14  The Guilt of All Men (3:9-20)

What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there in none who does good, there is not even one. Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving, 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 paths, and the path of peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin. (3:9–20)

Men like to believe they are basically good and that belief is continually reinforced by psychologists, counselors, and a great many religious leaders.

But deep in his heart man knows there is a problem with the way he is, that something is wrong. No matter whom or what he may try to blame for that feeling, he cannot escape it. He feels guilt, not only about things he has done that he knows are wrong but also about the kind of person he is on the inside.

A popular newspaper advice columnist wrote, “One of the most painful, self-mutilating, time-and energy-consuming exercises in the human experience is guilt…. It can ruin your day—or your week or your life—if you let it. It turns up like a bad penny when you do something dishonest, hurtful, tacky, selfish, or rotten…. Never mind that it was the result of ignorance, stupidity, laziness, thoughtlessness, weak flesh, or clay feet. You did wrong and the guilt is killing you. Too bad. But be assured,” she concluded, “the agony you feel is normal…. Remember guilt is a pollutant and we don’t need any more of it in the world” (The Ann Landers Encyclopedia [New York: Doubleday, 1978], pp. 514–17). With that, she went on to another subject.

The ancient Roman philosopher Seneca wrote that every guilty person is his own hangman. No matter how often a man tells himself he is good, he inevitably sees that he cannot help thinking, saying, and doing wrong things and feeling guilty about it. Guilt drives people to alcohol, drugs, despair, insanity, and more and more frequently to suicide. After playing psychological games about blaming his environment or other people or society in general, man still cannot escape the feeling of his own guilt. In fact, societies with sophisticated psychological services seem even more guilt ridden. People want to get rid of their guilty feelings but they do not know how. And the more they probe for solutions, the more guilty they feel.

Men feel guilty because they are guilty. The guilt feeling is only the symptom of the real problem, which is sin. All of the psychological counseling in the world cannot relieve a person of his guilt. At best it can only make him feel better, superficially and temporarily, by placing the blame on someone else or something else. That, of course, only intensifies the guilt, because it adds dishonesty to the sin that caused the guilt feeling in the first place.

Man’s guilt has only one cause—his own sin—and unless his sin is removed, his guilt cannot be. That is why the first element of the gospel is confronting men with the reality of their sin. The word gospel means “good news.” But the good news it offers is the way of salvation from sin, and until a person is convicted of his sin, the gospel has nothing to offer. The gospel therefore begins by declaring that all men are fundamentally sinful and that the greatest need of their lives is to have that sin removed through trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

As Paul has already forcefully declared in the first two chapters of Romans, both the pagan Gentile and the religious Jew are sinful and stand condemned before a holy God. But human nature strongly resists that truth. Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse said, “It is only stubborn self-pride that keeps man from the confession to God that would bring release, but that way he refuses to take. Man stands before God today like a little boy who swears with crying and tears that he has not been anywhere near the jam jar, and who with an air of outraged innocence, pleads the justice of his position, in total ignorance of the fact that a good spoonful of the jam has fallen on his shirt under his chin and is plainly visible to all but himself” (God’s Wrath: Romans 2—3:1–20 [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953], p. 191).

The apostle Paul was well aware of man’s disposition to deny his sin. Therefore, from creation, from history, from reason and logic, and from conscience, Paul has already presented powerful testimony of man’s sinfulness. Now he presents the ultimate testimony, the testimony of Scripture. Beginning with verse 10 and continuing through verse 18, Paul introduces before the court, as it were, the testimony of God’s own Word as revealed in the Old Testament. Verses 9–20 summarize God’s divine and perfect view of man and they continue in a trial motif: the arraignment (v. 9), the indictment (vv. 10–17), the motive (v. 18), and the verdict (vv. 19–20).

THE ARRAIGNMENT

What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; (3:9)

The charge begins with two questions. The first is simply, What then? The idea is, “What is the point of further testimony?” Paul has already condemned the immoral pagan, the moral pagan, and then both the moral and immoral Jew. Anticipating what some of his readers would think, his second question asks rhetorically, Are we better than they? That is, “Do we have a better basic nature than those who have just been shown to be condemned? Are we made from a different mold, cut from a different piece of cloth than they?”

