Romans, Part 1

Well, good afternoon again, brethren, and I do want to thank those of you who last week told me you were ready for the Book of Romans, and it read Romans 1-3, and then we didn't go over it. There were several of you who mentioned that, because two weeks ago I did give an introduction to the Book of Romans, and then thinking that we might be a little low in our attendance last week, I didn't go ahead with the first section here of the Book of Romans, but I do want to do that today. And again, I hope, at least in some ways, some of you have already read Romans 1 and 2 and 3. And I don't know whether I was very bright in saying that I was going to cover the Book of Romans in four sermons. That may have been a little bit ambitious, although I'm going to try. I'm going to try because I see, as we mentioned in our introduction, you can see that the first section, chapters 1, 2, and 3, which we'll cover today, primarily are focused on telling everyone that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That would be applicable to not only the Jews, not only the Gentiles, which would be obviously everyone else, all of mankind. And I guess the title for this would be, All Have Sinned. But we have that section, and then you have a section from chapter 4 to 8. That actually tells us how it is that God will give mankind salvation. And chapter 9 through 11 is, in a sense, kind of another topic that Paul also adds to this book that describes his plan.

The plan of God and how Israel is involved, and how not only Israel, but those outside of Israel are involved in that divine plan. And it's amazing when you read through chapter 9 of Romans how much God says, you know, this is just the way I'm doing it.

This is my selection. This is my option. You know, I'm the one who has the prerogative to do it however I'd like. And of course, Paul was wanting the people there in Rome who made up that church to understand that, but also he wants all of us to understand that God's blessing in giving us understanding is just...

It's amazing, but it is at his direction. It's not something that we agree with, but we don't initiate it. It's something that he brings about. And so it's wonderful to be able to see that. And then the final section, chapters 12 through 16, or you could describe this Christian living. There are a number of different directives there about how to live, what to do. We'll cover those in a sermon here in the future. But I do want to just begin the sermon today, as I said, with the title, All Have Sinned, with a statement that I hope that as we read this book that Paul wrote to the church in Rome, never having been there.

What kind of background did Paul have? The Apostle Paul, if we read through, as we did last summer, I think it was, or summer before, whenever that was, we went through that. The Apostle Paul had a very interesting life. He was clearly an Israelite. He was clearly a Jew. He was a Pharisee. He was highly schooled. He was highly educated in the law. He was a zealot, as he said. He persecuted the church until Jesus Christ intervened in his life.

And he says, I'm going to call you to be, now with the background that he had in Judaism, obviously God would call him to be the Apostle to the Gentiles. That's exactly what he did. Even though he had all of the schooling that the Jews were familiar with, God called Paul to be the Apostle to the Gentiles. And he would go first to Antioch and later up into the areas of Turkey and Ephesus, he would go up into Greece and to Corinth and Thessalonica, and later he would go to Rome.

See, ultimately he'd get to Rome. But how did he get to Rome? Well, not like he wanted. So we read here in Romans 1 and in Romans 15, Paul was writing the book to the people in Rome. He hadn't been there. He said, I wanted to come, but I've been hindered. I've not been allowed to go. And he said, I hope to go, not only to Rome, but on to Spain. That was what he said in chapter 15, that that's what I want to do.

But I don't know exactly how that turned out, because Paul didn't go to Rome when he eventually went. He didn't go on a yacht. He didn't go in a limousine. He didn't go on his own. He went there as a prisoner. He had gone to Jerusalem. He was taken into captivity. And ultimately, he would be taken to Rome, but in very unfavorable circumstances, except as God, of course, blessed and allowed him to do that.

But what we find in this actually very complex, somewhat lengthy book of Paul's is that in no way does he denigrate or make void the law of God at all. Obviously, in his other writings, the law is upheld. We know from the Apostle John in his writings. We're familiar with 1 John 3, verse 4. The transgression of the law is what identifies and helps us know what is sin.

