Moribund No More
This is an exegetical sermon from Romans 3:1-18. It shows the condemnation of man and the human condition. It also explores the death of our flesh and the regenerate hope of Jesus. This sermon was originally preached by Pastor Justin Bragg at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA. Audio unavailable.
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:: The Resolved ::
Justin Bragg (elder)
Romans 3:1-18 “Moribund No More”
Sarcasm – introducing a new topic tonight, speaking on something different. Change of pace, might be fun to address total depravity and the wickedness of the human condition for once. We haven’t dealt with this yet, so it should be new to you all.
We are coming to the end. If we have been traversing through dark, cavernous caves of sinfulness, there is a light in the near future – the gospel is coming. We reach, tonight what I consider to be the climax – Paul’s brazen and unabashed condemnation of the human race. This is as clear as it gets, this is as bad as it gets.
It is clear that Paul is moving toward a summary and application of the teaching he has been developing since 1:18. The entire section we are dealing with tonight can be summarized as an accusation, in which Paul charges all people, Jew and gentile, with being under the power of sin, stringing together a list of OT quotes to confirm the universality of the description of the human condition.
The condition of every human being apart from the grace of God in Jesus Christ is not a pretty picture. Jews are not better than gentiles, and gentiles are not better than Jews – all are alike and under sin, and all are thus subject to the wrath and final judgment of the God almighty. – There is none righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.
All of them – all people – are “under sin.” under the power of sin. Not just sinning occasionally, but enslaved to sin.
This is one of the weightiest truths that the church must hold up in the modern world. In 1 Timothy 3:15, Paul calls the church of the living God “the pillar and bulwark of the truth.” this is one of those truths that the church must hold up .
There are constant pressures throughout history on persons and institutions and cultures to build life around wrong ideas. God has appointed the church of his son Jesus to speak boldly as the voice of truth to this sinful world.
It begins with your view of humanity: is man well? Is man sick? Or is man dead?
Much of liberal theology and secular theology will tell you that man is good, we are ok, maybe just not fully healthy, but the only thing we need to get better is a little exercise, spiritual vitamins and perhaps a psychiatrist. Checkup once-a-year. We are just ‘slightly flawed.’ – We say in everyday conversation that “nobody’s perfect,” but deep down we believe that we are pretty close.
Most people who think seriously about, reject that man is good, and will say that we are obviously not all good, people die and hurt each other, so we can’t be good, this view is more pessimistic – why can’t people get along, why is their starvation in a majority of the earth, why do father’s molest their children? Why do we bomb innocent people in the name of wars against terrorism? But the situation isn’t hopeless. There is good in people, and though we may be ready to blow ourselves off the face of the earth, all is not lost, the situation is not helpless.
That’s not what the Bible says about you and me. It doesn’t say that we are well, or even sick. We are dead. We can’t do anything to please, understand, or find God
One of the most important truths to hold up in the world, if the church is a pillar, is that all human beings, even though created in God’s image (gen 1:27), are corrupted by the power of sin. We are not morally good by nature. We are morally bad by nature. In Ephesians 2:3, Paul says we are all “by nature children of wrath.” the attitudes and thoughts and actions that deserve the wrath of god come from us by nature.
In Colossians 3:6, we are called “sons of disobedience.” we are so disposed to disobedience against God that it is as though “disobedience” is our father. We don’t just do sins, we are sinful. We are “under sin,” as verse 9 says. Sin is like a master or a king, and reigns over us and in us. Not that it coerces us to do what we don’t want to do, but makes us want to do what we ought not to do.
We are not innocent victims of sin. We are co-conspirators with sin against God.
From God’s point of view, the only one that matters, we are not good, we have no righteousness whatsoever. Don’t look at the human condition from the human perspective, Paul already told us that we can’t think right about it. Our entire problem is that we think we are good, or can do good, and that our righteousness is worthless in God’s eyes when in fact we cannot, as humans, ever please God
It’s not just that you aren’t perfect, or that you mess up sometimes. You are not righteous. You are depraved. You are devoid of spiritual understanding. You pretend to seek God, but in reality you are running away from him. Without an accurate knowledge of our sin, we will never come to know the meaning of God’s grace.
The human condition is not that you are well, with a few flaws, it is not even that you are sick, and in need of a doctor. The problem is much worse than that. The problem is that we are dead in our ability to do anything to please, understand find or glorify God. We are, as God declared when he warned Adam and eve against eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, dead. (Genesis 2:17) “…you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” And not just Adam and Eve, for we know from Paul’s letter to Ephesians that every person who has been born are “dead in our transgressions and sins.”