The ones to whom we refers is not absolutely clear. Some commentators believe Paul is speaking of his fellow Jews. But he has already dealt in verses 1–8 with the question most Jews would ask, declaring that they do indeed have a spiritual advantage above Gentiles by having been “entrusted with the oracles of God,” that is, the Old Testament Scriptures. He had previously pointed out, however, that their greater advantage also brought greater accountability (2:17–25). Nowhere else in the epistle does Paul identify himself with his fellow Jews by the use of we.

It seems better to take this we to refer to himself and his fellow believers in Rome, both Jew and Gentile. The question would then mean, “Are we Christians, in ourselves, better than the other groups of people already shown to be condemned before God? Are we intrinsically superior to those others? Were we saved because our basic human nature was on a higher plane than theirs?”

Immediately answering his own question, Paul unequivocally asserts, Not at all. “No, we are not in ourselves any better than others,” he says. He has already pointed out the condemnation of everyone, from the most reprobate, vice-ridden pagan to the most outwardly moral and upright Jew. In other words, the entire human race, with absolutely no exceptions, is arraigned before God’s court of justice: For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin.

Proaitiaomai (already charged) was often used as a legal term to designate a person previously indicted for a given offense. Hupo (under) was a common Greek term that frequently meant not simply to be beneath but to be totally under the power, authority, and control of something or someone. That is obviously the sense Paul has in mind here: Every human being, both Jews and Greeks are all under, completely subservient and in bondage to, the dominion of sin.

Such an idea was preposterous to most Jews. In his rebuke of Peter for succumbing to the Judaizers, Paul referred to the common belief of Jews that they were righteous before God simply by virtue of being Jewish, members of His chosen race. On the other hand, Jews believed just as strongly that Gentiles—commonly called Greeks because of the prevalence of Greek culture and language even under Roman rule—were naturally sinful simply by virtue of being non-Jewish (see Gal. 3:15).

If a Jew was poverty stricken, handicapped, or otherwise seriously afflicted, it was assumed that either he or his parents had committed some unusually heinous sin, for which, for a generation or so, they forfeited their normally high standing before God. That belief is reflected in the story of the blind man whom Jesus and the disciples passed just outside the Temple one day. Noticing the man’s condition, the disciples asked the Lord, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?” (John 9:2). After Jesus corrected the disciples’ wrong assumption, He restored the man’s sight. When the man was talking with the Pharisees a short while later, they vehemently voiced the same wrong assumption the Twelve had expressed. When the man said to them of Jesus, “If this man were not from God, He could do nothing,” the Pharisees were greatly offended and replied, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?” (vv. 33–34).

People who are very religious tend to think of themselves as being inherently better than others and favored by God because of their good ness and religiosity. Even Christians are sometimes tempted to think that God saved them because they were somehow more deserving of salvation than others. But if a person ever becomes right before God it is never because he is innately better than anyone else or because he has managed to bring his life up to God’s standards or because he zealously observes certain religious practices. It is only because he has acknowledged his sin and helplessness and prostrated himself in humble faith before the Lord Jesus Christ for forgiveness and cleansing.

Despite great differences in outward behavior and attitudes among people, every Christless person is sinful in nature and is under the dominion and control of Satan. The entire unredeemed world, John declares, “lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19) and is therefore arraigned, as it were, before God’s bar of justice.

THE INDICTMENT

as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one. Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving, 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 paths, and the path of peace have they not known.” (3:10–17)

Paul now presents an appalling thirteen-count indictment against fallen mankind. To reinforce the inclusiveness of the indictment, he reiterates the fact that all of fallen humanity, Jew and Gentile alike, is under sin (see. v. 9). In verses 10–18, he uses the term none (and its equivalent, not even one) six times in referring to man’s absolute lack of righteousness before God.

The indictment comes directly from Old Testament Scripture, to which it is written refers. Both Jesus and Satan used that phrase to introduce quotations from the Old Testament during the temptation in the wilderness (Matt. 4:4, 6–7, 10). It is written translates the Greek perfect tense, indicating the continuity and permanence of what was written and implying its divine authority, which every faithful Jew and every faithful Christian, whether Jew or Gentile, acknowledged.

The thirteen charges of the indictment are presented in three categories—the first concerning the character (vv. 10–12), the second concerning the conversation (vv. 13–14), and the third concerning the conduct (vv. 15–17) of the accused.