We also see in the book of James. James talks about it is not the hearers, not those who just happen to know, but the doers of the Word, those who are doing the perfect law of liberty. We find John supporting the law. James Peter also supports that in his writing. And obviously, Jesus said in Matthew 5, verse 17, that I didn't come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. And he told the young ruler in Matthew 19 that, you know, what should you do to have eternal life or enter into eternal life?

Well, he said, keep the commandments. And then he began to enumerate at least about half of them. And so nowhere is the law denigrated or abolished. And yet, some people, when they read what Paul wrote, especially here in the book of Romans, you know, they find conflict with that. And we want to be able to not only understand that, mostly they find a conflict between law and grace or maybe between law and faith. They can't figure out exactly how do those all fit together. But as we study the book of Romans, we need to keep in mind that Paul is obviously supporting the law, but there's more to it than that.

There's more that he wanted the Jewish Christians to know, and there's more that he wanted the Gentile Christians to know, and there's more that he wants every one of us to fully understand. And so I want us to begin here in Romans chapter 7. I'll eventually get to Romans 1 through 3 here. But in Romans 7, in connection with the law, a couple of verses that we ought to keep in mind.

Romans chapter 7, starting in verse 7, he says, What should we say? Should we say that the law is sin? He says, by no means. He goes on to say, Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known what sin was. If I would not have known what it is to covet, if the law had said, or had not said, you shall not covet. And so here he clearly defines and shows what the law helps us understand. It helps us know what sin is.

It helps us know what it is to be out of bounds as far as God's law is concerned. But it also gives us, if we back up to chapter 3, chapter 3, it shows us that the law helps us to understand and know what sin is. In verse 20, chapter 3 verse 20, For no human being will be justified in his sight by deeds prescribed by the law. There's no way that we could obey enough.

There's no way that we could earn salvation. Any human being could never earn salvation from God. But he says, but through the law does come the knowledge of sin. And so he clearly not only wants people to understand the value of the law, but the importance of the teaching about the way of life, that the law guides us in. All of us desire to keep the law because we desire to turn from sin. We desire to respect the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Paul even again mentions that in numerous chapters here as we'll go through in the next few weeks. But I did want to just kind of set that stage before we go into this. We should be reminded again of the overview of the book of Romans. The book of Romans talks about, first of all, how man receives salvation from God. I don't know if I covered these in exactly that order last time, but how man receives salvation from God.

Secondly, it does talk about the righteousness of God. It's a righteousness that we are told to seek. We're told to seek first the kingdom of God and what? And His righteousness. That's what we're told to seek, and so it explains the righteousness of God. And thirdly, it explains how God imputes His righteousness to us. He does that through faith. That's what Paul is going to outline here in this book that he is writing to this congregation in Rome. So, as we begin to read here in chapter 1, you read a number of verses.

Actually, we can focus on verse 16. Chapter 1, verse 16 says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. That gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith. To the Jew first, and then to the Greek. So, Paul is actually framing much of what he says in this book, and actually in many of his other books in the New Testament.

He's framing it from the standpoint of certain of the members of the church had a Jewish background. They were clearly Israelites. They had certain connection to God in that they believed that they were the children of God, the people of God. They believed that they had a genealogy that would go back to Abraham. And sometimes they misrepresented that. Sometimes they misused that.

And he also knew that there were many non-Israelites. He calls them either Gentiles, he calls them Greeks. Clearly, it would be everybody else other than those who are considered Israelites or Jews. Jews being kind of a reference term here for an Israelite. So I want to just point out, as Paul does here in verse 16, that I'm not ashamed of the Gospel, which is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, both the Jew who has faith and the Greek who has faith. Now, why does he make such a point of that?

Why is he addressing kind of two different segments of the Church? Well, the facts are that the Jews, with some of the advantages that they felt that they had, thought they were better than the Gentiles. Now, this is a pretty human operation here. A lot of times people try to make themselves seem or look or act or feel better than others. And so the Jews, with what advantages they had been given, they often looked down on the Gentiles.

