When John the Baptist saw Jesus walking towards him, he cried out, “Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.”  That was a statement of tremendous significance. On the one hand, he was saluting Jesus as the Savior, as the One who came from God, the Messiah.  And in that, he was indicating the true mission of the Messiah.  Not a military mission, not a political mission, not a mission of social activism, but a mission to save sinners. 

And additionally, John was referencing a prophecy that was typified by a Jewish holiday which was known as the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. That was the beginning of the Jewish New Year, and it had been celebrated since the days when Moses led the children of Israel out of slavery to Egypt. It’s interesting that Jesus began His ministry with this clarion call of John that the Passover Lamb had entered on the scene of Jewish society, and 3 and a half years later Jesus would be crucified on the day of Passover.

What is also interesting is that this week, starting on Wednesday is the beginning of the celebration of the Jewish Passover according to the current Jewish observation of it.  Christians today do not celebrate Passover per se, but we do celebrate the Lord’s Supper, which is the Christian celebration of the Passover.  In Luke 22:15-20  Jesus said to the disciples, “With [fervent] desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”  Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, “Take this and divide [it] among yourselves;  “for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”  And He took bread, gave thanks and broke [it], and gave [it] to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” Likewise He also [took] the cup after supper, saying, “This cup [is] the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.”  So with that meal, Jesus transformed the Passover into the Lord’s Supper which we celebrate today.

The Old Testament Passover which Jesus and His disciples were taking part of, finds it origin in Exodus 12. I’m sure you are very familiar with the story of how God delivered the children of Israel from captivity and from the angel of death.  You will remember that God had exercised a series of judgments upon Egypt who had continued to harden their hearts against Him.  Finally, Moses announced to Pharaoh that God would execute the first born male child of all the families in Egypt at midnight. 

In preparation for this judgment, God told Moses to instruct the Jewish people to take a lamb, spotless and without blemish, on the 10th day of the month, and they were to live with it until the 14 day of the month,  then at that time to slay the lamb and put the blood upon the door posts of their house.  That night they were to roast the lamb and eat it with bitter herbs.  And at midnight the angel of death would pass by throughout all of the land of Egypt, and if he saw the blood on the door post, he would pass over that house and they would be spared the Lord’s judgement. And of course all that transpired just as the Lord said it would, and the Israelites who had the blood on the doorposts were passed over, but for those who had not done so, the first born son died.

Now as I said, the Passover was a type, a foreshadowing of what Jesus Christ would do on the cross.  Jesus was the Passover Lamb, whose blood was shed so that the judgment of God might pass over us, we who had the condemnation of death upon us.  Notice the parallels of the Passover lamb to Jesus; first, Jesus lived on earth with man as a member of the human family before He was sacrificed for them. Second, the sacrifice of Christ has to be appropriated personally to each home, not simply on a national or community scale.  Third, Jesus was the spotless, perfect Lamb of God, not stained by any sin or moral failing. Next, it was only the blood of Jesus, His sacrificial death, that could atone for sin.  Then, in His death, Jesus drank the bitter cup of God’s judgment against sin. Another parallel is that the work of Jesus, as with the Passover meal, has to be taken in full, without leaving anything out. And finally, the Passover of Jesus for those who believe in Him and have appropriated His sacrifice for their sins, provides deliverance from death/wrath, and deliverance from the enslavement to sin.

Another important element of the Passover is the Feast of the Unleavened Bread.  On the day of the Passover, the Jews were to make careful search of their house for leaven.  And they were to expunge any old leaven from their homes and not eat any thing that was leavened for 7 days afterwards.  And what we learn from the New Testament especially, is that leaven is symbolic of sin.  Paul said in 1Cor. 5:6-7  “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump [of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are [in fact] unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.”  

So in the Passover feast, the Jews were to, in effect, repent of sin and be cleansed of sin, which is analogous to what transpires in our salvation. 

Now in this passage in which we are focusing today, Paul is expressing the characteristics of our justification and particularly that which in theological terms is called “substitutionary atonement.”  This principle is illustrated by the Passover lamb in which the innocent is slain for the guilty. It’s the principle that one person dies as a substitute, or in place of, another.  The blood of the innocent lamb was a substitutionary atonement for the Israelites living under the condemnation of death in Egypt.

Paul spent the first three chapters of Romans showing that all men are under the condemnation of sin, and were due the wrath of God, which is death.  And then Paul showed that though no one is righteous on the basis of their own merit or works, yet by faith in Jesus Christ and His righteousness, we might be made righteous in Him and by His work on the cross.  So now Paul wants to explain how that is accomplished.  How sin is dealt with by God so that He might be holy, and just, and yet merciful and loving.  How God can reconcile sinners to Himself without denying justice and the law of God.

The point of why Jesus came to earth was to save sinners.  He said so Himself. He came to die for sin, and from the beginning of His ministry He set His face resolutely towards that hour that was predestined and prophesied, the hour of His crucifixion, when He would offer Himself as a sacrifice for sin.  But not only a sacrifice for sin, but a substitute for sinners.  Isaiah 53:5 says, “But He was wounded[a] for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.”

Christ died for sinners, thus it is necessary that to be delivered from death that one must first recognize he is a sinner.  James said, “Confess your sins one to another that you may be healed.”  Christ died for the sins of the world, but all the world is not saved; only those who confess and repent of their sins and by faith accept the substitutionary death of Christ for their sins.  Remember the serpent that was raised on the pole by Moses after the nation of Israel was bitten by vipers.  Whoever looked at the serpent on the pole was healed, but he who did not look at it perished.  The one who looked must first recognize that he has a disease unto death, he must believe the message that if he looks to it he will be healed, and then he must turn to it, look to it, to be healed.

Now as we go through this passage before us then I just want to use some words to act as headings for the principles of our salvation, so that it might help us to learn the essential elements of our justification as laid out in this passage. And the first word I would like to suggest is the word motivation.  What was the MOTIVATION for our salvation? 

The answer is, that God’s motivation for Christ’s atonement is love. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)  Paul says in vs 8 of our text, that “God demonstrated His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” God’s love is the reason that Jesus offered Himself in our place.

It’s interesting that in describing the condition of those who Christ came to save in vs 6 is that Paul says God loved us when we were powerless. Not only did He choose to die for sinners, but for those who are powerless, that is helpless and hopeless.  The corona virus that has paralyzed our country is stark evidence that we are powerless as humankind to really determine our safety or insulate ourselves from death and disease. It should heighten our recognition of our need for a Savior.  I only pray that it does.  

Mankind is powerless to help ourselves from the effect of the fall. Mankind is hopelessly, helplessly bitten by the sting of death and we cannot heal ourselves.  Because of our sin nature we are powerless to be righteous according to the standard of God’s righteousness. We are estranged from God, we cannot reach up to God, so God had to condescend to us.  And so Christ, motivated by love, stooped to become man, to dwell among us, to live a perfect life without sin, and yet die for our sins as our substitute, so that we might be healed.

Christ’s love is even more significant because it is given not on the basis of our deservedness, but even when we were undeserving.  Paul says that it’s possible, though not likely, that someone might offer to die for a good person.  But Christ’s love is so remarkable because He chose to die for the unrighteous.  He chose to die for His enemies.

So the first word is motivation.  The second word I would like to give you is PROPITIATION. Propitiation means to satisfy or appease. At the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Christ died to satisfy the wrath of God against sin. Paul says Christ died at the right time,  The right time was the time which had been prophesied.  It was the time which was typified by the Passover.  Christ died on the Passover at the appointed time.  And in dying for sinners, Christ satisfied the justice of God. 

Around the turn of the 20th century, Dyson Hague, an Anglican theologian wrote this about propitiation, or satisfaction. “As sin is debt, there are only two ways in which man can be righted with God; either by incurring no debt, or by paying the debt. But this, man cannot do, and herein comes the glory of the Gospel of the atonement, securing at once the honor of God and the salvation of the sinners. No one ought to make satisfaction for the sin of man except man, and no one can make satisfaction except God Himself. He who makes the satisfaction for human sin must, therefore, be man and God; and so in wondrous love, the God-Man of His own accord offered to the Father what He could not have been compelled to lose, and paid for our sins what He did not owe for Himself.” Jesus satisfied, propitiated, atoned for our sin.

1 John 2:2 says, “And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for [those of] the whole world.” All who would come to Him for salvation He will in no wise cast out.  He alone could satisfy the demands of God’s holy law, and pay the penalty for the sins of the world.

The third word is SUBSTITUTION.  Another word for substitution which you may have heard before is vicarious.  Vicarious means to experience for yourself what is done by another.  Vicarious is from the Latin word vicarius which means substitute. Paul says four times in vs 6-8 that Christ died for sinners, that Christ died for us. He uses the Greek word “hyper” which means vicarious, or about, in the place of, for the sake of, or on behalf of. And in the KJV of 1 Cor. 5: 7 it says, “Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us.” The word translated as “for” there is the word “hyper.”  And Peter states the same principle of substitutionary atonement in 1 Peter 3:18, saying, “For Christ also died for sins once for all, [the] just for [the] unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.”

And so as the Passover lamb was slain as the substitution for the children of Israel, so Christ was slain as a substitute for  those who would believe in HIm.  2 Cor. 5:21 says, “[God] made [Jesus] who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”  Christ died for your sins, so that you might be made righteous with His righteousness, and that He might pay the penalty for your sin, if you will just believe in Him, and receive His atonement on your behalf.

The next word that we should consider is DEMONSTRATION.  Actually, Paul uses the word “demonstrates,’ present tense in vs8.  What he means is that though it happened in the past, it remains an ever present reality. The object of this word really is the same as the object of motivation.  God’s motivation was love. And God demonstrated His love, or God manifested His love. How did God demonstrate His love?  By sending Jesus to die for us, even while we were yet sinners.  Jesus said “Greater love has no man than this, than a man lays down his life for his friends.” But what Paul indicates is so astonishing about God’s love is that He laid down His life for His enemies. When man was in rebellion against God, still Jesus loved us so much He was willing to die for us.  He demonstrated His love in a way that is beyond comprehension.

The next word I want you to notice is JUSTIFICATION. Vs9, “Since then we have been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved from the wrath of God through Him.”  Justification is our legal standing before God. Believers are those who by the gift of God received righteousness from God, a right standing before God. The demands of God’s justice concerning our sinful condition is the wrath of God, which is death.  And that death was satisfied by the death of the Lamb.  The blood points to an offering, a sacrifice, so that we are saved from God’s wrath.  We escape the judgment of death that has been pronounced upon all men, even as Israel escaped the  death on all of Egypt which was pronounced as God’s judgment. 

The next word I want you to consider is RECONCILIATION. In vs 10 it says,  “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Reconciliation means to make friends between warring parties, to make peace between two opposing factions. God loved us so that He might make us His friends, HIs people, His family, who formerly were His enemies. We were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son.  

Paul said in 2 Cor. 5:10, “Be reconciled to God.” That indicates there is human responsibility to respond in faith and repentance, to surrender to Him, to love and obey Him. It requires obedience.  Phl. 2:12-13 “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;  for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for [His] good pleasure.” To be reconciled to God is to surrender your will to God, to claim a new allegiance, and submit to His authority as Lord.

The next word should need little explanation.  And that is SALVATION. In vs 10 Paul says we shall be saved through His life. The Spirit of God works in us to complete in us the work of salvation, from justification, to sanctification, to glorification.  From beginning to end, salvation is of the Lord.   

In vs 9 Paul says having been justified we are saved from wrath. Then in vs 10 he says having been reconciled by His death, we are saved by His life.  What’s the difference?  That by His death we vicariously died to sin, and by His resurrection He lives, and because He lives, we live and shall live with Him forever.  And then for the second time, Paul uses the phrase “Much more then.” It means, if this is true, then how much more is the other true?  So if God justifies sinners by HIs death, how much more will He certainly save His friends, His family by the power of His risen life. Because Jesus said after His resurrection He would ascend into heaven, and then send His Spirit to dwell in us, so the Spirit gives life to our mortal bodies.  We live, because He lives in us. That is the power of Christ in me and in you, that we now have the Spirit of God living in us, giving us the power to live the new life He gave us.

Now that realization that the Spirit of Christ lives in us should bring rejoicing.  That rejoicing is articulated in what Paul describes as EXULTATION. That’s the last word I want you to consider, exultation.  Look at vs 11, “And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.” This is the third time Paul uses the word exult. In vs 2 he says, we exult in hope,  speaking of the coming glory of the Lord in which we joyfully look forward to.  And then in vs 3, we exult, or rejoice in tribulations, because though we suffer tribulation now, we know that tribulations are the fiery trials which are used by God in our lives to refine us as gold.

And then now in vs 11, We exult in God through Jesus Christ, because of our reconciliation.  Because of our reconciliation through the death of Christ we are now the friends of God, we are the family of God, we are the chosen seed which God has promised to bless and love forever and secure forever.

What a tremendous blessing it is for those who have been reconciled to God. Just think of it.  God loves the unloveable.  God loved us even when we were sinners. How much more does He love us now that we are adopted into His family?  Not only has our legal standing been changed from guilty to righteous, but our relationship to God has changed.  Justification, as I said earlier,  speaks to our legal standing before God. But reconciliation speaks to our relationship to God. Through Christ’s death His former enemies are changed into friends, and adopted as His children.  So if God is willing to die for His enemies, then how much more is He willing to do for His children?  He will certainly deliver us from the wrath to come, He will certainly give us all that we need for life, and He will certainly give us the inheritance in glory that He has promised us. And for that we should rejoice, even though now, for a little while we may suffer tribulations.  But for the joy set before us, we endure the shame and hardship of this fallen world, looking for that blessed hope of the glory of Christ revealed at the end of the age. 

I pray that you have turned and looked to Jesus. Heb. 12:2 says, “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” I pray that you have trusted in Him for your salvation.  Be reconciled to God.  He has offered you peace with God though His sacrifice.  I pray that you receive that gift of salvation. Look to Jesus and be saved.

In preaching classes, they teach you that illustrations are essential to a good sermon.  I tend not to use them as much as many other pastors do.  Last week I used one regarding the great chasm between man and God, and I think I can say confidently that it was not a good illustration.  I find that the best illustrations for a sermon come from the Bible itself. And in Paul’s message on Romans we come now to an illustration from the life of Abraham.  You might say that Abraham is the best personal illustration of the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith and I think we will see that as it is presented in this passage.

Now Paul has already established in Romans 1:17 that the righteous man shall live by faith, which is a quote from Habakkuk 2:4. Then Paul thoroughly evidenced that there is no one who is righteous on the basis of his own merit, not even one person. And finally, in our last passage we studied, Paul showed that there is a righteousness which comes from God, apart from the works of the law or our human merit, which was spoken of in the Old Testament scriptures, and it is available to all men through faith in Jesus Christ.

Now to illustrate this faith that results in righteousness from God, Paul presents the faith of Abraham.  And you should understand some things regarding Paul’s decision to chose Abraham as the illustration of saving faith.  Abraham, of course, was considered the father of the Jews.  And we would agree with that. But the Jews went much further in their adulation of Abraham than what we believe.  They taught that God chose Abraham to be the father of their nation because God found him righteous above any other man on the earth. They taught that he began to serve God at the age of three, and that his righteousness was completed by his circumcision and his fulfillment of the law by anticipation.  They taught that though the law had not yet been given, Abraham anticipated it, and kept it and therefore because of his righteousness, he was deemed worthy of God’s favor.  So for anyone who was either Jewish or knowledgeable of Judaism, Paul choosing Abraham as an illustration of righteousness would have been very significant, because they held that Abraham was righteous, and therefore selected by God, the very opposite of what Paul was arguing.

And it’s apparent that the church at Rome probably had a large number of converted Jews in attendance, especially in light of the fact that Paul uses the title regarding Abraham as “our forefather according to the flesh.” The Jews would have agreed with that as they saw him as their forefather. However, it should be noted that God promised to make Abraham a father of many nations, which included his offspring that became the Ishmaelites and Edomites, so in a sense he is the father of both Jews and Gentiles.  And as we progress in this passage we will see that Paul considers Abraham to be the forefather of all who have faith.

So Paul says in effect that given the divine blessings upon  Abraham, what can we learn from the life of Abraham about how to be righteous before God?

And Paul begins to answer that question in vs2 saying that “if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about.” However, previously in chap.3 vs 27 Paul said boasting was excluded, because God justifies on the basis of faith and not because of works.  But as I pointed out a moment ago, the Jews believed that Abraham was righteous on the basis of his merit, particularly by keeping the law of circumcision. 

But notice how Paul phrases it, “If Abraham was justified by works, then he has something to boast about, but not before God.” In other words, from God’s point of view Abraham had no reason to boast in his own merit.  As the author of Hebrews indicates, Abraham was called by God’s sovereign grace even while he was living in Ur of the Chaldees, among a pagan people. It was Abraham’s faith, not his works, which was the thing which God rewarded.  Listen how Hebrews summarizes Abraham’s life. Heb. 11:6, 8-12, 17-19 “And without faith it is impossible to please [Him,] for he who comes to God must believe that He is and [that] He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. … 8 By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.  By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign [land,] dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise;  for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised. Therefore there was born even of one man, and him as good as dead at that, [as many descendants] AS THE STARS OF HEAVEN IN NUMBER, AND INNUMERABLE AS THE SAND WHICH IS BY THE SEASHORE. … 17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten [son;]  [it was he] to whom it was said, “IN ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS SHALL BE CALLED.”  He considered that God is able to raise [people] even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.”