THE CHARACTER OF THE ACCUSED

“There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one. (3:10–12)

Under the heading of what could be called character, Paul lists the first six of the thirteen charges. Because of their fallen natures, men are universally evil (v. 10b), spiritually ignorant (v. 11a), rebellious (v. 11b), wayward (v. 12a), spiritually useless (v. 12b), and morally corrupt (v. 12c).

First, mankind is universally evil, there being absolutely no exceptions. Quoting from the Psalms, Paul declares, There is none righteous, not even one. The full text of Psalm 14:1 is, “The fool has said in his heart ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; there is no one who does good.”

Righteousness is a major theme of the book of Romans, appearing in one form or another more than thirty times. Other terms from the same Greek root are usually translated “justified,” “justification,” or the like. Together they are used more than sixty times in the book of Romans. It is not surprising, therefore, that the first first charge Paul makes in his indictment is that of mankind’s unrighteousness.

Paul is using the term righteous in its most basic sense of being right before God, of being as God created man to be. Obviously, people are able to do many things that are morally right. Even the most vile person may occasionally do something commendable. But the apostle is not speaking of specific acts or even general patterns of behavior, but of man’s inner character. His point is that there is not a single person who has ever lived, apart from the sinless Lord Jesus (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21), whose innermost being could be characterized as righteous by God’s standard. To prevent some people from thinking that they might be exceptions, Paul adds, not even one.

As already noted, there are obviously vast differences among people as to their kindness, love, generosity, honesty, truthfulness, and the like. But not even one person beside Christ has come remotely close to righteous perfection, which is the only standard acceptable to God. God’s standard of righteousness for men is the righteousness that He Himself possesses, which was manifest in Christ. “You are to be perfect,” Jesus declared, “as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).

In other words, a person who is not as good as God is not acceptable to God. As Paul makes clear later in the epistle, and as the New Testament teaches throughout, men can become perfectly righteous, when the righteousness of Christ is imputed to them. The very truth that makes the gospel the “good news” is that God has provided a way for men to become perfect, divinely perfect. But that perfection comes entirely by God’s grace in response to faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.

Paul is here speaking of men, all men, who are apart from Christ. In God’s sight, there are no levels of righteousness as far as salvation is concerned. There is either perfect righteousness in Christ or perfect sinfulness apart from Christ.

As mentioned above, from man’s perspective there are vast moral and spiritual differences among people. But men’s achieving God’s standard of righteousness on their own may be compared to a group of people trying to jump from the shore of a south seas island to the United States. A good athlete could jump twenty-five feet or more. Many could jump ten or fifteen feet, and a few might be in such poor shape that they could barely jump five. Measured against each other, therefore, their efforts would be considerably different. But measured against the distance from those islands to the United States, the differences among them would be undetectable and their efforts would be equally futile. Almost as if commenting on such a contest, Paul declares a few verses later: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (3:23).

Second, man not only is universally evil but also spiritually ignorant. Quoting again from the Psalms, Paul says, There is none who understands (see Pss. 14:2; 53:3). Even if men somehow had the ability to achieve God’s perfect righteousness, they would not know what it is or how to go about attaining it. To use the south seas island example again, they would have no idea as to which way to jump.

Man has no innate ability to fully comprehend God’s truth or His standard of righteousness. From God’s magnificent creation, man has sufficient evidence of His “invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature” to make every person “without excuse” for not honoring and glorifying God (Rom. 1:20). But apart from the ability to see that general revelation of His power and majesty, man has no spiritual capacity to know or understand God, because the “natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Cor. 2:14).

In his letter to the Ephesians, the apostle points out that man’s spiritual ignorance is not due to unfortunate outward circumstances or lack of opportunity. It is due solely to his own innate sinful nature that does not want to know and understand, much less obey and serve God. Unsaved persons are “darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart” (Eph. 4:18). Men are not sinful and hardened against God because they are ignorant of Him, but, to the contrary, they are ignorant of Him because of their sinful and hardened disposition. People have a certain sense about God through the testimony of creation, as already noted, and also through the witness of their consciences (Rom. 2:15). But their willfully sinful nature blocks out that testimony and witness. The natural man is thereby hardened in his heart and darkened in his mind. He not only does not understand God but has no inclination to do so.

