Put Your Hand Over Your Mouth

This is an exegetical sermon from Romans 3:19-20 titled, Put Your Hand Over Your Mouth and looks at the picture, logic and theology of this passage as it relates to human beings and their standing before God. This sermon was originally preached by Pastor Duane Smets on October 16, 2005 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA. Audio unavailable.

.
.

The Resolved Church | www.theresolved.com
(619) 393-1990 | contact@theresolved.com
All Rights Reserved © The Resolved Church

Permissions: you are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material provided you not alter the wording in any way and you do not charge a fee. For web posting a link to this document is preferred.

The Resolved Church
Pastor Duane Smets
October 16, 2005

“Put Your Hand Over Your Mouth”
Romans 3:19-20

Romans 3:19-20 ESV
“Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”

Prayer

Almighty God, judge of the universe, I come before your court tonight with a plea. My plea is that you would not give me my due but rather give me what I do not deserve. We as a people are quick to deny that at slightest movement you, in all justice, may send a meteor to take out the earth, or a hurricane or earthquake to rampage our land, or a cancer to cause our insides to break down and kill us. We are quick to picture you as a loving God before first remembering that you are God of justice and we that we have violated your being. Our corruption is deep. So much so that we cannot understand the words of the Bible we just read unless you do that thing inside of us where able to think right, and feel accordingly, so that we get it and adore you for it. My petition for myself is that you would enable me to speak tonight with my hand over my mouth. I will attempt to justify my sin and get glory for myself unless you stop me. So I cover my mouth and beg you to speak tonight and allow us to hear your word as you intend it. Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us. Amen.

Introduction

You may have noticed that whenever we begin a sermon we sort of quickly try and review what has been said in Romans so far up until the passage that we are studying. We do that for a couple reasons. First, you wouldn’t like it if someone just sort of picked out a couple sentences out of a letter that you wrote and didn’t even consider the rest of what you said, and the Bible is not different. God, the divine author, doesn’t like it when we do that with His word either. There is a context in which things are being said. The second reason is that Paul, the human author of Romans was a lawyer of sorts and he is carefully forming a tightly knit argument in this book. He is presenting a case before you, his hearers in order that you might listen, and he hopes be convinced of what he has to say.

This passage is particularly important in that regard because in chapter 1 verse 18 he began a certain line of reasoning that he has been continuing for three chapters now. He has been presenting evidence and then more evidence and more evidence and now here in verses 19-20 he in a sense summarizes what he has said so far because he is about to move into his next line of reasoning.

The place of 3:19-20 in Romans

So quickly, let us review where we are at in the book of Romans, the book about God and his glory. Paul began the book by introducing the divine son of God Jesus Christ who is the gospel, and then he made a thesis statement in 1:16-17 saying that the whole of this book was going to be about how righteousness can be received through faith in this gospel. Then in 1:18 he began to show why we need this righteousness and now for 27 weeks, that is nearly 7 months, we have been exploring the dark caverns of human depravity from 1:18-3:18. So what I want to first is to look at tonight’s passage and then see what of it we have seen in 1:18-3:18.

Romans 3:19-20 “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

There are six key elements in this passage that are found in various places throughout Romans 1:18-3:18. Law, mouths, the world, being held accountable to God, and works.

Law. What has been said about law? in Romans 2:14-15 “ when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.”

Mouths. What has been said about mouths? In Romans 1 humans do not “give thanks” to God and instead are identified as “gossipers and slanderers.” And more recently in 3:13-14 humans throats are “an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”

The world. What has been said about the world? In Romans 1:20 “For [God’s] invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”

Being held accountable to God. What has been said about that? In Romans 2:2-3 “we know that the judgment of God rightly falls…do you suppose, o’ man…that you will escape the judgment of God?” Or Romans 2:16 “on that day when, God judges the secrets of men.”

