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In Chapter 3 of the Book of Romans, the apostle Paul continues his theological teachings on salvation. He explains that during the time the book was written, there was no New Testament theology, only Old Testament theology. The Jews had a strong understanding of God, Messiah, the Spirit of God, and sacrificial salvation. They also had a strong understanding of the Hebrew church and a belief in the afterlife. Paul is writing to the Jewish church in Rome, but eventually, the church will become predominantly Gentile. Paul will discuss sin, justification, sanctification, and how to live as a Christian. It is important to understand Jewish rabbinical teaching to fully grasp the teachings in these chapters. In Chapter 3, Paul writes two songs. in Chapter 3 of the Book of Romans. And we finished up Chapter 2 last week talking about circumcision, and the end product of last week was that the circumcised are by faith, and the uncircumcised, who we are, are through faith, and the uncircumcised are circumcision of the heart. And so we of the Christian faith have been circumcised of heart, which means God moved into our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit, and when the Holy Spirit was in there, he completely changed our heart. And so we have a new heart, new life, new faith in Jesus Christ. Now I'm going to make several statements that I want you to listen to carefully. Number one, it's hard for me to wrap my mind around something that I'm going to try to tell you about, because I've had a hard time wrapping my mind around it for about 60 years. And that is, during the time of the book being written called Romans, there was no New Testament theology out there. There was none. All they had was Old Testament theology, and the Old Testament theology was of the same ilk as was going to be the New Testament theology, but it was Old Testament. The Old Testament people, the Jews, had a strong idea of God. They had a strong idea of Messiah, which Christ is Messiah. The word Christ is the same word for Messiah, so they had a strong idea of the Messiah. Because of the second chapter of the book of Genesis where it says, in Dr. Jimmy's book, if you read his book, where the Spirit was hovering over the earth, they had a strong understanding of the Spirit of God. They also had a strong understanding of sacrifice salvation, but all of their salvation was done through animals, through goats and bulls and sheep and others, and all of it was done at the temple, and their major activity was on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, when their sins for that year were totally forgiven if they had prayed for ten days and prepared for the Day of Yom Kippur. If they had not, then their sins were not forgiven, and so they had a way to get rid of their sins. In fact, if you read the book of Hebrews, you will find out in chapter 9 of the book of Hebrews that it talks about annual salvation of the Jews. You see, ladies and gentlemen, this is kind of hard for me to understand as well, but I'll tell you anyway. Every year on Yom Kippur, the spiritually prepared Jews got new life. They were born again. Every year it was annual redemption, annual propitiation of their sin, and that propitiation of their sin was put on a little lamb who was off into the crevice and died, and when that lamb died, guess what died with him? Their sins. Ladies and gentlemen, in any situation when your sins die, are you not born again? So you see what was happening, the book of Hebrews said they were having an annual born-againism every year at Yom Kippur. So they, too, had a strong sense of sacrificial kinds of salvation. They also had a strong idea of ecclesiology, the study of the Hebrew church, or the synagogue. They had a strong understanding of that, and they also had a great eschatology. They understood that this world was not everything, but that there was a great world to come, and the Jewish people always talked about heaven. They always talked about angels, they always talked about the throne of God, they always talked about heaven. Well, what I'm saying to you all is, the Hebrews had a very strong, what we call at the seminary, systematic theology, from God through the end of the world. Now, listen to this, the Christian church at this time does not have one. In fact, the apostles, Peter and John in particular, and Jude, and Paul, and Peter, and others, are in the process of writing our systematic theology. And so what you have here in the book of Romans, chapter 3, is you have a continuation of what we call soteriology. Now, if you were at the seminary, we would say soteriology, here I'll say the process of salvation, and that's what soteriology is, it's the process of salvation. And it contains four parts. Man is in sin, man can be justified, man can be, from justification he can get to the place of sanctification, he can be sanctified, and at death he will be glorified. And so you have the four parts of salvation. Now, in the book of Romans, from chapter 2, actually from chapter 1, all the way through chapter 1, until we get to the end of chapter 8, what the apostle Paul is getting ready to do, he is writing for the Christian church a theology of soteriology. He's writing a theology of salvation. And in chapter 2, he begins talking about the first part of that theology, which is sin. And later on, he's going to start talking about justification, and we get over into the other chapters of Romans, being justified by faith, remember? So he's going to start, after he talks about sin, he's going to start talking about justification, being justified by sin, we have peace with God. And then later on in the chapter, in the book, he's going to start talking about how then do you work since you are now being saved, you're now being sanctified. Now, Paul will not talk about glorification in this book, because that is the eschatological side of it, but he will talk about ecclesiology, he'll talk about what you're doing in the church. Now, let me give you a clue about Paul's books. All of Paul's letters are basically divided in two parts. The first part of his letter is solid, strong, new Christian church theology, to chapter 8. The latter book, the latter parts of his books are how do you practice the theology that I just gave you. And so the first part of the book will be a strong study in how you get saved, the last part of Paul's book will be a strong study on how you act after you are saved, got the picture? Now, as we go through the book, Jimmy and I, Brother Jimmy and I, you watch what happens. In the