And on the reverse of that, the Gentiles, they often, because they grew up, the culture that they lived in was essentially a Greek culture. It's a Greek culture that came from the Greek Empire and then leading from the Greek Empire into the Roman Empire. You have Greek influence today in society. And so actually the Gentiles, who were a part of the Church, also felt that they were better than the Jews. And so you can see that's part of the conflict that Paul is addressing. But what he's going to say here is that all of you, Jew or Greek, can receive the righteousness from God through faith. That's what he was going to emphasize here in the beginning of these first three chapters in Romans. I want us to look at one other verse if we back up to 1 Corinthians 1, because this is another one of Paul's books. And actually, in 1 Corinthians, he writes actually correcting a number of problems that the Church there in Corinth was having. The Church in Corinth was in Greece. That's where Greece involves the city of Corinth, Cenkria, Athens, Philippi, Thessalonica. Even the Bereans would have to be considered clearly Greeks because they lived in Greece at the time. And yet, what I want to point out here is what Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 1. Now, I'm not going to go through the entire explanation of this section, but in 1 Corinthians 1, in verse 10, he talks about divisions that were a problem there in Corinth as well.

But in answering the questions about division, he says in verse 21, "...for since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God, through wisdom God decided that through the foolishness of our preaching, our proclamation, to save those who believe, those who have faith." Verse 22, he says, and here he gives some signs about or some explanation about his understanding of the difference between the background of the Jew and the background of the Gentile. He says in verse 22, Jews demand a sign or signs, and Greeks desire wisdom. He says their backgrounds lends itself to both of these kind of misdirections, is what he's saying. The Jews demand signs, the Greeks demand wisdom, but we, talking about he and Peter and the church, we proclaim Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called. Those who are called, both Jew and Greek, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. So here, he lays a groundwork in 1 Corinthians, which he actually wrote before he wrote Romans, to give more understanding. Paul was actually a brilliant man. He obviously went through all kinds of trouble. He was willing to endure all kinds of affliction. As I said, he was taken to Rome as a prisoner. He endured imprisonment at different times in his life. And yet he clearly understood what the truth of God, to those who were called, meant. And here he describes the Jews demanding a sign and the Greeks desiring wisdom. Now, I want to be able to explain this a little more. I think some of the commentaries, I have read through numerous ones of them that describe this. And in Barnes' commentary, in describing, you know, why did the Jews, why were they looking for a sign?

Well, he describes this. He says it's simply a characteristic of the Jewish people. That God had manifested himself to them by miracles and wonders in a remarkable manner in times past. And they greatly prided themselves on that fact and always demanded it when a new messenger, any new messenger, came to them, professing to be sent from God. So that's why, and you can read these in Matthew. There are several in Matthew and Mark and Luke.

There are several different incidents where the Jews come to Jesus and they say, show us a sign. We want to see a sign. Now, why did they do that? Well, you know, there was kind of a sign when the Red Sea opened. It was kind of a sign when manna showed up. There was kind of a sign when rocks opened up and water came out. You know, there were miracle after miracle occurring in the lives of the people of Israel that the Jews would be very familiar with. And so whenever Jesus came on the scene, well, we just want to see a sign.

Of course, we're all familiar. Jesus said, I'm not going to show you any sign, except the sign of the prophet Jonah. You know, he did describe that. I guess Jonah would be another sign. This is why the Jews identified with that so much.

And so, you know, they expected the Messiah, as Jesus came, that he should come with the exhibition of stupendous signs and wonders from heaven. They looked for the display of amazing power in his coming. They anticipated that he would deliver them from their enemies by sheer power. And they, in a sense, were greatly offended that he came, you know, as a humble and as a lowly servant. See, I've often wondered, you know, why did the Jews... I mean, this seems crazy to not accept who Jesus was. But see, they were looking for something different. One of the other commentaries says that they were certainly offended that the life of Jesus would end as it did.

