Romans 3:9-27

Romans 3:9. What then? are we better than they?

The first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans contains so horrible an account of the manners of the Gentiles, the heathen of Paul's day, that it is one of the most painful Chapter s in Scripture to read. Not long ago, one of our missionaries, out in China, was attacked concerning the Bible on this very ground. One of the learned men said to him, «This Bible of yours cannot be as ancient as you say that it is, for it is quite clear that the next chapter of the Epistle to the Nomads must have been written by somebody who had been in China, and who had seen the habits and ways of the people here,» so accurate is the Holy Spirit, who knew right well what the ways and manners and secret vices of the heathen were, and still are. But the Jews said, «Ah, but this is a description of the Gentiles.» So Paul replies, «What then? are we better than they?

Romans 3:9. No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentile, that they are all under sin; as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

Then he selects passages out of different parts of Scripture to show what man is by nature.

Romans 3:11. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher, with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in their ways: and the way of peace have they not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes.

These are all quotations from Old Testament Scriptures, from their own psalmists and prophets, from whom Paul quotes to the Jews so that they might see what their own character was by nature.

Romans 3:19. 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.

The law was given to the Jews, and the descriptions which it gives must be descriptions of the Jews «Therefore,» says Paul, «as Gentile mouths have been already stopped by the descriptions of their vices, you also, the favored people of God, have your mouths stopped by the descriptions of yourselves taken from your own prophets.»

Romans 3:20. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh

Whether Jew or Gentile,

Romans 3:20. Be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now

Since man is lost, since man is guilty,

Romans 3:21. The righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets: even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then?

If salvation is given to the guilty, and if all are guilty, if no one can claim exemption, and yet salvation is freely given, what then? Why, salvation must be purely by the grace of God; so let grace have all the honour. «Where is boasting then?»

Romans 3:27. It is excluded. By what law of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.

The law of works sometimes aids boasting, for a man rejoices and glories in what he has done; yet the law of works ought to stop our boasting because we are guilty in God's sight. The law of faith does stop our mouth, because we are under obligation to God, and do not dare to boast, seeing that we have nothing of good but what we have received from God.

This exposition consisted of readings from Romans 3:9; Romans 5:6; Romans 8:1.