Sunday
Sunday
Universal Sin and Guilt
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
Nothing keeps people away from Christ more than their inability to see their need of him or their unwillingness to admit it. It is this plain and unpopular principle that lies behind Romans 1:18–3:20. Paul demonstrates the universality of human sin and guilt by dividing the human race into several sections and by accusing them one by one. He shows that each group has failed to live up to the knowledge they have. Instead, they have deliberately suppressed and even contradicted it. Therefore they are guilty and without excuse. Nobody can plead innocence, because no one can plead ignorance.
Firstly, Paul portrays depraved gentile society in its idolatry, immorality, and antisocial behavior (1:18–32).
Secondly, Paul addresses critical moralizers (whether Gentiles or Jews), who profess high ethical standards and apply them to everybody except themselves (2:1–16).
Thirdly, Paul turns to self-confident Jews, who boast of their knowledge of God’s law but do not obey it (2:17–3:8).
Fourthly, Paul encompasses the whole human race and concludes that we are all guilty and without excuse before God (3:9–20).
This is the point to which the apostle has been relentlessly moving, namely that “every mouth may be silenced” and that the whole world may be “held accountable to God” (v. 19).
How, then, should we respond to Paul’s devastating exposure of human sin and guilt? Not, I think, by changing the subject and talking instead of the need for self-esteem, nor by blaming our behavior on our genes, our nurturing, or our culture, but by accepting the divine diagnosis of our condition and by accepting responsibility for it too. Only then shall we be ready for the great “but now” of Romans 3:21, in which Paul begins to explain how God has intervened through Christ and his cross for our salvation.
For further reading: Romans 3:9–31