Romans 3:9-31 "The Gospel Remedy for Bad News

Read: Romans 3:9-31

            People of God, I want to share a story with you this morning. This story happened to me last winter on Calvin College’s campus. I was crossing the campus from the seminary to go to the bookstore to get my books for the Spring semester. It was a beautiful winter afternoon with the fresh snow gathered upon the branches of the trees. As I was gazing up into the beauty of the trees; two men approached me, one with video camera asking me this, “Sir, can we have 5 minutes of your time by asking you 2 questions?” Since I wasn’t in a hurry, I decided to listen to what they had to ask. So they proceeded to ask these two questions and I felt very confident in my answer.

            These two questions have changed my thinking about things and my life. These 2 questions are questions that I often like to ask of people as well; whether they are people I know such as the students in the youth group or members in the church back home or even if they are complete strangers that I meet in the mall or on college campuses like they were doing. I would go up to people and ask them if I can have five minutes of their time asking them 2 questions. Most of them say that I can.

            So the first question I ask is, “What comforts you in life?” And just to summarize their answers, they often reply with: “my financial situation” or “my friends and family” or my house or my dog, cat and pets; knowing the fact that I can go home and sleep in a bed tonight; my house; etc. etc. etc.

            And then I ask them the second question I was asked, “What comforts you in death? What comforts you in death?” Now this question seems to make people uneasy because they really don’t have an answer; in fact, most respond with, “I don’t know.” And to summarize other responses to this; “I guess my body will be taken care of by my family; that is comforting to me.” Or “I guess I’ve been a good person and have done good things in my life; so I guess I’ll be rewarded for these good things by going to the good place when I die.”

            People of God, I want to ask these two questions of you this morning and I want you to take just a moment to answer them: “What comforts you in life?” and “what comforts you in death?”

            For those of you have studied the CRC’s confession called the Heidelberg Catechism and know it; you should be familiar with these answers. It begins with combining these two questions asking, “What is your only comfort in life and in death?” And the answer is absolutely phenomenal,

• “That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.

• He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.

• He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven;

• in fact, all things must work together for my salvation

• Because I belong to Him, Christ, by His Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for Him.”

Now this is comfort! Belonging to Jesus gives us comfort in life and in our death. But how do we get to know this comfort? What must we do to know this comfort? Well the 2^nd question of the Heidelberg Catechism asks this also, “What must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort?” And the answer is that 3 things must be known:

• First, how great my sin and misery are
• Second, how I am set free from all my sins and misery
• Third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance

People of God, there are three simple, glorious and life changing truths found in this amazing document and in this passage. In vs 9-20 we learn of humanities universal need; in vs 21-31 we learn of God’s all-sufficient remedy for that need; and then there is something mentioned 8 times which teaches us how humanity receives God’s remedy.

            The first truth that we find in this passage is from vs 9-20 and here Paul shows us humanities universal need. These verses are apart of a section that starts in 1:18; which paints a terrible picture of humanity in their completely lost situation due to their sinfulness. You see, before sin entered into the world; Adam and Eve could live in the presence of God, being in constant communion with Him. However, when they sinned; they were banned from His presence because our holy and just God cannot be in the presence of sin. So the presence of God was over here; then there is a chasm now; and on the other side of the chasm there is all of humanity. This chasm was created by our sinfulness and our sinfulness has no way to bridge this chasm. Therefore, without a bridge across; the wrath of God is placed upon us condemning us to eternal life in hell.

And this is what Paul is getting at when He begins in vs 9 saying that “Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin.” All of humanity is over here and the wrath of God is on all humanity, condemning them to hell.

Paul mentions Jews and Gentiles specifically because he was anticipating some objections from them. The Gentiles thought that their morally good deeds would earn them enough righteousness to be found innocent. Both groups of people thought that they could earn enough righteousness by the things they did. And the Jews thought that their religious activities would earn them enough righteousness so they would be found ‘not guilty’.

And people of God, we often think like this and act like this falling into one of these two camps a lot. We think like the Jews that because we have given more than 10%, we have gone on over 25 mission trips before we were age 25, we have preached the Gospel in many churches across America and the world; we have led people to Christ and study His Word daily that we should be considered ‘not guilty’.

      Or maybe we think and act like Gentiles did because after all, we did have lunch with 3 homeless people this past week; we helped an elderly lady at the grocery store get some groceries; therefore, those should get us enough righteousness so that we will be found ‘not guilty’ right?!

Wrong says Paul! Take a look at vs 10-18 with me a minute; here he is quoting many Old Testament passages so that the Jews and Gentiles and so we also; don’t think this is some new teaching of Paul; starting in vs 10:

• “There is no one righteous, and just in case you missed tht all are under sin and all are under the wrath of God, “there is no one righteous, not even one;”

• And sin has tainted our mind so much that “there is no one who understands”; we can’t understand salvation by ourselves; therefore we attempt to gain it ourselves.

