Few things are more repugnant in our culture than the idea that God judges people for their sins. In this sermon, R.C. Sproul gives us a biblical portrait of God’s character—including His righteous wrath.

This evening, we will look at the third chapter of Romans, and I will start by reading Romans 3:1–8. I my be able to go beyond verse 8 tonight, but we will start with that first passage through verse 8. I ask the congregation to stand for the reading of the Word of God:

What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way! Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God. For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? 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.”

But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust who inflicts wrath? (I speak as a man.) Certainly not! For then how will God judge the world?

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

He who has ears to hear the Word of God, let him hear. Please be seated. Let us pray.

Our Father, as we sit beneath the proclamation of Your sacred Word, we ask that You would help us understand the import of it, that we may be grasped in the very depths of our being by its truth. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Paul’s Bombshell

For several weeks we have been following the argument set forth by the Apostle Paul when he speaks of the wrath of God being revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men who suppress the truth of God that He so plainly makes clear to every person in the world. Paul told us that the consequence of humanity’s universal rejection of the knowledge of God is that God gives people over to their own sin.

Since we by nature do not want to have God in our thinking, God says, “Fine, I’ll give you a mind that is darkened and reprobate.” Out of that darkened mind comes the list of wickedness we saw in chapter 1.

Then Paul goes on to talk about the hypocrisy of his own people according to the flesh, Israel. They boast in their possession of the law and the fact they are God’s chosen people, having the sign of God’s covenant in their own bodies—that is, the Old Testament sign of the covenant, circumcision. Last week, we examined the significance of circumcision, and Paul went on to argue that circumcision does not get you into the kingdom of God. Rather, those who are circumcised inwardly are the real children of promise.

After Paul has dropped his bombshell on the playground of the Israelites, telling them that the mere fact of their descendance from Abraham and their circumcision is no guarantee of their salvation, Paul, as he does so many times in his epistles, anticipates the reaction and the response of his listeners. What we are trying to do tonight is pick up on Paul’s line of thinking.

What Advantage Is There?

At the end of chapter 2, Paul has told the Jewish people that their Jewishness will not guarantee their salvation. Chapter 3 then begins with this question: “What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision?” In other words, Paul is posing the question, “If my Jewishness doesn’t save me and circumcision is no guarantee, then what is the advantage is there to being a Jew and having the sign of circumcision?”

If we apply that to our circumstances in the new covenant community, as I mentioned last week, many people have their confidence in the fact that they have been baptized or joined a church. Paul, if he were here today, would say, “Just because you’ve been baptized and are a church member is no guarantee that you will enter into the kingdom of God.”

Our Lord gave weighty, ominous warnings about the nature of the church, saying that the church is a community where there are always tares growing along with the wheat. He warned that people honor Him with their lips, but their hearts are far from them. Even though we make a verbal confession of faith, that is no guarantee. What is in the heart will determine our redemption.

As we approach the text, we could ask by way of application: “What advantage then is there in being baptized? Is there any advantage to being a church member?” This is an extension of what Paul asks when he says, “What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision?”

You might expect by this point, since Paul has downplayed circumcision so much, that he would answer his own question by saying: “Frankly, there is not much of an advantage, if any at all. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Just because you’re circumcised does not mean you’re not saved. Don’t think there’s any advantage in it.” But that is not the conclusion he reaches. When Paul asks the question, “What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision,” he answers his question this way: “Much in every way!”

Paul is saying, “You ask me what advantage there is in circumcision and what advantage is there in being a Jew.” If I would ask you today, “What advantage is baptism, what advantage is it to you that you’re a member of a Christian church?” The advantage is much. There are a multitude of advantages to that in every conceivable manner. So, what manner is it? Where is the advantage?

The Oracles of God

Notice how Paul continues: “Much in every way! Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God.” There is a small technical point here that I must mention. Literally, what Paul says in the text is, “First of all.” Instead of, “Chiefly,” he says, “First of all, to them were committed the oracles of God.”

Paul just said that there are many advantages to being a Jew and being circumcised. Then he goes on to say, “Firstly,” and some nitpickers against the authority of Scripture have said: “Here the Apostle Paul couldn’t possibly be inspired by the Holy Ghost. After saying that there are many advantages to this, he says, ‘First of all,’ which suggests that there will be a second, and a third, and a fourth of all—a long list of explanations of these advantages. But Paul only gives one. He says ‘Firstly,’ but then gives no more.”