Some years ago a fascinating but pathetic story of a duck in a Toronto park made headlines for several days (Toronto Star, Nov. 4–13, 1971). The duck, who came to be called Ringo, made her home at the park lake. One day she accidentally poked her bill through the ring of a pull tab from a pop can and was not able to extricate herself. She was, of course, unable to eat and would soon starve to death. When her plight was noticed by some park visitors, she became something of a celebrity. Park personnel and animal experts tried numerous ways to catch Ringo so she could be helped. They even called in a champion duck caller. People tried luring her with food but without success. Unfortunately, the frightened Ringo mistook all the efforts to help her as being threats. The rescuers lost sight of her and never did catch her. It is not known if Ringo eventually dislodged the pull tab before she died.

Fallen and condemned man, trapped in his sin, is similarly confused. Because he sees it as a threat to his life-style rather than an eternal blessing, he makes every effort to escape the gospel, which the Lord has so graciously provided for his salvation.

Third, in addition to being universally evil and spiritually ignorant, fallen man is rebellious. There is none who seeks for God, Paul declares, alluding again to Psalm 14:2. Judging from the vast number of religions in the world with millions of zealous adherents, one would think that a great many people are diligently seeking after God. But Scripture makes clear, in this passage and in many others, that all religious systems and efforts are, in reality, attempts to escape the true God and to discover or manufacture false gods of one’s own liking.

God has given the absolute assurance that anyone who seeks Him with his heart will find Him (Jer. 29:13). Jesus offers the divine promise that everyone who sincerely asks of Him will receive, that everyone who sincerely seeks Him will find Him, and that everyone who sincerely knocks on the door of heaven will have it opened to him (Matt. 7:8). But the Lord knows that man’s sinful inclination is not to seek Him, and He therefore seeks individuals out to draw them to Himself.

During the council at Jerusalem in the early days of the church, James reminded the gathering of apostles and elders of God’s ancient promises that “after these things I will return, and I will rebuild the Tabernacle of David which has fallen, and I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, in order that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord” (Acts 15:16–17). Peter gives assurance in the clearest possible words that the Lord does not wish “for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).

But man-made religions are demon-inspired efforts to escape from God, not to find Him. Every person who comes to Jesus Christ for salvation has been sent to Him through the divine initiative of God the Father (John 6:37). “No one can come to Me,” Jesus goes on to say, “unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (v. 44). The only person, therefore, who seeks God is the person who has responded positively to God’s seeking him.

The person who truly seeks for God is like David, who declared, “I have set the Lord continually before me” (Ps. 16:8). Such a person seeks first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matt. 6:33). God becomes the focus of everything, the source of everything, the beginning and end of everything. To truly seek for God is to respect and adore His sovereign majesty and to feed on the truth of His Word. It is to obey His commandments, to speak to Him in prayer, to live consciously in His presence with a desire to please Him. No one can do such things naturally, but only by the Spirit of God working through him. The natural inclination of men is to “seek after their own interests” (Phil. 2:21).

Fourth, Paul charges that men are naturally wayward. Continuing to quote from the Psalms (14:3), he declares that all have turned aside from God. The person who is naturally evil, naturally ignorant of God’s truth, and naturally rebellious against God, will inevitably naturally live apart from God’s will.

Turned aside is from ekklinō, and has the basic meaning of leaning in the wrong direction. In a military context it referred to a soldier’s running the wrong way, in other words deserting in the midst of battle.

Speaking of the universal human inclination to go against God’s way, Isaiah wrote, “All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way” (Isa. 53:6). In the early church the gospel was sometimes called “the Way” (Acts 9:2), and Christians were often referred to as followers of the Way. Jesus said of Himself, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). Even the demon who had given a certain slave girl the power of divination acknowledged through her that Paul and his companions were “bond-servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation” (Acts 16:17, emphasis added). Luke referred to some Jewish opponents of Paul’s ministry in Ephesus as men who were “speaking evil of the Way” (Acts 19:9), and because of that opposition, “there arose no small disturbance concerning the Way” (v. 23). In his defense before the governor Felix, Paul said, “This I admit to you, that according to the Way which they call a sect I do serve the God of our fathers, believing everything that is in accordance with the Law, and that is written in the Prophets” (Acts 24:14). The writer of Hebrews spoke of Christ’s atoning work as “a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh” (Heb. 10:20). Peter spoke of false teachers who had infiltrated the church as those who had forsaken “the right way” of the true gospel, which is “the way of righteousness” (2 Pet. 2:15, 21).