He'd be crucified. He'd be hung on a tree, which was an accursed thing as far as they were concerned. And yet, whenever he came in a meek and lowly manner and as a servant, that just wasn't something they were looking for. And so, as Paul describes it, if the Jews are looking for a sign, then what sign were they looking for?

Well, they were looking for a sign of the Messiah to overpower the Romans. That's what they wanted to see. But that, of course, didn't happen. So that's why he says the Jews require a sign. But why is it that the Greeks, the Gentiles, why is it that they would be so wrapped up in wisdom? Well, that was really what the Greek culture was about. They had all of their poets, all of their... the different gods that they worship, the different idols, the whole culture. Many centuries before this, or at least several centuries before this, and then throughout the first century, the beginning section of the Roman Empire, you had great influence of people who relied on, as the Jews relied on the law and what they feel like they had from God, the Greeks relied on wisdom, human wisdom.

And actually, you see this, and again, describing this out of some of the commentaries, the Greeks sought wisdom. And originally, the word that's used here for wisdom meant a wise man in a good sense. But it became to mean a man with a clever mind and cunning tongue, a mental acrobat, a man who with glittering and persuasive rhetoric could make the worse appear the better reason. It meant a man who could spend endless hours discussing hair-splitting trifles, a man who had no real interest in solutions, but who simply gloried in the stimulus of the mental hike.

See, that was the description of what the Greeks and the Greek culture promoted. Human wisdom or things that were funny or things that were, as it says here, trifles. Even he goes ahead in writing about this, Dio Chrysostom described the Greek wise men this way. It says, they croak like frogs in a marsh. They're the most wretched of men because, though ignorant, they think themselves wise.

Though they are like peacocks showing off their reputation and the number of their pupils, as peacocks do their tails. That was how they were written about. That was how it was viewed. And actually, if we would go here to Acts 17, I will try to help lay a foundation for understanding why the Greeks, why they thought that they actually could look down upon the Jewish people who were part of the church.

Here in Acts 17, you see Paul going to Athens, and he's walking around. In verse 16 of Acts 17, Paul was waiting in Athens. He was distressed to see the city was full of idols. So we argued in the synagogue with the Jews. And yet, verse 18, some of the Epicureans and the Stoic philosophers debated with him, and they said, what does this babbler have to say? And others said, well, he's presenting a... he's a proclaimer of foreign divinities, foreign gods.

This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus Christ and the resurrection. But in verse 19, they took him and brought him into the Areopagus and asked him, well, we want to know what this new teaching is that you are presenting. Verse 20, it sounds rather strange to us, and we want to know what you have to say. Because in verse 21, all of the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling and hearing something new.

See, that was what these commentaries were describing about what it was that the Greek world focused on. Their own wisdom, their own philosophy, man's ideas, many of which, and maybe we could say most of which, and perhaps you could even say all of which, if they weren't based on the word of God, were idolatrous. They were all just wasting time, just as the description is of splitting hairs, hair-splitting trifles. So, I wanted to mention that before we get into this first few chapters, because the first chapter actually seems to be directed to the Gentiles, to the Greeks, to this section of the church that had a background that was in the Greek world or the Greek culture, and why it was that they looked down on the Jews, and yet Paul is going to tell them something about their own way.

He's going to tell them that you Gentiles are wrong. In chapter 2, he's going to tell the Jews that you Jews are wrong. In chapter 3, he's going to say everybody is wrong. We're all familiar with Romans 3, verse 23, where it says, all of sin did fall in short of the glory of God. See, that's what he's going to come to a conclusion. But let's go to Romans chapter 1. Paul in verse 1, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he proclaimed or promised beforehand through his prophets and the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his son, who was descended from David according to the flesh.

He was declared to be the son of God with power according to the spirit of both holiness, by resurrection from the dead Jesus Christ, our Lord. He had something to tell them. Like we said, he'd not been to Rome. He wasn't directly familiar with many of the people. He may have had some contact with some, but he had not visited there.