first eight chapters, it's a strong study of the process of salvation, sin, justification, sanctification. And you'll see those, we will point them out as we go along, okay, so that you understand. And also, as we get toward the ninth chapter, you'll see the thing kind of turn and Paul starts talking about, therefore, being justified by faith, you have peace with God, and here's how you ought to act. Got it? All right. Now, that's going to be interesting when we get through those points. I need to say that. You need to understand that. Number two, there's a second thing that you need to understand here. The thing you need to understand is, Paul is writing to Jews, okay? How many times have Brother Jimmy and I said to you all, the church in Rome basically was a Jewish church, okay? And it was, because most of the people who, from Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, brought the gospel back to Rome were Jewish Romans then, and they took the gospel back to Rome, and these Jews who were redeemed on the day of Pentecost, who went back to Rome, are the ones who started the church. So basically, at this time, at the time when the Apostle Paul is writing, not many years from Pentecost, now, you remember, Pentecost was about 28, 29 B.C., this is about 50, just about 25, 30 years difference, hadn't been many years since Pentecost, and this church in Rome is evidently still a Jewish church because no one has really come in and worked with the Gentiles. Now, Paul, later on, will be working stronger with the Gentiles, and as Brother Jimmy has said to you all, and I will say it again, eventually, this church turned from a Jewish church to a Gentile church, and it will be a strong Gentile church towards the end of Paul's ministry. That's why Paul can go back to Rome as a prisoner, and that's why so many people in the city of Rome can be saved while he's there because the people are flowing through his apartment and the soldiers are flowing through his apartment, and many, many people are hearing the gospel and being saved and going out and sharing the gospel to the Gentiles in the city of Rome. And so later on, the church will turn Gentile, but right now, it's Jewish. When Paul's writing to them at this particular time, he cannot write to them as Gentiles, and that's what makes these chapters so difficult for us. Unless you understand Jewish rabbinical teaching, you'll have a difficult time understanding these chapters, and that's why I'm going to try to help you, and that's why I took time to write this lesson for you today. Please, I'm not going to go verse by verse on this lesson. I'm going to take you through it and point out some things to you that you need to know, but you need to understand, sometime when you have the time and you sit down with your Bible, turn to chapter 3, take this lesson out, and follow this lesson through chapter 3 as I'm going to take you through chapter 3 today because Paul, in chapter 3, does several rabbinical Hebrew teaching activities, and if you don't understand Hebrew teaching activities, if you don't understand what the rabbis did, if you don't understand how the rabbis taught, which most of us do not understand, I did not understand it until when I started teaching Hebrew education at the seminary, my best friend became, was Zola Levitt, and Zola and I have spent a lot of time together, and my other best friend was Rabbi Garcik, who was the rabbi of the Temple of HaVashalom in the city of Fort Worth, and between Zola Levitt and Rabbi Garcik, I was able to pick up a lot of interesting information about Judaism of which I had been told I was going to be teaching, so you know when you're told you're going to teach something, you have to learn what you're going to be teaching, and that's when you really get down underneath it and start trying to figure out what it is that I'm going to say, okay, so anyway, so what's going to happen here is, chapter 3, again, like the end of chapter 2, is a strong rabbinical chapter, and in this chapter, the apostle Paul writes two songs. Yep, two songs. Now, let me help you understand, now we're going to go back to what you need to hear. In many of the apostle Paul's letters, in fact in two of them in particular, in the book of Romans and the book of Ephesians, he's going to say to them, and you will do psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody in your heart unto God, remember? It is Paul who speaks of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and it is Paul who, on many occasions, in his letters, ladies and gentlemen, writes songs, okay? In this one, he's going to write a psalm. In this one, he's also going to write a hymn. You ready? That's what makes this one so difficult, because if you don't understand that this thing is a psalm, now, you'll have to ask yourself the question, what are psalms? Well, you've got 150 of them in the middle of your Bible, 150 psalms. Every last one of them is a song. In fact, if you go through a really good copy of the Word of God in the book of Psalms, oftentimes you will see a musical breath statement. Oh, by the way, I put it on your page last week at the end of the lesson. Did you see it? No, you didn't see it, and I didn't point it out to you, so I'm waiting to point it out to you today. At the end of your lesson last week, if you still have it, or you didn't throw it in the trash, if you still have your lesson of last week, at the bottom of that page, I put the word Selah, S-E-L-A-H. That word means to pause and think. And so when I got to the end of the lesson, I didn't tell you, but I put Selah down there, and then I made a statement down there, and that statement was, Paul is going to come to the conclusion that all have sinned and come short of the goal of the glory of God. Think about that, Selah, last week, last phrase. See it? If you got your copy, it's there. Okay, what does Selah mean? It's a musical notation that means to pause and take a breath, or pause and be quiet for a minute, or pause and be solid. And all through the Psalms, you will find this little word in different places. In the middle of a psalm, at the bottom of a psalm, sometimes just after the beginning of a psalm, you will find this little word out in the diacritical markings of your Bible, Selah. And that's a musical notation that says, okay, so the Jews were great singers, by the way. Are you aware of the fact that one time the Jews were under severe, actually by another army, and they were going to be conquered, and God told the king, Asa, to take his choir from the temple and put the choir in front of his army and