Introduction
Many of you would have heard of Anne Frank, a young German Jew born in 1929 in the city of Frankfurt.
You would know that much of her growing up years was under the shadow of the Third Reich headed by Adolf Hitler.
With his antisemitic policies, the family eventually moved to Amsterdam in 1934 where her father founded a company that traded in pectin, a gelling agent for making jam. Eventually, Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940 and Anne’s father lost his company since Jews were no longer allowed to run their own businesses.
Other laws and regulations curtailed freedom and made Jewish life very difficult.
Her dad furnished a hiding place in the annex of his business premises. At 13 yrs old, Anne was presented with a diary and during the two years in hiding she wrote about events in the secret annex.
This became known as the Diary of Anne Frank.
She and others hiding in the annex were discovered and arrested by police in August 1944 and deported to Auschwitz and eventually to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Because of the lack of food, the cold and wet condition, and contagious diseases, Anne died of typhus in Feb 1945.
Anne’s father was the sole survivor of the family and later published Anne’s diary entries.
On July 15, 1944, Anne wrote, “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”
She wrote these words one month before her arrest.
While Anne’s resilience was much respected by those who read her diary, she was patently wrong in her assessment of the human heart.
Perhaps at 15, that may be owed to a young and naive understanding of the world.
I wonder if her assessment changed after she was arrested and tortured in that short 6 months leading up to her death. What Anne witnessed first-hand was probably the worst manifestation of the human heart, the wickedness, hatred, depravity on full display for all to see. You can believe in the goodness of humanity for all you want, but the evidence of depravity is all around us.
This is exactly what the Bible teaches as we enter this final section of the first major section of the book of Romans.
Romans 1:18-3:20 shows us why we need God’s righteousness.
First
Because the Gentiles are unrighteous (1:18-32).
Second
The Jews are unrighteous (2:1-3:8).
Third
To conclude, Paul is going to show us that all are unrighteous (Romans 3:9-20).
We are coming to the conclusion of this first major section and it contains a lot of bad news.
Paul is spending so much time describing the condition of humanity so that we keenly feel the need for God’s righteousness.
Let's see what Romans 3:9-20 shows us about unrighteousness.
I. All Are Under Sin (Romans 3:9-18)
A. Charge of Universal Condemnation (3:9)
What then?
The idea is: What shall we conclude?
Are we Jews any better off (than the Gentiles)?
No, not at all.
This doesn’t contradict what Paul said earlier. He said in v. 1 that the Jews did have advantage in the sense that they have the Word of God.
God has a special relationship with the Jews and He has spoken His oracles to them.
But knowing God’s Word is not the same as doing God’s Word and we are told in Romans 2:13 that it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God but the doers of the law who will be justified.
And when it comes to doing God’s laws, they have failed as miserably as the Gentiles have. “These saving promises do not exempt them from responsibility for their sin” (Schreiner).
So are the Jews any better off? No, not at all! Why? Paul has already established that all are sinners, both the Jews in Romans 2 and the Gentiles in Romans 1.
They are all “under sin.”
That means both Jews and Gentiles are helpless captives to the power of sin. They are all under the power of sin. Every single soul is a helpless pawn under the powerful clutches of sin.
Notice how Paul describes the power of sin:
1. Enslaved to sin (6:6)
2. Sin reigns in the mortal body (6:12)
3. Sin has dominion (6:14)
Sin demonstrates its power through sinful specific acts of human beings as we shall see later.
People are described as “slaves of sin” (Romans 6:16, 17, 20).
There are no exceptions and nothing shows more clearly the desperate need for the good news of the gospel.
The problem is not that everybody commits sins, but rather everybody is enslaved to sin.
What is needed is infinitely greater power to break people free from their slavery to sin and this power is found in and only in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
B. OT Confirmation of Universal Condemnation (Romans 3:10-18)
By now you would be alert to Paul’s use of the OT when he begins with “as it is written.”
But nowhere does Paul quote from so many OT passages (at least 6) at one go.
But Paul’s purpose in quoting these verses is to substantiate his claim that all, both Jews and Greeks are under sin. These 9 verses are some of the most devastating indictments from Scripture regarding the human race.
Sin is universal.
At first glance, it seems like Paul is just throwing out these OT quotes in a random machine gun fashion.
But as we shall see, there is a structure to the quotations.
1. All are Unrighteous (3:10b-12)
The first quote is the theme of the entire section, that there is none who is righteous.
