None Righteous

What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. As it is written: "There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God... There is no fear of God before their eyes." Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those that are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and that all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law will no flesh be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

When evil runs unrestrained, it exposes the truth Scripture has told us all along—there is none righteous, no, not one.

Evil Runs Rampant in a Fallen World

It is an unfortunate reality in a fallen world that evil runs rampant, and the reminders are continuously evident. Since September 11th, 2001, there have been many mornings when I have woken up almost expecting to learn that something terrible has happened. This last Friday morning was one of those mornings, as we began to learn what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. I feel I already know more than I want to know about that terrible event. Such tragedies are all the more difficult when the crime is against children, and harder still when you have children or grandchildren in that same age range.

It boggles my mind that anyone would argue against the existence of evil. Some in our society say that people only do bad things because of their upbringing or circumstances. But events like this bring evil to the forefront. They also reveal that we are hardwired for justice. When we see such things, we desire that justice be done. We were created in the image of God and imprinted with a desire for justice, so we are filled with righteous anger when devastating evil appears.

We find ourselves agreeing with Paul at the end of Romans 3:8: "Their condemnation is just." Another way to read it is, "Their damnation is just." Those who commit such abominable acts deserve damnation, and a part of our hearts recognizes that justice is justly deserved.

The Demonic Nature of Such Wickedness

My first thought Friday was that anyone who commits such an act, especially upon a child, is a coward. When I said this to Pastor Josh, he pointed me to Revelation 21:8:

But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, they shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

That is the justly deserved destiny of the wicked. What took place Friday at the hand of a cowardly murderer is utterly demonic. In John 8:44, Jesus reveals that the devil was a murderer from the beginning, and those who follow in such acts are of their father the devil. Whether Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Columbine, or the attacks of 9/11, it is absolute wickedness from the devil.

When we see murder like this, we must recognize that it is an assault upon God Himself. Genesis 9:6 says, "Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man." Murder runs rampant in our fallen world because the adversary seeks to steal, kill, and destroy anything that images God. He is trying to destroy God's glory by destroying the pinnacle of God's creation—man made in His image.

"Are We Better Than They?"

What I am about to say is not intended to make light of this wickedness or the just damnation that shall befall all such sin. But notice what Paul says in verse 9: "What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin."

What happened Friday is an example of what happens when a fallen, evil world is allowed to move forward unrestrained. We see the fallen heart of man with no restraint upon it. When an individual is unrestrained, they are capable of unimaginable evil. History bears this out. The clearest picture of unrestrained evil is the Second World War. A man with the same wicked heart all humanity possesses gained the position to rewrite the law itself, so there was no restraining influence. When the conscience is seared as with a hot iron and a person is unhinged from moral responsibility, this is the result.

These are contributing factors in our own nation as well. We have instructed people to believe there is no God, no moral Lawgiver—that they evolved from nothing and will go to nothing. With no moral influence saying "Thou shall not," we see the result. We have sown to the wind, and we are reaping it as a people.

The Same Wickedness in Every Heart

When we consider Paul's question, "Are we better than they?", we must recognize that you and I, if unrestrained, are capable of exactly this. Every one of us is capable of this wickedness when there is no conscience holding it back. We have a hard time believing this, but only because God has given us a conscience that has not been seared, and because, being born again, He has placed His law upon our hearts.

Paul says all humanity—descendants of Abraham or not—is under the power and influence of sin. The wicked actions of the hedonist we read about in Romans 1 are resident in the heart of the moralist and the religionist too. They are simply restrained by conscience or by a religious code. But if the restraint of the letter is removed, we would sin just the same. As Jesus said, "Out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts and murders and adultery." What a person takes in through the eyes and ears—pornography, for example—can diminish the conscience until they become unrestrained and that evil is manifested. But the evil is resident in every fallen heart.