march the choir towards the enemy? And you remember what Asa said? He said, if I do that, the enemy will kill my people. He'll wipe out the choir. He said, do what I say to do, sir. God said, put the choir out there. Put the choir from the temple out there. And the choir was out in front of all the soldiers, the vanguards of the soldiers, all their swords and shields and all that kind of stuff. And the choir started going, they started singing, and God started killing the enemy. By the way, I have said on more than one occasion, I have been in churches where I have heard choirs that I think could do the same thing. I have. You have too, right? All right, so we understand. These Jewish people were very musical. Every time a pilgrim group came up to Jerusalem for any of the celebrations of which they had to attend three, Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, those three they had to attend. They were required to attend. If they lived within 26 radius miles, they had to be there. If they lived beyond that, they had to come. And in those particular times, you cannot get to Jerusalem any way from anywhere in the nation of Israel unless you go up. You have got to go up to the city of Jerusalem. And so in the latter part of the book of Psalms, beginning I think at about Psalm 121 or 122, if you look at your Bible, it will have underneath that psalm number, it says, Psalm of going up. And these were songs that these pilgrim groups sang as they walked up the hillsides going up to Jerusalem. I think it begins about 121, I don't remember, somewhere in the 120s. It starts and it says, Psalms of going up. Do you see it? Psalms of going up? Okay, that's these, they are called, these are called songs of ascension. Songs of going up. Now, the Jewish people sang a lot. And they sang a cappella. That's why the Apostle Paul, they were led by a cantor, and they are still using cantors, they are a music director, and they sing a cappella. Now, if you go to a synagogue that is a fundamentalist synagogue, they will have a cantor. If you go to a conservative synagogue, they will have a cantor. If you go to a new kind of futuristic synagogue, they will have an organ or a piano. So there's two synagogues that are still under the old leadership of a cappella. Now, watch Paul, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody in your heart unto God. Okay? So that means they were singing a cappella. All right, so you understand that, okay? Now, Paul is getting ready to set up the first important idea of salvation. He's already concluded, at this point, that all of the Gentiles are guilty. And we all agree. Having been a Gentile and are a Gentile, and they converted you, having been a Gentile, would you not agree? We are all sinful. All have sinned. Okay? So Paul has already identified the fact that all of the Gentiles will sin. He did that in chapter one when he put all that ugly stuff about what the Gentiles were doing. I mean, after you read chapter one, how could you not say that the Gentiles in chapter one were pretty ugly people? And that they were probably pretty ugly lost at the same time. Okay. Now we get to chapter two. And in chapter two, we started talking about how the Gentiles will be under the condemnation of God. But we get to the middle of chapter two, and all of a sudden, Paul changes from the Gentiles, whom he has already declared are sinners, and he's getting ready to start talking about the Jewish people being sinners. And he starts talking about the law. Now, ladies and gentlemen, in the scripture and in the letters of the Apostle Paul, there are several places where Paul identifies and affirms the law never saved anyone. The law was not a method of salvation. The law, on one occasion, the Apostle Paul said, the law is the pedagoge. The law is the school teacher. The law is that which drives us to Christ and to God. The law is not a redemptive activity. The law is a pushing activity. And the law was trying to push the people of Israel into the presence of God. And when the people of Israel got into the presence of God, and they started acting somewhat religious or somewhat spiritual, God had a tendency to do what? Bless the living daylights out of them, right? But then they got ugly again. And what did God have to do? Now, some people said that history is linear. I disagree. I think history is cyclical. Because if you don't believe it, watch the history of the Jews. Redemption, falling away, sin, destruction. Redemption, falling away, sin, destruction. Remember? That's the history of the Jews. Now, when they did repent and get right with God, God took good care of them, just like he did when he put the choir out there and won the war. But at the same time, they were very sinful people. And we're going to find out in this chapter that the Apostle Paul is going to use some Hebrew approaches to let them know, that them being the Jewish people, come to understand that they are not, will not, and ever be, saved by the law, and that circumcision is of no advantage to them whatsoever. It is not an advantage, although the Jewish people think it is. Now, back to chapter 2, where I finished last week, is that he started talking about circumcision. And Paul was thinking ahead of them. Because after he had totally destroyed the law in chapter 2, at the end of chapter 2, he knew that the Jewish men were going to come out and say, yeah, okay, so we're not saved by the law. But listen, was not Abraham saved by circumcision? Did not Abraham practice faith, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness? And did not Abraham receive circumcision as the sign of that faith? Circumcision by faith? Circumcision through faith? Did not Abraham? Don't we have that? So, if you kill the law, we still have circumcision. So, Paul said, all right, you do. But circumcision is of the body and the outward. What God is looking for, as chapter 2 came to its end, is circumcision of the heart. And that's what redemption in Christ means. So, understand now, there is no theology out here. Eventually, we're going to have one. Eventually, we're going to have a theology that gives us a strong understanding of God, different understanding of God than the Jewish people had. The Jewish people saw him as a tyrant, not a loving God. We see him as the loving, saving God. They talked about the Messiah, but he had not come yet, and would not come until the fullness of time. And yet, they talked about the Messiah. In fact, the last chapter of the book in the Old Testament, in the book of Malachi, talks about who's going to come before the Messiah comes. Elijah's