• And because sin has tainted our mind so that we can’t understand; therefore there is no way “no one who seeks God.”

• All have turned away, they have together become worthless;

• there is no one who does good, not even one.
• So you think that you’re a morally good person; well your wrong. Not even one person is good says Paul

Now get this:

• Their throats are open graves—just ponder this image for a minute. A grave is a place where a lifeless body is. And an open grave must smell like rotting flesh. That is what their throats are; that is what comes from them—the smell of dead, rotting, flesh.

• their tongues practice deceit meaning that no truth can be found in what they say.

• The poison of vipers is on their lips­—everything they say is damaging. It is a poison and harmful to everyone.

• Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness—there is no room for anything good or encouraging to come from their mouth

• Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways,

• And the way of peace they do no know—if you’d follow trail of someone like this; you’d know where they went because there would be bloodshed and misery.

• And finally Paul says that “There is no fear of God before their eyes—their vision is completely blocked by their own sin with no fear or reverence for God.

What an awful picture! This is terrible; absolutely gruesome picture of humanity.

            So let’s continue; vs 19,”Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, this makes sense…so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.” Paul is speaking of judgment day here. Every person in the world will be held accountable for all their sin that they have committed in their life through word, deed or thought. It is a necessity that all sin we commit must be punished.

            And then in vs 20 Paul concludes his argument that he started back in 1:18 until now; “Therefore, in light of what I have just said from 1:18-3:20 no one just in case you’ve missed it before, I’ll say it again will be declared righteous in His [God’s] sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.”

            You see, the morally good person and the person who practices the religiously right activities won’t be declared righteous when God holds them accountable on judgment day. This is because they were observing the law by relying on the good things that they have done to try and bridge this chasm. Therefore, they will only bring wrath upon themselves just as chapter 4:15 says: “The Law brings wrath. And where there is no law, there is no sin.” Observation the law by our morally good deeds or religious activities will not bridge this chasm; it won’t even begin to bridge the chasm—it will only bring silence on judgment day.

            And since the law doesn’t work to save us; many people say, “What’s the point of the 10 Commandments then? What does it even do for us if we can’t keep them to be saved?” Therefore many people want to simply throw the Law out; and the church has listened.

            I remember when I was younger; probably 10-15 years ago in Church we would hear the 10 Commandments read every single Sunday morning and evening and then we would have a time of confession of sin and shortcomings for not being able to live up to the Law. And then we would hear from God’s Word assuring us that our sin has been pardoned. Where did that go? Why did the church lose that?

            I personally, think it’s because of the post-modern culture telling us that we are good people in and of ourselves. Therefore, people don’t want to hear about their sin; mainly because they don’t want to hear or believe that they are sinners in need of a Savior because it makes them feel uncomfortable. And there are many people come to church each week to get a ‘feel good’ feeling and to sit comfortably not wanting to hear about the seriousness of their sin.

But you see, we can’t think that way about the Law. Paul says that the law exists to show us our sin because we can’t keep it. Therefore because we can’t keep it, it clearly shows us our need for a Savior. So this is the wonderful purpose of the law; this is what the law does for us—it shows us our sin and it points us to Christ.

            This is humanities universal need—we are over here in need of a bridge across the chasm to get to the presence of God. And remember that this chasm was created by our sinfulness and our sinfulness cannot bridge this chasm.

            There has got to be some other way right? Well, yes! And this is where we get to God’s all-sufficient remedy. And this is where Paul turns the corner in this letter in vs 21 saying “But now…” after painting for us a picture of the sinful condition of man with no hope of bridging the chasm by ourselves; Paul says, “But now a righteousness from God, apart from Law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.” This is beautiful. There is a righteousness that is not of ourselves—a divine righteousness! When we hear things like this, we should be ecstatic over this righteousness that we are able to have; we should be jumping up and down! And there are four things we need to notice about this righteousness.

            First, it is from God. Verses 21, 22, 25 and 26 say that it is from God. Actually, vs 21-31 is about what God has done for us. And this righteousness from God is able to bridge the chasm. It is righteousness that we cannot earn by ourselves being a morally good person or by being a religious person—it is different than that—it is a divine righteousness. This is the righteousness that all of humanity needed.

            Second, it is apart from Law which doesn’t mean that the Law is useless as we have just learned from vs 20 and because just after this Paul says that the Law testifies to this righteousness meaning once again that the Law points us to Christ. And then again in vs 31 Paul returns to this subject of Law. The Law clearly had value in the Old Testament period and continues to have value in the 21^st century. This is why it was read in church; because it would show people their sin and then point us to Christ. The law was never meant to save; therefore we needed a righteousness which was apart from the law.     

Third, it has been made known. Formerly, in 1:18 only the wrath of God had been made known. And in vs 21 is the contrast saying, “But now a righteousness from God has been made known.” It is no longer that we are stuck without a bridge over the chasm. What we have is righteousness from God that is apart from law, the Prophets and the Law have testified about this; therefore it has been made known to us. We have no excuse to not know about it. We have no excuse not to know about this bridge.