Now back in our passage in Romans Paul goes again to the Old Testament scriptures for validation to his argument that Abraham was righteous by faith.  And ironically, he goes to the very one his Jewish opponents might have also claimed.  The scripture he references is found in Genesis 15:6.  Paul says in vs3, “For what does the Scripture say? ‘ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.’”

The principle of saving faith in this verse is so important that it is repeated in a couple of other epistles, namely, Galatians 3:6 and James 2:23. And so I would like to examine this statement thoroughly. First of all, please notice that Paul says Abraham believed God, not that he believed in God. Abraham was not justified on the basis of believing in God’s existence, but by believing God.  Look at the context of Gen. 15:6 and it’s apparent that Abraham had already exhibited that he believed in God.  He had followed God’s command to leave Haran and go to a country that God would show him.  The context of Genesis 15:6 shows that God is making specific promises of a son who would come from Abraham’s body.  And so in regards to God’s  promises Abraham believed God.

And I think that is an important distinction. Because James 2:19 says the devil’s believe in God, and tremble. So merely believing in the existence of God does not save, it is believing in His word.

The other important thing we need to understand is the principle of reckoning, or credited, or accounted, depending upon your translation.  What this means is that God counted as righteousness what Abraham appropriated by faith, which was the righteousness of Christ. The Lord reckoned, or credited this unrighteous man, Abraham, to be righteous, even though he was not.The Lord was able to do this without himself being unjust, because of the certainty that Messiah would come and voluntarily sacrifice himself for all those who would have faith in Him. He would be Abraham’s substitute, paying the penalty for Abraham’s sin, and transferring His righteousness to Abraham in exchange.

This great exchange is spoken of in 2 Cor. 5:21 which says, “God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”  So we see that it’s not a degree of righteousness which has to be added to, and added to, in hopes of obtaining enough righteousness to please God, but it’s the full measure of God’s righteousness which is applied to our account.  But our justification is not God making us perfectly righteous, but counting us as perfectly righteous. And after we are counted righteous, then God begins making us truly righteous, culminating at our resurrection.

So in other words, God put to Abraham’s account, placed on deposit for him, credited to him, righteousness… Abraham possessed righteousness in the same way as a person would possess a sum of money placed in his account in a bank.  Furthermore, we should understand that righteousness is  more than the absence of evil and guilt. It is a positive good, meaning that God does not only declare us innocent, but righteous.

And Paul makes sure that we understand it is credited to us on the basis of faith, not works or merit. He says in vs 4 “Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due.  But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.”

The word translated as favor in my version is the Greek word “grace”.  You may remember we talked about grace last week and described it as unmerited favor. The point is, if you work, you expect a paycheck for your labor.  But if you don’t work, then what God gives you is grace, unmerited favor, which is credited to you as righteousness.  A lot of people today get their paychecks by direct deposit into their bank account.  But God gives us a divine deposit of righteousness, for which we do not work, for it is a gift of God deposited in our account.

The Greek word charis was used in those days by secular authors, usually referring to a spontaneous gift or favor given to a friend.  But in the New Testament, charis takes on a new dimension, in that God is not giving grace to his friends, but to his enemies.  And Paul echoes that in the use of the description of the recipient of grace being the ungodly.  He says, “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness.”   As the Jews thought concerning Abraham, they might expect God would only justify a godly man, but because of what Jesus did on the cross, God can justify the ungodly. Jesus came to save sinners.  No one is godly on the basis of their own merit.

Imagine having a large sum of money, and you spent it foolishly.  You wasted it on every luxury and trivial thing until you had none left.  And furthermore, you then went into debt for much more besides until you were way over your head in debt and absolutely broke, with no hope of paying it back.  And then imagine someone wiping out your debt, paying it in full, and then depositing an immense sum into your bank account.  That is what God has done for us.  Not on the basis of whether we deserved it or not, but on the basis of His mercy and grace.

So from start to finish, right standing with God is a gift of God.  And it is appropriated by faith in Jesus Christ. Therefore all the glory for our salvation belongs to God. There is no room for boasting in human works or merit.

Now to this illustration of Abraham, Paul adds another well known Old Testament figure, and that is of David.  All of us I’m sure are aware that though David was called a man after God’s own heart, and he achieved great things for the Lord, yet he was a man who fell into grevious sin. And so no one could make the claim like they did with Abraham that it was David’s inherent righteousness that gave him a right standing before God.  

But Paul emphasizes David’s righteousness  in vs6, saying, “just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works.”  And then he quotes David from Psalm 32:1,2, saying, “BLESSED ARE THOSE WHOSE LAWLESS DEEDS HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN, AND WHOSE SINS HAVE BEEN COVERED. BLESSED IS THE MAN WHOSE SIN THE LORD WILL NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT.”

David is joyful because he knows that his sins are forgiven. But he also indicates the same blessing is available for all those who partake of God’s grace.  David knew the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works.  

Some commentators believe that Paul, who studied under Gamaliel is using a method of interpretation called “analogy” favored by the school of Hallel, which basically said that an earlier interpretation of a word connects to a later use of the same word, so that you may interpret the later usage by the older usage.  I have often referred to a similar method of hermeneutics which is called the principle of first mention.  For instance, if you want to know what Romans 12:1 means when it refers to worship, then go to the earliest use of that word and it will help you to understand the later usage.  In that example, the first use of worship is found in Genesis 22:5 when Abraham is taking Isaac his son to be offered as a sacrifice in obedience to God, and Abraham says to the men with him,  “Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.”  So by that hermeneutic we learn that worship involves sacrifice.

The similar point  that commentators are making in regards to our passage in Romans is that the use of “reckon” in the verse concerning Abraham, instructs us in the meaning of the word “reckons” in the quote from David in vs8.  He is showing a connection. The phrase rendered “take into account” is the same word “logizomai” which is translated “reckoned” in Genesis 15:6. Therefore, what David is saying by means of the correct interpretation of that word, is that God credits or reckons righteousness apart from the law.  

David speaks of the blessedness, not of the one who is justified through works, but of the sinner who is cleansed through imputation. The emphasis is on what God places upon us  (which is the righteousness of Jesus), not on what we do for God.  Paul will go on to elaborate on the point of our unworthiness in the next chapter, saying, Rom 5:6-9 “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.  But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath [of God] through Him.”

Having confirmed the justification that comes from God through grace and not from works by the passage from David,  Paul goes back to the example of Abraham to make another correlating, important point. He says, Abraham was counted righteous before he was circumcised; therefore he was not counted righteous because he was circumcised.

Let’s read the text in vs9 “Is this blessing then on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? For we say, ‘FAITH WAS CREDITED TO ABRAHAM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.’  How then was it credited? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised;  and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised, so that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be credited to them,  and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham which he had while uncircumcised.”

The point Paul wants to make is the blessing of righteousness is all the more significant because Abraham could not have earned it.  And another tremendous aspect of the blessing is that it is not only given to the Jews, but to the Gentiles as well, even to all who believe.

Now the standard Jewish belief was that God’s blessing came only to the circumcised.  Even as the first church was being formed, there were some who came from Jerusalem to the Gentile churches and tried to get them to become circumcised, saying that they could not be saved without adding certain laws to their faith.  So Paul wants to put that false doctrine to bed.  And he does so in a masterful way by showing that Abraham was declared righteous and credited with righteousness before he was circumcised.  In fact, it was at least 14 years after Gen.15:6, Abraham being then 99 years old and Ishmael was 13 years old when he and Ishmael were circumcised according to the command of God.  When God credited him with righteousness in Gen.15:6 Ishmael had not even been conceived.  And so Paul is able to show chronologically that righteousness is not based on the works of the law because Abraham was uncircumcised at that time.

It’s also important for application to us that we notice that Paul refers to “the sign of circumcision.” A sign indicates a later reality.  Thus in the cutting away of the flesh in circumcision it typifies the excision of the guilt and corruption of sin, which is a picture of justification and sanctification.

Paul also referred to circumcision as a seal. To Abraham it was the mark or seal of a guarantee that God would keep His promise. Sins and seals can be very helpful in our faith. But it’s also possible to over emphasize them. In the old dispensation there was the rites of circumcision and the Passover.  And in the new dispensation there is the rites of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.  But those rites to do bring about justification, but are merely signs pointing to it.  They are a great educational value to our faith, and a great way of reminding us and testifying of what God has done.  But they are not the means of justification, only the signs of it.  So never should they be overrated and given the promise of removing sin.  They merely are outward signs of an inward transformation.

So Paul makes an important point by the fact that circumcision does not justify anyone.  They are justified by faith alone, through grace alone.  And by extension we need to understand that observing signs and seals does not impart righteousness. In fact, Abraham, the father of all those who believe, was declared righteous while he was still uncircumcised. Therefore, how could anyone then say (as some did in Paul’s day) that Gentiles must be circumcised before God would declare them righteous? Or how could anyone say that without baptism no one can be saved as certain churches today teach? 

The Jews of Paul’s day thought circumcision meant they were the true descendants of Abraham. But Paul insists that to have Abraham as your father, you must walk in the steps of the faith that Abraham walked in. Look at vs 12, “and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham which he had while uncircumcised.”

As Paul stated in Gal. 3:7 “Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham.” That directly corresponds to the statement in chapter 2, vs 28, where Paul said, “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.”

It is faith, then, not a ritual, that saves. It is faith, not ritual, that makes people right with God. And it started with Abraham in the sense that he’s the father of the faith. So we can share the faith of Abraham, whether circumcised or uncircumcised, whether you’re a Jew or a Gentile. Faith is the operative principle of salvation, and Abraham is the model of salvation by faith apart from any ritual. There are no rituals or observing of signs or sacraments that can save, only by faith, through grace.

I pray that you have appropriated by faith in Christ the righteousness of God that you may be counted as righteous in the sight of God.  It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.  It has been paid for by Jesus Christ.  Simply believe in Him as your Lord and Savior and you will be justified, credited with the righteousness of God, that you may become sons and daughters of God, an co heirs with Christ, guaranteed the blessing of God. 

The thesis of Paul’s message in Romans is found in Romans 1:16-17. He says there, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it [the] righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS [man] SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”

This message is the gospel, the good news, that the righteousness of God has been manifested to man on the basis of faith. Paul gives us in that statement a synopsis of the gospel. God is righteous, and in order to have life from God we must be righteous as He is righteous, and that righteousness is accomplished by faith. But then almost ironically, he spends the next 2 1/2 chapters talking about the fact that all men have failed to measure up to that standard of God’s righteousness, and that all men are sinners, and thereby condemned to death. Rather than focusing on the good news, Paul first focuses our attention on the bad news. All men are under the judgment of God because of their sinful nature and their unrighteousness.

But in the passage which we are looking at today, having shown that all men are unrighteous, Paul presents a series of principles of righteousness which by believing we become righteous in the sight of God. And he starts by defining the righteousness that God requires by the law. He has already shown that all men – the pagan, the moral man, and even the religious man – are sinners under the condemnation of God’s judgment. So in vs 19, Paul presents the principle of righteousness defined. “Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God.” Paul says the law defines righteousness, God’s standard, and all men are held accountable to that standard.

This condition of man’s sinfulness and hopelessness is described in Isaiah as the whole world being in darkness. In Isaiah 59:9 it says, “Therefore justice is far from us, And righteousness does not overtake us; We hope for light, but behold, darkness, For brightness, but we walk in gloom. In vs2 Isaiah said, “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden [His] face from you so that He does not hear.”

So our sins mean that righteousness has been denied to us on the basis of keeping the law. Paul says in vs 20, “because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law [comes] the knowledge of sin.” The second principle then is righteousness denied. Righteousness has been denied because of our sin against God’s law. We cannot attain to His standard of perfect righteousness. And so we are all denied the righteousness that God requires, and condemned to the penalty of sin, which is death. Notice the phrase, no one is justified in His sight, because of their sin as attested by the law.

But as Isaiah prophesied, God’s hand is not so short that it cannot save. Isa.59:15, “Now the LORD saw, And it was displeasing in His sight that there was no justice. And He saw that there was no man, And was astonished that there was no one to intercede; Then His own arm brought salvation to Him, And His righteousness upheld Him. He put on righteousness like a breastplate, And a helmet of salvation on His head; And He put on garments of vengeance for clothing And wrapped Himself with zeal as a mantle.”

Then in Isaiah chapter 60, the light shines forth in the darkness of man’s despair and depravity. 60 vs 1, “Arise, shine; for your light has come, And the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth And deep darkness the peoples; But the LORD will rise upon you And His glory will appear upon you.”

This ray of hope in a dark world, this radiance of the Son of Righteousness that appears, comes not from below, not from the world, not from man’s efforts, but from above, a righteousness from God which is revealed to a world in darkness. So in vs21 we see the principle of righteousness manifested. Vs21 “But now apart from the Law [the] righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets.”

Notice, that though the law defined righteousness, this righteousness which comes from God comes apart from the law. That is, it is not attained by keeping the law. We have already seen that if we could not keep the law. The law condemned us as unrighteous. So righteousness comes apart from man’s efforts. God comes to the rescue. God accomplishes what man could never do. His own arm, or God’s own efforts, brought about salvation.

Another point that is made in that verse which is important is that this righteousness which comes from God was attested by the scriptures. Paul is speaking of the Old Testament scriptures, which were referred to by the Jews as the Law and the Prophets. What Paul is saying is that even in the law, the Old Testament scriptures, it was revealed that righteousness comes through faith. Now we have already seen that evident in Romans 1:17, which says, “THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.” That is a quote from Hab.2:4. It’s also referred to in Genesis 15:6 which says “Then [Abraham] believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.” It’s also found in Psalm 32:1,2. “How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered! How blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit!” So, in the law and the prophets righteousness is manifested, from God, apart from the law.

But though righteousness comes from God apart from keeping the law, righteousness must be received. This principle of righteousness is shown in vs22. “Even [the] righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction.” This righteousness of God apart from the law must be received through faith in Jesus Christ. We receive righteousness through faith in what Christ did on our behalf. All those who believe in Christ’s righteousness are given the righteousness of God. Now faith, Paul says, is believing, but it’s much more than just believing in Jesus’s existence. It is believing in who He is, and what He accomplished, and what He promises to do. Faith is believing and then putting that belief into practice. Acting on that belief in who Christ is, and what He has done, and what He promises to do.

2 Cor. 5:21 says. “God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” So faith is believing that transaction of our sins to Christ and God’s righteousness to us was accomplished for us by Christ. And Paul adds, there is no distinction. Or there is no exceptions, everyone must appropriate God’s righteousness. No one comes to God on his own merit or by his works. No one comes on the basis of his nationality or race or religion. They must come by faith in Christ in order to appropriate the righteousness of God.

On the basis of our own merit, Paul says all fall short of the glory of God. Vs23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” In this verse we see the principle of righteousness defaulted. On the basis of man’s efforts, or man’s nationality, they have defaulted in meeting that righteous standard which God requires. Sin in the Greek language is hamartanō, which means to miss the mark. It’s a reference to shooting an arrow, in which one misses the target.

But here Paul uses another analogy; that of falling short. It’s as if he is saying that between us and God there is a great chasm, which no one can leap and everyone falls short. The other day as I was flying out to LA for the pastor’s conference, I started thinking about this verse. And I began to imagine a fictitious scenario as an illustration of how we all fall short of the glory of God. I began to imagine a scenario in which all our church were lined up on a high cliff overlooking this great chasm between us and God. And as I began to imagine various people in this congregation trying to jump this chasm I started laughing out loud, and I think other passengers were starting to get worried that I was losing it or something. For instance, I thought of Bill, and how we might think that he looks fit, he seems athletic, a team captain kind of guy, and if anyone could jump that chasm then I guess Bill could. And I imagined all of us lined up on this cliff overlooking this giant chasm between us and God and cheering Bill on. So he flashes a smile, walks back 25 yards, and then takes off running for the cliff to the sounds of our cheers. And in my mind’s eye, Bill makes a grand effort, and he manages to fly really far through the sky, but he falls far short of the other side and he’s gone. Very sad. He really looked like he could do it.

Then I imagined we called up Nick. After all, he was the goat herder. Nick though didn’t seem too confident. He complained about his back not being right. But we pressed upon him, and finally Nick took a running start and he sailed through the air as we cheered him on. Maybe it was the bad back, I don’t know. But he didn’t get as far as Bill got. He too crashed and burned.

Then just when it seemed like all hope was lost, Lou showed up. I didn’t have a lot of hope for old Lou, seeing he was kinda short, but then I figured, well, at least he is enthusiastic. Lou was all excited about an idea he had. He had cut down a really long bamboo pole. He said “Pastor, I”m going to pole vault that thing.” Well, it was a good idea, but though Lou got really high, he didn’t get very far. Poor Lou.