coming back, and he's going to precede the Messiah. And then they talked about, we come to understand a new understanding about the Messiah, the redemptive Messiah who died on the cross. Then we come to understand a different feeling of the Holy Spirit, not just the Holy Spirit that can come and go and do things for us, but a Holy Spirit that comes and stays, and he abides in our heart. Then we talk about salvation, and that's what Paul's doing right here. He's going to start the first part of salvation. He is now talking about sin. Now, ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you something he's going to do. Paul, in this chapter, is going to stop talking about sin in its plural form, sins. We all talk about all of our sins, and we categorize our little lying, stealing, cheating, adultery, you know, those kind of things. We have our little sins. We put it in the plural. In this chapter, Paul is going to say, I want you to forget about your little sins because there is a principle of sin that was put on all of us by Adam, and that principle of sin is singular. All have sinned. That is a singular word. All are in sin. All have sinned, and he will conclude, and come short of the glory of God. We have all missed the mark, and so Paul is going to be talking about that here in a few minutes, and he's going to tell everybody that not only is the Gentile a sinner, but the Jew is a sinner even with the law. So those who are without the law are sinners, the Gentiles, and those who are with the law are sinners, the Jew, so that he can come to this final conclusion, as I did at the end of chapter 2, Selah, all have sinned. All are in the process of the sin principle. Now, later on in the book of Romans, we're going to be talking about two laws that are in effect. The first law is going to be the law of sin and death, which was put on all of us by the disobedience of Adam, and then Paul is going to start talking about the law of life and liberty in Jesus Christ, which was given to us by Jesus Christ, redemptive death and resurrection. And in this chapter, you're going to hear something like this, and by the first man, sin entered the world, but by the second man, remember that? And so that's all in the writings of the Apostle Paul. Okay, let's look at this chapter 3. He begins talking about what he was talking about in chapter 2. What advantage, then, has the Jew, or what is the prophet of circumcision? Okay. Now, the Apostle here is getting ready to do something that is very rabbinical. Last week, I told you about a rabbinical process that was called straw-dogging. He's going to do a second one here. He's getting ready to do a series of double questions. Now, watch it. It's really cool, the way he handles this. He's doing double questions, and in doing the double questions, he's going to do a couple of things, and he's going to tell you the process and the reason for doing it. And so, as you go through this chapter, you see him say, well, what is the advantage of circumcision? He says, much in every way, chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God. Pause. The oracles of God and the Old Testament are the same thing. The oracles of God is the Word of God, and so the Word of God is the Old Testament. So, to the Jews was given the oracles of God. They were given the Old Testament and the prophets, and the Old Testament and the prophets are those books that are read consistently, regularly, and on many occasions by the Jewish people today. They are still reading the law and the prophets, okay? So, the law was the first five books, the prophets the last book, with the history of Israel in the middle. And so, the Old Testament law and prophets were very important to the Jewish people. And so, he's going to tell them about the advantage that they have is, unlike the Gentiles who did not get the law and the prophets, you have an advantage because you got both the law and the prophets, and circumcision has nothing to do with that. You need to go back and look and see what God gave you. So, now comes the first double question. He says, what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make faithfulness of God without effect? Certainly not. Indeed, let God be true. But if the unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say then? Is God unjust? They're the two questions. First question is, what if some did not believe? Will their unfaithfulness, will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? So, there are the two questions. What if some did not believe? Does their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Okay, question. If a Christian on occasion fails to continue believing, does that make God's faithfulness of no effect? No. Of course not. It doesn't affect his faithfulness at all. And so, the first two questions Paul brings into light here. He says, what if, and here's the question, what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? No. God's faithfulness continues no matter what happens. So, he goes on then to clarify that. And by the way, this word certainly not, in my copy of the scripture, what is it in yours in verse four? Can you read that to me? In my copy it's certainly not. I can't hear you. May it never be. May it never be. Absolutely not. Okay, let me tell you what that word is. You can see it several times. That word is a word that almost comes to cursing for the Jew. It's not a curse word, but it almost gets to that level. And it is a little word, Meganoitoi. Meganoitoi. Which means, God forbid. Now, that's about as close as a Jew can come to cursing. Okay? And Paul does it several times. And that's why your copy of the scripture, may it never be, a good translation. Certainly not. Cannot be. And so, what Paul is saying here, if these two things happen, well then, if they happen, will God's unfaithfulness be affected? And he says, Meganoitoi. God forbid. May it never be. Cannot be. Okay? And so, he gets through the first one. And he says in verse four, at the end of verse four, that you may be justified in your words and may overcome when you are judged. So, God is going to be faithful. Why can you be justified and why can you overcome? All right. So, let's continue. Now, he gets another set of questions. But if our righteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust? Who inflicts wrath? Meganoitoi. May it never be. For then, how will God judge the world? There are the two questions. If our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, is God unjust? Who inflicts wrath? May it not be. For then, how will God judge the world? If he does not judge