And we see down in verse 8, he says, I thank God through Jesus Christ for all of you because your faith is proclaimed throughout the world. See, he, in this section from chapter or verse 8 on down to verse 15, says, I'd wanted to come, but I'd not been able, and yet I do have something to share with you. I do want to be able to give you a spiritual gift, or at least to mutually share in your faith, because he understood that, you know, their faith was what, in a sense, made them stand out, and he certainly was a man of faith as well.

But down in verse 18, we read verse 16, and in verse 18, it says, the wrath of God. Here he's talking. You can say he's talking to all of mankind, because this goes back to the days of Adam and Eve. But directly, it seems to be talking to the Gentile world, talking to the Gentiles who were a part of the church there. It says, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. Verse 20, ever since creation of the world, his eternal power in divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things that he has made. And so mankind, all of you Gentiles, and even all of mankind going back to the time of Adam, are without excuse. For though man knew God, you know, they had been exposed to the creation, they had been exposed to the Creator. They had a certain experience with God, but they did not honor God, they did not honor him as God, and they did not give thanks to him, as we emphasized last weekend. To acknowledge in God the Creator and giving thanks to him is, in essence, a renewed mind. Here he's saying that when people don't acknowledge the Creator, when they don't acknowledge the need to thank him for their very life, that becomes a problem. Says though they knew God, they didn't honor him as God, they didn't give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. And claiming to be wise, so here he's talking to the Greeks who focus on wisdom, and being so wise, and being so flippant of tongue, he says that's not impressive to God. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human, or birds, or animals, or reptiles. And therefore, in verse 24, this is what had begun long before there was any definition of Jew or Gentile. See, the Jew and Gentile definition only would come in after Abraham and after his family, ultimately the Israelites, and ultimately Judah as a part of Israel. That's when that would occur. This would be many hundreds of years at least, perhaps a thousand, I better just say a thousand at least, after the very beginning of creation. But it says, because people wouldn't recognize God, because they wouldn't thank God, it says God, in verse 24, gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie. And they worshipped and served the creation, the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forevermore. To hear you actually see a reference back to not believing the truth from God. That could go back even to Adam and Eve. They didn't believe what God said. Now, we understand they were deceived. God allowed them to be exposed to a powerful force, a force that would be a liar, a force that would not tell the truth, a force that hated God and was actually the adversary of God and would begin at that point to corrupt the heart and the minds of men. And yet it says, because they exchanged truth from God, truth about God for a lie, and began to worship and serve the creature rather than the creator, God had given them. In verse 26, for that reason, God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural. In the same way, the men giving up natural intercourse with women were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and received in their persons the due penalty for their error. In verse 28, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. Now, why was Paul telling the Greeks, the Gentiles, who were a part of the church, why was he telling them that?

Well, he wanted them to understand that their exalting or exaltation of human wisdom and doing things that just seemed right to you, all of that is wrong. That leads to a futile mind. The descriptions you have are a futile mind, a senseless mind. I think in the King James it says God gave them up to a reprobate mind. And in verse 28, since they didn't want to keep the knowledge of God, God gave them up to a debased mind. See, now a debased mind comes to some conclusions that are absolutely wrong. We find that in this world today. People's minds, affected by not only the influence of the devil, but just people's carnality, people's willingness to trust themselves instead of having faith in God. Faith in God to tell them what's right and what's wrong.

And as I read this, I thought, I think it's interesting to see, and of course he's going to go ahead and enumerate, maybe we'll race through these. Verse 29, it says, Men's minds were filled with every kind of wickedness and evil, and covetousness and malice, and full of envy and murder and strife, and deceit and craftiness. And they become gossips and slanderers and God-haters, and insolent and haughty and boastful, and inventors of evil, and rebellious toward parents, and foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless.