Now, I am being silly. I hope I’m not being sacrilegious. And I probably managed to hurt at least 3 people’s feelings. That’s why I don’t normally use illustrations. But I hope you at least get the picture. All of us have sinned and fallen short. No distinctions. Even the best of us fall far short. Even our best efforts fall short of God’s glory. It’s hopeless in our own efforts to attain to the standard of righteousness.

But it’s interesting to notice the flow here in these verses. Paul was just talking about the righteousness which comes from God by faith, and then he mentions believing in Christ, and then for some reason he goes back to this idea of man’s sin. You would think that he has already exhausted that subject. Why bring up man’s sin again now that the conversation has moved on to the principle of faith? And I believe the answer is that there are two aspects of faith. One is believing, the other is repentance. And so when Paul tells us in vs 23 that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God it is to emphasize the need for repentance, a confession of our sin, a desire to be forgiven, a desire to be freed from sin. Repentance is a necessary part of what it means to have faith. And so I think that is why the text flows as it does in vs 22 and 23. Faith is believing and repentance which appropriates the righteousness of God.

The next principle builds on that by saying that though righteousness is defaulted on our part, it is nevertheless granted by God as a gift of grace. I call this principle, righteousness declared. That is what happens when God justifies us. He declares us as righteous by the transference of Christ’s righteousness to us, and our sin being transferred to him. Let’s see how Paul phrases this principle of righteousness declared. Vs24, “being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.”

In response to our faith in the atoning work of Christ on our behalf, God looks at us and declares us to be righteous, just as if we never sinned. That’s what justified means. God declares us righteous on the basis of what Christ did on our behalf. It’s not something that we earn, or merit, as we said earlier, but because of what Christ did. Therefore, it is called grace, “charis”, which means a gift. Grace is unmerited favor. So justification is a gift from God.

But notice, that though it costs us nothing, yet justification does cost something. God doesn’t just declare us righteous because He decided to forget about our sin and the payment that was due. God did not stop counting sins, He just counted them against Christ. Paul says we are justified by grace through the redemption which is in Christ.

Now what is redemption? It’s buying something back in exchange for payment. My mother, and probably yours as well, used to collect S and H Green Stamps. In those days, every time you bought groceries at the grocery store they would give you some S and H Green Stamps according to how much you bought. And when you collected enough stamps to fill up a book, you could take the book to the store and get a frying pan or something like that. That was called redemption. You paid for them, and eventually you cashed them in for the object that you wanted.

Jesus paid the price for sin. He died the death that we were supposed to die. He suffered the punishment in full for our sin. Gal 3:13 says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us.” Listen, sin has a price. Romans 6:23 says, “the wages of sin is death…” Jesus paid the price of death for us that we might be set free. That’s redemption.

But there is another principle that is closely aligned with that redemption, and that is the principle of righteousness satisfied. That principle is found in vs 25, “whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. [This was] to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed.” This is the principle; that the justice of God demanded a penalty for sin which is death. God in His justice accepted the payment for my penalty by Jesus dying in my place. That’s what is meant by a propitiation in His blood. Propitiation means appeasement. It means God’s judgment was satisfied. Our debt was paid in full by the death of Jesus Christ. He shed His blood, He died in my place, and God’s justice was satisfied.

The next principle of righteousness that Paul presents here is that of righteousness demonstrated. This is such an important principle that it is repeated twice, both in vs 25 and 26. Let’s read them again: [Paul is speaking of Jesus] “whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. [This was] to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, [I say,] of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

Now there are two time frames that are indicated there. First, there is the time before Christ’s crucifixion. In the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed. I have learned about forbearance in regards to paying back student loans. If for whatever reason you are unable to pay what you owe, you can apply for a forbearance. That’s not debt forgiveness, it’s putting off what you have to pay until a more appropriate time. You still owe it, just don’t have to pay it now. And that is what happened under the old covenant. The blood of bulls and goats were not able to take away sins. They were merely an acknowledgement of the person’s sin, and an agreement that the penalty for their sin would be paid at a later date. So they were looking forward through their sacrifice to the One who would be the Lamb of God, slain for the sins of the world. They still were declared righteous by faith. Faith in what was promised to come, the Messiah, who would be the Savior of the world by His final sacrifice for sin.

The second time period in the demonstration of God’s righteousness was after the cross, when those who were declared righteous by faith looked back to the death of Christ on the cross. In both cases, in both the old and new covenant, Paul says they were justified by faith in Christ. And that is important to understand, because that illustrates that no Jew was ever saved by keeping the law. He was saved by faith. And as we look at chapter 4 next week, we are going to see Abraham, the old covenant patriarch, the father of the Jewish nation, as an illustration of saving faith.

So Paul has presented this series of principles of righteousness as essential to our salvation. But in the greater context of his message, he is still delineating the difference between Jews and Gentiles in regards to salvation. And so he comes back to that argument that there is no distinction on the part of God towards the Jew’s requirements as contrasted with the Gentile. The Jews had been entrusted with the law, with the scriptures, and the promises. And so there was some advantage in that they had the word of God to lead them to salvation. Paul made that argument back in the beginning of the chapter. But greater responsibility means a greater culpability. They still had to be saved through faith, not by keeping the law. And so Paul summarizes that principle of justification by faith, in the closing verses of chapter 3, saying, “Where then is boasting? (speaking of the Jew’s boast in the law) It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. Or is God [the God] of Jews only? Is He not [the God] of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one. Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law.”

As Paul says in Gal. 3:24 “Therefore the Law has become our tutor [to lead us] to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.” The world is under the condemnation of the law. Sin and righteousness is revealed through the law. The law teaches us the character of God. The law requires a penalty. But thank God we do not attain righteousness through keeping the law. But we attain righteousness as a gift from God through faith in the righteous sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

I pray that you have accepted the tremendous gift of righteousness that was provided for you by the death of Jesus Christ. I pray that no one makes the mistake of thinking that he will be accepted by God on the basis of how good of a person he thinks he may be, or what good work that he has done. There is no other way to be justified before God, but by faith in what Jesus Christ has done for us. Repent of the fact that you are a sinner, and trust in Him as your Lord and Savior, and receive the gift of righteousness that gives us eternal life.

We have come to the middle of chapter 3 in Romans and Paul has been endeavoring to prove that all of mankind is a sinner, and that every man is condemned without excuse before the standard of God’s righteousness. Though it’s difficult to hear, Paul doesn’t add any honey to his message to make it go down easier because he knows that in order for mankind to be saved he must be shown conclusively that he is completely without hope before God.

So in chapter one Paul has shown that the Pagan is without excuse. In chapter 2 he showed that the so-called good people or the moral people are without excuse and in chapter 3 that religious people as typified by the Jews are without excuse before God. Now there is one more class of people that Paul presents after the religious people and that group is identified by the word in verse nine which is “we.” He says “what then are we better than they? Not at all for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin.” Now the question arises who is he speaking about? Who does “we” refer to?

And the answer to who he is speaking of becomes clear looking at the context. The Jew is referred to earlier in the 3rd person. So “we” is not the Jew he just got through speaking of. The clue comes in verse 8, where he says, “we are slanderously reported.” Paul is obviously talking in verse 8 about himself and other believers. Verse nine continues with the use of “we” as Paul affirms that “we charge that both Jews and Greeks are under sin.” So it seems clear from the context that the “we” used by Paul is referring to himself and other believers.

Here’s the point that Paul is making then. That we the believer are no better according to our nature then all of the others in regards to sin. We didn’t have some inherent goodness by which God chose us to be saved. As Ephesians 2:3 says that we too are by nature children of wrath. So according to our human nature, we that are Christians are sinners, under the judgment of God. In fact, I will stress the fact that you cannot be a true Christian unless you have come to realize that you are a sinner, without hope, and under the judgment of sin. All men are sinners, and there is no one that is able to come to God on the basis of their righteousness.

So in this passage we’re looking at today Paul is going to wrap up this argument. It’s kind of like a trial where the prosecution brings forth charges against the accused, provides evidence and then at the end of the trial the lawyer makes a final closing argument. That’s what we have here in this passage. Mankind is on trial before God, and Paul is making his final argument. Notice, Paul even uses court room language. He says in verse nine that he has already charged us all. This is what we’re being charged with, that man is a sinner, condemned under the law of God, and the judgment of sin is death.

So Paul’s charge against humanity is this: that all men are sinners. He says in vs 9 that “all are under sin,” or some versions say “under the power of sin.” The power of sin refers to being under the dominion of sin, and the dominion of sin includes being in captivity to sin as well as being under the condemnation of sin. Sin controls us, and dominates us, and condemns us. Now Paul is going to use a rabbinical teaching method in his argument, which is to string together a series of scriptures in order to bring his case to a conclusion. And notice that he goes to scripture for his evidence.

You know, this reinforces the fact that scripture is the ultimate authority. That the word of God is the power of the gospel. You can try reasoning with people, and you can try to convince them according to what is rational. But we must never lose sight of the fact that the foolishness of God is greater than the wisdom of men. The power of God’s word is greater than any human reasoning or prose, or literature. People love to try to find answers to their questions or problems in some book, even Christian books, rather than simply relying on the word of God. But since the Holy Spirit is the author of scripture, He uses scripture to convict the world of sin.

As Paul told us in chapter 1 vs 16, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. But the primary way that Satan tries to deceive men to reject the gospel is by denigrating the word of God. Ultimately, he wants to replace the truth with a lie. Satan asked Eve, “Has God really said?” And he has been using the same methodology ever since. The second prong of Satan’s deception is to attack the divinity of Jesus Christ. What makes a cult a cult is that they refuse to believe that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. They say He is a son of God, but not the Son of God. They say He was a prophet, but they never say He was God.

But to believe in Jesus unto salvation means that you must believe who He claimed to be. Either He was God in the flesh, or a mad man who claimed to be God. Jesus said, “I and the Father are One.” And “if you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.” Only by faith in who He is, and what He has accomplished, can we be saved. A mere man cannot atone for the sins of the world. Only God could do that, by becoming man in the flesh, and offering Himself as a substitute for sinners on the cross. So the basis for our faith must be grounded in scripture, and it is the power of God to bring men to repentance resulting in salvation.

So Paul gives us this string of scriptures in a pattern of stanzas, that are like a lawyer presenting evidence in the closing argument of a trial. And exhibit A, or stanza 1, is the universality of sin. And as I said, the evidence is scripture, what Paul refers to as the law, but not the 10 commandments, but texts from Ecclesiastes, Psalms, and Isaiah. And yet he refers to all of it as the law. All of it, of course, being the inspired word of God.

Paul will show that the scriptures declare the universality of sin. Sin is not just the condition of a certain class of people, or race, but it is the condition of all men. And he gives three lines or quotes to support that point. Vs 10, “as it is written, ‘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.”

Now that is a quote from Psalm 14:1 and Psalm 53. And notice that he gives five negatives here and one positive. First negatively, he says, “There is no one, no one, no one, no one, not even one.” Five times Paul says no one. I think he is trying to make a point, don’t you?. And that point must be reiterated because innately we all want to declare, “Well, I may not be perfect, but deep down I really am a good person.” But Paul says no one is good, no one is righteous, no one seeks after God, no one does good, not even one. There is nothing good in you or me. He indicts all of us.

See, the problem is that we think we are not all that bad, and so we don’t really need to be totally transformed. We think that we can just add a little good, add a little religion, and we are good to go. But the truth is that we are totally corrupt, hopelessly sinful, and we need to die to our old nature, and be reborn with a new nature, a spiritual nature, that we might be a new creation, a new person. So without complete recognition of our sinfulness, and the following repentance, which is to renounce everything about ourselves as sinful and recognizing our need to be forgiven and changed, then we cannot be actually saved. Being saved is not just being forgiven, but being transformed, being made new.

Then Paul states the positive; he says “All have turned aside.” This idea of turning is helped by looking at Heb. 4:12 which says, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” The scriptures are that point of the truth which pierces the heart and separates it to the right or left. That’s why it’s so important that we do not dull or blunt the word, but apply it with all it’s power to reveal the intentions of the heart. The Holy Spirit is saying that all have turned aside from the truth. Everyone has turned. And we all turned the wrong way. We all turned aside after our own desires. No one does what is right. And in our turning aside we have thwarted the purpose of God in making us. We have become worthless and worthy of being destroyed. We have become worthless because we have denied our Maker and the purpose for which we were made, which was for His glory.

The second stanza or exhibit B is illustrated by two lines of scripture regarding our speech. Man’s heart, or nature, is revealed by his speech. His sin is evidenced by his speech. Vs 13, “Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of asps in under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” Paul is basically saying that if you want evidence that man is a sinner, then listen to his speech. Listen to what comes out of his mouth. It’s interesting that of all the sins which Paul might have put forth as evidence of our sinfulness, what he choses to spotlight is the sins of the tongue. All of us show our sinfulness by our speech. Our own mouths condemn us.

Once again, for evidence, Paul goes to the Old Testament. “Their throat is an open grave” is a quote from Psalms 5:9. What a picture of the mouth revealing the heart. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and desperately sick, who can understand it?” And the picture that he makes is that the heart is dead, spiritually corrupt and foul, and the mouth is like an open tomb that reveals the spiritual deadness of the heart.

“With their tongues they keep deceiving” comes from Psalm 5:9 as well. Jeremiah just said that the heart is deceitful, so the tongue is going to deceive as well because it is the tool of the heart. Literally, Psalm 5:9 says a smooth tongue. That means a flattering tongue that speaks to deceive and take advantage. Men are always looking for an angle that benefits themselves, and usually to the detriment of others. Jesus said in John 8:44 “You are of [your] father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own [nature,] for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

Paul’s next stanza says, “The poison of asps, or vipers, is under their lips,” which is a quote from Psalm 140:3. The words of our mouths result in the destruction of others like the way a serpent’s bite releases the poison that is in their fangs. Our words are deadly, they tear down, they destroy.

Then Paul quotes, “Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness” which comes from Psalm 10:7. Our speech condemns us because of the type of language we use. James 3:6 says, “And the tongue is a fire, the [very] world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of [our] life, and is set on fire by hell. For every species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by the human race. But no one can tame the tongue; [it is] a restless evil [and] full of deadly poison. With it we bless [our] Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come [both] blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.” So our language condemns us because it reveals our evil heart.

For Exhibit C Paul says that men’s actions show that they are sinners. Exhibit B was their speech and so it naturally follows that Exhibit C is their actions. Verse 15-18 Paul gives another stanza of two lines. “Their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known.” That quote comes from Isaiah 59:7,8. An then he says, “There is no fear of God before their eyes,” which is from Psalm 36:1.

Proverbs 23:7 says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” All sin starts in the mind. And as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, if you hate your brother you are guilty of murder, and if you lust after a woman you are guilty of adultery. Sin begins in the mind, and when given an opportunity he consummates it in the flesh.

The problem is that man does not fear God. Without the fear of God, a man is emboldened to act upon his baser passions. Why not? “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” They believe there is nothing after death. There is no judgment. And man’s laws are relative at best. They change from culture to culture, and from one age to another. So why worry about the hang ups of the culture? If God doesn’t exist, then there is really no reason not to do whatever you want to do. You can act out your evil heart without fear of consequences. But just denying God does not negate God. Just redefining God does not nullify God’s judgment. God will judge the world, and His law is immutable. The scripture says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So contrarily, no fear of God is the mark of a fool. The fool has said in his heart there is no God. And so emboldened by that foolish belief, he thinks he can act with impunity.

So Paul has presented his evidence. And now he rests his case. Vs.19, “Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God: because by the works of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.”

In other words, the law condemns us all. All will be held accountable. Whether we hold to the law or reject the law, it doesn’t matter. God’s law is immutable. It has existed before creation and will continue throughout eternity. It’s like getting pulled over by a policeman for speeding and saying, “Well officer, I didn’t know the speed limit.” It doesn’t matter if you know it or not, the law was that you were supposed to drive a certain speed, and you are responsible to drive that speed whether you knew it or not. And in the same way, if you’re going to live your life the way you want to live, you need to know that you’re going to be held responsible for breaking God’s law. And Paul said earlier that God has written his law upon our hearts so we have no excuse.

Paul says in vs 19 “that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God.” Every mouth will be closed. That means there will be no defense on that day of judgment. The deeds of every man and woman will be revealed, their thoughts and their motivations, and the evidence of our sin will be so overwhelming and so condemning in contrast to the brightness of righteousness at the throne of God that we won’t be able to utter a word in our defense.

But even now, Paul has said, if we listen to our conscience, we know deep in our hearts that we are a sinner. You may not like thinking about it. You probably don’t like hearing me say it. You may try to bury it in the back of your mind, you may seek a therapist to help you forget it, or get over it. But the fact remains that all men are sinners, and all are under the condemnation of God’s judgment.

Listen, the law was never meant to be a stepladder to heaven. Vs 20 tells us that the law of God is given to show us that we are helpless sinners and in need of a merciful Savior who is able to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and make us new. Thank God that He sent Jesus Christ to save sinners, of which we are all guilty under the law. There is only one hope for escaping the judgment that is due to us. And that is found in the next verse, which will be more fully expounded in our next study. But I cannot leave you condemned without knowing the hope of the gift of God.