the world in righteousness? So, the apostle is helping them to understand the nature of God at this point. How God is going to judge the world. He goes in verse seven, for if the truth of God has increased through my lie to his glory. Now, Paul's right here. Paul here is getting ready to defend himself to his Jewish brothers. Paul, in every occasion, when he could get to one, in any city that he visited, went into the synagogue and discussed with the Jewish people the things of Jesus Christ in relationship to the Jewish law. In fact, you recall, any time Paul went into the city, he first went to the synagogue if there was one, and after he went to the synagogue, if the synagogue shut him out, then he went to those who in the synagogue listened to him, and the ones who listened to him then became a church in that particular city. I'm thinking about Thessalonica. When Paul was at Philippi, the Roman idea of Rome, there was no synagogue. But when Paul went down to Thessalonica, there was a huge synagogue in Thessalonica. And when he got to Thessalonica, the first thing he did was go to the synagogues, and he argued with them. He discussed with them. He confronted them. What Paul was doing in those synagogues, ladies and gentlemen, is the same thing he's doing in this chapter. When he got in there, he asked them questions like, but if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall I say? Is God unjust? God forbid. He's not unjust. Certainly not. For then how will God judge the world if he can't judge in righteousness? You see how these questions affect themselves? And so Paul is presenting this to these Hebrews who are thinking about, if I have the law, I've got everything I need. If I have the law, and if I'm circumcised, I'm in good shape. I'm on my way to heaven, sin's forgiven, I'm out of here. All I have to do is do a little sacrificing along the way. Now, you've got to remember, at this particular time, the temple was still in Jerusalem. It was still in effect. They were still doing sacrificing in Jerusalem. They were still having Yom Kippur. They were still having the Day of Atonement. The temple was still there. And all of the sacrifices were still going on. It was not destroyed until 70 AD by the Romans. And so all this stuff, the Jews are saying, we still have it in Jerusalem. We still have the temple. We still have the sacrifices. We still have circumcision. Isn't that an advantage? Paul says, no, not an advantage. Now get down to verse 7. For if the truth of God has increased through my lie, here again, every time Paul preached to the synagogue, the Jewish men said, you are lying. This is not the truth. And so Paul's saying, for if the truth of God has increased through my lie to his glory, then why am I also still judged as a sinner? Now, the question here is, was Paul being judged as a sinner by the Jewish men? Or was Paul being judged as a sinner by God? And the second is the answer. Yeah, the men of Israel could be judging Paul as a sinner because he was going against the law and the prophets. Therefore, because he was going against the law and the prophets, they could judge him as a sinner. But on the other hand, on the road to Damascus, when the bright light shined and Paul fell to his knees and he said, Lord, what will you have me to do when he identified Jesus Christ as Lord and gave himself to Jesus Christ as Lord, Jesus Christ at that point forgave him as a sinner. So Paul is asking that question. Who am I judged as a sinner by? Am I judged as a sinner by you? Or am I judged as a sinner by eternal God who met me on the road to Damascus? And so that's the question Paul is asking. And why not say, let us do evil that good may come as we are slanderous reported and some affirm that we say their condemnation is just? Now comes the last question. What then are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jew and Greek that they are all under sin. So watch this what's happening here. The apostle Paul is saying to them, Why do you say I'm a slanderous rabble rouser, rebellious, ungodly, un-Christian, un-Jewish, unsaved? Why are you saying all this about me? If the lie is true, then why am I justified by God? And so he comes to the conclusion, what then are we better than they? Better than who? Are we better than the Gentiles? Not at all. We're not better than the Gentiles. The Gentiles are no better than us. And he comes to the conclusion at the end of this verse, all are under, and for the first time in Paul's writing, the word sin in verse nine is singular. And at this point, he starts talking about a principle. And from this point on, he will not be talking about individual sins as we commit on a daily basis, because later on in this psalm that he's getting ready to write, he's going to talk about all of these individual sins. And at the end of the psalm, he's going to conclude that all of them are sin as well. But now he's coming to a principle. He's coming to the principle of the law of sin and death. And upon all mankind, this principle was applied. When Adam failed in the garden and God rebuked him for his failure, all who follow are in the principle of sin. You remember the scripture says in many more than one occasion, we are born in sin and in sin did our mother conceive us. That's the same word, sin. It is a principle. It is a law, a law of sin and death. And as long as we reside in that principle of sin, in the law of sin and death, we are separated eternally from God. Now, the Jews felt like because they were circumcised, they were outside that particular law of sin and death. But Paul is helping them to understand that their circumcision is worth little. No advantage whatsoever. They also felt because they had the law and the prophets, the oracles of God, that they were outside the principle of the law of sin and death. But ladies and gentlemen, everybody is under the principle of the law of sin and death. We were all born in sin and in sin did our mother conceive us. We are all sinners by birth. Sinners by birth, rebellious by nature, ungodly by conscience. That's who we are. So at this point, Paul writes a psalm. Now, this may be one of the psalms that they sang in the book of Ephesians in chapter 6, 5 and 6, making melody, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. And this could be one of the psalms that was being sung in Ephesians because you'd realize this book was a long time ahead of Ephesians. So by the time Paul got to Ephesus and began to preach at Ephesus, this psalm was being sung in most all of his congregations. By the way, there were no spiritual songs for these