Fourth, this righteousness was testified by the Law and prophets. Paul includes this because this righteousness was not a new concept. It wasn’t new when Christ was born; it isn’t new now. It is a concept that was there even before the beginning. And all throughout the Old Testament Prophets and Psalms and all the Old Testament books we can find in them, how they point to this righteousness Paul speaks of.

But then the question comes, how was this bridge even made possible if it wasn’t from us? Even if there was a bridge over this chasm to get us into the presence of God, we still couldn’t be in God’s presence because our holy God can’t be in the presence of sin. Therefore, something needed to happen to our sin. There needed to be an atoning sacrifice for our sin.

This is what vs 25 speaks of: “God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement…” A simple definition of atonement can be this: we are now “at one with God”. Jesus Christ has made us at one with God. Before we were at one with God; we were enemies of God; we were opposed to everything God-like; we didn’t seek God; no one was righteous; no one did good. But you see, Jesus Christ has atoned for our sin by the shedding of His blood. Blood needed to be shed because there can be no forgiveness of sin and no atonement of sin without blood being shed (Heb 9:22)   

And this isn’t a new concept either; this goes back all the way back the Israelite time in the Old Testament. The Israelites would have to sacrifice two goats to make atonement. The one goat would be slaughtered as a sin offering and the other goat would be presented alive before the Lord to be used for making atonement by putting a leash on it and sending it out into the wilderness as a scapegoat—a representation of their sin being carried or taken away. These two goats represented that the people of God were sorry for their sin and that their sin had been taken away from them. Their sin had been atoned for.

This is what Jesus Christ is for us—the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” He not only bridged the chasm with His divine righteousness; but He also satisfied God’s wrath against sin—therefore making us at one with God.

This is God’s all-sufficient remedy for humanities universal need: the righteousness of Jesus Christ has been imputed to us and our sin has been imputed to Jesus Christ. God the Father made Him who had no sin (Jesus) to be sin for us; so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).  

            People of God, this is a wonderful remedy for our need. This is comfort. This is good news. So then, what is our response to this bridge that has been made? Matt Chandler in his book The Explicit Gospel says that there are only two responses; and these two responses make the Gospel a dangerous Gospel.

Response #1 is that we send our own righteousness that we have gained ourselves through our morally good actions and/or our religiously correct activities to God the Father hoping that our own righteousness will be good enough to justify us; satisfying His wrath against our sin and now making at one with Him.

And Response #2 is that we receive God’s remedy through faith. These are the only two responses available to us and this is why the Gospel is so dangerous—we can either send our own righteousness to God or we can receive the righteousness that we are offered.

            And the apostle Paul clearly has taught us that there is no one righteous enough to satisfy God’s wrath and to make atonement for their own sin; therefore relying on our own righteousness as response #1 suggests, is out of the picture. However, there are many people who still choose this response. There are many who think that their only comfort in life and in death is the good deeds that they have done or the religious activities they do. But those who choose this response will not satisfy God’s wrath and will not have atonement for their sin.

And those who don’t receive this righteousness will spend eternity apart from God’s presence; condemning themselves to hell where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt 8:12). Where even the worm doesn’t die and where the smoldering smoke goes up forever and ever.

Therefore, the bottom line is that if we seek our own way of bridging the chasm; we are literally stepping over Jesus and into the pit of hell by our own doing; literally stepping over Jesus into the pit of hell by our own doing.

            Therefore, the only logical response is the 2^nd response which is mentioned throughout this passage on 8 different occasions in vs 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30 and 31. And this is the only acceptable response to God’s remedy for humanities need is nothing less than a heart of faith.

            We must have faith in Jesus Christ and faith in His blood. Faith is the principle which excludes boasting. Faith is justified apart form observing the law. And faith does not nullify the law; rather faith upholds the law because the law shows us our sin and points us the Christ. And in Jesus Christ is where we place our full faith. This is the only place where our faith should be.

            People of God, this is the good news of the Bible. This is the Gospel remedy for bad news. This is the comfort that we can have in life and in death. But before we heard the good news and for us to fully appreciate the good news; we had to hear the bad news even if it made us uncomfortable. We must hear the bad news that we are sinners in need of a savior or we will constantly look to everything else, including our own righteous deeds for salvation.

The bad news is that in our totally depraved condition, we can’t earn salvation. The good news then is that  Jesus became all that He hated, namely sin, and drank the full cup of the Father’s wrath so that we might receive what we did not deserve—salvation by grace.

And this is the sacrifice that we have come to celebrate, the sacrifice that we give thanks for and the sacrifice that we remember. For on the cross, Jesus Christ has taken away the sin of the world and has provided the righteousness that we need to stand before God the Father. And we receive this righteousness through faith as we fully rely on His grace for salvation.