Vs.21, “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.” That’s the only way out of the verdict of death that is due to us at the judgment. That we might claim the righteousness of God on our behalf. And we are able to appropriate God’s righteousness by faith in Jesus Christ.

2 Cor.5:21, “God made Jesus who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” We are saved by grace, as a gift of God, through faith in Christ; who He is, and what He did on the cross on our behalf. And by that gift of God, we confess our sins, and we are forgiven, made righteous by the blood of Christ, that we might be given a new life in Him, to live for Him, and with Him, forever.

Paul has shown that we stand condemned as guilty sinners under the law. But there is a way out. [ohn 3:16-18 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

It’s evident from the way Paul has written the book of Romans, that Paul expects Christians to be interested in learning theology. Theology is the study of God. And so I hope you are prepared to put on your thinking caps this morning as we study the nature of God and His gospel of salvation. I make no apology for the fact that it is somewhat heavy lifting for so early in the morning. But God calls us to reason together, to study His word, so that we might know Him and come to be known by Him. It may be difficult study, but I hope it will prove beneficial to your faith.

As Peter said at the close of his second epistle, “Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord [as] salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all [his] letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as [they do] also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2Peter 3:14)

Now in Rom. chapter 1, vs 16, Paul said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Salvation is available to all men, regardless of race, religion or nationality. But the caveat to salvation is that one must first come to realize that he is lost, that he is a sinner, and that he is under the condemnation of death and the judgment of God, BEFORE he is able to come to salvation.

It’s as if you were swimming in the ocean during the summer time, just enjoying the water, and the lifeguard swam out to you yelling for you to grab hold of the buoy so that you might be saved. You would probably not appreciate his efforts, and would in fact think he was being embarrassing and insulting, by insinuating that you were drowning, when in fact you thought you were doing a pretty good backstroke. But if in fact you realized that you were caught in a riptide and helpless to swim against the current, and the lifeguard swam out to save you, you would be grateful and grab hold of his buoy without hesitation.

And so to that end, Paul has been arguing that all men are lost, all men are sinners, and all men are condemned to death under the judgment of God and in need of salvation. He has shown that the pagan is a sinner and under the judgment of God, he has shown that the moral man is a sinner and under the judgment, and finally he is in the process of showing that the religious man, as exemplified by the Jew, is a sinner and under condemnation as well.

But Paul’s point is not just to condemn men, but to bring them to salvation, which only can come when man recognizes that he is a sinner, and repents of his sin. I would point out to you that in the next vs, 1:17, Paul says that faith is the means of salvation; the just shall live by faith. But in the next two chapters, Paul is teaching that repentance is the other leg of salvation. Faith and repentance are the two legs of salvation, and it is of the utmost importance that we stand on both of them in order to stand fast in our salvation.

So the whole purpose of this long argument regarding the sin nature of all men, is to make us cry out in repentance, “what must I do to be saved?” in order that we may be justified by faith in what Christ has done for us.

Now there are a few rhetorical theological questions that Paul wants to address regarding the objections of the religious man, particularly as illustrated here by the Jews. These questions are theological objections to Paul’s assertion that they also were sinners, and an attempt to vindicate themselves and say that they really were not in need of salvation, they were somehow better off than the pagans. And though talking about the Jews religion may seem irrelevant to some of you, I believe there attitude illustrated here which is also typical of the church age. I believe there are parallels to the modern Christian church and ancient Judaism, which was in effect, the first church of God. The Jews were the first “eklesia” the “called out” ones. We, as the New Testament church, are the second “called out” people of God. And there are many similarities and parallels between the two groups.

So the first question that the Jews might ask of Paul, as a way of defense against his charge of being a sinner is, isn’t there an advantage to being a Jew? Isn’t there a privilege that is given to God’s chosen people? So Paul writes, “Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision?” Is there any spiritual advantage to being a Jew, or to being circumcised, which was the physical mark of the promise of God’s blessing upon their nation.

And Paul answers that question in vs 2; “Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God.” The primary privilege that was afforded the Jews, was that they had been given the scriptures. All of the writers of scripture up to this point were Jews. God had personally dictated the law to Moses, and had written it on tablets of stone with His finger. So the advantage in being a Jew is not that you’re saved by being Jewish or by circumcision but that as part of the Jewish nation you have received the Scriptures which are able to lead you to salvation. 

And I also want to point out that the word “Logia” in the Greek, translated as “oracles” in the NASB, is very important to the doctrines of inerrancy, inspiration and authority of the scriptures. It literally means unto them were committed the words of God. So we should be confident that though the words of God were penned by man, yet they wrote down the words that the Spirit of God was speaking through them. That’s one of the main reasons that we should come to church, to hear the word of God spoken to us, to be in the presence of the Spirit of God, and to be a part of the body of Christ.

Now as I said in my introduction, I believe that there are many parallels between Judaism and Christianity today. And though I don’t normally like to call out other churches by name, yet in light of the many misconceptions out there, I am going to do so today. Because the predominant church in the Christian religion in the world for the last 2000 years has been the Roman Catholic Church. And like the Jews, they claim to worship the same God as we do. They purport to teach Jesus Christ. They observe the same ordinances as we do, such as baptism and communion. They have the same Bible, for the most part, with the addition of the Apocrypha. And yet, like the Jews, even though they hold to many of the same beliefs, in actuality they teach a righteousness that comes on the basis of works. They teach that salvation is found in the church, just as the Jews taught salvation was of the Jews. The Catholics teach that righteousness is applied through baptism at infancy, just as the Jews believed righteousness was acquired through circumcision eight days after birth. The Catholics believe that righteousness is granted in communion, that is is acquired through various ceremonies and rituals such as catechism, or mass, or confession. And of course the Jews had their own rituals and ceremonies which they believed were good works which were credited as righteousness.

But the one advantage that Paul zeros in on here, is that the Jews were the custodians of scripture. The Jews mindset was that simply their possession of the scriptures ensured them that they would escape judgment. And I believe there is a parallel to the Catholic Church, and to even many Protestant churches as well. The Catholic Church in particular were responsible for translating the Greek Bible to the Latin, but though they possessed the scriptures, they kept the scriptures from being translated to other languages from the 4th century through the Reformation. In fact, they were guilty of burning at the stake such men as William Tyndale, who had translated the scriptures to English. So their great advantage was that they had the scriptures, but like the Jews, they put to death those that taught it contrary to their traditions.

So the Jews (as well as the Catholics and many Protestant churches) had the scriptures, but they did not read it. They did not read it with understanding. In Mark 12:24, Jesus said, “Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures or the power of God?” They practiced the law, they kept the ceremonies and rituals, but they failed to understand what the law and the sacrifices were teaching. And so do many churches today in their observation of communion or Lent or Advent, or baptism fail to actually appropriate the salvation that such ceremonies are meant to illustrate. If I might make a weak comparison, it’s like watching a video about a how to swim, or actually learning how to swim and becoming a swimmer. Merely being in possession of God’s word and even hearing God’s word is useless without appropriation and application. That’s what faith means. Not just hearers of the word but doers.

The advantage then of the Jews is not that being Jewish made them exempt from God’s judgment but rather that they had the Word to lead them to salvation.  That was their advantage.  And if a Jew in that age, or the church in this age, rejects or ignores the Scripture that God has given him, then he loses his advantage and in fact he is at greater disadvantage for having ignored that which God provided. In fact, he is even more culpable in the sight of God because he did not take advantage of his privilege.

Then Paul builds on that argument, and says in vs 3, “What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it?” The rhetorical question that Paul asks is “what if some of the Jews were unfaithful? What if some of them did not believe the scriptures? Their unfaithfulness doesn’t nullify the faithfulness of God, does it?” See, the Jews didn’t see faithfulness or belief or obedience as something contingent for God’s blessing. They were counting on the fact that they were the chosen people of God, and that God’s promises concerning them over rode any consequences to sinfulness. And so while they might realize that they had been unfaithful, yet they were counting on God keeping His promises concerning them so that they didn’t have anything to worry about.

So Paul answers that question of God’s faithfulness by saying, “May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written, that Thou might be justified in Thy words, and might prevail when Thou are judged.”

Now Paul is not saying that in spite of their unfaithfulness God will still give the Jews a glorious future, just on the basis that they are Jews. But he is saying that since God is faithful, those Jews that are faithful to Him will receive the fulfillment of the promises. And I would add to that the promises of God have been kept in regards to the Jews. The promise to Abraham that from his seed would come a great nation, and that one would come forth in whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed, was fulfilled in the coming of Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah. So God was faithful to keep His promises to the Jews.

The fact is that God is faithful. In 2Tim. 2:13 Paul says, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.” But His faithfulness to perform His promises of blessing is also counterbalanced by His promises to curse. When God reminded Israel of all the blessings that He had promised concerning the land that they were entering, He also reminded them of the consequences of unbelief. Deut. 11:26-28 “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you listen to the commandments of the LORD your God, which I am commanding you today; and the curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way which I am commanding you today, by following other gods which you have not known.” So while it may be a comforting thing to consider the faithfulness of God in regards to blessings, it should also be a frightening thing to consider God’s faithfulness to execute His word in regards to judgment.

What Paul is saying in effect, is that the unfaithfulness of the Jews, contrasted with the faithfulness of God, makes God’s truthfulness stand out in sharp relief. Even if every man on earth were to say the same thing, if it was against the word of God, then all men are liars, and God is true. Paul quotes from the prayer of David in Psalm 51, David’s great prayer of repentance after he had sinned with Bathsheba and had been rebuked by Nathan the prophet. David said, “I confess that I have sinned against You, “THAT YOU MAY BE PROVED RIGHT IN YOUR WORDS, AND PREVAIL IN YOUR JUDGING.”

David wanted to make his confession and repentance as unconditional as possible, in order that his own unrighteousness might be greater contrasted with the righteousness of God as His judge. And that is the way we should repent. Not by making excuses for our sin, but taking full responsibility for it as an affront to God. Repentance is actually agreeing with God, that I have sinned against God’s word, and I am guilty as charged and worthy of God’s judgment upon me. That’s an important principle to remember; repentance is agreeing with God. Agreeing that His law is good, and I have transgressed against it and am a sinner, worthy of the punishment that I am due.

But there is yet another extension of that argument that Paul wants to address. And that is the perverse objection that some men might make, that as David said if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, then isn’t God being unrighteous for judging me as a sinner? Listen how Paul phrases it. Vs 5 “But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He? (I am speaking in human terms.)” In other words, he is speaking as a man.

We have already determined that man’s unrighteousness contrasts like darkness against the brightness of God’s righteousness. An example of that may be found at a jewelry store. They place the diamond ring on a background of black velvet so that the jewelry stands out more brightly in contrast. And that is what Paul is saying here. That man’s unrighteousness causes God’s righteousness to stand out more clearly, and so given that, doesn’t that mean that God is acting unjustly when He judges me for my unrighteousness? After all, my sin makes His mercy and grace look even better.

So theological rationalization might say, “I sin because when I sin God forgives and when God forgives He gets glory because forgiveness manifests His glory.  So when I sin it gives God a marvelous opportunity to demonstrate His grace.  When I sin it gives God a marvelous opportunity to show His love and His mercy, therefore my sin does not warrant judgment from God, and any God who would judge me for that sin, is Himself being unloving and unmerciful.” 

Now though that type of thinking actually goes on today in some churches under the guise of antinomianism, it’s a diabolical reasoning which in reality impugns the character of God. And Paul’s objection to that line of reasoning is more than a little indignant. He says, “May it never be! For otherwise how will God judge the world?” It’s as if Paul said, “What? God forbid! God unfair? Shall not the Judge over all the earth deal justly?” Even the Jews must recognize that God will judge the world. They just wanted to exempt themselves of that judgment. But as Paul has said, God is true, God is just, and God is holy. And so His judgment is true, and just, and holy. And God will judge the actions and the motives of all men, according to chapter 2 vs 6, “who WILL RENDER TO EACH PERSON ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS.”

The next set of theological questions that Paul proposes are also the type that a religious man might ask as he tries to vindicate himself before God. Someone might ask in vs 7 “But if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner? And why not [say] (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), “Let us do evil that good may come”?

Notice that this question is very similar to the previous question in vs 5, “if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say?” And vs 7, if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory…” In both cases there is an attack on God’s character and justice. It’s not that dissimilar to the question often asked today, “How could a loving God allow this or that to happen in the world?” The unspoken assumption is that either He is not a loving God, or He is unjust, unloving, and uncaring. And I’m afraid that proposition is inferred more often than we might like to admit. We live in an age when we have fabricated a God out of our own imagination. We have ascribed God’s blessings and benevolence upon ourselves when we have a good day, or when we get a raise, or when we get some material thing we want. We say, “God blessed me with so and so.” When in actuality, it’s quite possible that God had nothing to do with it.

But then conversely, when our prosperity doctrine runs afoul of the reality of life, when people get sick and die, when tragedy strikes, when we lose our job, etc, etc, then don’t we often call into question the goodness and justice and mercy of God? Don’t we often by implication impugn the character of God when He doesn’t respond to our beck and call? I suggest we are not much better than these Jews who sought to extricate themselves from the judgment of God by calling God’s justice into question.

The religious man, Paul says, asks, “why am I still being condemned as a sinner?” In fact, he says, why shouldn’t we do evil that good may result? Why not do evil that good may come? They are presuming upon the grace of God. And notice that Paul indicates that they accuse his gospel of grace as taking advantage of God’s mercy. So in their argument they are presuming upon God’s mercy and love. They are taking advantage of God. The only advantage that they actually had was the word of God, the scriptures, the law of God. That should have been sufficient to call them to repentance so that they may be justified by faith unto salvation. But they have tried to gain a further advantage. They have mistaken the mercy of God for leniency. That God shouldn’t really care about sin. And to add further insult, they have insulted His character, by saying that if God were to judge our sin, then He is himself unjust.

In fact, the opposite is true. Paul says because of their attitude towards their sin, that their condemnation is just. Their condemnation is deserved, and it is the righteous act of a holy God to judge their sin and condemn them. Their sin is deserving of God’s just judgment, because they have not repented of their sin, but instead want to make excuses for it. Like the Jews were guilty of doing, It’s a common excuse when we are confronted by our sin to want to compare ourselves with others. And we seek to find some validation for ourselves by pointing out that others are worse than us. We’re not as bad as so and so. We may not be all that righteous, but we still aren’t as bad as those people. And the Jews, as the prototypical religious person, were good at doing that. He had the Gentile world living all around him with their blatant idolatry and immorality. And so he thought that compared to them, he looked pretty good.

But what Paul reveals about the religious man is that he is actually more in rebellion against God than even the Gentile. Because he had the word of God, and because in his heart he wants to somehow implicate God in his sin. It’s not bad enough that he is a sinner, but he wants to somehow blame God for it, or get God to overlook it, based on the threat that if He doesn’t then God is unrighteous. And as Paul says, for such a religious person, their condemnation is just, it is doubly deserved.

And I think along with that thought is the objection that is heard far too often today when people are confronted with their sin. And that is to say, “Well, God made me the way I am.” And I think that this attitude is reflected in Paul’s argument as well. But that too is a lie. Let God be true, though every man be a liar. When God made man He said it was good. Everything that God made was good. But man chose sin and thus incurred upon himself the condemnation of sin, and the judgment of sin which is death. One instance of rebellion opened up a Pandora’s box of every conceivable sin that progressively corrupts a man until he is totally corrupted. So God didn’t make you the way you are, sin made you the way you are. And sin deserves the judgment of God, that we may agree with God, “You are justified in your words, that you might prevail in your judging.”

But man’s unrighteousness does not annul the faithfulness of God. God’s mercy triumphs over judgment. God has provided an antidote for sin and for the condemnation that all men are under. And that antidote is appropriated by first recognizing that you are a sinner, that you deserve the judgment of God, and by faith to trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and that He has taken your place under God’s judgement for your sin. He took the lashes that were due to you. He took the suffering of the cross that was due for you. He died the death that was due to you so that you might be given the mercy and grace of God. That you might be saved.

Today the Lifeguard is calling out to you to take the buoy of salvation which He is offering to you. Do you recognize that you are perishing? If so, then I urge you to take it and receive Him as your Savior and Lord.

Romans 2:17 to 29 deals with the subject of false security. The idea of false security is illustrated by the attitude of the people who set sail on the Titanic.  They believed that the ship was unsinkable. And yet history shows that their security was ill founded. The sinking of the Titanic was the greatest maritime disaster because they failed to recognize that they had a false security.  And so even though telling someone that they have a false security may not always be welcome news, yet it actually can be the means of their salvation.

Now Paul has been addressing up to this point the fact that all men are guilty as sinners before God, and will be condemned at the day of judgment.  He has shown in chapter 1 that the pagan is guilty of sin, and in chapter 2 that the moral man is guilty of sin.  And now he is going to show that the religious man, as exemplified by the Jews, is guilty before God.  But ironically, the Jews considered themselves spiritually secure. They considered themselves the chosen people of God, and in that false security they thought they were exempt from the coming judgment.