people. Oh, they had all of the temple songs. They had all of the 150 psalms. They had all of the songs of the Hebrew faith. They had no songs that related to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so what they were doing was Paul was writing songs and hymns and spiritual songs and making melody in the heart. And he was helping to find out. Listen to this psalm. I want you to feel what Paul is going to talk first about God. He's going to talk secondly about man. He's going to talk thirdly about ourselves. Watch. There is none righteousness, no, not one. Now, God speaking. Listen to it. There is none righteousness, no, not one. There is none who understands. There's none who seeks after God. They have all gone out their way. They have together become unprofitable. There is none that does good, not one. That's pretty tough, folks. Now watch this. Now he's going to start talking about it. That was God. God saying, out here, there's not one of you. That includes Jew and Gentile. That includes all. Nobody is excused. Nobody is absent. Nobody cannot be found under these premises. We are all under the principle of the law of sin and death because of Adam. So God's saying, you can't get out of this. All of you are just this way. Then he says, here's what they do. Watch how Paul picks up on all parts of man's body. This is very interesting in this psalm. With their tongues, they have practiced deceit. The poison of ash 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 peace of God they have not known. And he stops there. That's man. Up front you saw God. Now you see, the last one is self. There is no fear of God in their eyes. He's saying, me and you, Gentile and Jew, none of you have all and respect for God. There are none of you. And so this is a very strong psalm that Paul was writing. And many, many commentators will agree that this was a psalm that was later on sung in the Book of Ephesus and later on sung in all of the churches of the Apostle Paul where they made melody in their hearts unto God. As he gets here, he stops for a moment, and this part is kind of finished. And at this point, he's starting to pick up on another activity that's going to happen to us. And he starts talking about, all are guilty. And it's at the end of this particular section that he's going to come to that statement in 323. All have sinned. Now watch what happens when he begins now in verse 19 and concludes basically in verse 27 with this particular section. Now we know that whatsoever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. Paul's. He's saying here again, if the law says that those who are under the law and their mouths need to be stopped, and if the world become and will not are guilty before God, then that means those who are under the law and those who are outside the law are guilty to God. He's moving toward his conclusion of all are sinners. Therefore, now again, when you see a therefore, you stop and see what it is therefore. He just got through saying that the world may become guilty before God. The entire world is guilty before God. Therefore, since the entire world is guilty before God, then by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight. Ladies and gentlemen, do you realize what he just said? Do you realize what he just said? He said, therefore, because all the world become guilty and therefore, since all the world is guilty, since that's the truth, then by the deeds of the law that you have been depending on all of your Jewish life, by the circumcision of the law, which is a activity, it is a sacrament of the law, all of these deeds and activities of the law, which you have been depending on, all of the sacrifices that you have made when you were in Jerusalem, all of the days of Yom Kippur that you were required to attend, all of these things that you have been doing with great aplomb, all of them are worth nothing. And you're lost. By the deeds of the law, no flesh shall be justified in his sight. Therefore, the law cannot save anyone. Now, there is a little passage that Paul writes later that I'm just going to mention, and when we get there, we'll show it to you. It says, and Jesus Christ has become the end of the law. That's powerful. Jesus Christ has become the end of the law. And the reason being is what's getting ready to happen in this next little passage. Because, ladies and gentlemen, the law determined that the only way redemption would happen would be on the day of Yom Kippur. The law determined that. Redemption never happened outside the day of Yom Kippur. Pause. See law. Yes, it did. There were great men of faith in the Old Testament who, by faith, made that statement stupid. And by faith, Abraham. Go to chapter 11, book of Hebrews, and by faith, and by faith, and by faith. All of these were by faith, with and without the law. So what the apostles are saying, therefore, none shall be righteousness. They're all under, because of the knowledge of sin. So now, in verse 21, he's getting ready to introduce a word that he's going to use 12 times in this book. And I want you to mark it. The word is now. N-O-W. Now. You see it? Okay. Look what's happening. Paul says, therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified. Therefore, by the leads of the law, you have nothing. You're just as lost as you can be. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. The law makes sin available. It makes it knowledgeable. Now, since that happened, the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. What's he talking about? Jesus Christ. He's talking about Jesus Christ coming into the world. He's talking about the coming of the Messiah. For he says that now, the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is revealed. In the fullness of time, God sent his only son into the world. Amen? And that's what he's talking about. Paul is saying, look, guys, you all may have the law. You may be up to here with all kinds of creeds. And you may be up here at all kinds of sacraments. You may be doing all kinds of sacrifices. You may be doing all this huge stuff. But let me tell you something, guys. It's worth nothing. And you know it's worth nothing. Because God has made a new revelation. He has revealed righteousness. And it is outside the law. And that righteousness that he is revealing vis-a-vis Jesus Christ was the one to whom the law and the prophets pointed. The law points to Jesus Christ. The prophets point to Jesus Christ. By the way, thank you, Jim, do you all understand that the 53rd chapter of the book of Isaiah is never read in any synagogue? Go back and read it sometime. Go back and