That is the point Paul has been making since 1:18.
Nobody has met his obligation to God. Paul begins by describing the general conduct of humanity.
The repeated use of words like “none, no one, all, not even one” serves to make the emphatic point regarding the universality of man’s depravity. There is simply no exception.
There is no ambiguity here; Paul is absolutely clear.
Paul is either quoting from Ps 14:1-3 or Ps 53:1-3 because these two psalms are very identical.
If you go back to the context of these psalms, you will see that it begins in v. 1 with “the fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”
There is one difference, though.
While the psalms say that there is none who does good, Paul says “none is righteous.” Once again, the theme of the book of Romans is the good news of how the righteous God is justifying (righteousing) unrighteous individuals for His glory.
So this fits the theme.
That none is righteous is evidenced in the fact that no one understands or seeks God. Nobody has a natural understanding of God and His ways or His will.
Why?
Nobody has any desire to seek God.
It is not their goal in life to do so. It is interesting that back in the 90’s, there was a trend in church ministry called the seeker-sensitive church. The idea is that you tailor everything in your ministry for the visitor who comes to your church because he is seeking God.
This verse tells us that there is no such thing as a seeker.
Nobody wants to understand the one true God of the universe and nobody seeks for Him.
The reason is simple.
If I want to have a relationship with this God, I have to do what he says. But I don’t want Him to be God in my life, because I want to be god of my own life. I want to run my own life, I don’t want God to run my life. Human beings want autonomy.
Because man has no desire to understand or seek God, they have all turned aside, which means they turn away from God and they seek other gods to worship or they worship themselves.
We are reminded of Isa 53:6 “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way”
As a result, together as humanity, they have become worthless.
This is a remarkable statement.
Think about all the great people in history, some who have sacrificed themselves for the greater good of humanity.
Some were heroes in war, in nation building, in advancement in technology and medicine.
People build statues of these people and they name roads and buildings after them.
Their names are enshrined in history textbooks. But if they did not know God, God’s assessment is that they are worthless.
And the “good” that they have done for their country or humanity? No one does good.
The good they do are as good as filthy rags (Isa 64:6).
2. All Have Sinned in Their Speech (Romans 3:13-14)
The universality of sin is nowhere more evident than the tongue.
When we were in James 3, we saw what James says about the tongue.
He said that “if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body” (Jas 3:2). “And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. 7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison” (Jas 3:6–8).
The fact is the wide-spread use of words is going around all the time and it is leading people to certain places.
Paul says that their throat is an open grave, quoting from Ps 5:9.
The inner corruption comes out through the mouth and it has deadly effects, which is what the grave represents.
Man’s speech can be fatal.
They use their tongues to deceive.
Ps 5:9 say they flatter with their tongue. Even kind words may hide an insidious purpose. Flattery and praise are tools for self-advancement. Man uses words to trick others to their own advantage.
People have no problem speaking falsehood, telling lies to cover up and avoid getting into trouble, or to make themselves look good.
The last line in v. 13 is quoted from Ps 140:3 and once again speaks of the lips being full of deadly poison like the venom of snakes.
The destructive nature of our speech is demonic and deadly.
V. 14 is quoted from Ps 10:7 and teaches us that our speech is not just sinful once in a while. They are full of curses and bitterness.
The default use of the tongue is to convey resentment and to cut people down.
Think of the speech of our media.
It is exactly as Scripture describes. They sound very nice and make people feel good. They seem very compassionate and loving.
But there is death in their speech. There is deception in what they say.
It is not that these people say a lot of bad things, but that what they say sends people into an eternity separated from God.
3. All Have Sinned in Their Way (Romans 3:15-17)
Once what has been in the mind is conveyed through the mouth, and the next step would be the action of injuring others.
Their feet are then swift to shed blood.
This seems to be a quotation from Prov 1:16, but verses 15-17 are from Isa 59:7-8.
They have murderous intentions.
It is not just talking about gangs and secret societies. It stems from what was spoken that is sending people on a path of death.
And “in their paths are ruin and misery.”
This is not saying that they feel miserable all the time; rather, they are the ones inflicting ruin and misery in the lives of others.
Similarly, they have not known the way of peace is not saying that they do not experience peace, although that may be true, but rather they give other people no peace.
The violent, savage behavior of human beings is what Paul is after.