He says in verse 32, they know God's decree that those who practice these things ought to die, yet they not only do them, but they applaud others who practice them. In many ways, that's the world that we live in today. Not only being able to identify anything from God's standpoint, but applauding these kind of unrighteous and licentious and wicked acts. And yet, when you see the descriptions of a feudal, and a senseless, and a debased, and actually Paul will call it later in Romans 7, a carnal mind. Whenever you see that, the description that came to my mind is that not acknowledging God and not thanking God leads to a mind that is not sound. Unsound would clearly be the description of coming to the conclusions that any of these things you see written from verse 26 down to 32, any of those things have any value. And this is what Paul wanted to emphasize. He says, you Gentiles, you are guilty. You are guilty.

And so in chapter 2, that's what I wanted to mention about the Gentiles. In chapter 2, you see him not only telling the Gentiles that they were guilty of sin, they were guilty of disregarding God and entering into all kind of licentiousness, which was popular in the Greek and Roman empires.

But of course it goes back, as we said, to the time of Adam. So even as you talk about or read in the beginning of Genesis about the time of Abraham, where did Sodom Gomorrah come from? Well, even before that, in the time of Noah, how did it get that the minds of man were corrupt in every possible way? Well, this was not acknowledging the Creator and not being thankful that we're a created being. See, that leads to an unsound mind, and unsound conclusions. And of course, thankfully, we're aware of what it says in 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 7. Because we don't have to have that unsound mind. We can be forgiven. We have to acknowledge that we clearly are affected by these attitudes, these outlooks, simply by growing up in this world. But in 2 Timothy 1, verse 7, it says, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but He's given us a spirit of love. This is talking about the Holy Spirit. He's given us a spirit of love and of power and of what kind of mind? A sound mind. There are other, I know there are other translations of that, but it just seems to be the contrast between man on his own, apart from God, and man guided by the Spirit of God can actually have a sound mind as opposed to being unsound. And so here in chapter 2, He brings up the, in a sense, the conflict. Therefore, you have no excuse. Those of you who are guilty, He could say, you know, anybody that fit any of this condition, actually He's describing through the Jew and the Gentile, He's describing sin as transgressing the law, but He's also describing it as all of these horrible emotions and actions that are corrupt. And of course that describes human nature. Therefore, in verse 1, you have no excuse, whoever you are. When you judge others, for in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing those very same things. He was telling them, you know, don't be picking on each other or judging each other, because you need to judge yourself. He goes on down in verse 3, and do you imagine whoever you are that when you judge yourself, or when you judge those who do such things, and yet you do them yourself, do you think you're going to escape the judgment of God? See, that's what He was telling the people in the church. And He's going to be more direct here with the Jews, because He said the Gentiles were guilty, and now He's going to say the Jews are guilty.

He says in verse 7, By though to those who patiently do good, and seek for glory and honor and immortality, God will give eternal life. While for those who are self-seeking, and who obey not the truth, but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury.

And there will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, again the Jew first, and also the Greek, but there will be glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first, and also the Greek, because God shows no partiality. And so He's going to frame this argument about the Gentiles are wrong, and He's going to say the Jews are wrong as well. Here in verse 17, He says, You then that teach others, will you not teach yourselves while you preach against stealing? Do you not steal? While you forbid adultery, do you not commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you not rob temples? You who boast in the law? Do you dishonor God by breaking the law? He was telling them, even though you've had the law, and even though you're aware of what sin is, you don't obey. And so you also are guilty. And then He brings up in verse 25 the question of circumcision. Now, circumcision was a covenant that God had given to Abraham. And, of course, this is a covenant that the Jews highly involved themselves in because they felt that that made them righteous. It made them right with God. And if you go back to Genesis 17, you'll see how the God instituted that with Abraham, and we'll do that more so perhaps next time. But here He talks about circumcision in verse 25.

