Sermon: “The Problem is Not God”

TEXT:  Romans 3:3-8

 

REVIEW

1. Covenant Blessings: The blessings of being in the people of God and having the sign of the covenant are great.

2. The Oracles of God: The chief blessing is that in the covenant community (the Jews in the Old Testament, and the church in the New Testament) you hear the Word of God.  But what if you are in the covenant community and you won’t hear?  What if you are fighting against God, and you refuse to listen to what He says?  Is it somehow God’s fault that what should have worked a blessing turned out to be a curse?  Is God ultimately the one who has not been faithful to His promises?

 

TODAY’S PASSAGE:

3 For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? 

4 Certainly not! Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar.

As it is written: "That You may be justified in Your words, And may overcome when You are judged."

5 But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say?

Is God unjust who inflicts wrath? (I speak as a man.) 

6 Certainly not! For then how will God judge the world? 

7 For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? 

8 And why not say, "Let us do evil that good may come"?

-- as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say.

Their condemnation is just.

 

1. Question # 1: Will the Jews’ unbelief make the faithfulness of God to Israel without effect?

            The heart that is running away from God makes excuses.  Paul has all the world, even the Jews, caught up in the net of sin and in need of a Savior.  No one can save himself.  The judgment of God is coming against every man.  The apostle’s argument is persuasive.  For the proud heart seeking to boast before God in being a Jew or in being circumcised, it is time to go into high gear.  The right choice would be to give in to God’s power and love, repent and believe.  For the one who refuses to see his guilt as a massive obstacle to God’s favor, rather than repent and believe, he may attempt to chip away at Paul’s understanding of the way things really are.  Paul anticipates these tactics, and suggests some questions that might come up in the hearts of those that are resisting his message.

            “Paul, is it such a small thing to be in the chosen people of God that my unbelief could somehow overturn God’s own faithfulness to the chosen people?  I am a Jew.  I am not some Gentile sinner.  I will be saved as a Jew – as a part of ‘the circumcision.’  No one will take that merit away from me!  Paul you are making God to be weak if His big promises to the Old Testament people could be overturned by some people who did not believe.”

            There is something right about this line of questioning, but there is also something very wrong about it.  Yes, God’s faithfulness is more powerful than my unfaithfulness.  Paul says this himself in II Timothy 2:13, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.”  This part is correct.  The problem is the assumption that God’s faithfulness extended to each and every individual who was called a Jew.  Paul will deal with this at greater length in Romans 9, where He states in the sixth verse that “they are not all Israel who are of Israel.”

            It was an error to assume that all the promises of God applied equally to all the families of the circumcised.  It is an error today to assume that all the promises of God apply equally to all the baptized.  Ultimately God’s sure promises are to His elect.  God alone knows His elect perfectly.  We hear what people say they believe, and to some extent we see them do what they do.  The one who has true faith, and who truly perseveres in that faith to the end is elect.  When such a person is truly saved by God through true faith in Christ, that person is forever saved. Such a person shows who they really are by what they do. 

Not every Jew was elect.  Not every church member is elect.  This was the problem behind the question here.  There was an assumption that the promises of God were for all the Jews.  Paul does not expose the problem behind the question here, saving that to a later part in the letter.  Instead he forcefully affirms the faithfulness of God to His own promises. Even if every man should be a liar, God is faithful and true.  He will keep His promises.

            In making this point Paul quotes from Psalm 51.  Here David, himself a Jew, does not try to rest on his circumcision in the face of his adultery and murder.  Instead He humbly repents of His sin.  He confesses the truth, and acknowledges that God is right to be angry with Him because of His sin.  David admits that God is “blameless when He speaks, and just when He judges.” (Read II Samuel 11 & 12 and Psalm 51.  Note the translation of the original Hebrew of Psalm 51:4  The translation of the Greek that Paul quotes here has led to a variety of translations, but the sense of the Hebrew is clear.)

Will the Jews’ unbelief make the faithfulness of God to Israel without effect?  Certainly not.

           

2. Question # 2: Is God unjust who inflicts wrath?

            The proud heart that will not surrender to God is not easily dissuaded.  We find it hard to exist in a state of conviction of sin.  Either we repent and embrace the Messiah by faith or we will try to find some way to discredit the truth of God.

            With this in mind, Paul imagines His objector moving on to another point.  “Wait one minute…. I know!  God’s righteousness looks even better because of the part I have plaid in doing something unrighteous.  Isn’t it wrong for Him to be angry with me about sin, when my unrighteousness actually has worked out so well in making His righteousness shine?  I am saved as a Jew, despite my unrighteousness.  No one will ever take away my boast in my Judaism.” 

            Paul answers this question bluntly.  Is God unjust who inflicts wrath?  “Certainly not! For then how will God judge the world?”  Do you who try to justify your own sin in order to continue in it – do you want to deny that a day of final judgment is coming, and that God will be the judge?  God is going to judge.  By the perverse reasoning of Paul’s hypothetical objector the judgment of God would be entirely overturned.  God has clearly promised that this final judgment is coming.  While we may not appreciate that final judgment is a good thing, God knows more than we do about this.  He says that it is not only good, but also most consistent with His own glory.  If there will be no final judgment, then God is a liar, and that is a horrifying thought. Your effort to make God’s judgment of you somehow unjust would overturn God’s judgment of anyone. Is God unjust who inflicts wrath?  “Certainly not!”

 

3. Question # 3: If the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?

            The quest to find something wrong in God and something right in the proud religious self does not readily yield to the truth.  The anticipated hearer is not quickly humbled.

            “If God is as big as you say He is, and He really is committed to working all things together for His own glory, then why am I charged as wrong for doing something that God’s going to manage in a way that is so right?  Maybe God is really the one who should be judged rather than me?  If I lie, and my lie only serves to show all the more clearly the glory of the truth of God, then why am I judged by God when my lie made Him look so true?  I might as well lie tomorrow too, since today’s lie ended up having such a glorious result.  I should do evil more and more every day in order to have good come out of it.  God can’t judge me on this.  Paul, there is at least as much wrong with your almighty God as there is with me.” 

Paul’s answer here cuts through all the pretended complexity.  “Their condemnation is just.” 

 

APPLICATION:

            Why would anyone play this game?  Answer:  We want to be justified according to a different plan than God’s, and we don’t want to change.  God’s plan for justification is through faith in Christ, our righteous substitute.  God's plan also calls for us to turn away from sin.   We would prefer a Christian life without the wrestling with God.  There is no automatic Christian life for the church today, just as there was no automatic faithfulness credited to all the Jews.  There is a way of life through the Messiah for all that will repent and believe.  When we become aware of our sin, we can come up with some very strange ideas to somehow make us seem right, make God seem wrong, and make change seem unnecessary.

            Watch out for complicated explanations as to how God is not right to be angry with you for your sin.  Labor to see life in a very straight-forward way.  God is god.  You are not.  Sin is wrong.  God does not like it.  You have sin.  This means you cannot save yourself.  Beware of any line of complex thinking that allows you to conclude that there is something wrong with God, and that God is ultimately at least as guilty as you are.  God is not subject to your judgment, or to anyone else’s judgment.  God is the judge. 

There is nothing wrong with God.  There is something wrong with us that only God can fix.  This was David’s honest admission.  Let it be yours also.  Then cling to the cross of Christ as that most marvelous fix for you – a sinner who could not fix yourself.