read the 53rd chapter of the book of Isaiah. It is a beautiful picture of the birth and life of Jesus Christ. Do you all know that that passage is never read in a Jewish synagogue? Never. Okay. So what he begins in 22, he says, even the righteousness of God, which is through, now he's going to explain what this righteousness is. He's saying, you know, God did something unusual. He nullified the law by the revelation of Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ is the end of the law. It's over. And so he says here, even the righteousness of God, which is through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe, for there is no difference. There's no difference between you, a Jew. There's no difference between you, a Gentile. There's no difference. For all have sinned and come short or fall short of the glory of God. Now there's the conclusion. Jew and Gentile. This is a beautiful word picture. Greek is full of word pictures. And that's why I think all of us enjoy Greek so much because they were wonderful little word pictures. There's one word is Katalaban. It's a beautiful little word. It's a picture of a, of a daddy on the floor with a two or three year old and a ball. And they're throwing it to each other. Have y'all ever done that? Have you ever said to a child sitting on the floor, lob it to me. And you meant throw it, you know, Katalaban. You hear that word lob? And it means to throw. And the word Kata means down. This is the same thing that was said of Jesus Christ when he said, and Jesus faced Satan and Satan could not put him away. Satan could not Katalaban him. Satan could not throw him down. Kata means down, Laban means to throw. It's a picture of a man and a little child throwing a ball to each other. And the ball goes down. Okay. This word is a word picture. It's a picture of an archer looking at a target and the archer pulls the ball back with the arrow and he lets it fly. And the fly and the arrow flies and it falls just short of the target. In other words, he missed the target. And so what Paul is concluding here is that all of us have sinned and we have fallen short of what we need desperately. We need the glory of God. I'm going to pause here for just a minute and ask you a question. How did you receive the glory of God? You received it by faith. That's true. That's right. You're right. I'm going to tell you how you received it. You died. You died here in this world. You died. You died to self under the power of the Lord Jesus Christ and you became alive under God. And when you died, God put in you his Shekinah glory. Got it? You see, you can't have glory unless you die, folks. Now, everybody needs to die twice. Everybody is going to die twice. Some people are going to die once here and when they get over to there, because they didn't die twice here, they're going to get to die twice again there. For the chapter in the book of Revelations that talks about the great white throne judgment says, and this was the second death. Everybody dies twice, folks. The only thing you've got to be sure of is that you do it twice here and not there. Doing it there ain't too cool. Doing it here is wonderful. And so we do here, we die to self and then save, and all of us are talking about it, save the fact that we're not here during the rapture. Praise God, I wish we were. Barbara's waiting for the rapture, folks. I don't know if you know it or not. She's waiting for the rapture. She talks about the rapture all the time. I do too. If we're not raptured, we're going to die here, right? But when we get to heaven, we're not going to die there. We're going to live there. Now, remember, Jesus was talking to his disciples about his, remember, glorification, and he was talking about his death, and they were not wanting to listen because they didn't want him to die. Now, how do you get glory? We're missing the glory of God because we can't get there on our own recognizance. The only way we can get to God is through Jesus Christ. Jesus said, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life. No man comes to the Father except through me. Okay, so he says here, you fall sharp. Whom God has set forth, now watch here. You want to talk about the Temple? You want to talk about Yom Kippur? Paul's getting ready to talk about Yom Kippur to these Jews. Watch what he says here. This is an interesting passage, what he says to them here. He says, well, now listen. Whom God set forth to be a propitiation by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance, God has passed over the sins that were previously committed. Hey folks, on the day of atonement, on the day of Yom Kippur, two things were necessary. One thing was the blood of a lamb who was deemed to be spotless and pure without any kind of blemish. The other was another lamb who would become the lamb who would bear the sins. And on the day of atonement, the first little lamb was slain, and his blood was caught. And the high priest took that pan of blood into the Holy of Holies, where was the Ark of the Covenant, which was called the Mercy Seat. And he totally covered that Mercy Seat in the presence of God, because in the book of Leviticus, God says to his people, I will meet you over the Mercy Seat. After he had given them the tabernacle and the wilderness, I will once a year meet you over the Mercy Seat. And as I meet you over that Mercy Seat, that Mercy Seat will need to be covered with the blood of a lamb. And when that Mercy Seat is covered with the blood of the lamb, then I will propitiate, I will forgive you of your sins. And every one of you who does it right. Now, you remember, the day of Yom Kippur was preceded by 10 days of prayer. And all of the Jews were to pray for 10 days. And at the end of 10 days, then with Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, let me ask you a question. Did all of the Jews pray those 10 days? Say no. You're right. Did some of the Jews pray to be redeemed and to be forgiven on those days? Say yes. Yes. Who had their sins removed and were born again annually? The ones who prayed. All of them. Not all of them. The ones who prayed. Only the ones who, by faith, prayed, God would forgive. See, ladies and gentlemen, this has never been my works. Nothing has ever been my works. Even in the Old Testament, everything was by faith. For 10 days, I'm a Jew. I've got to have faith. And if I pray for 10 days, then when that little lamb gets that blood smeared all over him, and he falls off the cliff and dies on the other side, and when he dies, I've got to have faith that when he dies, I get born again. Got it? Annual New Birth, Chapter 