Works of the law. What has been said about humans doing good works? Romans 3:10-12 “none is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

Law. Mouths. The world. Judgment. And worthless works. These have been the key elements in Paul line of reasoning intended to convince us that we are unrighteous human beings. tonight we will see how Paul in a masterful and very unique way both summarizes in a very succinct way what Paul has said in Romans so far and also takes each of these key points to collectively make a powerful indictment that effects everyone here in this room.

The Picture of 3:19-20

To begin our exegesis of the words of this passage tonight we need to get a picture in our head because there is a specific picture it has in mind and if you don’t get that picture you will miss what is going on here.

Since we began studying Romans we have continually said that the overarching picture in the entire book is one of a courtroom, that humanity is on trial before God, and here in our passage to night we get an explicit references to that truth.

Notice three different phrases with me. We will deal with the whole passage and its logic but right now just look at the phrases, “so that every mouth may be stopped,” “held accountable,” and “justified in his sight.” Do you see those phrases? Let us look at them one by one.

“So that every mouth may be stopped.” Here we have a direct reference to a judicial court where a person on trial would be prosecuted and the accused must attempt to clear himself of the charges. But if he has been successfully proved guilty his mouth is stopped and he no longer has any excuse or any defense. The picture here is of a court.

Let’s look at the next phrase, “held accountable.” These two words actually come from the one Greek word hupodikos, which literally means “carried or brought to trial.” This word is used in classical antiquity in the story where Plato is hupodikos, brought to trial. The picture here is of a court.

Lastly, look at the 3rd phrase “justified in his sight.” We have said much about this word, “justified.” It is the same word as “righteous” in the Greek and what it means is right standing. What is signified here is a party who stands before the “sight” of a judge. And the question is what the judge will see. Will he see rightness, the person justified? Or will he see unrighteousness? The picture here is of a court.

“So that every mouth may be stopped.” “Held accountable.” “Justified in his sight.” The picture here is clearly of a courtroom. So who are the people in the courtroom? Who is on trial and who is the judge? Well, the judge part is easy because that phrase “held accountable” ends with “to God.” So God is clearly the judge. And the people on trial? Three indicators. “Every mouth,” that’s one. “Every mouth” where? Keep reading “every mouth may be stopped and the whole world.” “Whole world,” that’s two. And then in verse 20 “no human being will be justified in his sight.” “No human being,” that’s three. So who is on trial? Every mouth, the whole world, all human beings. Do you get the picture?

I want you to get this. Listen. God stands over this place tonight and He is a judge. And we are on trial. Every single person in this room is on trial before Him. There are charges being made against us. So let’s turn now we’ve got the picture of this passage in our heads and let’s re-read the passage and see if we can understand the logic of the charges being made against us.

The Logic of 3:19-20

Romans 3:19-20 “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

“Now we know whatever the law says.” What law? Remember Paul uses the word law in different ways in different places in Romans. So what law here? Well, he tells us…”whatever the law says is spoken to those who are under the law.” So this implies that there are some people who are not under this kind of law. So we know this. Paul does not have the universal moral law in mind here.

Remember in Romans chapters 1 and 2 Paul argues that there is this universal sense of right and wrong woven into the fabric of who we are as human beings. There are certain things right and wrong, true and false, for all people in all places in all times. There is such thing as a conscience revealing a universal moral law.

But that cannot be the kind of law he has in mind here. Because everybody has that and here, this kind of law, some are not “under.” So what kind of law then? Look back with me to the beginning of chapter three. Let’s read the first two verses, “then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision (one of the Jewish laws)? Much in every way. To begin with Jews were entrusted with the oracles (or the Jewish law) of God.” We learned studying this passage and others in Romans that there is certain group of people, the Jews, whom at various points in history God chose to reveal Himself to in written words called law. If you want to learn and understand and know about that more go read or download the sermon on 2:25-29. But for our purposes tonight what we need to recognize is that law here in 3:19-20 refers to this Jewish law, the 637 commandments found in the OT or Hebrew bible.