If I tell a corpse to get up and sing me a song, the corpse would not be able to. The corpse is dead. In our spiritual death, we are unable to do anything that God requires if not for God acting on our behalf to give us righteousness through his son that we can never have, that we might glorify him as we should.
This is not a popular message. It is no more popular than the doctor’s words: “your tumor is malignant.” But it is vastly more hopeful. “Your tumor is malignant,” may or may not be hopeful news, because the doctor may or may not have a cure for your cancer. But “you are under the power of sin and a child of wrath” always has a cure. That is what the book of Romans and what Christianity and the bible are all about.
I really want this message about sin and about your sinful condition and mine to be hope-inspiring. We should find a deep satisfaction in knowing that Paul is describing your flaws to the deepest level of your being – knows your worst condition – and says, “God loves you, and I know a way that you can be set right with Him and right with others.”
Isn’t that much more hope-giving than someone who makes small talk and gives you little placebos to make you feel good, when deep down you know things are not good. I’m talking about churches that refuse to talk about sin and the depravity of humanity, and instead hold weekly self-help seminars that offer ten steps to becoming a better Christian, and four ways to be a more loving spouse. I’m talking about the brand of watered-down, good-for –nothing except making you feel good about yourself type of message that attempts to transform the words of holy scripture into four-step formulas to improve your life and silly prayers that will make you famous, rich, wealthy and happy.
I’m tired of it. I started a church with others who were tired of it because I fear that this teaching is setting up millions of souls for an apocalyptic devastation come the final judgment.
All of this pop-Christianity self-help talk may sound more kind and gentle and loving than hearing that you are a sinner and sick unto death, but it is a deadly kindness – the kindness of a doctor who will not tell you the truth about your cancer in its curable stage, because he doesn’t want you to be discouraged or scared. You want a doctor to tell you the real condition, why wouldn’t you want your preachers and teachers to tell you the real condition as stated in the Bible?
As we look at Paul’s summary accusation, keep thinking: this is good, this is good. Because for all this bad news about my true condition, there is a remedy. And the only reason for telling me the bad news is so that I will understand the remedy and take it – namely, the righteousness of God, freely given to those who really trust in Christ.
There are two main questions I want to try to answer in verses 9-18.
One is: how does Paul support verse 9 and the sinfulness of all men on the basis of the Old Testament in all these quotations in verses 10-18?
And the other is: how does he describe the state of being “under sin” in these verses? Or: what can we learn about sin, and about ourselves, and about the gospel from the way Paul talks about sin in these verses?
He says in verse 9 that Jews are not really any better off before God than others, “for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin.” so you can see this is a summary statement from things he has said before: “we have already charged.” this is what he has been “charging” from 1:18 to 3:8. So he has already made his point
Nevertheless, he gives one last summary argument from the Old Testament. He begins verse 10 with “as it is written . . .” then he quotes six different Old Testament sections to support his summary in verse 9 that all Jews and Greeks are under sin. For example, from psalm 14:1-3 he says (in Romans 3:10-12), “there is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for god; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one.”
Paul isn’t trying to use these six quotes as individual indictments, but rather, as a collective whole, they are a massive support that all are unrighteous. It seems that the first quote (in verses 10-12), for example, from psalm 14, is mainly an indictment of the gentile world, because later it refers to Israel as the righteous generation. In other words, without the special grace of God -without the special revelation of his saving work revealed to Israel – people are not righteous, no one. Only when God breaks into our lives and gives the special grace of faith and forgiveness through a substitutionary sacrifice can we get right with God, and be called “righteous.”
So when Paul quotes the Old Testament that “there is none righteous, no not one,” he means that, by nature, apart from saving grace, we are unrighteous. He does not mean that there was no way to get right with God, and have a right standing with God in the Old Testament.
Answer to the first question: how does Paul support the universal claim of sinfulness in verse 9 by quoting these six Old Testament passages which speak of righteous people as well as wicked people?
He shows that both Jews and gentiles are characterized as deeply corrupt and that the only way out of that corruption is by God’s gracious gift of faith and forgiveness that sets a person right with God on the basis of the substitutionary sacrifice that would one day come in Jesus Christ.
Now the other question: how does he describe the state of being “under sin” in these verses? Or: what can we learn about sin, and about ourselves, and about the gospel from the way Paul talks about sin in these verses?
1. Ruined relationship with God
Being “under sin” is first and foremost a ruined relation with God. Not, first, a ruined relation with other people. Verses 10-18 begin and end with this point. Verse 10-11: “there is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God.” and verse 18: “there is no fear of God before their eyes.” everything in between these verses has to do with the meaning of sin in human relations. But at the beginning and the end being “under sin” means that we have no fear of god and we don’t understand him and we don’t seek him. Verse 11: “there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for god.”
