Sunday School Lesson
Introduction: Someone said, “When you are young you make faces in the mirror. When you are old, the mirror gets back at you.” A mirror does not lie about physical appearance. But a mirror is a reflection of our reality; it is not the reality itself. Our reality goes deeper than the skin. Sin distorts our ability to see ourselves accurately. We need a sanity check on sin because, “Sin is an equal opportunity destroyer,” said Dr. Barry Black, United States Senate Chaplain. Paul was concluding his first major movement of his letter to the Romans (Romans 1:18–3:20). He had confronted head-on the Gentile sin problem (1:18-32; 2:12-16) and the Jewish sin problem (2:1-11; 2:17–3:8). Now he wiped out any chance of human self-justification. All people, no matter what ethnicity, struggle under sin’s power. All people have to own their depravity factor.
Sin Is Universal
Romans 3:9-18KJV
9 What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood:
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways:
17 And the way of peace have they not known:
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
The text begins with a question, What shall we conclude then? Paul was following up on the question raised in Romans 3:1: “What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew?” Actually Paul answered his own question—twice. Does a Jew have any advantage? Yes, the Jews have the Scriptures. But no, the Jews have not kept the Scriptures.Paul charged (accused) both Jews and Gentiles of being under the power of sin. The phrase power of does not occur in the Greek text. It says, “To be under sin.” That is it. People have an amazing ability to dupe themselves and others because they are under sin. Paul located sin in people with metaphors and from the Scriptures. There is some comfort in saying, “God hates the sin but loves the sinner.” But God does not locate sin abstractly. He locates it in people who sin. Listen to Bob Russell’s sermon entitled, “I Have a Dark Side I Must Understand.” The sin is in the sinner. Paul strung together another series of Old Testament texts to draw upon Psalms 5, 140, 10, 36, and Isaiah 59. Once again Paul was adopting phrases from those Old Testament passages. While there is value in noting the individual contexts from which they come, the force of Paul’s argument comes in the cluster. The difference in verses 13-18 is in the high use of metaphor. Throats, tongues, lips, mouths all help emphasize deception, harm, and corruption. We know from the New Testament that the mouth only speaks what is in the heart (Matthew 12:34-37). Paul also used the metaphor of feet. Feet do not technically shed blood, but they take people places where they will shed blood (Proverbs 1:11). Sin is labeled as having lost the way of peace and having lost fear (reverent respect) for God.
Guilt Is Universal
Romans 3:19-20KJV
19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
These verses frame up Paul’s big conclusion from this first major section in Romans. Since he was still speaking of the Jewish person, Paul wrote these two verses from the standpoint of the law. As good as the law was (Romans 7:12), it basically shut people up. They had no defense. The law could not fix the problem. It could only show the problem. Kenny Boles, former Ozark Christian College professor, likened this to using a flashlight on a night when the car breaks down—the flashlight can show the problem, but it cannot fix the problem. Every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. No one can be declared righteous (justified—put right in God’s sight) by the law. The law simply helps us become conscious (know intimately) of our sin.
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