So let’s read the passage like that. Both Jews and gentiles in the 1st century reading the passage we are tonight would know exactly what kind of law Paul was referring to. “Now we know that whatever the Jewish law, those 637 commandments say, it speaks to those who are under the Jewish law, those 637 commandments. So that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by the works of the Jewish law, those 637 commandments, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the Jewish law, those 637 commandments, comes knowledge of sin.” Does this seem weird to you? How is every mouth stopped and the whole world held accountable to God by what is going on with the Jews? What do the Jews and their laws have to do with me? What is the logic here?

Here it is, follow closely. Humanity is on trial. The charge is that humanity is guilty and corrupt. in Romans 1:18-2:11 Paul said there is all this beautiful stuff in the world and instead of seeing that it comes from a creator our warped minds have disregarded Him and not given Him the thanks and honor He deserves. In Romans 2:12-29 Paul has said that our conscience or heart bears witness that we all do things we know are wrong. in Romans 3:1-18 Paul has turned specifically to the Jews and pointed out their unfaithfulness to the law concluding that there is no one righteous not one. So how does their failure to keep the law shut my mouth? What is the logic? this is it…if this is the Jews had the advantage of having God tell them exactly what he wanted so that they could be right with him and they could not do it, nobody can. my mouth is shut because I cannot argue, “well sure all this stuff must come from somewhere but it is hard and confusing, and sure I’ve felt bad for things I’ve done wrong at time, but if God was just not so detached. If He would just tell us what He wanted. Make it a little clearer then we wouldn’t mess up.” No you can’t argue that because He has done that.

You see what Paul is doing here is making a grand claim. For those of you hip to the postmodern asphyxiation of today…what Paul is saying is that there is a metanarrative. There is an overarching purpose to all of history. And he had done something with a particular group of people, the Jews, so that we would learn something.

And now, here at the end of Paul’s charge that humanity is corrupt we have no leg to stand on. Creation condemns us. Conscience condemns us. And the Jews condemn us. The verdict is handed down, guilty. We have no excuses left. Nothing left to say except to put our hand over our mouth and be afraid of what He is going to do to us.

and just to drive it home…to follow his logic all the way through Paul makes this final statement, “since through the law comes knowledge of sin.” This last statement answers the question, “why did the Jews fail?” Why with God giving the perfect law, did humanity still fail? Stay with me, follow the logic. Because “through the law” or in other words “the purpose of the law” humanity comes to “the knowledge of sin.” the reason why the Jews fail, why humanity fails, why we cannot get right with God ourselves, even with God’s perfect law, is because we are sinful in our core. How can imperfection, us, fulfill perfection, the law? That is impossible and absurd. Let me quote John Calvin here, “law convinces of sin and condemns. Life and death cannot proceed from the same fountain. The law indeed teaches us what righteousness is…but our depravity and corruption prevent it from being any advantage to us.” The intent of the law of this book is to cause us to fall on our faces into the dirt and plead with our maker for mercy. To put our hand over our mouth and admit our guilt and beg for mercy.

Now, we are going to move to the theology of this passage in a moment, but before we do I need say a few things that may not make a whole lot of sense to you and that is okay. I’ll try to simply it as much as I can, but we as the elders of the resolved, Justin and I, are commanded by Scripture in Titus 1:9 to point out false teaching. And this passage Romans 3:19-20 has come under attack in recent years by a false teaching called “the new perspective of Paul.” So if you don’t understand what I am about to say, that is okay. Just know that your leaders do and we are able to refute this false teaching. I know we look young, so for those of you that are older, know that we are not as young as we look, we have been in ministry for a long time and are seminary graduates and are well-equipped for this task.

