ROMANS 3:9-18 ALL UNDER SIN The indictment is in from the Supreme Judge of all - "all under sin." Not just guilty of sin, or bound by sin, but all under sin. All of us - human beings, no matter what our background, religious creed, race or cultural heritage - by nature we have been brought under the evil power of sin and are by nature in that terrible state. No one is innocent. No one can earn the right to be righteous before God. This doesn't devalue the worth of a human being, but our natural condition of sin makes us unacceptable to be righteous before God. These fourteen counts against us leave all of us, Jews and Gentiles, exposed to the righteous wrath of the Holy God.
In ourselves no one has ever been able to stand before God in his or her own righteousness. If we truly understood divine things by our human nature, we would have been so humbled we couldn't say a word. But instead, all kinds of people write or speak of their explanations of God. The temples built for worshipers to attend, are not because people are seeking after God. They are seeking after a god of their own imaginations who can be bent by their own will and can be accepted on their own terms. The Sovereign, Holy God is not sought after, but is being avoided for He convicts the sinner of sin, righteousness and judgment. In an act of self-will, they have deliberately turned away from the way of God contrary to what God has clearly defined. The whole race of man has made that awful turn. The result of all of this as the Universal Judge looks upon us, is that we are all together and totally unprofitable, unfit for any use that was planned for by God. There is corruption rather than holiness. Instead of goodness and kindness, there is selfishness and cruelty. By divine standards, we are all condemned.
Then the all-seeing Physician puts a tongue depressor in our mouths and looks down our throat to see the state of our spiritual health. A terrible scent of death comes from our inward parts. The tongue itself cannot be trusted to speak the truth. The words that lie just behind our lips are filled with fatal poison just waiting to be released and kill others with false accusations or falsehoods spoken as if they are true words. Those who hear and believe those words will not only be lost but in bitterness of soul, will curse men and God for the deception and misleading words. The Great Physician then looks at the extremities and sees that their feet are unrestrained and they run to eliminate any who do not agree with them or condemn them and their actions in any way. Their reaction against righteousness and truth is to kill it once and for all.
God now looks upon mankind with the eyes of one who sees from eternity to eternity. To Him all of history is one eternal "now." The history of mankind is basically measured by the wars and misery caused by the destruction of conflict. Peace that lasts is foreign to humanity. Wisdom and righteousness get in the way of the unregenerate human will, and self-will leads only down the road of misery and suffering. These lead to ruin to both parties involved in conflicts. Peace interferes with man's ambition, so is not experienced by humanity as a whole - and never has been.
The last indictment of unregenerate humanity is he worst one of all. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." In mankind's moral stupidity there is no reverence for God, no sense of the greatness and power of God, no acknowledgment of the authority of God over men - let alone the whole universe. All the natural man sees is what he wants to see. For some it is material gain that is before his eyes. Others see only pleasure. Still others see only what will gratify the flesh. The Just, Holy and Almighty God is not considered, because the natural man only sees with the eyes of his fleshly desires, not with the eyes of faith. So the Supreme Judge; the Great Physician and the God of history can only indict us by saying, "There is none righteous, no not one." "The is no fear of God before their eyes." What a warning this is to all who read these words!
There is no way to escape the inevitable conclusion that must be made - No matter what we may think of ourselves, our nature is inherently bad. We often will try to avoid looking at things through God's eyes. But the description of humanity seen here, is to bring us all down to size.
We need to read and heed what God has to say about us. There is a lesson to learn, there is nothing in man we can trust, By nature, and practice there is none that is can be said of, "He's good!" Humanity as a whole would not submit to God even if they could.
The outward conditions of man leave us condemned by the Righteous Judge. Understanding is absent in men; it is obvious by what mankind does. Their search in life is in all the wrong places, from God they have turned away. Not only are men unprofitable to God, there is no good in what we do and say.
Before the Great Physician the prognosis is not good at all. The terrible scent from the inward parts has affected us since the fall. Deceitful tongues are a problem to all and poison is in the mouth to cause pain. Even their feet run to do evil to others, not just once but again and again.
Looking back over the history of mankind that when started in Eden seemed bright, Now the One who sees all that is done, knows each one born is a child of the night. There is always agitation, nothing satisfies, real peace seems to always evade them. Even when confronted with a Just, Almighty God, there is no reverential fear before Him.
What really can be done to bring people back to what God wanted them to be. There is no way to dress up what is ruined; sin-stained works of man are not the key. We all need to face this basic fact, our only hope is death to sin, and a new nature. God knows that well, so by His grace alone, He gives new life by a perfect Savior.
"O Holy, Righteous and Gracious God: the proof is everywhere for us to see. We have sinned; we have failed; we are totally undone as a race of people. I am so thankful that Thou hast begun a whole new line of people who have been born of the Spirit and are cleansed of their sin by the blood of Christ. It is with a sense of unworthiness and humility - but gratitude - that I thank Thee for making me one of them. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."