So the kind of security that Paul is referencing here in this passage is spiritual security; having confidence in your eternal destiny, especially in light of what he has just said about the judgment which is to come.  And I think that spiritual security is considered important in our age as well.  Even though a commitment to organized Christianity may be on a downward trend, yet there is still an intrinsic desire on the part of many people for some sort of spiritual security; either through religion, or through one of the many varieties of new age spiritualism that is out there.

However, to be more precise, the kind of false security that Paul is talking about in this section was typified by the Jews of his day. They claimed spiritual security because of three things; they were dependents of Abraham, they were the possessors of the law, and they had the sign or seal of circumcision.  And while it’s important for us to understand the spiritual dynamic of these people that Paul was writing about, it’s by extension applicable to the church today as well.  Many people in our country claim spiritual security by nature of three things which correlate with those of the Jews.  Many people claim security on the basis of their nationality.  America claims to be a Christian nation under God.  They believe that God has chosen America to be the beneficiary of His blessings and benevolence.  

Secondly, just as Israel believed it was privileged by virtue of the fact that it possessed the law, the scriptures, so Americans feel that they are entitled to spiritual security due to the fact that the Bible has played such a vital part in our history, and we literally have a church on almost every street corner.  Though any real basis for it is debatable, we believe that our constitution and our founding as a country is based on the Bible and on the tenets of Christianity.   

And thirdly, just as the Jews depended upon the sign of circumcision as proof of their belonging to God, so do many people today rely upon baptism or Communion as evidence of being a Christian.  And in the same way, many churches teach that observing these “sacraments” is a means of obtaining righteousness.

So what Paul does here in this passage is debunk these strongholds of Jewish faith in order to show that there is none that are righteous, not even the Jews.  And by extension we may see that today as well, there is none that are righteous on the basis of religion, or nationality, or ceremony.

Another thing that Paul illustrates here is the principle espoused earlier in this epistle, which is that those who have been entrusted with greater revelation will be judged with a stricter judgment.  And the fact that the Jews had been entrusted with the traditions of the patriarchs, and had been entrusted with the Law and the Prophets, only served to condemn them even more, rather than being the source of their escape from judgment.

So he begins in vs 17 by attacking them on the basis of their heritage as a Jew.  And for the first time, Paul uses the word Jew.  Interestingly, the word Jew is derived from the name Judah, who was the son of Jacob.  And literally, Jew meant “praised.”  But rather than seeing their heritage, having been chosen by God, as something for which to praise God, they had turned it around to praising or glorifying themselves as something special.  As if they had some special characteristic that enamored them to God, rather than humbled by the fact that God had chosen them as the beneficiaries of His grace. 

So in vs 17 Paul begins by saying, “But if you bear the name “Jew” and rely upon the Law and boast in God…”  The name Jew indicates their nationality. It’s comparable to us calling ourselves Americans. Their boasting was not from the perspective of biology, or even race.  After all, all men have descended from one human family, which was Adam and Eve, and then from Noah after the flood. And even Abraham fathered different nationalities.  The Jews though claimed a special heritage from the fact that God promised Abraham to make from his seed a chosen people of God, who would be blessed in a special way from God, but who would also end up blessing the nations of the earth.  So they are not claiming racial superiority per se, but they were claiming preferential treatment as a result of God’s grace to Abraham and His promises to Abraham.

But Paul is addressing the fact that they boasted in the name Jew because they thought they were better than everyone else.  They felt they were superior.  And you can see that evidenced in verse 17, where it says they make their boast of God.  They were boasting that they were superior because God had chosen them.

And I think a lot of people in America today have the same attitude.  Many think that God gives us as Americans a greater portion of His grace because we live in the United States.  That being Americans makes us special in God’s eyes. And you can see this illustrated in the prosperity gospel prevalent in many churches.  They think that Christians can claim a high paying job, a luxurious  house,  new cars in the driveway and all the trappings of American prosperity.  But they fail to recognize that the God of America is also the same God of China.  And Chinese Christians can’t claim the same prosperity that Americans can claim, can they?  Why is that?  Because we deserve it, because we live in America?  I tell you no, but rather we are worthy of a greater condemnation, because we have been privileged with the truth for so long, and yet we have not been obedient to the truth.

The second security the Jews had was their possession of the law. Vs. 17 says that you rely on the law.  And their confidence was that they were secure because they had that knowledge of the scriptures. But as I said earlier, that knowledge of the law just made them more culpable.  Now there are four points that Paul makes here, what they learned, what they taught, what they did, and what they caused with that knowledge of the law. 

First, what did they learn? The law refers to the first five books of the Old Testament, what we call the Pentateuch.  That represents the law in it’s entirety. But the fact is, they rested in their possession of it, rather than in their keeping of it.  So even though they didn’t keep it, nevertheless they had a sense of security because they possessed it. They were privileged to be the custodians of God’s word.

And then they also went a step further.  Verse 18, “and know [His] will and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law.”  They were boasting about resting in the law and about knowing God’s will.  But to know God’s will doesn’t mean anything except you’re more responsible if you don’t do it.  They knew what God approved of, and what He didn’t approve of.  They knew what God commanded us to do, and what He commanded us not to do.  But knowing His will just made them more accountable to God.

Third, he says they approved the things that are essential. This has the sense of being an arbiter of right and wrong.  That kind of goes back to vs 1, where they are someone who judges those who sin, but in fact they are guilty of doing the same things.

Fourth, their security relied upon “being instructed out of the law.” This word instructed is the word from which we get “catechism.”  It’s a series of questions and answers for the purpose of learning.  We read from the Westminster Shorter Catechism last week.  And while such things can be helpful as a tool for learning, they can also be a means of false security. There are a lot of ministers of churches that rest upon their seminary degrees, but fail to rest upon the truth of the gospel.  So it’s one thing to say you believe something, it’s another thing to act upon that belief. The Jews relied upon the fact that they had been catechized in the law, in their oral traditions, in attending the regular synagogue services.  But that knowledge did not affect the way that they lived.  It was a head knowledge that didn’t reach their heart.

So they felt secure in their knowledge of the law.  But Paul says that there is no security in that, just a greater condemnation.  And for the church today, you may know the tenets of the gospel, you may know the facts concerning Jesus’s death and resurrection, but it’s what you do about it that is what matters.  I want to emphasize the point that we are called to be followers of Jesus Christ.  We are called to be disciples of Jesus Christ.  We are called to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.  It’s not just a head knowledge, but an obedience to the truth that is the basis for our faith.

The second means of their security is not just a knowledge of the law, but the fact that they considered themselves teachers of the law.  Vs.19 and 20, “and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness,  a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth.” 

So there are four ways in which they thought that their teaching of the law was a means of spiritual security. First he says they were confident that they were a guide to the blind.  Blindness in the scripture has often symbolized spiritual blindness.  And what Paul indicates here is that the Jews were blind guides for the blind. In Matthew 15, the Pharisees were trying to instruct the disciples about how they needed to wash their hands, which was a ceremonial type of washing, before eating.  And Jesus said concerning them in vs14 “Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” So they thought they could see well enough to lead the blind, but in fact they were blind themselves.

Secondly, Paul says that they considered themselves a light to those in the darkness. Now that was supposed to be something that the Jews were to do.  It says in Isaiah 42:6 that “I have appointed you as a light to the Gentiles.” But though they sought out and tried to convert those in darkness, they failed to provide the light of truth that would truly set men free.  Jesus said in Matthew 23:15, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.”

The third thing about their teaching was they considered themselves a teacher of the foolish. I think in that reprimand Paul is indicating their arrogance.  They thought they were wise and everyone else was fools.  They were proud and condescending because of what had been entrusted to them.

Fourthly, he says they considered themselves as a teacher of the immature. This would refer to the teaching of recent converts to Judaism.  But as James says, let not many of you become teachers, for as such you will incur a stricter judgment upon yourselves.  The fact that they thought they were teachers was only adding judgment upon themselves.

Then starting in vs21, Paul gives a series of rebuttals to their arrogance and security they had because they were teachers of the law.  “You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal?  You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?  You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God?” I think that the implication here is that they were breaking the law in covert ways, all the while appearing to be a teacher of the law.  For instance, the law said that it was wrong to divorce, yet the Jews in teaching that law made so many allowances for it, that according to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, they were causing people to commit adultery by allowing them to remarry.

The simple summary of what Paul is saying here is “don’t you practice what you preach?” I think this is the classic criticism of Christianity by the world.  The world’s greatest criticism of the church is that we don’t practice what we preach.  Now I cannot judge the teaching and actions of every church, or every Christian.  But it certainly seems a valid criticism.  And it goes back to what I mentioned while ago in regards to the principle that we are to not just know the truth, or teach the truth, but we are to be obedient to the truth.  We are to be followers of the truth.  Not just purveyors of it.  And that is what Paul is rebuking the Jews for doing. 

So rather than their life and teaching bringing people to God, Paul says that their lifestyle caused God to be blasphemed among the Gentiles. Vs.24: “For ‘THE NAME OF GOD IS BLASPHEMED AMONG THE GENTILES BECAUSE OF YOU,’ just as it is written.”  Paul is loosely quoting from Isaiah 52:4 in this statement.  And what that refers to is that their lifestyle was such that rather than causing people to come to their God, they instead blasphemed God because of their actions.  And this is the ultimate indictment against disobedience.  Because it puts a stumbling block in the way of others who might follow you in the way of truth to salvation in Christ.  But instead, as they watch your life, they find themselves despising your hypocrisy, to the point of not wanting anything to do with Christianity if that’s the sort of people that populate the church.

Another aspect of that is the Jews caused the world to blaspheme God because they saw a people oppressed and chastened by the Lord because of their sin.  The Jews were a people that were to be praised.  They were the chosen people of God.  They had the promises of their father Abraham as their heritage.  And yet they repeatedly despised the covenant of God.  They repeatedly turned to foreign gods, to love foreign wives, to take after the customs of the world. And so God had to repeatedly chastise them.  Eventually, God chastised them to the point that the 10 tribes were lost, and only Judah and Benjamin remained.  And even then, they lived under subjugation to the Romans.  They certainly lost the glory that should have been theirs because of their disobedience.  And so in deriding the state of Israel, the Gentiles blasphemed their God, because they associated a nation’s power with their gods, and it was apparent to the Gentile world that Israel was powerless against it’s enemies.  And so by extension, they assume that the Jewish God was powerless.  And in that way they blasphemed God.  They brought shame on their God by their disobedient lives.

In a similar way, the church can bring shame upon the name of Christ if we are not obedient to His will.  If our lifestyles deny our Lord, then that causes the world to blaspheme the name of Christ, because they see Him as powerless to affect our lives or our circumstances.  When in fact, all power for godly living has been given to us in salvation.  As the scripture says in Ezekiel 36:26-27 “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”  We that have been saved have been given the power of God, the Spirit of God, to live within us, that we might be able to walk in His statues, and observe His ordinances.  In other words, the Spirit of God within us gives us the power over sin, and to live a godly life that glorifies God.  But it requires a willingness to be obedient and a desire to be obedient and to follow Him, carrying the cross upon which our flesh is crucified. But when we live for the flesh, we deny that power, and we bring shame upon the name of Christ.

There is one last security which the Jews depended upon, and that was the security they found in ceremony. Vs.25-27, Paul says, “For indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the Law; but if you are a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.  So if the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?  And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter [of the Law] and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law?”  Paul is arguing here that the Jews cannot make the case for their spiritual security on the basis of circumcision.  Paul says that the ritual or ceremony of circumcision  without obedience to God’s law is of no value to them.  The same can be said of baptism or of communion if we were to compare the Jews situation to the modern church. As signs and seals of God’s covenant these things have value, but only when accompanied by obedience.

Paul is saying that the circumcision which for the Jew was thought to be a deciding factor in his spiritual condition was the same as being uncircumcised if there was no obedience to the law. There is no righteousness given on the basis of a ritual or ceremony. And in a similar respect, Paul says that an uncircumcised man who keeps the law is the same in God’s sight as a circumcised man. And rather than the circumcised Jew being the arbiter of law and the judge, Paul says that the uncircumcised man who keeps the law will condemn the Jew, who though they are the custodians of the law, yet they do not keep it.

Rituals and ceremonies are not a means of salvation, and neither are they a security of your eternal destiny.  All of these are merely outward symbols of what must be accomplished on the inside – in the heart.  The Jews taught that father Abraham stood at the gates of Hades to make sure that no circumcised man entered into hell.  But Paul here states that circumcision is nothing without obedience to the law and in fact says he will be judged by the uncircumcised man.

And that leads us to his last statement in this argument, found in vs 28, 29. “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh.  But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.”  This statement must have been such a stinging rebuke to the proud Jew who took his stand on the possession of the law.  To hear that he was not a real Jew, but the uncircumcised man who was obedient from the heart was the real Jew in the sight of God must have been a hard thing for him to hear.

Paul is saying that your spiritual security is not based on your nationality, or on your race, or your biology.  But it’s a matter of your heart. The heart refers to the seat of your emotions, will, and intellect.  It’s the origin of your desires.  So secondly he says that it is not outward ceremony that matters, or external things, but being circumcised in the heart, by the Spirit of God.  And Paul makes the same point that Jesus made in the Sermon on the Mount, which is that it is the spirit of the law that is important, not just the letter of the law.

And for that Jew that is circumcised in heart, Paul says, there will be praise.  That is a play on words.  As I mentioned earlier, the name Jew means praise.  And so these circumcised Jews that desired praise from men because of their self righteousness, because of their arrogant possession of the law, would instead see the praise from God go to those who were circumcised in their hearts.  

To be circumcised in the heart means a cutting away of the flesh so that you might live in the Spirit. That is what was promised in Ezekiel 36. God says, ”Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”  I would ask you today to examine yourselves in light of this passage Paul wrote to the Jews.  Examine yourself to see if you are staking your eternal security on things like national heritage, or ceremony, or church attendance. The real test is whether or not the Spirit of God has removed the dead flesh which is sin within your heart, so that you have a desire to do the things of God.  If that is not your experience, then I urge you today to call out to the Lord the prayer of David, “Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me.” 

In Hebrews chapter one the author quotes a Psalm concerning the nature of the Messiah, who is Jesus Christ. And at the beginning of that book, he states that Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact representation of His nature.  So then what the Psalmist says about Jesus is also true of God.  The Psalmist says in Psalm 45:6-7 “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of uprightness (or justice) is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of joy above Your fellows.”

Justice is a primary aspect of God’s character, and thus judgment is a primary extension of His character.  Justice, or the judgment of God is not a character trait that we like to focus on.  We would much rather focus on the more benevolent aspects of God’s character like love and mercy. But understanding that God is a holy God of justice and righteousness is paramount for a true knowledge of God, and to be able to worship God in spirit and in truth.  Our faith must be informed through the truth about God and founded on the  knowledge of God as revealed in His word. 

So, God’s justice and righteousness results in HIs judgment against sin.  This subject of God’s judgment is something that Paul is addressing here in the first three chapters particularly, and he wants us to fully understand this doctrine of human sin and God’s judgment against it.  He wants to make sure that when it is all said and done, we will take refuge in nothing other than the mercy of God and the righteousness of Jesus Christ which is applied to our account by grace through faith.  He wants to make sure that we do not hold on to some measure of self righteousness or assurance due to what we think are our own merits, but will fully trust in the righteousness of our Savior.

The principle of justice reminds me of the story from many years ago of the very fashionable lady who went to a photographer to have her picture taken. She thought she was very good looking, but she really was not. She struck her best pose and said to the photographer, “Now, young man, I want you to do me justice.” And he said, “Lady, what you need is not justice, but mercy.” And so also in this passage, what Paul shows us is that we are all deserving of God’s justice, but thank God that mercy has triumphed over judgment, because if we got what we deserved, we would all receive the condemnation of death.

God’s justice and His mercy must both be satisfied.  And justice and mercy are satisfied in Jesus Christ.  As the Psalmist says in Ps.85:10, “Mercy and truth have met together;

Righteousness and peace have kissed together.” God’s justice against sin was poured out on Jesus Christ, that He might show mercy towards sinners.

Now we have already seen in the first chapter that man in his human nature is born in sin, and sin totally corrupts, and thus men are totally depraved and deserving of the judgment of God. To summarize the end of the first chapter, Paul says starting in vs28 “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,  being filled with all unrighteousness,(he then goes on to describe that unrighteousness) and then concludes in vs 32 saying, “and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”  So Paul says that they are worthy of God’s judgment against their sin, and that judgment is death.

Then in chapter 2,  Paul includes in that judgement those who judge others as sinners while they themselves are guilty of doing the same things. Rom 2:1 “Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.  And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things.” So he is saying that even those who recognize sin and  think they are morally superior to those who blatantly sin, are guilty of doing the same things themselves.  And so all men are sinners.

However, even though Paul wants to deal with man’s condemnation and God’s righteous judgment against sin, yet he cannot help but give a brief glimpse of God’s mercy which is salvation.  Paul says in ch.2 vs 4 that God gives time for the sinner to repent.  And we spent a lot of time last Sunday talking about the fact that the kindness of God is expressed as patience – intended to produce in sinners repentance so that they will escape the judgment that is coming upon the world.  