And when people are not at peace with God (5:1), and they don’t know the God of peace (15:33), they will not be at peace with other people (12:18; 14:19).
4. All Have No Fear of God (Romans 3:18)
This verse sums up why all men are unrighteous.
They don’t fear God and this quote is taken from Ps 36:1. The fear of the Lord is used regularly in the OT to describe true godliness of people who really seek the Lord.
The fear of the Lord includes at least three things:
1. Reverence for God
2. Submission to God’s Word
3. Dread of God’s Displeasure
“Sin at its heart…degods God; it rejects his rule over our lives” (Schreiner).
We may think of sin in terms of social ills or caused by a lack of education or poverty or man’s insatiable greed for power.
But the Bible says that it is the failure to fear and reverence God.
Sin certainly has devastating social consequences but at its roots it is theological in nature. Sin is a rejection of God, a refusal to acknowledge God, to know God, to honor God, to thank God, and to fear God.
This is Scripture’s teaching on total depravity.
This is opposite of what someone like Anne Frank who thinks that humanity is basically good.
But then, there are those who acknowledge that mankind has problems but it is because they are sick. But the Bible teaches that man is not good, not even one.
Now the doctrine of total depravity does not mean that all are equally bad, nor that one is as bad as it is possible to be, but that every single part of man is corrupted: in his mind, speech, feet, and eyes.
And that by nature and by choice, they would choose the sinful way.
And therefore all are under slavery to sin and therefore all are guilty.
II. All are Under the Law’s Indictment (Romans 3:19-20)
Having gone to the OT for support that what he wrote is biblical, Paul now draws out the implication of universal sin.
A. Every Mouth Silenced and Held Accountable to God (3:19)
Paul begins with “Now we know that whatever the law says,” this refers to the series of OT quotations he made, which we saw are predominantly from Psalms and Isaiah, rather than the first five books of Moses that we commonly call the law.
That is usually what Paul is referring to when he uses this word “law.” But in this context, the “law” simply refers to the OT as a whole.
So Paul is saying, “Since we now know what the OT says,” it is saying to those under the law, meaning, the Jews.
The purpose of the giving of the Scriptures is so that “every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.
When it comes to every mouth stopped, we have seen repeatedly that the Gentiles are without excuse (1:20), the Jews are also without excuse (2:1). When the charges are brought before them, they have nothing to say in their defence.
All of humanity will stand before God the righteous Judge and the whole world will be held accountable (liable to prosecution), held liable for their willful and inexcusable violations of His will, and then awaiting the just sentence of condemnation that their sins deserve.
Once again, when we hear an all encompassing indictment like this with no exception, our minds start to think about the “good” people around us. The caring neighbor, the sacrificial colleague, loving parents.
A simple illustration
Even pirates on a pirate ship have law and order: submission to authority, respect for one another and their property, orderly distribution of their plunder, division of labor for carrying out tasks for proper running of the ship, etc. But the whole ship is violating maritime law.
Given the right provocation, man’s depravity knows no bounds.
Even as believers, we know the power of sin is real. We struggle everyday to make decisions pleasing to the Lord.
This is the whole issue with sanctification.
Even for a believer, this struggle becomes apparent when God approaches a specific part of your life or values where you want your own way.
We see this demonstrated in our Lord’s encounter with the rich young ruler. He was good and right in every way. But our Lord says, “One thing you still lack.”
He puts His finger on that one thing the ruler was unwilling to give up.
When the Lord says to you, “One thing you still lack,” what will be your response?
B. No Works Can Justify a Person (Romans 3:20)
This is the conclusion of the entire section, that no works of the law is effective to justify a human being.
We saw this word “justify” back in Romans 2:13.
The word justify (dikaio) is from the same root as righteous (dikaios) and righteousness (dikaiosune). The word “justify” means to be declared right or righteous before God.
The law is not meant to justify anyone; it was never designed to justify anyone. Rather, the law is meant to reveal to man how far short he is from God’s perfect standard.
We would otherwise not have known what God requires had He not show it to us.
Conclusion
Therefore, we should stop justifying ourselves, humbly acknowledge the truth and listen to the Gospel rather than continuing in our own way, doing our own thing.
May God give us the grace to respond that way.
Reflection Questions
How have you responded to the biblical teaching of universal condemnation?
Is there that “one thing you lack” that God has been convicting you about? How should you respond by God’s grace?
According to Romans 3:19-20, what is the purpose of the law?
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