So the “new perspective”…a couple of its primary representatives of this “new perspective” teaching are James D.G. Dunn, E.P. Sanders, and N.T. Wright. The heart of this “new perspective” teaching is that the historical reformed understanding that salvation, or justification, or righteousness, cannot and does not come through doing works is wrong. Those of the “new perspective” camp want to say that it comes through being part of a new covenant community. There is much more that could be said and if you download the pdf to this sermon there is a web-link to a good article (www.covenantseminary.edu/news/NewPerspective.asp) on the new perspective. But I bring it up here, at this place in my sermon, because teachers of this “new perspective” the way they interpret this last sentence is vastly different than what we have discovered in our study tonight. When they come to the phrase, “by works of the law no human being will be justified” they say it is “a Jewish identity marker of covenant” and that covenant is a relationship in a community which is not a justifying thing. Again, if that doesn’t make sense to you, that is okay, part of the problem is that this thought doesn’t make sense because you must completely disregard the actual words of the text. It is our contention along with Douglas Moo that “’works of the law’ are inadequate not only because they are ‘works of the Jewish law’ but, ultimately, because they are ‘works.’” This brings us to the heart of the theology of this passage.

The Theology of 3:19-20

When we ask the question, “what is the theology of a passage?” What we are asking is what does this say about God to us? What does it say about mankind? And what does it say about how mankind has related, does relate, and is supposed relate to God? They are questions that drive at us to answer the question of how to put all of this, all of reality together. If you are here tonight then my guess is there is at least some part of you that is trying to figure life out and you know in your life there is something that is not right. If we wanted to ask the question in a different way we could say, what is the doctrine presented here.

God. What does this text tell us about God? Mainly, it tells us that He is the judge of the universe. He is the judge of every single human being. The Bible teaches us that there are two parts to the unified person of a human. A physical part and a non-physical part. The non-physical part is your spiritual and moral make-up, your person. And when the physical dies that non-physical will live on and you will stand before almighty God and give an account. He will look into your eyes and see into your soul. That is what it means here when it talks about his “sight.” Hebrews 4:13 says “no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” There is a judgment day and every person in this room and in this world will bow their knee before the almighty judge and He will see the thoughts and attitudes and actions of your heart. Nothing will be hidden. The pure blackness of our hearts will be laid bare.

Mankind. What does this text tell us about mankind? Three main things.

One, our mouths are quick to justify ourselves. I suspect that even in the last few minutes there have been many of you in this room who thought things like… well what about this? Or I am not really that bad. Maybe some people’s hearts are black but not mine. Or how is that fair? How is a God that judges good? Our reactions are quick to condemn us. Notice how we are not quick to put our hand over our mouth but to start rebutting. Think about it. Think about times that you have in love tried to point out to someone where they have wronged you or another person and right away the answer is. Yes, but… or well, you… because of our depravity our first reaction is to think. No I didn’t do that. That person is the one that is wrong…I didn’t do anything. No, most often if someone has to come to us and gets enough courage to say something to us, there is something wrong we have said or done and the biblical command is right away consider your fault. In psalms 141:5 says “let a righteous man strike me – it is a kindness; let him rebuke me – it is oil for my head; let my head not refuse it.” Oh for us to be a people that are quick to admit fault and to confess sin. Neo-phariseticalism has become rampant in the church and I am on a mission against it, in my own life and in yours. By and large I believe that a major part of the quote “church” today has just become modern Pharisees. People who constantly are thinking that they are better than other people. That Christians are better than non-Christians. And that among Christians there are good Christians and bad Christians. I’ve said it before and I am going to say it again right now because I know last time I said it, it made some of you uncomfortable, and if I haven’t made you uncomfortable I haven’t done my job. Listen, there are two kinds of people. There are jacked up people and there are jacked up people who know Christ and are being saved. And if you are squirming right now and can’t handle that statement, then I would be scared for your soul that you are a legalistic Pharisee who does not know or understand the gospel. So put your hand over your mouth. Christ stands before you now as he did before the Pharisees of his day and calls you a viper, a serpent, a devil, who outwardly looks good, but inside is full of dead man’s bones. Put your hand over your mouth.