Circumcision indeed is of value to you if you obey the law, but if you break the law, then you become just like the uncircumcised. So if those who are uncircumcised keep the requirements of the law, will not their uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? So He's wanting them to realize that just because the Jews were circumcised, they were still guilty of sin. And in verse 28, He says, For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical, but rather a person is a Jew who is one inwardly. And real circumcision is a matter of the heart. It is spiritual and not literal. Such a person receives praise not from others, but from God. So here He has to point out to them that Jews are Gentiles. Both can be brought into a right relationship with God, but it's a matter not of physical circumcision, because He's also mentioned that numerous other times. That physical circumcision was not required, but He says spiritual circumcision is. Circumcision of the heart, which we have to understand today, if we're going to pursue a relationship with God, He continues in talking to the Jews. Then what advantage is it to be a Jew? Chapter 3. What's the value of circumcision? He says, much in every way. For in the first place, the Jews were entrusted by God with the oracles of God. See, what is it that the Jews relied on? Well, they relied on their genealogy. They relied on being the children of Abraham. They relied on their past.

They relied on having the oracles of God. They were directed by God to maintain and preserve what we know of as the Old Testament. Not only the Old Testament, the laws of God, the holy days of God, the calendar that is used, even by us today, as we determine when are the dates that we are celebrating the holy days throughout the year.

See, that's what an advantage was that the Jews had. But in verse 9, after pointing that out, in verse 9, what then are we, Paul was a Jew, he could say, are we any better off? He says in verse 9, absolutely not. For we have already charged that both Jew and Greek are under the power of sin. And so he has been somewhat hard on the Greeks. Now he's very hard on the Jews because he says, and then he starts quoting different Psalms and different Proverbs. There is no one who is righteous, not even one. There was no one who has understanding. There's no one that seeks God.

In verse 17, their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. The way of peace, in verse 17, they have not known there's no fear of God before their eyes. Now certainly the Jewish Christians, if they're aware of any of the Old Testament, they'd know that some of that is coming out of the Old Testament.

Some of that is coming out of the oracles of God. And yet then he says in verse 20, no human, no human being will be justified in the sight of God by deeds prescribed by the law. Having the law is wonderful and it's a great benefit and is a tremendous need to know what sin is. But see, if you simply rely on that and say, that's what makes me righteous, then you are wrong. You are guilty. And so he says, no human being is justified in the sight of God by deeds prescribed by the law.

But through the law comes the knowledge of sin. And so he wanted them. Again, you have these two sections of the church, Jew and Gentile, needing to be brought together. And so he starts bringing them together. We're going to finish this part in chapter 3 and it continues really into chapter 4 and 5. But I want to be able to go over the remainder of this, because what he has done is told the Gentiles that you are guilty, you are sinners. But he says in verse 21, now, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, apart from the law.

The righteousness of God. Here he's starting to tell both of them what they need to seek. The righteousness of God has been disclosed and is attested by the law and the prophets, verse 22, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction since all have sinned and all have fallen short of the glory of God.

He was saying, all of you Gentiles, all of you Jews, all of mankind has sinned, and yet there is a righteousness of God through faith. Yet there is a righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ that they needed to rely on, that they needed to trust, and that we need to trust today. He goes on in verse 24 after saying, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are now justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, whom God put forth as a sacrifice of atonement by His blood, effective through faith.

See, the sacrifice of Christ was given 2,000 years ago. It was achieved as the Lamb of God. He allowed His blood to be shed, but that's only applied to us whenever we in faith accept that sacrifice. If you remember, when we were reading through Hebrew 6, the doctrines of the Church tells us to go on to perfection, and then it starts listing several doctrines.

They begin with repentance from dead works, but it also says, and faith toward God. He had to list baptism and laying on of hands and several others. He had to list faith toward God as the primary way that we are able to begin a relationship in response to God. He goes ahead and says, verse 25, He did this, God did this, to show His own righteousness, because in His divine forbearance, He has passed over the sins that were previously committed.