On the other hand, the basic pattern of living of the natural man is characterized as “the evil way” (Prov. 8:13), the “way which seems right to a man, but [whose] end is the way of death” (Prov. 14:12).

The great evangelist Dwight L. Moody told of being asked by the warden of a large prison in New York City to speak to the inmates. Because there was no chapel or other suitable or safe place to speak to the group, he preached from a gangway at one end of a large tier of cells, unable to see the face of a single prisoner. After the message he asked permission to talk face-to-face with some of the men through the bars of their cells. He soon discovered that most of the men had not even been listening to his message. When Moody would ask an inmate why he was in prison, the man almost invariably declared his innocence. He would insist that a false witness testified against him, or that he was mistaken for the person who really committed the crime, or that the judge or jury was prejudiced against him, or he would give some other reason he was unjustly incarcerated. “1 began to get discouraged,” Moody said, “but when I had gotten almost through I found one man with his elbows on his knees and two streams of tears running down his cheeks. I looked in at the little window and said, ‘My friend, what is your trouble?’ He looked up with despair and remorse on his face and said, ‘My sins are more than I can bear.’ I said, Thank God for that.’” The evangelist was thankful because he knew that no man is open to God’s way until he forsakes his own way, that he will not seek salvation until he admits he is lost.

Fifth, Paul charges that the natural man is spiritually worthless. Together, that is, all of fallen mankind, they have become useless. The Hebrew equivalent of the Greek term translated here as useless was often used to describe milk that had turned sour and rancid, thereby becoming unfit to drink or to be used to make butter, cheese, or anything else edible. In ancient Greek literature the word was even used of the senseless laughter of a moron.

Apart from a saving relationship to Jesus Christ, a person is a spiritually dead branch, totally unable to produce any fruit. As such, it is lifeless and worthless, fit only to be thrown into the fire to be burned (John 15:6). Paul’s letter to Titus emphasizes the same tragic reality when it reflects on the utter worthlessness of even religious men (Titus 1:16). The natural man is useless for the purposes of God and, much like the worthless dead branch, is destined for the fires of hell.

Sixth, the natural man is charged with being corrupt, which is both a repetition of the first charge and something of a summary of the previous five charges. There is none who does good, Paul says, there is not even one.

Chrēstotēs (does good) refers to what is upright, specifically to what is morally upright. Measured by God’s perfect standard of righteousness, the natural man has no ability to do anything upright and good. As already mentioned, relative to other human beings, some people obviously are better behaved. But no human being has within himself either the desire or the capacity for the good that is holy, perfect, and God-glorifying by the divine standard.

The story is told of a man in Scotland who was walking through a park one Saturday afternoon, carrying a small New Testament in a leather case. Thinking the case contained a camera, a group of young people asked him to take their picture. In response, he said, “I already have it.” When the astonished youths asked him where and when he had taken it, he took out the Testament and read Romans 3:9–23. After saying, “That is your picture,” he took the opportunity to witness to them about Christ.

THE CONVERSATION OF THE ACCUSED

Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; (3:13–14)

A person’s character will inevitably manifest itself in his conversation. Jesus declared that “the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man out of his good treasure brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth what is evil” (Matt. 12:34–35). On another occasion He taught the same truth in slightly different words: “The things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart” (15:18). The writer of Proverbs said, “The mouth of the righteous flows with wisdom, but the perverted tongue will be cut out. The lips of the righteous bring forth what is acceptable, but the mouth of the wicked, what is perverted” (Prov. 10:31–32). He also wrote, “The tongue of the wise makes knowledge acceptable, but the mouth of fools spouts folly…. The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things” (Prov. 15:2, 28).

Continuing to quote from the Psalms, Paul illustrates the truths about a person’s character as they are reflected in his conversation. In doing so, he adds four more charges to the divine indictment against the unregenerate man.

Commenting on Paul’s use of human anatomy to illustrate how man’s evil character manifests itself, one writer paraphrased the psalmist’s and the apostle’s words in this way: “His tongue is tipped with fraud, his lips are tainted with venom, his mouth full of gall [bitterness], … his tongue a sword to run men through, and his throat a sepulchre in which to bury them.”