Then Paul goes on to reemphasize that the judgment is coming and that it is the due penalty  of God’s justice against sin. He says in vs5 “But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who WILL RENDER TO EACH PERSON ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS.” 

And in that statement, that God will render to each person according to His deeds, Paul changes gears in his argument.  He now begins to delineate God’s judgment on the deeds of the unrighteous as opposed to the deeds of the righteous.  Those who do good, he says get eternal life.  Those who do evil, get wrath.  And Paul adds, there is no partiality with God.  He doesn’t judge on the basis of race, or religion or position, or prestige, but he bases His judgment on their deeds.

In John 5 verse 28, Jesus said, “Marvel not at this for the hour is coming in which all that are in the grave shall hear His voice and shall come forth.  They that have done good, unto the resurrection of life.  And they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.”  Jesus is saying exactly what Paul says here, that judgment will be made on the basis of their works. 

Now good works are not the means of salvation. Salvation is a gift of God, not on the basis of our works but on the basis of God’s mercy.  But good works are the evidence of salvation for in Eph.2:9 where it says “not by works lest any man should boast,” the next verse says, “we were created for good works which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.”  So our works are the evidence of our faith by which God will judge. Romans 3:23 says, the wages of sin is death.  And in Romans 1:17 it says, the just shall live by faith (obedience to faith).  So you have two outcomes, one for works of sin, resulting in damnation, and one for works of righteousness, resulting in life.

What Paul then is going to show here in the remaining verses of chapter 2, is that the people that considered themselves righteous, namely the Jews, because they had the law and they had been taught the law, they were in fact guilty of sin.  This argument is going to conclude in chapter 3 vs 10, that “there is none righteous, no not one.”  Both the Jew and the Gentile are sinners.  Both the religious and the pagan are sinners.  Both the moral man and the unmoral are sinners.  And so all men are sinners, all are lost, all are going to be held accountable for their sins, and they will be judged at the last judgment, and that judgment is eternal death.

Now, notice in verse 12, then, we have two distinct groups of people.  First of all, “As many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law.” What law is he talking about?  The law of God, the Mosaic law.  He is describing Gentiles who did not have the written Scripture. Most people who have lived on this earth have not had the law of God.  They have not had the written Scripture.  And so the question is, what about them?  Will God judge them when they never had the law?  Yes, Paul says, but He’ll judge them as those who have never had the law. Vs 12, “For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law.”  So the punishment for sin is still the same, death is the wages of sin.  And he has already made it clear that they knew that they were guilty of sin even though they did not have the written law.

But there is another group in vs 12, and that is those who had the law. “And all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law.”  This refers to those who had the Word of God, particularly referencing Israel who knew the truth of God.  But it also can be related to people today who sit in the church, people who know the truth, people who are in a Christian society.  They will be judged according to the greater light that they received. 

Someone came to Charles Haddon Spurgeon one time and said, “The Bible is the light of the world.” Mr. Spurgeon objected. He said, “No; how can the Bible be the light of the world when the world never reads the Bible?” “The Bible,” he said, “is the light of the church. The Christian is the light of the world. The world reads the Christian, not the Bible.” 

So the argument with Paul’s reasoning then that might have been made, in fact, it still may be made today, is;  “We who have been the custodians of the scriptures, we should have the higher honor, not the greater condemnation.  We who have possessed the law should be protected from God’s wrath.”  And today someone might say, “I’ve gone to church all my life, I’ve been  religious, I possess a Bible. Why should I be condemned along with the pagan?”  

And Paul gives the answer in vs 13,  “for [it is] not the hearers of the Law [who] are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.”  James says something similar in James 1:22 “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.” God’s law doesn’t protect hearers from judgment.  No, in fact the more they hear, the greater the judgment. 

Jesus said in Luke 12:48 “From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.”  So the principle is that the more you know of God’s law, the more it intensifies the judgment unless it is obeyed.

But here’s the conundrum: you can’t obey the law in your own strength.  And so Paul’s argument literally backs them into a corner. He says, you’re constantly hearing the law but you don’t do it.  And so there is a judgment against you.  As verse 13 says,  the doer of the law shall be justified, not the hearer. 

So the righteousness and justice of God requires perfect obedience.  God requires a manifestation of righteousness but no one can do that.  Thus, the law is meant to drive us to a recognition of our need for a Savior, and to cause us to recognize our hopelessness so that we turn to God for the power to do what we otherwise couldn’t do.  To see our need to be born again, to be made into a new creation whereby we have the power within us to do works of righteousness.

So Paul says the Jew, or the person who possessed the law is under condemnation because though they knew the law, they couldn’t keep it.  Then what about that pagan?  What about that the person who never read the law of God, never read Scripture, never heard the gospel?  Can you condemn them for not obeying the written word? 

Paul answers that objection as well in vs 14. “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves,  in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.”  What Paul is saying is simply this:  You do not have to have the written law to be responsible because you have a law within you manifest in your behavior, manifest in your conscience, and manifest in your thinking patterns.

Paul has given us four reasons why the pagan is lost.  Reason #1, creation. Rom 1:20 “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” 

Reason #2 the pagan is lost is because of conduct.  Ch.2 vs 14, “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves.”  In other words, they don’t have an outside law, but they have an internal law that makes them a law unto themselves and it is manifest in their conduct.  Pagans naturally recognize certain things which are in the law.  Their conduct shows that they recognize right and wrong.

For instance, unbelievers recognize it is right to pay their debts. They know that children should honor their parents.  Unbelievers may love their wives, or husbands and they love and care for their children. They recognize that it’s wrong to kill.  There are many unbelievers who know it’s good to feed the hungry, who would help a man who was sick or a woman who was sick.  Pagans recognize that it’s right to tell the truth.  They may seek after justice.  They may struggle for fairness. All of these things, their conduct,  reveal an internal human code of ethics that is the law within them.

There is a third reason why the heathen are lost and that is conscience. Vs15, “in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.” Conscience means co-knowledge. 

And conscience is something in you that recognizes what’s right.  It refers to a person’s inner sense of right and wrong, the moral consciousness that pronounces judgment on thoughts and attitudes and speech and deeds. I read a quote by an 19th century theologian by the name of William Arnot the other day.  And though he was speaking of the difference between a believer and an unbeliever, I think that there is a principle in his statement that applies to conscience as well.  He said, “The difference between an unconverted man and a converted man is not that one has sins and the other has none, but that the one takes [sides] with his cherished sins against a dreaded God, and the other takes [sides] with a reconciled God against his hated sins.”  Now what he is getting at is this agreement with God, this recognition that we have about our sins which is in agreement with God.  

And I suppose that principle is applicable to the idea of conscience as well.  It is something within us that is given by God, which recognizes wrong doing and thus is in agreement with God in regards to it as sin. There’s a thought process in you that knows right and knows wrong and deals with you when you violate it. And that inner law is in agreement with the law of God. 

So the unbelievers are lost because of creation, conduct, conscience, and lastly, they are lost because of contemplation. Paul says in vs 14, “their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.” In other words, there is in us the capacity to contemplate or to reason and to determine what someone does is right or wrong.

That’s why we have a system of justice in our country, and in fact, all civilized countries have a justice system.  Because we have the capacity to accuse or excuse behavior on the basis of law. They know that there should be, or needs to be punishment to fit the crime. So all of these four reasons, creation, conduct, conscience and contemplation all show that the law of God has been instilled within them. And so they have no excuse.  Because if they would just respond to the light that they are given, then God would give them more light, even to the point of receiving the full light of Jesus Christ so that they would be saved from their condemnaton.

Now there is a final aspect of God’s judgment that we will look at this morning briefly, and that is found in vs.16.  God will not only judge on the basis of men’s deeds, but on the basis of their motives.  God will judge on the basis not only of what a man’s deeds are but what his reasons were. And at this point, I’m afraid, is where most of our works of righteousness which we think we can claim become undone – on the basis of our motives. Even our works of righteousness are as filthy rags because we do them with impure motives.  Paul says in vs.16 “on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.”

So the secrets of a man are bound up in his heart.  But God sees the heart.  He knows our motivations.  Jesus said in Matt. 15:18-19 “But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.”  

Jeremiah 17:10 puts it this way:  “I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind even to give to each according to his ways, according to the result of his deeds.”  Yes, God judges deeds.  Yes, He judges ways.  But He judges the motive behind them as well. 

James says in chapter 4 vs 3 “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend [it] on your pleasures.”  God knows the motives of our hearts, and He will judge us according to our motives.  You either do what you do for the glory of God or you do it for the glory of man. 

I believe that what Paul is indicating here is that it’s possible to do good deeds with bad motives.  I think we see that in Christendom all the time.  That was the recurring sin of the Pharisee in Jesus’s day.  And it’s the prototypical sin of the church today.  It’s hypocrisy. The sin of impure motives.  Someone said once, that the the sin of hypocrisy is failing to live up to the truth that you claim to have.  And that seems to be true.

Paul reemphasizes in vs 16, that there is going to be a day of judgment.  “On the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.”  Jesus said in Luke 8:17 “For nothing is hidden that will not become evident, nor [anything] secret that will not be known and come to light.”   God will judge all men, and all deeds, on that day of judgment.  All things will be revealed, even the thoughts and motives of men’s hearts. 

2Cor. 5:10 says, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”

If your sin hasn’t been dealt with before that day by the shed blood of Jesus Christ, if you haven’t confessed Jesus as Lord and accepted His sacrifice on your behalf and His payment for your sin, then you are storing up wrath against the day of wrath.  There’s going to be a judgment from God that will cause you to be cast out of His presence forever into the Lake of Fire. And no one will escape that judgment unless they can claim Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.  He alone has satisfied the justice and righteousness of God, that He might show mercy to those who are under judgment. I pray that you have claimed His righteousness and His sacrifice on your behalf that you might not be condemned with the world. 

One of the disadvantages of an expositional, verse by verse style of preaching is that sometimes you find yourself having to deal with a passage of scripture that you would rather not have to deal with. Charles Spurgeon said of this passage that it was not worthy of public discussion. He refused to preach from this text because he felt that it was too upsetting to proper decorum.

While I might sympathize with him, I ultimately feel that I must recognize that if God felt comfortable talking about it, and Paul felt comfortable enough writing about it, so that it would be read in the church, I must be faithful to expound the Word of God as I come to it and not gloss over or skip passages that I don’t find appealing for some reason.

So with the adage of “fools rush in where angel’s fear to tread” ringing in my ears, I will try to be faithful to the word of God, and yet not overstate what God has said, or supplement what God has not said.

Now then as we come to this passage it is more important than ever to place it in the proper context. Paul is writing a letter, and so there can be a danger in isolating this passage or any passage and taking it out of context. If we are going to make something more out of it than what was intended it will come about more than likely by virtue of taking it out of context. When we do that, we risk making more of it than it was originally intended.

So then the context of Paul’s message so far is really understood by verse 18. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” From this point on, Paul is going to reveal man’s unrighteousness. And so that is the title of my sermon. Unrighteousness revealed.

If you back up a verse, then you see the the opposite statement; righteousness revealed. Vs17 “For in it [the] righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘BUT THE RIGHTEOUS [man] SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.’” So in vs 17 the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel by faith.

Then in vs 18, the unrighteousness of man is revealed. Now actually, Paul says the wrath of God has been revealed against unrighteousness. Remember we said last week that God’s wrath was revealed by death. The curse of death is upon all men and even upon all of creation. And he says that death, or wrath, is due to sin or unrighteousness. So sin is unrighteousness. Notice Paul uses the word unrighteousness twice in vs 18 as if to emphasize that sin is the cause of God’s wrath. As the scripture says, the wages of sin is death.

So I think in context then, Paul goes on to reveal the unrighteousness of men. He begins to show in detail how unrighteous men are. And this is going to continue for quite a while. His argument comes to it’s climax in chapter 3 vs 10 when he declares by quoting an Old Testament text, “There is none righteous, no not one.” Paul’s purpose is to show the exceeding sinfulness of sin. His purpose is to take away all supports from both Jews and Gentiles, to show all as deserving the wrath of God, because all are sinners, and all sin qualifies for the penalty of death.

And furthermore, Paul shows in this text the progression of sin. The Bible makes it clear that we are born in our sins, we are born into a body of death. We are born with a sin nature that we inherited from our father Adam. Romans 5:12 says, “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.” Man sins because he is a sinner. Because he was born a sinner. It’s what John Calvin calls the total depravity of man.

David said in Psalm 51:5 “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.”

But though that is our natural condition, there is also a natural progression to sin, going from bad to worse. That’s why Jesus made the case in the Sermon on the Mount that hatred constituted murder, lust constituted adultery. There is a natural progression to sin that the Lord equates to that of a little leaven (which represents sin) corrupting an entire lump of dough.

So Paul gives five steps in this downward progression of sin. He starts in vs 19 with revelation. God revealed Himself to man by means of His creation. The second step is rejection, vs 21. “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” They rejected the truth. The third step in their progression is rationalization. Verse 22, “Professing to be wise they became fools.” They thought they were smarter than God.

The fourth step of their downward progression in sin is religion. Vs.23, they “exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.” Idolatry in all it’s forms is man’s religion of choice. In effect, he worships himself, making God in his image, and puts forth his priorities and his desires as being acceptable to God.

And that leads to the last step, reprobation. Vs. 24, God gives them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity. Three times Paul says, God gave them over, in vs 24, in vs 26, and vs28. What it means is that they reach a point in their rebellion where God gives them over to their desires or lusts. He abandons them to their lust. He stops striving with them. In Genesis God said, “My Spirit will not strive with man forever…nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” One hundred and twenty years was the time that Noah preached the gospel to them as he was building the ark. Peter says of that time that the patience of God kept waiting. He was giving them time to repent, but they did not repent.

And in a similar way that is what God does during the course of a man’s life. Though man is born in sin and will progress in sin yet because of His mercy He is giving them time to repent until the time comes of their death. And yet Paul paints a picture here of man progressing further and further in his sin, until it consumes his body and soul.

That brings us to the revealing of unrighteousness starting in vs 24. And in this verse, what Paul shows is that sin unrestrained results in the dishonoring of the body. God gives them over to impurity “so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.” Sexual sin dishonors the body. Those of you that were at our Bible study on Wednesday night a couple of weeks ago will remember 1 Cor. 6:18 which says, “Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral (porneia) man sins against his own body.” Immoral is porneia in the original language, which covers all kinds of sexual sins from illicit intercourse, to adultery, fornication, homosexuality, incest, etc. Remember that Paul was rebuking the Corinthian church because they were tolerating a man who was committing incest with his father’s wife.

And Paul uses that as an entrance to the subject of immorality on a broader scale in the church. All types of porneia was going on in the church, presumably among Christians. They dishonored the divine design of their bodies which God had intended through immorality. The opposite of honor is shame. They did shameful things. There is an inherent shame that comes upon the person who indulges in immorality. There are all types of repercussions and consequences of immorality. But one of the main ones that does not get much notice is the injury to the human psyche. They hurt themselves. They cheapen themselves. And they suffer great damage that is not necessarily seen by the eye, but it is felt by the body.

In vs 25, Paul says that this happens because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and exchanged the divine order of sex for a perversion. He says they worshipped the creature rather than the Creator. It’s interesting that immorality is correlated in the scripture with idolatry. (Col.3:5, 1 Cor. 10:7, Eph. 5:5) And so in vs 25, rather than man honoring God with his body and serving God with his body, we see man serving the creature, serving his animal instincts, serving himself, serving his lusts.

This immorality and idolatry works it’s way in the progression of sin to the culmination of sexual immorality, which is homosexuality. Vs 26 For this reason (What reason? The reason is they exchanged the truth for a lie) God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.”

First of all, let us be clear that Paul is condemning homosexuality as sin. Those churches today that attempt to rationalize homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle are guilty of doing exactly what Paul is saying these men do; exchanging the truth for a lie. But Paul makes it clear here and elsewhere that homosexuality is unrighteousness. The whole point of this passage is to reveal the progression of unrighteousness.. He is revealing the unrighteousness of men who reject the truth of God and set themselves up as their own god. And so all of these behaviors and attitudes that Paul presents in this passage are manifestations of sinfulness. There are 22 sins that are delineated here. Paul is addressing the sin of homosexuality first because he is showing that immorality dishonors the body. When we get to vs28, then he goes on to list sins that are sins of the mind, or soul. But sin affects the entire being. The spirit of a man is dead because of sin, the soul of man is depraved because of sin, and the body is dishonored because of sin.

Thus you cannot make the argument that the Gnostics did, that sin which was in the body did not affect the spirit and so it was not really sinful. Paul is saying here that sin of the body and sin of the mind both corrupt and degrade the person so that they are exceedingly sinful.

Paul says these sinful practices have an immediate consequence. “Receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error.” The fruit of such sins produce consequences in themselves, in their bodies and in their minds. Some people have tried to construe this to mean the AIDS epidemic. I would not necessarily say make that connection, but I do think it’s referring to things like depression, self hatred, low self esteem, stress and suicidal tendencies. There are inherent consequences of sexual sins that affect the body and the mind and Paul says that is the result of such sins.