That was one. Humans are quick to open their mouths to justify. Two, humans cannot earn righteousness. That word, “justified” in vs.20, the same word “righteousness,” is dikaiosune and it is the most important word in Romans. To be right with God. God is a perfect, infinitely beautiful, and wonderfully loving being and we have shit on graces time and time again and instead of admitting our fault and turning to him we try to fix ourselves. We try to do “works” or good things to make ourselves better. We’ve said it before, but we must here it again and again, sin is not the violation of some code or rule. It is personally wronging or offending the infinite God of the universe which deserves an infinite unleashing terror and wrath and hell or He is not a good and just God. Tell me, how could you ever do an infinite amount works? Because that is what it would take to balance the scales. And yet, we can’t seem to stop trying to earn favor with God. Thinking that if we just do enough good things or if we just do the right things then God will look with that “sight” and be pleased with us. No. There is no kind or amount of good work that can gain you righteousness, justification with God. E.P. Sanders, and N.T. Wright, and James D.G. Dunn and many dispensationalists and neo-pelagian Armenians who have thought that works could ever have gained righteousness have got it wrong. Finite human beings could never satisfy the debt they owe to an infinite God. Our works are blood-stained filthy rags. And we stand before the judge of the universe condemned.

That is two. Humans cannot earn righteousness. Three, humans are guilty, law-breaking sinners. The doctrine of this passage is total depravity, that humans are completely deplete of any right standing and instead throughout the whole world stand condemned. the Westminster catechism, which we affirm here as a reference to our reformed convictions, defines sin as this, “whereby man is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all that is spiritually good.” And if you are here and you are thinking, well, what about other religions? I cannot say it any better than our beloved John Calvin in the Institutes of Christian Religion, “expereience testifies that a seed of religion is sown in all…mingled vanity and pride appear in this, that when miserable men do seek after God, instead of ascending higher than themselves, as they ought to do, they measure Him by their own carnal stupidity, and neglecting solid inquiry, fly off to indulge their curiosity in vain speculation. hence, they do not conceive of Him in the character in which they may attempt to offer in the way of worship or obedience can have any value in His sight, because it is not Him they worship, but, instead of Him, the dream and figment of their own heart…it makes little difference whether you hold the existence of one God or a plurality of gods since in both cases alike by departing from the true God, you have nothing left but an execrable idol. No religion is genuine that is not in accordance with truth…the law is a kind of mirror. As in a mirror we discover any stains upon our face, so in the law we behold, first our impotence; then in consequence of it our iniquity.” We are guilty friends. The law of God is written on our hearts. No one is able to erase that sense of ought we have all violated. Our law-breaking demonstrates we are guilty unrighteous sinners.

That is three. So one, humans are quick to open their mouths to justify. Two, humans cannot earn righteousness. And three, humans are guilty, law-breaking sinners. So what do we do? We are a guilty people before the judge in the court of heaven.

Conclusion

Part of the difficulty of the past seven months as we have labored and labored with the text, going where it goes, is to restrain ourselves from jumping ahead. These messages cut to the heart with a sharp knife and then often times just sort of twist it push it in deeper. There has been a somber depressing though sometimes sweet mood these past 27 weeks. But there is a solution to this depraved condition. And it is a glorious one. But for now I am going to end where the text ends.

Paul’s thesis in this book is that there is a righteousness that may be had, by grace through faith. This is the way that it has always been. There have not been different dispensations of time when God saved one way and now He saves another. No, it has always since the beginning of human history been by grace alone through faith alone. In the Old Testament, when God’s people the Jews sinned against him by building a golden calf, smoke and fire burned on the mountain and hundreds of people died that day as God unleashed His righteous wrath. There was no such thing as reverential awe, only fear filled terror. So here is the conclusion. Be afraid. Respond like job did in chapter 40 verses 1-10.

Job 40:1-10 “1 Then the LORD said to Job, 2 “Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty? Let him who reproves God answer it.” 3 Then Job answered the LORD and said, 4 “Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You? I lay my hand on my mouth. 5 “Once I have spoken, and I will not answer; Even twice and I will add nothing more.” 6 Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm and said, 7 “Now gird up your loins like a man; I will ask you, and you instruct Me. 8 “Will you really annul My judgment? Will you condemn Me that you may be justified? 9 “Or do you have an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like His? 10 “Adorn yourself with eminence and dignity, and clothe yourself with honor and majesty.”