Romans 3:1-8 All Goodness and Glory Belongs to God
The Text
Romans 3:1–8 (CSB)
1 So what advantage does the Jew have? Or what is the benefit of circumcision?2 Considerable in every way. First, they were entrusted with the very words of God.
3 What then? If some were unfaithful, will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness?
4 Absolutely not! Let God be true, even though everyone is a liar, as it is written: That you may be justified in your words and triumph when you judge.
5 But if our unrighteousness highlights God’s righteousness, what are we to say? I am using a human argument: Is God unrighteous to inflict wrath?
6 Absolutely not! Otherwise, how will God judge the world?
7 But if by my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner?
8 And why not say, just as some people slanderously claim we say, “Let us do what is evil so that good may come”? Their condemnation is deserved!
The Support
Those who are raised from birth to know the love of God have every advantage of those who don't
1So what advantage does the Jew have? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? Considerable in every way. First, they were entrusted with the very words of God.
Proverbs 22:6 (CSB) Start a youth out on his way;
even when he grows old he will not depart from it.
Here is the thing. That proverb in Proverbs is a proverb. What do I mean by that? It is a wise saying. Is it a promise of God?
To the Christian parents with unbelieving grown-up kids, can I take some burden off you for eternity? That proverb is not a promise of God.
That proverb is our a charge to all Christian parents: to raise and parent our kids in the absolute truth of what we believe. Don't be a hypocrite. We are all called to point everyone to Christ--that starts with our families. That starts with our kids. Point them to Christ at every moment of their lives. And let Christ save them! God is our Savior, not the kids' parents.
God is faithful and we are faithless
3If some were unfaithful, will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? Absolutely not!
2 Timothy 2:11-13 (CSB)
This saying is trustworthy:
For if we died with him,
we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he will also deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful,
for he cannot deny himself.
God is glorious with or without us
Exodus 33:18-23 (CSB) Then Moses said, “Please, let me see your glory.”
He said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim the name ‘the LORD’ before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” But he added, “You cannot see my face, for humans cannot see me and live.” The LORD said, “Here is a place near me. You are to stand on the rock, and when my glory passes by, I will put you in the crevice of the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take my hand away, and you will see my back, but my face will not be seen.”
We are chosen because we are feeble, weak, and tiny
Deuteronomy 7:6-8 (ESV) “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
There is nothing in us that allows us to grab one ounce of glory for our salvation
Isaiah 42:8 (CSB)
I am the LORD. That is my name,
and I will not give my glory to another
or my praise to idols.
Isaiah 48:9–11 (CSB)
I will delay my anger for the sake of my name,
and I will restrain myself for your benefit and for my praise,
so that you will not be destroyed.
Look, I have refined you, but not as silver;
I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
I will act for my own sake, indeed, my own,
for how can I be defiled?
I will not give my glory to another.
Where do you see God in the text? What does the text say about God?
God
God is glorious.
His glory is not dependent on anything we are, say, do or do not. God is simply glorious.
He is not a mixture of holiness or love; of righteousness or mercy; or just or grace. He is not a complex mix of different moods or emotions on any given day or what we are doing or not doing. No! He is simply glorious.
Luke 19:37-40 (CSB) Now he came near the path down the Mount of Olives, and the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles they had seen:
Blessed is the King who comes
in the name of the Lord.
Peace in heaven
and glory in the highest heaven!Some of the Pharisees from the crowd told him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”
He answered, “I tell you, if they were to keep silent, the stones would cry out.”
Theologians have called this the Aseity of God--the simplicity of God. God is simply God.--that he is simply who he says he is and nothing more nor less and he is not whimsical nor capricious. If we can wrap our mortal minds around this infinite concept, then we will begin to grasp who God really is. It is why Moses sung:
Psalms 90:1-2 (ESV)
Lord, you have been our dwelling place
in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
There are no moving parts with God. There are no lies or deceit within the gospel of God. There is now nothing hidden because Christ is here!
What does the gospel of John tell us?
John 1:14-18 (CSB) The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John testified concerning him and exclaimed, “This was the one of whom I said, ‘The one coming after me ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.’”) Indeed, we have all received grace upon grace from his fullness, for the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side—he has revealed him.
The Gospel
Our sin and idols are:
- complex - always changing, chaotic, and completely unstable
- whimsical - changing their minds out of thin air just because--just because. I call it, "moving the goalposts" or "changing the end"
- capricious - changing their minds if suits their desire to fill with more power or pleasure.
Our little stupid weak gods are exactly like this. That is why we make them thinking we are in control somehow. But we give our idols what it wants and our sin only takes and never gives. And now it sucks our souls dry.
You know what God is? Not anything like that.
God is simple -- he has never change and will never change.
God is holy -- his holiness keeps sin out of his presence by default
God is love -- his kindest desire was for always for his people to repent of their sins and turn to him forever. And God gives you and me the perfect amount of grace for us to freely, joyfully, and actually obey him.
You want to know that amount? Grace upon grace. (John 1:16)
And because God is simply and forever good, gracious, and glorious, when the Bible says:
Genesis 3:15 (CSB) I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring.
He will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.
and
Romans 5:8 (CSB) But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
and
Psalms 103:15-18 (CSB) As for man, his days are like grass—
he blooms like a flower of the field;
when the wind passes over it, it vanishes,
and its place is no longer known.
But from eternity to eternity
the LORD’s faithful love is toward those who fear him,
and his righteousness toward the grandchildren
of those who keep his covenant,
who remember to observe his precepts.
and
Lamentations 3:22-23 (CSB)
Because of the LORD’s faithful love
we do not perish,
for his mercies never end.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness!
and
Matthew 1:21 (CSB) She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
and
2 Corinthians 5:21 (CSB) He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
and
Ezekiel 36:25-28 (CSB) I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will place my Spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances. You will live in the land that I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.
and
John 3:16-17 (CSB) For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
and
Romans 8:1 (CSB) Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus,
and
Romans 8:38-39 (CSB) For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
and
1 John 1:9 (CSB) If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
... then that is one and done and good as gold.
In fact, if we worshipped a god was changed his mind when he wanted to or said one thing and did another, then the Bible would be straight trash. Seriously. If God was prone to change his mind, the paper that makes up this Bible wouldn't make good toilet paper.
But because God does not change, that all of his promises are yes and amen, that He alone is the only promise keeper and the fact that how much more amazing and wonderful He is because He does not possess the sin to lie and break his promises, He is glorious!
Our Response
Read your Bible. Know your God.
There is no logical, reasonable, and rightful argument that we can feebly try to use to uphold our sin thinking that somehow our sin can please God, nullify God, or glorify God.
God does not need us to try to change his word to justify our sin.
What has God commanded all of us to do?
Repent of sin. Take all of your sins and hand them over to Christ Jesus and let His Son lovingly lay his daily mercies, saving grace upon grace, and his righteousness upon your life so you can be with God forever and ever. Amen.