He's offered forgiveness, and it was to prove at the present time that He Himself is righteous and that He justifies the one who has faith in Jesus Christ. See, that's how God is relating to us. We can't obey enough to earn God's favor. He wants us to obey out of love.

He wants us to obey out of a respect for God and a respect to draw close to God, but He tells us that it is through faith. He goes on. What becomes of boasting? Do you think any there and wrong? Any there in the church were boasting?

Well, He says, what becomes of boasting? It's excluded by what law? By the law of works? No, by the law of faith. And so He's placing a great emphasis here on faith and how significant that is that the people, the Jews that Peter spoke to in Acts chapter 2, and who were initially converted and became a part of the Church of God by the receipt of the Holy Spirit, they repented of their sins. They were baptized and received the Holy Spirit. But they did that by expressing faith in Jesus Christ. And so did Cornelius in Acts chapter 10. In Acts 10, you see Peter going to Cornelius' house and you see the conversion of the first Gentile, the one who would be brought into the Church by faith. It says they were brought to repentance, so they had to know what they were repenting of. But they were brought into the Church, as Paul is noting here, by the law of faith. For we hold, in verse 28, we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. That's a verse that Martin Luther has corrupted in what he has added to that particular verse. But when you read it as it is, we hold a person who is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. That's very clear. Or is God the God of the Jews only? Is He not the God of the Gentiles as well? He says yes. He is the God of the Jews and the Gentiles. Yes, of the Gentiles, since God is one and He will justify the Jews, the circumcised, on the ground of faith, and the Gentiles, the uncircumcised, through that same faith. Here He's telling us that our relationship with Him started with Him, and we respond to Him in faith. We respond to Him in an appreciation of what He has to offer, and that ultimately He lives in us and causes even the faith that we see described as a fruit of the Holy Spirit to grow in us.

And then He concludes. He kind of finishes this section, but He concludes in a sense by saying, you know, but the law certainly still needs to be understood, because it's by the law that we have the knowledge of sin. In verse 31, do we then make void the law by this faith? He answers that question by saying, absolutely not. By no means. On the contrary, we establish the law. Now, I want us to look at a couple of words there, and this won't take long. We are almost finished today. But He does go back to say, and supports, of course, His other writings and the writings of others of the apostles about a respect for the law. But here, in chapter 3, verse 31, it says, do we make void the law by this faith? The word there that's translated, the Greek word that's translated to make void, can also be translated make void, abolish, cease, destroy, or do away.

So He asks the question, do we do away with or do we abolish, or do we make void the law? Because we have faith in God and faith in Jesus Christ. He says, absolutely not. But on the contrary, we uphold or we establish the law. And the word that is uphold or establish, that Greek word, means not only to establish, but to abide in or to stand in the law. And so, again, some would read some of these verses and conclude, oh, well, I don't want to keep the law. And yet Paul is not saying that at all. He is saying all of you, Jew and Gentile, have been brought into the church through faith in Jesus Christ. You've been brought into church through a recognition of the righteousness of God that comes through faith in Jesus Christ. And so you shouldn't be judging one another. You should be yielding yourself to the God who is your Creator. And then, of course, he's going to go through in chapter 4, through chapter 8, exactly how it is that God is going to impute His righteousness to us. See, if you're familiar with those chapters, you know that chapter 6 talks about us being baptized. It talks about us not letting sin have dominion in our mortal life. You know, we need to overcome that. We need to change that. And of course, chapter 8 tells us that by the help of the Spirit of God, we are able to be led. Not only are we able to be reminded by and taught by, we are able to be guided by and to be led by the Holy Spirit in order to be the children of God. So, this is the first introduction here, chapter 1 through 3. I hope that this can be helpful, and we will try. I don't know how we're going to cover 4 through 8 next time. That doesn't seem terribly likely. But anyway, the Church in Rome got a lot of instruction. But not only the Church in Rome, all of us who would later benefit from reading and knowing how it is that we relate to God through faith in Jesus Christ.