In vs 28 that leads us to the third time God gives them over, and this time it’s to a depraved mind. “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper.” God abandons them to their sinful practices which in turn affects their soul. Sin is corrupting to the full extent of the person, not only the body, but the soul.(mind, will, emotion)

Man’s arrogance causes them to be given over to a depraved mind. “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind.” They didn’t deem it worthwhile to acknowledge God any longer. They considered the knowledge of God as something worthless.

So God gives them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper. Bad thinking results in bad practices. An evil heart results in evil deeds. Prov.23:7 says, “as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” Jesus said in In Matthew 15:19, “Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies, and these are the things which defile a man.”

Then Paul gives a dirty laundry list of these kind of practices. What he calls every kind of unrighteousness. And there are 21 of them. Some of them seem to overlap in their meanings. But I think he wanted to give the full spectrum of sin which comes as a result of rejection of the truth of God.

Now you will be glad to know that I’m not planning on giving a detailed analysis of all 21 sins. I think they pretty much speak for themselves. But there is an order here which I think gives us a method to consider them. The first four sins are introduced by the words “having become filled…” And I think that speaks of the progressive nature of sin. It starts out small, as a form of rebellion against God, and it continues to corrupt and corrupt until it corrupts the entire loaf.

Jesus equated sin with leaven, saying, a little leaven, leavens the whole lump. In other words, a little sin begets more sin, and so on, until the entire person is corrupt. So maybe Paul gives the first four as the starting yeast, so to speak, that soon corrupts completely. The first four then starts with unrighteousness, which is simply rebellion against God, against God’s standard of righteousness. The next, wickedness, describes people who enjoy doing wrong. Greed is covetousness. Wanting what is not yours, wanting more. And evil or depravity is a corrupt nature where wrong is preferred to what is right.

The next group in the 21 is a group of five sins. And this group is described as “being full of..” They reach a stage further along in their progression in sin. So what are these people full of? First is envy. Begrudging what others have. Then murder. Perhaps this is speaking of more of an attitude of murder, which Jesus said was hate. Strife; which is being angry, quarrelsome. Deceit; which is lying, treachery. And malice is spite, a desire to harm people.

And then Pull gives the last group, which is a group of 12. I see these attributes as almost an outpouring of what has been filled up within them. Having been filled up their sin spills out and affects others. And we see that first in gossips; they spread rumors. Slanderers; they publicly tell lies about others. Haters of God; they openly attack God or His people. Insolent: they treat others with contempt. Arrogant; is putting themselves first and of most importance. Boastful, they love bragging of the things that they have done. Inventors of evil; they take special delight in novel forms of evil. Disobedient to parents; they disregard what their parents teach them.

And then their is what is considered a sub group of four which finish up the 12. Without understanding; senseless, they are fools. They have rejected God. And God calls such fools. Paul is being nice; he says they are without understanding. Then untrustworthy; they have no moral compass and so you cannot trust them. He goes on to say they are unloving; meaning without natural affection. Our society’s demand for abortion comes to mind as an example of being without natural affection. But a lack of natural affection certainly manifests itself in many other ways as well. And then the last one is unmerciful. These are cruel people, heartless people who only care about themselves.

Now what is important to note is that Paul equates these sins of the soul as deserving equal punishment as those sins of sexual immorality. They are no less grievous to God. And I would suggest that if you are honest you heard your own attitudes and behaviors described as I was going through that list. So none of us are exempt from the condemnation of sin. He says in vs 32, “and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”

What Paul is saying is that such people that commit these things know that they are doing wrong. They have an awareness within them that such vices are worthy of death. God has revealed this to them in their conscience, and He has revealed His holiness in His creation, so that they know that they are offending a holy God. And I will suggest another possible way that they know this. Because when societies make laws regarding right and wrong, they always follow the principles of righteousness that God has ordained. Even in the darkest of Africa, they recognize that lying is wrong. They recognize cheating as wrong. They recognize hatred as wrong. They may twist their laws to try to protect themselves, but people always recognize the sin in another person. And our judgment of that sin in another is always very severe. So I think that our judgment of other’s sin, condemns us of sin. We know instinctively in our hearts what sin is. And we judge others by it. So Paul will say in chapter 2 vs 1, “Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.”

But not only are we cognizant of our sin, and thus due the penalty for it, but also Paul says we give hearty approval to those who practice sin. In other words, they encourage sin in others. I was speaking to someone the other day who had a run in with an unbeliever who was trying to put him down and condemn him. And I said the reason that he was acting that way was because he was jealous that you weren’t like him anymore; you were clean, you were sober, you were trying to live for the Lord. And so in their wickedness which they weren’t willing to repent of, the way to make themselves feel better is to make you look worse. Ultimately, they are trying to bring you down to their level. And that is really the culmination of sin, that it seeks to pull others down with them. Eve did the same thing to Adam, and Adam was foolish enough to willingly go along with her for the sake of companionship.

So what is the conclusion of this study today? It should be to show the complete corruptness of sin, the total depravity of man. Sin is rebellion against God and that progresses to defilement and debasement of body and soul. The person who is in sin is corrupted completely by sin and deserving of the wrath of God.

But the good news is that when you come to the point where you recognize your hopelessness, and you recognize your sinfulness, when you stop trying to rationalize your sin, then you are ready to be delivered. You are able to be saved by faith in what Christ did for you on the cross. Taking our sin upon himself, that we might exchange the lie for the truth, the body of death for life in the spirit, that we might exchange our sins for His righteousness.

The good news is that in his letter to the Corinthians, Paul gave another long list of sins very similar to this list. He said in 1Cor. 6:9-10 “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor [the] covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.”

But then he says this; 1Cor. 6:11 “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” Such were some of you. No matter how vile the sinner, God is able to save and deliver us from our sins. The lesson here is as Paul said in another place, “Jesus Christ came to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” When you realize your sinfulness, then there is the hope of salvation. Jesus came to save us from sin and from the wrath of God against sin. I hope you will turn to Him today in repentance and faith and be saved from God’s wrath.

Last week we studied verses 16 and 17, in which Paul lays out his thesis for the epistle of Romans. The thesis for the book of Romans is simply justification by faith. The righteousness of God applied to man on the basis of faith. The righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, it is conveyed to man by faith, resulting in imputed righteousness, or to say it another way, the righteousness of Jesus Christ is credited to man’s account by faith in Jesus and what He did on the cross. That is the gospel; the good news from God to man and Paul’s thesis for this epistle.

Immediately following this statement of his thesis, Paul begins to elaborate in great detail the tenets of the gospel. And I find it almost ironic that the first tenet he begins with is the wrath of God. The subject of the wrath of God is not very politically correct in most churches today. Everyone wants to focus only on the love of God. And love is, of course, an important attribute of God. But so is the wrath of God. And what I believe Paul is teaching here is that you cannot be saved until you realize that you are lost. You cannot be healed unless you first realize your terminal condition.

I believe the Bible as well as history shows that the greatest revivals have come as a result of an understanding the impending nature of God’s wrath, or God’s judgment. One of the most famous sermons that was ever preached in this country was given by Jonathan Edwards to his church on July 8, 1741. The title was “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” And that message (which Edwards read, mind you) was interrupted several times by people crying out in terror, “what must I do to be saved?” The result of that message was the beginning of the revival known as the “Great Awakening.” One of the most widespread, successful revivals that the world has ever known.

So it is entirely appropriate that Paul should begin his message of the gospel with a detailed description of the wrath of God. The wrath of God is a necessary attribute of a holy and just God. God’s wrath and God’s love are perfectly balanced. From a human perspective we tend to view wrath as something inherently bad, something to be avoided at all costs. But there is such a thing as righteous anger. And God, who is righteous, must respond to sin. Justice demands the wrath of God. The cross is unexplainable without first understanding the wrath of God.

Hebrews 1:9 says concerning Jesus Christ; “thou hast loved righteousness and hated lawlessness.” God is able to love perfectly and hate perfectly. God’s anger is not capricious, it’s not spiteful. God’s mercy is great, God’s love is great, and God’s wrath is great. As great as God’s love is, so in like manner is how great his wrath is.

Here is the love of God. God made man in HIs image, in HIs likeness. He gave him the breath of life. He gave him the world and all the animal life and the plant life of the world to rule over. God gave man all that, and made him as the object of His love. But here is the wrath of God. Man rejected His Maker. Man chose to believe a lie and the father of lies rather than the truth of God. Man chose to rule over himself, rather than to let God rule over him. Man chose to partake of the only thing in the world that God told him not to take of. God had already made clear the punishment for breaking his law. The punishment was death. It was destruction. It was wrath. And it was deserved. It was just. It was justice.

Because God cannot abide sin. God cannot be holy and tolerate sin. What communion has light with darkness? We were made to be like God, to be one with God, to be the bride of God. To have communion with God. And when we chose sin, we rejected that communion. We broke that relationship with God for which we were made. And the wages of sin is death. Sin is destruction. God’s wrath is rightly poured out on sin and sinners, to be destroyed from his presence forever.

In the great epistle of John, what some have called the epistle of love, is found the verse in chapter 3:36, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” That verse establishes that the wrath of God is a pre existing condition of man. Man was born into that wrath. Man was born to die, he was born estranged and alienated from God. He was born into sin.

And that’s why Paul begins with the wrath of God. It is a pre existing condition. It is the judgment of God upon the world. He made it, and He has the right to destroy it when it no longer suits the purpose for which it was made. And sinful man is not able to achieve that purpose. He is broken. He is corrupted by the sin nature and as such he is destined to destruction.

So Paul says “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.” Now we might ask, how is the wrath of God revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men? How is the wrath of God revealed to men? I would suggest that the way it is revealed is in death. It is by death.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has put eternity in the hearts of men. I think that is the reason that death reveals the wrath of God. Because somehow in our psyche death does not make sense. Somehow we know deep in our souls that we were made for more. Death cuts short life. And so the wrath of God is revealed through death in all it’s forms, whether prematurely or in old age, it is the operation of the wrath of God.

And the wrath of God is revealed in action. For example; by the flood. It’s interesting to note that almost all primitive cultures have a flood story. They may have changed it, but at one point at least God gave the world a witness of His wrath that endured for generations, to be told to subsequent generations. The same can be said of God’s judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah. Another example of His wrath which became known to the nations was His judgment upon Egypt during the time of the Exodus. These were meant to be examples to the watching world of the wrath of God which was upon the whole world.

And Paul says the wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. So God’s wrath is revealed against sin in all it’s forms. Ungodliness refers to a lack of reverence for God, and unrighteousness to a lack of reverence for His law. Both are sin; rebellion against God. And we are guilty of both.

Not only does man rebel against the truth of God, but Paul says he also works diligently to suppress the truth. The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. There is a 6000 year war against the truth of God that is captained by no less than Satan himself, and willfully assisted by men of every generation to try to disparage or deny the word of God. Our unrighteousness provokes us to suppress the truth because we don’t like being convicted of sin. John 3:19-20 says, “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.”

The problem is that men love their sin, and they hate the truth because it reveals it as sin. So the sinner wants to validate himself, to defend himself, and to do that he must attack the truth. He wants to justify his sin. And so to add insult to injury, in his sin against God he also calls God a liar. They exchange the truth of God for a lie. One of the most common refrains you hear today is the statement that “My God would never do so and so, because my God is a loving God.” In saying that, they are guilty of idolatry, of making a god in their own image. Of trying to manipulate God according to what they think He should be.

Rob Bell, the notorious ex mega church pastor, the author of the book “Love Wins,” said “What kind of good, loving God would it be if He sent people to an eternal hell for what they did or didn’t do in the few short years they lived on earth? And if He was like that, then who would want to worship Him?” That statement flies in the face of the truth of God’s word, which clearly teaches the reality of hell as the just punishment for sinners. And in saying that, Bell is really attacking the character of God and suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.

But Paul indicates that all men are guilty of the same suppression of the truth. “In unrighteousness” just means that in their sin they suppress the truth. Because of their sin they suppress the truth, because they love darkness rather than light. They love their sin. They love what they think is their autonomy. They want to determine for themselves what is good or what is bad. And as vs 25 indicates, they exchange the truth for a lie. What is good is deemed as bad. Right has become wrong. Morality is pilloried, and evil is championed. We live today in a society in which morality has been turned on it’s head. When perversion is accepted and validated as normal. Sexual abstinence among teenagers is said to be unnatural and unrealistic. Abortion is the law of the land. Suppression of the truth is nothing less than trying to make their own version of the truth to accommodate their sin.

But Paul says that irregardless of their suppression of the truth, God has revealed enough about Himself to condemn them. Vs. 19, “because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.” God has made Himself known through nature, through history and through man’s conscience. God has given enough revelation of Himself through these methods that man should have been convinced and convicted of God’s truth and his need for God.

Paul says that what can be known about God through creation has been clearly seen, so that they are without excuse. Vs. 20; “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”

In vs16 and 17, Paul said that God revealed salvation through His gospel. In vs 19 and 20, however, Paul moves from special to general revelation. He is saying that enough truth about God has been revealed in creation to turn men to God. Unfortunately, today the lie of evolution has been exchanged for the truth about creation. I believe that evolution is a diabolical strategy to eliminate the general revelation of God in creation. Just as the devil has systematically tried to destroy the word of God, he also is attempting to destroy the truth of God revealed in creation.

But there is a witness to a divine design in nature that is apparent if one would only look for it. My son has developed lately an interest in aquariums. And he now has a freshwater aquarium as well as a saltwater. And as he studies and learns about all the different species of fish and coral and all kinds of living creatures in the ocean, he is constantly remarking how this great variety and creativity in these creatures is a testimony to a Creator. He said the other night how this has enabled him to see that God has a personality, even a sense of humor. And I think any study of nature should cause men to see the reality of God, unless they are prejudiced against the truth.

And I want to point out another interesting aspect in this verse. And that is that God is an invisible Spirit. Paul speaks of the invisible attributes of God. Jesus said that God is Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. John 1:18 says that “God Himself no one has ever seen.” Col.1:15 says that the Son “ is the image of the invisible God.” 1 Timothy 1:17 says the King of the Ages, the imperishable, the invisible God. And Hebrews 11:27 says “seeing Him who is invisible.” So we must recognize that God is a Spirit, and as such He is invisible. It is a grave error to imagine God as just like us, as perhaps a bigger or stronger version of ourselves. But we need to realize that God is an invisible, omnipotent, omnipresent Spirit who is over all, and above all.

Furthermore, Paul says these invisible qualities of God are “His eternal power and divine nature.” His eternal power is clearly seen in nature. It is clearly seen in the power of a hurricane, in the power of the seas, in the power of the sun and the moon and the stars. God’s incredible power is seen through the things which He made. God has to be unimaginably powerful to have created and have control over such things as seen in nature. And when we contemplate this power, it should be apparent that it is an eternal power. The power of the stars is evident from light years away. The God who made them must be superior to mortality. He must be eternal.

And Paul adds another attribute, which is HIs divine nature. When you consider the way all of creation works together, how it is all connected and interdependent, it should impress on you the divine nature of God, the goodness of God, the wisdom of God. It should indicate that God has a divine plan for the world, since all things work together according to His grand design.

To describe such qualities Paul uses an oxymoron. He says these invisible attributes are clearly seen. It might be correlated to “seeing” the wind. We cannot see the wind, it is invisible. But we can clearly see the effects of the wind and so we know that it exists, and that it is powerful. There is much we can learn about the wind even though we cannot see it. And so the soul of man clearly sees the nature of God through the works of God, or as Paul says through the things that are made.

So Paul says that man is without excuse, because nature is a witness to the invisible attributes of God, and yet they refuse to worship Him as their God. Even before the relatively modern inventions of microscope and telescope, man was able to see the immensity of the universe in the night sky, he was able to monitor the heavenly bodies in their courses and plot the seasons and months and the tides by them with absolute precision. He was able to study the way a tiny seed grew into a specific plant and the plant gave forth fruit after it’s kind, and in turn produced more seeds. He is able to see the variety and diversity of life in the birds, in animals, and in the sea. Man is still discovering ever more varieties of animal and plant life even today. If you look closely at the earth you will notice even the ground is alive with insects and animal life. The more microscopic you go, the more life you discover. And the opposite is true as well. As you look at the stars you see further and further evidences of galaxies upon galaxies. Surely, he who denies God is inexcusable.

But though they see the invisible attributes of God clearly in nature, yet they refused to acknowledge Him as God. Vs.21, “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools.” There is a progression to sin. There is a hardening in rebellion. And Paul is delineating that progression here. Because their sin encouraged them to rebel against God they then suppressed the truth to try to justify their sin. And though God revealed Himself to them again and again in nature they continued to defy Him, they chose not to honor Him, and they became futile in their minds and their hearts were darkened. They loved darkness rather than light and so God gave them over to darkness. And their progression in sin progressed further and further away from the truth. Until not only was their hearts darkened, but they were hardened. Their consciences were blunted to dullness. The light of the truth flickered out. They cannot reason correctly. They no longer can see the truth. The blind lead the blind, and the devil leads them all round in circles in the rat race of life, until they expire by one means or another and face the wrath of God.

