Romans 3:9-18 “Negative”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁹What then? Are we being excelled? Not at all, for we have before charged all, both Jews and Greeks, with being under sin. ¹⁰Just as it is written that:

There is not a righteous one, neither one.

¹¹There is not the one understanding.

There is not the one seeking God.

¹²All have deviated.

They have together become useless.

There is not the one doing good [to others].

There is not so much as one.

¹³The throat of them [is] an opened sepulcher.

They are deceiving to the tongues of them.

[The] poison of asps [is] under the lips of them.

¹⁴The mouth of them is being full of curses and bitterness.

¹⁵The feet of them [are] swift to shed blood.

¹⁶Destruction and misery [are] in the ways of them,

¹⁷and [the] way of peace they have not known.

¹⁸[The] fear of God is not before the eyes of them.

I’ve always been struck by the negativity of this passage. My first response would be that it is perhaps unnecessarily harsh. What I mean is that, like with the first few verses – they appear to be almost verbatim quotes from Psalm 14, which begins saying, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”  The Psalm is particularly speaking of a “fool” – a person who has deliberately rejected God in their life. When this Psalm then goes on to say, “There is not one seeking God,” if we’re still understanding it is talking about “fools,” we all nod our heads in agreement. But in Romans, Paul is applying the truth to all of us – which ought to give us reason to pause. “Hey! Wait a minute. Of course that applies to a fool, but I don’t think I’m that bad. Not everyone is that bad!”

That’s my first response. But then we go back to the very first line: “There is none righteous, no not one.” Does that apply to me? Well, yes, of course. Of course I’m not “righteous.” I want to be. I’m trying to become. But I’m very aware I’m “not there yet.” Well, then, if I’m not “righteous,” what am I? And if I’m not righteous, but I do at times seek God and try to understand, try to do good, how do I explain why I exist in some kind of middle point between real righteousness and the downright atheism this passage indicts?

I think we could all agree our experience has been that all people everywhere certainly aren’t totally evil. There are actually nice people in this world. But, if this passage is true, how do we explain them? How do I explain me? I’m running ahead of the text here, but I would suggest it is profoundly important to see that grace is already at work. Even as Paul is laying the charge that all are under sin – to the end he wants to lead us to grace – what we find is that grace has already found us! The Lord sends His rain “on the just and the unjust.” In chapter 2, he just said that “God’s kindness leads you to repentance.” The reason people “aren’t as bad as they could be” is entirely a kindness of God. It is not any indication whatsoever of any inherent goodness in our being.

The very fact that these verses might appear unnecessarily harsh is because grace has already been doing its kind work in each of our hearts. Long before we knew the Lord or even cared what He thinks, He was doing kindnesses to us. He allowed me to be born into a family of hard-working, honest, generous people. I grew up thinking that is normal. I got to grow up in an America where I could live in a real house, not in a grass hut in a jungle. Who do I have to thank for all these kindnesses? It is the Lord. I don’t run around naked with a bone in my nose, killing other people and eating them. Why not? It is the Lord. As Paul told the Athenians, “He determined the times set for them and exact places where they should live so that men would seek Him and perhaps find Him, though He is not far from each one of us…”

What this passage teaches us, what it exposes, is who we really are, who we all would be – were it not for grace! The very fact we can say, “I don’t think I’m that bad” or “But I know a lot of people who aren’t that bad” should move us all to grateful repentance. In my own life, I can think of a thousand times when I could have made really bad decisions, could have fallen into really bad habits and done really bad things – but I didn’t. And why not? Romans 3 teaches me it was the Lord protecting me from myself! Praise His name!!!

The negativity of this passage should actually humble us. We can say with believing eyes, “Yes, apart from the Lord’s kindness, this is exactly who I am,” and then allow His vigilant kindness to draw us to Him, not drive us away. In fact, that is exactly where Paul is headed. He isn’t drawing back the curtain of our hearts simply to condemn us. He’s leading us to the kindness and grace of God who will provide us an answer for our sin!

But first, He has to allow us to see the truth. We simply won’t value His answer, His hope, if we don’t think our problem is that bad. Standing under the light of the Gospel, the revelation of our awful sinfulness only exalts the wonder of this Jesus who will save us! But there I go again, running ahead.

The other thing I want to note for myself is that this passage does teach us a dose of reality. Yes, apart from grace, people really are this bad. They’re demons. We try to assume the best of others, try to look for the good in others. We’re disappointed when people turn out to be false or unfaithful. We’re shocked by the atrocities of which people are capable. For myself, I can confess I am and always have been a delusive fool. For whatever reason, it is just my nature to assume the best of people. I like people. I like being around people. I very much enjoy watching them succeed. Yet there is always that negative twist that frankly I’m very slow to see and not very good at handling. My delusiveness has been both a blessing and a curse in my life.

Somehow, I need to see people exactly as the Bible presents them. What this passage (and the rest of the Bible) teaches us is that actually we are all venomous demons who are (thankfully) being restrained by grace. People can be very good but somehow I need to remember that is entirely because God is good. We have Him to thank that all of us venomous demons can actually live together and enjoy each other, that we can know love and joy and peace. Somehow, I need to stop assuming the best simply because I’m delusive, and rather assume the best as just one more way of trusting and loving God. As I’m typing this, I’m thinking of other people who have the opposite problem – they tend to see the worst in people, to assume the worst of them. Unfortunately, this passage would tell them they have good reason to assume the worst. However, in those people’s case, they need to trust God for how He does in fact restrain evil and cause people to actually do good.

In short, this passage would teach us we all need to see people (us) for exactly who they really are but then see an amazing, wonderful, kind and good God reigning above them all.

This is the Gospel and it is reality. The sad fact is there is something horribly negative and true about us. In fact, it is so bad, we need a Savior. But then, once again, I’m running ahead!