We struggle with this, especially in the face of such overwhelming evil and the flood of instant, often conflicting information. A hundred years ago we might not have heard of this for weeks; now it comes in an instant, with tweets, emails, and calls all colliding. The overwhelming feeling makes us want to check out and deny that we could ever be capable of such things. But we are. The Scriptures reveal this is who we really are at our core.

The Advent Rights These Wrongs

I realize we are a week and a half from Christmas, and you may wonder what this has to do with a Christmas message. The Advent of Christ the Messiah rights these wrongs. That is our hope, church. More legislation against guns will not do it. Metal detectors, armed guards, bulletproof glass, and panic rooms will not restrain evil. They might keep it from your door, but they cannot restrain evil itself.

Christ Jesus is the only One who rights such wrongs, by the gospel. A nation that sees the devastating effects of evil must recognize that only the transforming influence of the gospel can bring change. I read that crimes such as this have increased by 460% since 1960—the same era that saw the removal of prayer and Scripture from schools and the loss of instruction in "Thou shalt not." The gospel has power and influence wherever it goes, even upon those who do not fully accept it.

Thank God for the Law

In thinking about these things, I find myself thanking God for the law, because the law has a restraining influence. In Romans 1 we saw the hedonist walk down the path of sin until he no longer wants to retain God in his knowledge and seeks to be rid of his conscience. That is a frightening place, the effect of sin. Humanity would have destroyed itself long ago—we would be extinct—if it were not for the restraining influence of the conscience that God has imprinted upon us, spoken in by His law.

God's Indictment of Humanity

Though we may struggle to admit the depths of wickedness in our own hearts, the Scriptures reveal it as reality. In verses 10 through 18, Paul takes us back to the Old Testament for supporting proof, drawing mostly from the Psalms and from Jeremiah: "There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one."

Our culture kicks against this, but it is God's indictment, His evaluation of humanity. Jeremiah 17:9 says, "The heart of man is desperately wicked; who can know it?" Verse 10 answers: God searches the heart. He knows the depths of our wickedness better than we do.

One of the ways God transforms us by the renewing of our minds is by continually revealing the depths of our own hearts. He places us in trying circumstances and brings difficult people into our lives. That person's personality exposes what is already there. You cannot say, "They make me angry"—they are simply exposing the anger resident in your heart. Or perhaps it is lust; something passes before your eyes and covetousness comes up. You may say, "They shouldn't dress that way," but it is already in the heart. God allows these things to surface so that He, who already knows it is there, can reveal it to us, so we can confess it and ask Him to remove it. This is a process of sanctification, of consecrating ourselves wholly unto Him through the spiritual disciplines He has given.

None Righteous, No, Not One

"There is none righteous, no, not one." This leaves no room for a few righteous exceptions—not even at this church. Paul is quoting from Psalm 14 and Psalm 53: "The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is none that does good, no, not one." The context is God looking even upon His own people, Israel, to whom He gave His law, and declaring them unprofitable—having nothing valuable in themselves because they are wholly given over to sin. No one is innocent, holy, or just.

Verse 13 continues: "Their throat is as an open tomb; with their tongues they have practiced deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness." Jesus said in Luke 6:45, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." Have you ever said something and, as it came out, wished you could grab it back? It was already resident in the heart. Collectively, humanity spews forth poisonous lies, cursing, and bitterness—deceit, death, and dying come from our lips because they are already in our hearts.

A Progression Into Action

Verse 15 says, "Their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways; the way of peace they have not known." There is a progression here. The wickedness already resident in the fallen heart proceeds out of the mouth, and then we begin to act on it. We are quick to run after evil, and if unrestrained, that is exactly what we will do.

Every one of us has had the thought, when someone is saying or doing something in our presence, "I'd love to just cold cock you right now." If it were not for the restraining influence of conscience or law—"No, that's going to get me into trouble"—we would act on it. So we count to ten and remember Thumper: "If you don't have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all." These are our stop signs, though sometimes we treat them like yield signs. But unrestrained, we leave a trail of destruction and misery behind us.