9, Book of Hebrews. Now, on the cross, Jesus became our mercy seat. And he, the word propitiation means to remove. And he, with his blood in the presence of the Father, propitiated our sins. So that Paul can say, with whom God set forth to be a removal of the sins, to be the propitiation of sins, by his blood, by faith, it's all by faith, folks, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance, God had, watch it, here is the Passover. This is not just the temple. This is not just the mercy seat. This is not just the Holy of Holies. This is not just the spreading of blood. Paul is giving them the whole show. He's given all of it to them. You see it? Here's the temple. Here's what you used to do. Here's what didn't work. Here's what you did when you did it. It worked. And when you prayed 10 days, and you had faith, and your sins were forgiven, you got an annual new birth. Here it is. Now, I want you to know, not only that, but also, when I see the blood, I will do what? I read somewhere, a commentator said, when God looks at you, and God looks at me, he doesn't see you. He doesn't see me. All he sees is the blood of Jesus Christ, his son. You and I are covered, obitiation, covered in his blood. And we're there, not by works of righteousness, which I have done, but according to his spirit, hath he justified me by the washing, renewing of my soul. We are there by faith. That's why I say all the time, hey, get out there and faith it. Let's get a new chapter. I'm going to get through this thing, okay? Maybe you can have four next week. All right. So he says, he does all this to demonstrate at the present time, right now, where we are, Paul's talking about the year in which we are, and he can demonstrate right now, present time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of one who has faith in Jesus Christ. Now, ladies and gentlemen, at this point, Paul is saying, the old law is what? God. That's why later on, Paul will write, and Jesus is the end of the law. So he goes on to say, since I have said all of this, where's boasting? It's gone. Now he comes to a last therefore. Therefore, and here's his conclusion, we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. Or, is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, the Gentiles as well. Since there is only one true God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith, do we then make void the law through faith? May, God forbid. Ladies and gentlemen, you never make the law of God void. The law of God still speaks. Thou shalt have what before me? Thou shalt not make what? Thou shalt not, thou shalt keep, honor thy father and mother. I'm taking you down, honor thy father and mother. No murder, no adultery, no stealing, no covetousness, and no false, no lying. Hey, you're never going to nullify that. Did Jesus nullify it? No, Jesus lived it. But, the law never stayed. The law was a schoolmaster which was to bring us to Jesus Christ. That was the job of the law. And so he concludes, certainly not. On the contrary, the redemption of Jesus Christ was established in the law. Go back and look at it. The law and the prophets spoke volumes of the relationship of Jesus Christ. And so we come to this point. We are all born in the principle of sin. The law of sin and death. But, through the providence and the redemptive propitiation, blood covering of Jesus Christ on the cross, we can all come into life and liberty in Jesus Christ. And as a Christian, that's where we are today. You know, in our constitution, in our statements of faith, we say, God gave us life, and he gave us liberty, and he gave it to us how? At the same time. In the United States, when God gives you life, he also gives you liberty at the same time. They come together. That's part of the statement of our constitution, and ours, and it's just. Listen, when Jesus Christ saved you from your sin, he gave you new life and new liberty, and he gave it to you at the same time. You are alive in Christ and free from the law of sin and death. Amen? You can't beat that with a stick, folks. You can't beat it with a stick. Isn't that wonderful? Now, remember, we're going to look at two other things along the way. In 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, we're going to look at the second point of this thing that we call soteriology. We're going to look at justification. Since a man is born in sin, how in the world can we get out of it? And Paul's going to come and say, here's how you are justified. And then later on in the last part of the book, he's going to say, oh, and by the way, here are the things you need to do to become sanctified in order that you might be at the place when God decides that you are to be glorified that you will be taken into eternal heaven as his child. Remember, the process of salvation has four parts. Sin, we're finished with that. Justification, Brother Jimmy is starting that. Sanctification, we'll talk about that. And the last is glorification. God bless you. Thank you for being here today. Barbara told me I wouldn't get through with this one today. She's always telling me that. Here we go. I wish you would take my material and read it. You can read about the hymn that is in this last part. I didn't have time to talk about that, but there is a hymn. There's a hymn in this last part that starts with, and all shall be justified by faith. And it was a hymn that was sung in the churches. Pick it out in my words. All right. God bless you, Brother Jim. It's all yours next week. Chapter four, you're going to get on with it and we're going to get on with you. God bless you for coming. Thank you for coming back. I told John and Sandy, I said, you know, in a Baptist church, when you come twice, we enroll you. All right. Remember that? If you show up twice, your name's on our roll. We got you. And third time you're on our committee. And third time you're really in trouble. Thank you, John. And the rest of you visitors, thank you for coming. Let's pray. God, thank you for justification through the blood of Jesus Christ. Thank you, Father, that there was no way we could get out of this world alive. No way. We were born in sin. We lived in sin. We reveled in sin. We would die in sin. But Father, in the fullness of time, God sent his only son to be born of a woman, to make a propitiation, a mercy seed of blood covering to cover our sins so that we can say, God, thank you for redemption through your blood. And we praise you and love you. In the name of Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen. See you next Sunday.
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