Romans 3

Chapter 3. The Sin of the JewSo when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? (Romans 2:3)An the former chapter we have looked at God’s picture of the sin of the Gentile world. But now the apostle turns to the circumcision, the children of light and privilege and high profession, and he charges upon their conscience the guilt of yet more aggravated sin, and finally sums up God’s great indictment against both Jew and Gentile, and pronounces the verdict of guilty upon both, and leaves them silenced and helpless under the judgment of God. Different Standards of Judgment

1. He unfolds the principle of God’s judgment respecting both Jew and Gentile. All will be judged by the same divine tribunal, but all will not be judged by the same standard. As many as have sinned without law shall be judged without law. The heathen who have not the law of divine revelation will be judged by the law of conscience and the sense of right and wrong which God has implanted in every human breast; but this affords no hope for their ultimate salvation, for it will be found that they have not kept this law, and that they will stand convicted of their own conscience and the judgment of God, confessing, “we knew our duty, but we did it not.” The great need of the world is not so much the knowledge of right and wrong as the power to choose to do right. The Jew will be judged by the law and the measure of light that he has received through the Old Testament, and he, too, will be found condemned even by the verdict of his own Scriptures and conscience. The hearers of the gospel will be judged according to the gospel, and their condemnation will be, not because they have broken the law or sinned against their own conscience, but preeminently because they have rejected the Lord Jesus Christ; for “whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” (John 3:18). The Character of God’s Judgment
2. Next we have the character of God’s judgment. a. It will be most merciful and gentle. God is long-suffering and slow to pronounce or execute judgment, and when He does it, it will be with the greatest gentleness, and with allowance for excuse or palliation. While judgment lingers now, it is the long-suffering of God that would lead us to repentance, and yet men “show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance” (Romans 2:4). This very tenderness of God will only make His final judgment more terribly severe. The displeasure of a friend is far more serious than the capricious anger of a hasty and passionate foe. When one who has always loved us turns against us there is little hope left, and when the Savior who died, the Father who waited long, and the Holy Spirit who pleaded for our salvation, withdraw their mercy, and hand us over to judgment, then, indeed, will begin the long night of everlasting despair. b. God’s judgment is just: God “will give to each person according to what he has done.” To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism. (Romans 2:6-11) In that judgment all will be inexorably dealt with according to their actual deserving. Every secret thing will be brought to light: every motive, thought and feeling, every consequence and issue of our acts and lives. Every allowance will be made, but every aggravation will be weighed, and the judgment will be impartial, strict and irreversible. If we take the place of condemned sinners, and throw ourselves on the mercy of God, He has made provision through the gospel of Christ for the exercise of His mercy in the most glorious and generous manner. But in order to receive it, we must lie at the feet of Christ in utter helplessness and self-condemnation. There is a fine phrase in the Epistle to the Hebrews where the apostle, in speaking of the all-searching light of God, uses the words, “Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13). The literal translation of this phrase is: “All things are stripped and stunned.” This is the force of the Greek words. The figure is that of an athlete in the Coliseum who has fought his best in the arena, and has at length fallen at the feet of his adversary, disarmed and broken down in helplessness. There he lies, unable to strike a blow or lift his arm. He is stripped and stunned, disarmed and disabled, and there is nothing left for him but to lie at the feet of his adversary and throw up his arms for mercy. c. The sin of the Jew and of those who, like him, have sinned against light, will be found to be greatly aggravated by his higher professions. The more we claim to be, the more will be exacted from us. The Jews were very fond of passing judgment upon others, and thinking of themselves as occupying the higher places. “If you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth—you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself?” (Romans 2:19-21). But this only made their conduct the more glaring when they committed the very sins which they reproved in others. We who have a very large gospel should have a very consistent life. The eyes of the world, and of the religious world especially, are keenly fixed on those who teach the gospel of Christ’s fullness and claim a Savior who saves to the uttermost. As someone has said, we are either libels or Bibles, and we ought to be epistles as well as apostles of the truth. The sin of the Jew was aggravated yet more by his privileges, opportunities and higher teaching. It was to him a great advantage every way, to have the oracles of God, and to know His will and His covenant, and yet, notwithstanding all this, his life was worse than that of the Gentile which made the very name of God to be blasphemed among the heathen. Summary of Charges