Don’t miss this – sin is mainly a condition of rebellion against God, not mainly a condition of doing bad things to other people. This is why it is so sad and so pointless when people argue that they are pretty good people, and so don’t need the gospel. What they mean is that they treat other people decently: they don’t steal, kill, lie much, or swear much, and they give to some charities. But that is not the main question. The main question is: do you love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength? Do you love his son, Jesus Christ? God is the most important person in the universe. It is not a mark of virtue to do nice things for people while having no love or reverence or passion for God.
Sin is, first and foremost, a resistance to finding joy in God. And that resistance results in a darkened mind that then suppresses the truth and does not understand God. So the mind that is “under sin” does not seek God and does not know God and does not fear God. And it doesn’t matter what we do for people; if we treat the king of the universe with such disdain, we may know that we are profoundly “under sin.”
2. Ruined relationships with people
Being “under sin” results in ruined relations with people, even though God’s common grace may restrain us from treating people as badly as we might.
In verses 13-14, Paul describes the way sin ruins our words, and in verses 13-14, he describes the way sin ruins our actions – “throat . . . Tongue … Lips . . . Mouth.” verses 13-14: “their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” graves have to do with death and venom is poison that has to do with death, and that is what deception and cursing produce: death. The mouth was meant to give life. But sin turns it into a place of poison and death. May this diagnosis of our lives “under sin” make us want to be saved! May we long for redeemed tongues and mouths that give life and not death!
Then, in verses 15-17, being “under sin” is not a way of speaking, but a way of acting: “their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known.” this is what happens when God is not sought or known or reverenced. If God were to reduce his restraining bands in this world, it would descend into anarchy. That’s why there are governments and police and armies. By nature we would take vengeance on every offense, and our feet would run to shed blood, if we were not restrained. We see it, for example, in the looting of societies where the infrastructure collapses. And we would see it here. Because this is what it means to be “under sin.” human relationships are ruined.
3. Good news for those “under sin”
Finally, if this is who we really are by nature – people who are “under sin” and therefore, as Romans 1:18 says, under the wrath of God – then is it not the best news in the world that the entire point of the book of Romans and the whole bible and of Christianity is that God, in his great mercy, has made a way of salvation from sin – the power of sin and the penalty of sin? We are just centimeters away from it. Romans 3:21-22 – “but now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe.”
If you will believe in Jesus Christ, and turn from your sin, and renounce all forms of self-salvation, the very righteousness of God will be yours as a gift, and replace your unrighteousness for which Christ suffered and died on the cross. I implore you, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. Trust him for his great salvation.
What is it we are talking about here? Confess your sin. Look at yourself in the mirror and say, “I am a jerk. I am unrighteous. I can’t do anything right. I am a failure. I am a bad friend, an unfaithful boyfriend/girlfriend, a lazy employee, a selfish husband/wife, a liar, a scandalous self-promoting, and egomaniacal, arrogant, self-promoting, back-stabbing evil person.”
Maybe you’re not as bad as the person next to you. Maybe you are a pretty good person. But your righteousness, the thought that you have more righteousness that somebody else is the root of the sin of pride in your heart. Your righteousness, whatever you rate it on a scale of 1-10 is worthless. Your righteousness is not God’s righteousness. You don’t just need Christ’s help to get you to that perfect 10 in righteousness. That is what Psalm 14:3; 53:3; Romans 3:12 teach us – your definition of personal righteousness is a negative four billion in relation to the righteousness of God. God doesn’t say that people merely fail to live up to his standard, although that is also true, but what God really says is that we have all “turned away” and have “become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
All wickedness flows from a disregard for God. 3:18 – there is no fear of God before their eyes” (compare with v10 – no one seeks God)
Proverbs 9:10 tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
If you will approach God rightly, you will receive his righteousness
Naturally, those who do not fear God suppress the truth about Him, and their minds are darkened and they become fools.
So some are fooled into thinking they are good and don’t need God
Or others realize that God has to fit in the picture somehow, so they try him out in some form, but fail to fear him because of their abundant unrighteousness, and attempt to make him happy by doing good things to appease him
Don’t be those people.
Come to the table of our Lord wisely, in fear. Confess your sins to him tonight. Do not come and drink his blood and eat his flesh unless you admit that you have no righteousness in yourself. Taking communion is, at its core, the expression of receiving God’s righteousness offered in his son because you have no ability in yourself.