The seventh charge of Paul’s indictment is that by nature fallen mankind is spiritually dead, demonstrated by the metaphor of their throat being an open grave (cf. Ps. 5:9). A spiritually dead heart can generate only spiritually dead words.

The throat is to the heart as an open grave is to the corpse within it. Where embalming is not available, a corpse is placed in the ground and then covered up—not only to show respect for the deceased but also to protect passersby from viewing the disfigurement and smelling the stench of decay. But the natural man keeps his throat wide open, and in so doing continually testifies to his spiritual death by the foulness of his words.

The eighth charge is that by nature fallen mankind is deceitful: with their tongues they keep deceiving. Dolioo, from which keep deceiving is derived, has the basic meaning of luring and was used of baiting a hook by covering it with a small piece of food to disguise its danger. When a fish bites the food, thinking he will get a meal, he instead becomes a meal for the fisherman. The imperfect Greek tense of the verb indicates continual, repetitive deceit. For the natural man, lying and other forms of deceit are a habitual and normal part of his life.

Psalm 5:9 describes flatterers, whose words of praise are really a means of serving themselves rather than the one they are praising. And because praise appeals to human nature, it also leads the flattered person into pride and false self-confidence. A flatterer therefore both uses and abuses others.

David declares that man’s sinfulness can also lead to self-deceit and self-flattery. “Transgression speaks to the ungodly within his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes. For it flatters him in his own eyes, concerning the discovery of his iniquity and the hatred of it. The words of his mouth are wickedness and deceit” (Ps. 36:1–3).

Isaiah wrote, “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not so short that it cannot save; neither is His ear so dull that it cannot hear.” But he follows those comforting words with the awesome declaration: “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken falsehood, your tongue mutters wickedness” (Isa. 59:1–3).

Jeremiah also exposed man’s natural deceitfulness, saying of the wicked, “‘They bend their tongue like their bow; lies and not truth prevail in the land; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know Me,’ declares the Lord. ‘Let everyone be on guard against his neighbor, and do not trust any brother; because every brother deals craftily, and every neighbor goes about as a slanderer. And everyone deceives his neighbor, and does not speak the truth, they have taught their tongue to speak lies’” (Jer. 9:3–5).

The ninth charge in Paul’s indictment of the unconverted man is closely related to the previous one. Quoting from part of Psalm 140:3, he says of ungodly men that the poison of asps is under their lips. The psalmist precedes that charge with the observation that “they sharpen their tongues as a serpent.” Because of the spiritually damning false doctrines and the deceitful character of most of the religious leaders in Jesus’ day, both He and John the Baptist described them as broods of vipers (Matt. 3:7; 12:34).

In describing asps, one writer says, “The fangs of such a deadly snake ordinarily lie folded back in the upper jaw, but when the snake throws his head to strike, these hollow fangs drop down, and when the snake bites, the fangs press a sac of deadly poison hidden under the lips, ejecting venom into the victim.”

I remember reading about a man who found a baby rattlesnake and decided to make a pet of it. He kept it in the house and played with it for a week or so, but then it disappeared for several months and could not be found. One day the man reached behind a piece of furniture to retrieve something he had dropped. When he felt a sharp stab of pain, he pulled back his hand, with the rattler hanging from it by its fangs. Man’s sinful nature is equally untameable.

Even those who belong to the Lord can succumb to terrible deceit. David, the divinely anointed king of Israel and a man after God’s own heart, became enamored of Bathsheba when he happened to see her bathing. Although he was told she was married, he nevertheless summoned her to the palace and had sexual relations with her. When she became pregnant and notified David, the king flashed the fangs of deceit by inviting her husband, Uriah, to a sumptuous banquet, giving the impression that this man was a valued friend. But David was determined to have Bathsheba for his own wife, and the next morning he sent her husband to the battlefront with a sealed note to the commander that contained Uriah’s own death warrant (see 2 Sam. 11:1–15).

The tenth charge in the indictment continues the imagery of speaking, describing the ungodly as those whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness (see Ps. 10:7).