3. The apostle sums up the charges against both the Jew and the Gentile, and brings the testimony of God’s Word out of their own Scriptures, to confirm the verdict. In Romans 3:10-17 he especially quotes the 14th and 53rd Psalms as God’s fearful charge against the wickedness of men. This passage contains a fourfold classification of man’s sin. First, negatively, the things that are lacking; second, positively, the sins of the heart; third, the sins of the tongue; and, fourth, the sins of the life. Under these four categories the world has been found utterly and irretrievably guilty and lost. Every way you look at man, he is fallen and under the judgment of God. In the New Testament, the words used to denote sin are very varied and suggestive. The most common of these terms means “to miss the mark.” Another very common expression means to overstep the mark; a third, to fall when we should have stood; a fourth, to be ignorant when we should have known; a fifth, to diminish what should have been rendered in full measure; a sixth, to disobey a voice; and a seventh, to disregard the law, and to be willfully careless. In every way that God can look at man, he is wrong and ruined, and the whole race lies condemned at the footstool of judgment. Lost and Helpless
4. Finally, man is not only condemned, but utterly helpless ever to justify himself, or rise again into the favor of God: “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin” (Romans 3:20). Not only are we lost, but we can do nothing to save ourselves, and we are left absolutely at the mercy of God. God is very merciful in thus destroying our last hope of self-justification; just as the prisoner at the bar, if he cannot disprove the charges against him, is far wiser to plead guilty and throw himself on the mercy of the court. Now, this is the only way that God can ever interpose for the sinner. We have no rights by law, and if we claim any, we shall lose everything. Now, this is the position that God wants to bring us to, where we shall cease our struggles and our attempts at self-defense or self-improvement, and throw ourselves helplessly upon the mercy of God. This is the sinner’s only hope, and when he thus lies at the feet of mercy, Jesus is ready to lift him up and give him that free salvation which is waiting for all who are helpless enough to be willing to receive it. This, too, is the greatest need of the Christian seeking a deeper and higher life, to come to a full realization of his nothingness and helplessness, and to lie down, stripped and stunned, at the feet of Jesus, as the apostle does in the seventh chapter: “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). Then shall he be able to answer in the joyful cry of the next verse, “Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25). And the Savior’s sanctifying power will come in all the fullness of the blessed chapter that follows. The greatest hindrance to our salvation and our sanctification is ourselves, and God has to get us out of His way before He can work. In that old Roman arena as the gladiator lay helpless and ready to die, it was the custom to allow the spectators in the gallery to determine his fate, and as his antagonist looked up to those tiers of cruel spectators, he watched their verdict. We all know how it was given. The inverted thumb was the signal of death, and the uplifted thumb the command to spare his helpless life, and as those fingers were pointed upward in all those tiers of seats, he sprang to his feet, a saved man, through the mercy of the multitude. Ah! that brutal company was but a feeble figure of Christ’s mercy. The moment we lift up our eyes and hands to heaven, we know that His bleeding hands are raised to His Father’s throne, and His tender voice is pleading for us, and we know we may rise to our feet and claim His great forgiveness and His almighty help and grace. Guilty, condemned, wretched, helpless, deserving only doom, we can rise in His name and say in the face of earth and heaven and hell: “Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us” (Romans 8:34). God’s great object in all His dealing with men is to bring them to realize their utter need of Him and the salvation that He has provided through the Lord Jesus Christ. His controversy with man is not so much on account of their other sins as the one sin of rejecting His only Son and the great redemption which He has provided at such a cost. If men will but see their guilt and helplessness, He is always ready to forgive and save, to uplift the crushed and sinking soul and make the very worst of men the brightest trophies of His grace and power. It is not the transgression of the moral law that ruins souls, but the rejection of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Many years ago I knew a man of fine culture and superior family who was addicted to the habit of intemperance and steadily sinking under its awful power. I prayed with this man for years and at last the way was opened to reach him with the gospel. He allowed himself to come under its influence to some extent, but it only deepened his intense pride, self-righteousness and antagonism to Christ, until finally he said to me one day, “I want to be a better man, I mean to give up my evil habits and I am able to do so if I choose. I believe in morality, but I do not want your Christ and your religion. I am able to save myself.” My heart strangely sank, and from that hour my prayers for that man seemed to have lost their spring. I went away from that city where he lived and did not return for some time; but on my return for a few days some years later, I was shocked to read in the morning paper that this wretched man had been found dead in a barroom the day before and had gone into eternity in the midst of his sins, with a hardened and unbelieving heart that refused Christ because he would not believe in his own helplessness and throw himself, as a sinner, upon the mercy of God. This is the secret of salvation, of sanctification and of every spiritual blessing: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). The law can show us our sins, but it cannot deliver us from them, any more than we can wash our face in the looking glass when we see there the picture of our uncleanness. “For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:3-4).