in the sense of sinless
perfection, which is the only way man can be accepted by God (see comment below).
Paul is painting a very clear picture that every individual ever born
has need
for the gift of God's righteousness, which is revealed and offered in the
gospel,
"for in it
the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith." (see
note
Romans 1:17).
Righteousness is a major
theme of the book of Romans, appearing in one form or another more than
thirty times. Other terms from the same Greek root are usually
translated “justified,” “justification,” or the like. Together they are
used more than 60 times in the book of Romans.
It is not surprising,
therefore, that the first charge Paul makes in his indictment is that of
mankind’s unrighteousness. Thus righteousness is not only
the key word in Romans, it is also the criterion by which sin is judged.
As noted above, Paul is using the term righteous in its most
basic sense of being right before God, of being as God created man to
be, sinless before the "Fall" in the Garden of Eden.
You may be reasoning that sure I
do some bad things but the good things I do outweigh the bad. Paul would
doubtless agree that people can do many things that appear to be morally
right. Even the most vile person may occasionally do something
commendable.
In the present indictment however,
Paul is not speaking of specific "righteous" acts or even general patterns of
behavior, but of a man’s inner character.
Paul's point is that there is not a
single person who has ever lived, apart from the sinless God-Man , Jesus
Christ, Whose innermost being could be characterized as righteous by God’s standard, which demands perfection.
God’s standard of righteousness for men is the
righteousness that He
Himself possesses, which was manifest in Christ. This is the idea Jesus
sought to convey to His Jewish audience on the "Sermon on the Mount"
declaring that
"Therefore
you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
(see note
Matthew 5:48).
The righteousness demanded of citizens of the kingdom of God cannot be
attained by merit, but must be given by God.
In other words, a person
who is not as good as God is not acceptable to God. As Paul makes clear
later in Romans, and as the New Testament teaches throughout, men
can become perfectly righteous, when the righteousness of Christ is
imputed or accounted to them (placed on their spiritual account so to
speak).
The very truth that makes the gospel the “good news” is
that God has provided a way for men to become perfect, divinely perfect.
But that perfection comes entirely by God’s grace in response to faith
in His Son, Jesus Christ. Paul writes
"But
God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved
us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together
with Christ (by grace you have been saved)...For by grace you have been
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God
not as a result of works, that no one should boast." (Eph 2:4-5, 8-9)
Spurgeon commenting on the verse (Ps 53:1)
which parallels Ps 14:1 (which Paul quotes from here in Ro 3:12) adds that
"Without
a single exception people have forgotten the right way. This accusation
twice made in the psalm, and repeated by the apostle Paul, is an
indictment most solemn and sweeping, but He who makes it knows what is
in man."
NOT EVEN ONE: oude heis:
Not even (3761)
(oude from ou = not + dé = but) expresses
objective, absolute negation (not relative or conditional) and can be translated:
and not, also not, and hence, not, neither, not even.
One (1520)
(heis) is the cardinal number one.
In case anyone thinks there
might be an exception, Paul strongly denies that possibility making it
very clear that there are no exception clauses—not even one.
Paul charges all humanity, however good some
individuals may appear, with this radical corruption.
A Russian poet named Turgenev
conveys Paul's thought perfectly writing
“I
don’t know what the heart of a bad man is like, but I do know what the
heart of a good man is like and it is terrible.”