Ara (cursing) carries the idea of intense malediction, of desiring the worst for a person and making that desire public through open criticism and defamation. Pikria (bitterness) was not used so much in regard to physical taste as to describe openly-expressed emotional hostility against an enemy. Such is the obvious meaning in this context.

David described cursing, bitter persons as those who “have sharpened their tongue like a sword … aimed bitter speech as their arrow, to shoot from concealment at the blameless; suddenly they shoot him, and do not fear” (Ps. 64:3–4). Every age of mankind, our own certainly included, has been characterized by people who use their tongues as vicious weapons. Their attacks not only are against those they know well enough to hate but sometimes, as David seems to intimate, even against strangers, simply for the perverse pleasure of venting their anger and hatred.

THE CONDUCT OF THE ACCUSED

their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace have they not known. (3:15–17)

The last three charges in Paul’s indictment relate to the conduct of the natural man. The eleventh charge is that the ungodly are innately murderous: their feet are swift to shed blood.

The cannibalism that still exists in a few primitive tribes and the mass executions of innocent civilians that have taken place in numerous “developed” countries in modern times are but extreme manifestations of the basically destructive disposition of fallen mankind. The nineteenth-century Scottish evangelist Robert Haldane wrote, “The most savage animals do not destroy so many of their own species to appease their hunger, as man destroys of his fellows’, to satiate his ambition, his revenge, or his cupidity [greed]” (An Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans [MacDill AFB, Fla.: MacDonald, 1958], p. 120).

Even in the United States, with its Christian heritage, since the turn of the twentieth century twice as many of its citizens have been slain in private acts of murder than have been killed in all the wars of its entire history. According to researcher Arnold Barnett of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a child born today in any one of the fifty largest cities in the United States has the chance of one in fifty of being murdered. Dr. Barnett estimated that a baby born in the 1980s is more likely to be murdered than an American soldier in World War II was of being killed in combat.

Whether in peace or in war, man kills man. The mass exterminations by Nazis and Marxists in our own century have their counterparts in past history. The notorious terrorist Chang Hsienchung in seventeenth-century China killed practically all the people in the Szechwan province. During that same century in Hungary, a certain countess systematically tortured and murdered more than six hundred young girls.

Obviously most people are far from possessing such extreme brutality. But Scripture makes clear that the seed of murder is one of a multitude of evil seeds that are universally found in the human heart and that, to some degree, inevitably grow and bear fruit.

The twelfth charge in the overall indictment, and the second one that is manifested in man’s conduct, is that of general destructiveness. Destruction and misery are in their paths. Suntrimma (destruction) is a compound word that denotes breaking in pieces and completely shattering, causing total devastation.

The manifestation of wanton destruction is becoming more and more evident in much of modern society. Victims are often robbed or raped and then beaten or murdered for no reason other than sheer brutality. The terms “abused children” and “abused wives” have become common in contemporary vocabularies. Special divisions of many police departments and social service agencies are devoted specifically to dealing with the crimes and victims that those terms relate to.

Misery is a general term that denotes the resulting harm that is always in the wake of man’s acts of destruction against his fellow man. His destructiveness inevitably leaves a trail of pain and despair.

The thirteenth and last of the charges in Paul’s indictment of condemned man is that of his peacelessness: And the path of peace have they not known. The apostle is not speaking of the lack of inner peace—although that is certainly a characteristic of the ungodly person—but of man’s essential inclination away from peace. This charge is therefore something of a counterpart to the previous one.

Peace has never been more highly extolled than in our own day. But few would argue that peace, whether personal or international, actually characterizes our times. Nevertheless, as in Jeremiah’s day, many modern leaders are trying to heal the brokenness of their people superficially, crying, “Peace, peace,” when obviously there is no peace (see Jer. 6:14).

God’s Word gives much counsel as to what makes for peace, and those individuals and societies who have chosen to follow His guidance have experienced relative times of peacefulness. But Scripture makes clear that peace will never dominate human society until the Prince of Peace returns to establish His kingdom on earth.

Note this gripping description of sin:

THE MOTIVE

There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (3:18)

The motive for man’s sinfulness is his built-in godlessness. The basic sinful condition of men and of their spiritual deadness is evidenced by the fact that, for the unsaved, there is no fear of God before their eyes. The full text of Psalm 36:1, from which Paul here quotes, reads: “Transgression speaks to the ungodly within his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes.” Because men’s ears are attuned to the lies of sin rather than to the truth of righteousness, they have an inadequate concern about and no fear of God.