The progression of their sin goes from bad to worse. Vs. 23 “and [they] exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.” Let us not just imagine primitive cultures are guilty of worshiping the images of man and beast. Today our modern culture worships the beast as well. They worship nature, they worship the environment. The very thing that should have turned them to God, they worshipped it instead of God.

Whether or not you want to believe in climate change or any number of other environmental initiatives, the fact is that there are a lot of people who have exchanged the glory of the Creator for the so called science of environmentalists, and as such they worship the creature rather than the Creator. Today there is a growing trend in society that there is nothing more sacred than nature itself. Environmentalism is the new religion. And as we see so often in new laws that are made concerning the left’s view of the environment, it rules with a rod of iron like they once accused religion of doing. And if it’s allowed to run it’s course, then one day the environmentalists will decide who will live and who will die. How many children you can have. What kind of food you can eat. What kind of cars you can drive. Whether or not you can fly in an airplane. It’s amazing how far they can reach into your life by the excuse of climate change, or what’s good for the environment. So don’t think that worshipping nature was just something that primitive people did hundreds of years ago. It’s going on now. Man worships the creature rather than the Creator. Man worships man, he worships movie stars, athletic stars, music stars. In one form or another, man worships that which was created rather than his Creator.

Vs 24 “Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” Three times in this chapter Paul uses the phrase, “God gave them over.” I believe that means that people reach a point in their progression in sin that He finally gives them over to their desires. They rebuke the conviction of the Holy Spirit to a point where He no longer speaks to them. The light goes out.

There is a verse in Isaiah that I really like that speaks of the mercy of God, which says, “a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.” That speaks of God’s long suffering with sinners. That is God’s mercy towards our weakness. Peter says His patience is waiting to lead us to repentance. But there does come a time when God no longer seeks to keep the flame burning. There does come a time when God allows the broken reed to fall away unto perdition. And I think that is what Paul is getting at here. They reach a point when God finally will give them over to their depravity and their desire and their destruction.

Paul says that as a result of their rebellion God gave them over to impurity, which means uncleanness, and their bodies are dishonored. It’s interesting to note that Paul is writing from Corinth, a city rife with sexual immorality. And as we studied in 1 Cor. 6 on Wednesday night, when a man commits sexual immorality he sins against himself. That is what I think Paul indicates here when he says their bodies are dishonored. We bring shame upon our own bodies in sexual sins. We bring consequences in the physical body that are destructive when we deviate from God’s plan of marriage.

Col.3:5 states, “Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience.” This outpouring of God’s wrath is yet future, but even now God allow a foretaste of this wrath by finally abandoning them that continue in their wickedness, so that they perish in their rebellion.

God allows that judgment to fall on them because according to vs 25, they “exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” They worshipped and served the creature. That is the sin of idolatry. Rather than worshipping and serving the Creator who gave them life and the world and it’s creatures to enjoy, they rejected God and served and worshiped the creature, and so therefore they deserve the wrath of God.

At the close of his sermon on the wrath of God, Jonathan Edwards made this appeal; “Therefore, let every one that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come.” There is but one way out from under the wrath of God, and that is through faith in Jesus Christ. He has taken the stripes due to us from God upon Himself that we might go free. Isaiah 53:4-5 says “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being [fell] upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.” Jesus has borne the cross for you and for me, if we just come to Him in faith. He has taken our sins upon His shoulders, bearing our punishment, bearing God’s wrath which was due to us, if we would just believe on Him as our Lord and Savior.

The invisible, immortal God that the world has never seen has manifested Himself fully and completely in the man Jesus Christ, that we might know God fully and completely, and that we might have life through HIs death. An even worse fate than the one described here by Paul of the pagan Gentiles who did not know the scriptures but had the witness of creation to teach them, is to be had by those who hear the truth of God’s word, who hear the gospel of justification by faith in Christ, and yet consider the blood of Jesus Christ as no account and continue on in their rebellion against God. To those, the wrath of God will surely come with a vengeance that surpasses that of the ignorant pagans of time past. I pray that you will not refuse to answer His call today. Do not harden your heart against God.

Today, if you hear His voice, if you are outside of Jesus Christ, I urge you to fly to Jesus. In the hymn Rock of Ages it says, “Foul I to the fountain fly, wash me Savior or I die.” There is a antidote for the wrath of God, and that is to look to Jesus who took the wrath of God which I deserved upon Himself that I might be set free. Look to Him and receive justification and life.

If you are a person who has achieved even a basic level of maturity, who has even a rudimentary intelligence, then you probably have come to the realization that life is not all that we wish it to be. It doesn’t take too long for the average person as they live their life to realize that something’s wrong, something’s missing. It may seem like some other people manage to get it right and things seem to work out for them, but we think for us it’s just not the case. But I think that rather than that being a personal deficiency it is actually a universal problem. It even affects those who are still in the process of maturing; such as teenagers and young adults. People that you would think should have every reason to optimistic and full of hope for the future are instead finding themselves becoming disillusioned with life. Millions of young people today are depressed and searching for answers to life in therapy and counseling and the use of anti-depressants and so forth. The suicide rate for young people has reached almost epidemic proportions in this modern age as they become disillusioned and so despondent over life.

And if that’s true for young people, then how much more so is it true for the person who has reached middle age and done all the things that society tells us are necessary to succeed at life and yet found disappointment and emptiness rather than joy and fulfillment. Yet even so, most of us manage to convince ourselves that a happy life is still achievable, if we just do a couple of things, or if we can just acquire enough things, or get enough money, or get in shape, or find true love, or whatever it is which we feel is the missing ingredient. And so we pull our shoulders back and thrust out our chin and we power on in the hope that things will get better, that we can somehow get things right and find whatever it is we need to make life satisfying and fulfilling and enjoyable.

The wisest man that ever lived wrote in the book of Proverbs; “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” And what Solomon was getting at is that though man might try every conceivable tactic, he is still unable to figure out a way to circumnavigate this life. Ultimately, no matter if you manage to get rich, no matter if you are beautiful, no matter if you achieve fame or power, one day death comes to everyone. Solomon says in Ecclesiastes that all is vanity and chasing after the wind.

Peter, quoting the prophet Isaiah said, “All flesh is as grass, And all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, And its flower falls away.” The principle of death affects all aspects of life, turning man’s glory into decay, putting an end to all our struggles, it’s the end of life for every living creature.

And yet there is more to that quote from Isaiah. This diagnosis of life which seems so hopeless, so despondent, so depressing, has an antidote. That dire prognosis has a prescription of hope. Isaiah said it is this; “But the word of our God stands forever.” Hallelujah! That is hope. That is something to rejoice about. That’s good news. That God has spoken and His word will not fail, His word will not pass away. The life giving word of God endures forever.

This word of God is no less than the gospel of Jesus Christ which Paul is proclaiming in this epistle. Gospel means simply “the good news of God”. The angels proclaimed the good news from heaven to the shepherds at Jesus’s birth saying, “Behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” The good news is God has sent a Savior for mankind. This gospel is the hope of the world. It’s the light that shines in darkness. It’s the word of life that banishes death in all it’s degrees. It’s the truth of God that sets us free from the corruption that is in this world. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”

But just as in the day when Noah was building an ark in preparation for the flood, the world thinks that the gospel is foolishness. They laughed and scorned Noah in the days before the flood, and the world has derided the gospel as foolishness ever since. 1Cor. 2:14 says, “But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned.”

But thanks be to God that even though the world may treat it as foolishness, God makes His word known to some. In 1Cor. Paul says “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.”

That’s why Paul says in vs16 that he is not ashamed of the gospel. Because “it is the power of God for salvation.” Paul is not ashamed to proclaim it to everyone, in every nation, to all men and women, both young and old, Jew or Gentile. Because it cannot fail. Because there is life giving power in the word. Because the word of God stands forever. Because the gospel is the answer to life’s questions. It reveals life’s purpose and meaning. It is the answer to death. Jesus said in John 6:63, “the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

Paul is not ashamed because though the philosophy of men may fail, though the wisdom of man may fail, though science may fail, though attempts at religion may fail, though the heavens and the earth may fail, the word of God stands forever. It’s powerful. By the word of God the heavens and the earth came into existence. Every thing that is created exists by the word of God. Again and again in the Genesis record of creation it reads, “And God said…and God said,” and it was so. God gave life by His word. God’s word is the source of life. It’s the source of wisdom. It is truth and it is life.

Paul says he is not ashamed to proclaim the gospel because he knows it is the power of God. The word of God is powerful. The writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God [is] living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” The word of God is living, it gives spiritual life to that which is dead, to that which is powerless, to that which cannot help itself. It gives sight to the spiritually blind, healing to the spiritually sick, life to the spiritually dead. It is powerful. The word of God is the gospel, the good news for mankind.

Paul is not ashamed to proclaim the gospel because it is the power of God unto salvation. This word “power” is dunamis in the original Greek. That’s the word from which we get our word dynamite. As I said in my opening statements, man is unable to make fundamental changes in himself that are actually able to overcome the shadow of mortality which casts a pall over all of life.

But the power of the God is powerful enough to transfer souls from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. It’s powerful enough to change men from sinners to saints. It’s powerful enough to give life to the dead. It’s able to give sight to the blind. It’s able to save men from their sins, even deliver from the penalty of sin which is death. The power of God through the gospel is able to deliver men from Satan’s power, from judgment, from death, and from hell.

The gospel is the power of God, Paul says. It’s an unlimited power, an incredible power that can transform lives. Jesus said that what was impossible with men is possible with God. With God all things are possible because there is no power that is greater, there is nothing that God cannot do, there is nothing that is beyond His reach.

Romans 5:6 says, “When we were yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly.” Man couldn’t save himself, he is powerless to give life to that which is dead. But Christ died for the ungodly in order to bring us to God, to reconcile us to God. He died that we might have life in Him.

So Paul is unashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation. Salvation means deliverance, to save, to rescue. The problem of mankind is that they are on the road, so to speak, to perdition. All that life was meant to be has been corrupted by sin. Paul says in Romans 8 that all of creation groans under the weight of sin. That sin resulted in the penalty of death which is passed on to all men, for all have sinned. Sin resulted in alienation from God, who is the source of life and by whom all things have their being. And by that alienation from the source of life there comes death for all men. There is a futility in all things because nothing has permanence. Everything has become corrupted and infected with the terminal virus that is sin. Romans 5:12 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”

But Paul says the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Salvation is deliverance from sin and death. Salvation is God rescuing those that are lost. Salvation is setting men free from the captivity of Satan. Salvation is a divine transformation of the unrighteous into righteousness. Salvation is from God. He is the author and finisher of our salvation.

Paul says he is not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also the Greek. God’s salvation is available to everyone who believes. Believe means to trust in, to have confidence in, to have faith in. So Paul is saying that salvation is available to everyone who believes in what? In God? No, that is not faith unto salvation. The Bible says the devils believe in God and tremble. But they are not saved. It is believing in the gospel. And the gospel, Paul says in vs9 is the gospel of God’s Son, the good news concerning Jesus Christ.

So as Jesus said, HIs words are spirit and they are life. Believing in Him, believing in who Jesus said He was, believing in what He accomplished through His death and resurrection, believing all that He taught, constitutes trusting and believing in Christ. The power of the gospel, the life giving, transforming truth of the gospel is accessed by faith in Christ. Not faith in faith, but faith in what Jesus accomplished on our behalf.

And what Jesus did on our behalf is He left His throne in heaven and took on the form of a man, becoming our substitute, taking our sins upon Himself, and dying in our place, and taking our penalty upon Himself. The Apostle’s Creed states it this way; I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

And what Paul is saying is that those who believe in Jesus Christ, in that good news which He accomplished on our behalf, will receive salvation by the power of God. We who believe will be transferred into the kingdom of His Son and receive new life in Him.

Paul goes on to say that in it, that is, in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. This salvation of God is possible because we are made righteous through Christ. According to 2 Cor. 5:21, “God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” What we must believe about Christ is that He is righteous, He knew no sin. He was the Holy Son of God spoken of by Isaiah in chapter 53; “By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities.” He goes on to say that “He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors.”

This holy, spotless, righteous Lamb of God bore our sins on the cross, becoming sin for us, paying our penalty, and as God transferred our sins to Him, He also transferred Christ’s righteousness unto us, so that we might be declared righteous, justified by faith in what He did for us. The power of the gospel is salvation to everyone who believes in what Jesus has done, and in His righteousness. So that we may say like Paul in Phil. 3:8-9 we may say “I count all things [I once held dear in this life] to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from [the] Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which [comes] from God on the basis of faith.” HIs righteousness credited to my account is the basis for my salvation.

The good news of the gospel is not that God commands us to be righteous and we must try to attain to His standard of it, and if we do so then we can be delivered from death and enter into everlasting life. But the good news that God commends Christ’s righteousness to us by faith. We believe in Him and what He has done and what He has said, and God transfers our sins to Him, and His righteousness to us, so that we might be justified before God, made righteous before God, made holy, and we receive the life of God, even the Spirit of God to dwell in us.

The gospel reveals Jesus Christ, our righteousness. It reveals God’s standard of righteousness. And it reveals the manner in which Christ accomplished that transference of righteousness to us.

And what Paul states here is that the gospel reveals God’s righteousness “from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith.” What Paul is saying here is that this gospel is not something new. The quotation which he gives from the prophet Habakkuk shows us that Paul is basing this principle of imputed righteousness on the Old Testament. Habakkuk said, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.” What was true for OT saints is true for NT saints. And from faith to faith means God revealed his righteousness to old dispensation saints through faith, and He reveals His righteousness to new dispensation saints through faith.

All the Old Testament saints were saved by faith. Paul restates that principle in Romans 4:3 saying, “For what does the Scripture say? ‘ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.’” Justification before God is through faith, where God credits Christ righteousness to your account on the basis of faith in Him.

So then to every age and to all people everywhere, the question of “What must I do to be accepted by God?” is answered by “the righteous shall live by faith.” And that is the way the gospel is communicated; from faith to faith. We that have faith have a responsibility to tell others the good news of Jesus Christ. We must tell them that in Christ alone is there hope in this life. In Christ alone is there life that continues beyond the grave. In Christ alone are the questions of this world answered.

So let us not be ashamed of this gospel. For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. So many people are seeking for happiness and satisfaction in all kinds of things, but nothing can satisfy the searching soul like Jesus. Nothing else can reconcile us to God so that we might have life as we were designed and created to have. Let us boldly and confidently proclaim the good news, and pray that God will give them eyes to see and ears to hear, that they might believe and be saved.

At the crucifixion of Jesus, there were two thieves who were also being crucified, one on his right and one on his left. As the mob was cursing Jesus and spitting at Him, and mocking Him, one of the thieves joined in the chorus of derision. Luke 23:39-43 says “One of the criminals who were hanged [there] was hurling abuse at Him, saying, “Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!” But the other answered, and rebuking him said, “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed [are suffering] justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he was saying, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!” And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”

This incident illustrates beautifully the salvation that Paul said comes on the basis of faith in Christ. Notice first of all that the thief feared God, that is He had a holy reverence for God. I believe that indicates that He recognized that Jesus was God in the flesh. And notice also that he recognized his own sinfulness and that sinfulness rightly condemned him to death. “We are suffering justly, and are receiving what we deserve for our deeds.” Thirdly, he recognized Jesus’s righteousness. “This man has done nothing wrong.” Fourthly, he recognized Christ as Lord. “Jesus remember me when You come in your kingdom.” What a statement of faith! He was dying, and he could see Jesus was dying. And yet he has faith that Christ will come again to claim His kingdom. He recognized that Jesus, by His righteousness, was able to save him. And lastly, he received that salvation on the basis of his faith. “Today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”

There is no other information about this dying thief in scripture. So I can only imagine what happened next. But I think I can assume that later that day, when his life ebbed away, and he closed his eyes in death, he found himself taken to the gates of Paradise. And perhaps an angel there stopped him, and said, “Stop thief! By what right do you enter these gates?” It probably seemed to him that only minutes had passed since he was hanging there on the cross, a dying thief who was getting his just reward for the deeds he had done in his life. But he remembered the exchange there on the cross with Jesus. And so he lifted up his head, and pointed through the gate at Jesus standing there, and said, “I’m with Him. I’m here because He said I could come. It’s by His righteousness that I am able to enter.”

Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you that same question today. By what right can you enter the kingdom of heaven? If you are claiming anything other than HIs righteousness which God granted to on the basis of your faith in Christ, then you cannot enter. Only by faith in Christ will the righteous live. I hope that you have trusted in Christ, believed in Him for your salvation. There is hope in none other.

We are going to sing a closing hymn which I think illustrates this doctrine well. It’s Rock of Ages. And I want to close by reading just a line from that song before we sing it.
“Not the labors of my hands, can fulfill thy law’s demands. Could my zeal, no respite know, could my tears, forever flow. All for sin could not atone, thou must save, and thou alone.”