The Way of Peace and the Fear of God

"The way of peace they have not known." This peace, in the Old Testament concept, is shalom—not merely the cessation of violence. You can have a ceasefire and still have no peace. We have seen this in Jerusalem; Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton brokered talks, yet there is no peace, because there is no shalom. Shalom runs down to every aspect of society, transforming it at the core. We do not know the way of peace because it is completely foreign to us; it comes only from God.

The wonderful thing is that in salvation we can experience this peace. In John 16, Jesus says, "In the world you will have much trouble," and in the same passage, "In Me you might have peace." He is the source, and we experience peace only in Him. The church is to be the visible representation of this peace, so that a world longing for shalom can see that it is found only in Jesus.

Why is the way of peace not known? Verse 18 answers: "There is no fear of God before their eyes." We like to soften "the fear of God" to mean only reverence, and we should revere Him—but we should also flat-out fear Him, for He has power to destroy both body and soul in hell. Pastor Richard once illustrated this kind of fear: a young couple, alone in the house, begin to do what they should not, when suddenly the headlights of dad's car sweep across the window. That feeling in the young man's heart is reverence and fear packaged tightly together. When we are walking in unrighteousness and the light of God's righteousness breaks upon us, it rightly produces an awesome fear of who He is.

The Purpose of the Law

In verse 19, Paul changes gears: "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law." All humanity is under the law, whether or not they possess the first five books of the Bible. God's law has jurisdiction over them, so its word applies to them: "There is none righteous." The law is good—Romans 7:12 says it is "holy, just, and good." When the law is set forth, we see by contrast that we are not holy, just, and good at all.

The purpose of the law is to expose error, "that every mouth may be stopped, and that all the world may become guilty before God." The word "stopped" means cornered or fenced in. We offer our excuses—"the devil made me do it; it was my upbringing, my parents, society"—and God sets forth His law, and suddenly there is silence. The law was given to stop our excuses and reveal our guilt before a holy God.

Therefore, verse 20 says, "by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight." The law cannot make you righteous. The law did not fail in Israel; Israel failed to understand its purpose. They tried to keep the manageable commands while ignoring the ones they could not keep, hoping to justify themselves. But God's law was never given to make us righteous. It was given to expose righteousness and thereby reveal our error. The law is so weighty that no one can keep it perfectly—and that is its purpose, to show us we cannot. "By the law is the knowledge of sin." It is our schoolmaster, leading us to Christ, who is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. The law says, "There He is; there you're not."

The Glorious Story of Christmas

We do not have to look far to see the lostness of our society. The problem is that we judge ourselves by that lostness, saying, "I'm not doing those things, so I'm okay." But God says, "Let Me show you My law; this is My standard." The standard is not the worst people out there—you can always find someone worse off than you, even in the church; your own pastor just confessed that sometimes he feels like hitting someone. We must recognize that "all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory" (verse 23).

That is where we go next week, with the backdrop of our lostness behind us, to the Advent of the One who brings righteousness apart from the works of the law. This is the glorious story of Christmas. Verse 21 is like a movie trailer: "But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets; even the righteousness of God, through faith in"—who? It is Christmas. The coming of the One who makes us righteous, who brings shalom, the righting of all that is wrong, is found only in Him. That is why we adore Him. He makes things new. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven, for this is a fallen world, and oh how we need His righteousness. Amen?

Closing Prayer

Father, thank You for Your word, which is living, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword. Lord, we thank You that, in the midst of terrible tragedy, You remain on the throne, and what we see in our world heightens the expectation of Your second coming and lifts up the reality that what is needed is Your gospel. So God, give us a passion for the gospel, especially this week and next as we prepare to celebrate Your first coming, Your Advent. Give us a passion to share the realities of the gospel—that Your coming as the King of kings, the Prince of peace, the Prince of shalom, ushers in what the law could never do, for the law was only intended to reveal sin. Give us a desire to share it with others, because You have given us the only cure for sin. Work in us that which is good to Your glory, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.