Fearing God has both positive and negative elements. In a positive way, every true believer has reverential fear of God—an awesome awareness of His power, His holiness, and His glory. Proper worship always includes that kind of fear of the Lord. Reverential fear of God is the beginning of spiritual wisdom (Prov. 9:10). That kind of fear is a necessary element in one’s being led to salvation, as with Cornelius (Acts 10:2), and motivates new believers in their spiritual growth.

The negative aspect of the fear of God has to do with dread and terror. Even believers should have a measure of that kind of fear, which acts as a protection from sinning. The writer of Proverbs observed, “By the fear of the Lord one keeps away from evil” (16:6). For the very reason they are God’s children, believers are subject to His chastisement (see Heb. 12:5–11). Sometimes His dealing with disobedient believers can be severe, as with Ananias and Sapphira, who lost their lives for lying to the Holy Spirit. God used that punishment to produce godly fear and obedience within the early church (see Acts 5:1–11). Some of the believers in the church at Corinth also died or became ill by the direct infliction of God’s chastisement for their sin (1 Cor. 11:30).

Ideally, Christians should live holy lives out of love for God and gratitude for His grace and blessings. But it often takes God-given hardship and pain to pry believers from a sin, or it takes the prospect of punishment to keep them from getting into it in the first place.

Unbelievers, however, should have fear of God in its most intense and terrifying sense. The Old Testament is replete with stories of the Lord wreaking destruction and death as punishment for sins of all kinds. He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of their indescribable immorality and turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt for simply looking back disobediently on that horrifying scene. Because of its unrelenting wickedness, God destroyed the whole human race through the Flood, saving only eight people. He drowned the entire Egyptian army when it tried to capture the children of Israel and bring them back to slavery in Egypt. The Lord ordered Moses to have the Levites slay some three thousand Israelite men who had erected and worshiped a golden calf while Moses was on the mountain receiving the tablets of the law from God.

On one occasion a group of Jews asked Jesus, in effect, why God had allowed Pilate to kill some Galileans and mingle their blood with their sacrifices and why eighteen people were killed when a tower at Siloam toppled over on them. He replied that those people did not die because they were more wicked than others, and then proceeded to warn His inquirers, “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:1–5).

I once heard of a minister who was known for his emphasis on worship and had even written a book on the subject. One day when some members of his congregation were helping him move his office, they discovered a large box filled with pornographic magazines. One wonders if such a man could be a Christian; but it was obvious that he had little real fear of God’s righteous judgment or reverence for His honor and glory.

Robert Haldane, mentioned above, wrote,

THE VERDICT

Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin. (3:19–20)

Here Paul declares God’s verdict on fallen, unrepentant mankind.

Oida (know) refers to knowledge that is certain and complete. We know with absolute certainty, Paul was saying, that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may become accountable to God. That declaration allows no exceptions. Every unredeemed human being, Jew or Gentile, is under the Law of God and accountable to God.

As Paul has already declared, the Jew is under God’s written law, delivered through Moses, and the Gentile is under the equally God-given law written in his heart (Rom. 2:11–15). God is the Creator, Sustainer, and Lord of the entire universe, and it is therefore impossible for anyone or anything to be outside His control or authority.

The final verdict, then, is that unredeemed mankind has no defense whatever and is guilty of all charges. The defense must rest, as it were, before it has opportunity to say anything, because the omniscient and all-wise God has infallibly demonstrated the impossibility of any grounds for acquittal.

Absolute silence is the only possible response, just as there will be utter silence in heaven when the Lord Jesus Christ will one day break the seventh seal and release the seven trumpet judgments upon the condemned earth (see Rev 8:1–6).

In anticipation of the argument that perhaps a few exceptionally zealous people might live up to the perfect standard of God’s law, the apostle adds: by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight. There is no salvation through the keeping of God’s law, because sinful man is utterly incapable of doing so. He has neither the ability nor the inclination within himself to obey God perfectly.

As Paul goes on to say, apart from the law, through the grace of God acting through the sacrifice of His Son, salvation and eternal life are made possible (Rom. 3:21–22). But under the law there can be no sentence but death.