The skeptics do not grasp the significance of the word Paul uses in this text. The word is a form of the word prōtos, which in Greek means “first,” not necessarily in sequence, but first in the order of importance. It is the word Jesus used when He said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matt. 6:33).

The translator has it right when he renders this word “chiefly” because Paul is saying there are many advantages to being a Jew and to circumcision, but the main one, the chief one, is that they were given the oracles of God. Do not miss that. The Apostle is saying that the tremendous advantage the Jew had over the Philistine, the Syrian, or the Babylonian was that the Jew had the Word of God. There is no greater advantage for any person in the world than to be within earshot of the Word of God.

Sometimes I think back over my own life. I was born and reared in the most liberal church in the most liberal presbytery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where I had a minister who did not believe in the resurrection of Jesus. I had a pastor who denied the miracles of the New Testament. His sermons exhibited his skepticism. That is what I was taught growing up. I did not know any better. I was not a Christian. Yet part of the liturgy in that church every Sunday morning was the reading of the text of the Bible. Everything that went before the reading of the Bible and everything that went after was distortion. It was heresy. Still, in spite of the minister, not because of him, I was sitting under the Word of God. That was the advantage to me. Even though I was not a Christian, when I became a Christian, it was through the testimony of the Word of God.

If you would have asked me the day before I became a Christian whether I believed in God, I would have said, “Certainly.” If you would have asked whether I believed the Bible is the Word of God, despite it having no influence in my life, I still would have said, “Yes, I think it is.” In preparation for my own call to conversion was the Word of God at work in my life. Remember that God has chosen the foolishness of preaching as His method of saving His people.

The place God has invested His power is in the Word. The power is not in the preacher. The power is not in the program. The power is not in the liturgy. It is the Word attended by God the Holy Spirit. It is the Word that can cut through your mind. It can cut through your hardened heart, pierce your soul, and bring you to Christ.

So, is there any advantage to be in the vicinity where the Word of God is preached? Was there any advantage to the people in Israel to possess the oracles of God, the very Word of God?

The Advantage of the Word

I think back to the Great Awakening in the eighteenth century in New England, when God so mightily used Jonathan Edwards. Edwards was a firm believer in the doctrine of election. He was completely orthodox in his understanding of it and believed that unless God from all eternity chose a person and elected them to salvation, that person would never come to faith. Yet he pled, he cajoled, and he frightened people, telling them to repent and come to faith, because he did not know who was numbered among the elect. Sharing in Edwards’ perspective, I assume the election of every person I meet. I cannot read people’s hearts, and I do not know the hidden decrees of God. The hidden decrees of God are none of my business. That is why they are hidden.

People would hear Edwards and ask: “What if I’m not elect? What should I do?” Edwards said: “Be in church every Sunday morning. You don’t know you’re not elect. You should do everything you can do in your fallen condition.” They might say, “Yes, but there’s nothing I can do to incline myself to the things of God.” Edwards would respond: “That’s right. You cannot muster from your own heart true repentance unless God the Holy Spirit changes your soul. But you can hear the Word of God and know that you’re going to be judged at the end of your life. If you’re not saved, you’re going to spend eternity in hell. So, I recommend to you that you be a seeker.”

We must be careful here. Edwards’ doctrine of seeking has caused much consternation among Reformed people. But Edwards was saying that false repentance will not move God to save anyone. There are people who repent to get a ticket out of hell rather than because they have really been convicted of their sin. It is like the little child caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and he says, “Mommy, I’m so sorry, please don’t spank me.” It is a repentance motivated not by a broken and contrite heart but out of a fear of punishment. We call that attrition rather than contrition.

Edwards said, “Even if all you have is attrition, bring it the church, listen to the Word of God, and peradventure”—that is all he would give them—“peradventure, maybe God will save you.” That was sound advice. There are people reached by the gospel who never darken the door of a church. I know that. But the church, beloved, is where the means of God’s saving grace are most heavily concentrated.

If you are interested in an enlightened way in your own self-interest, the wisest thing you can do, even if you are not a believer, is listen to the Word of God every chance you can. If nothing else, it will exercise a restraint on your sinful desires and tendencies. It is a great advantage to have the Word of God.

I am thrilled to see so many people here on a Sunday night, not for a fifteen-minute homily or a twenty-minute meditation, but for a fifty-minute or so exposition of perhaps the heaviest book of the New Testament. You have to want it to come on Sunday night. You might have a habit of coming Sunday morning, but when you come Sunday night for the whole dose, do you have any idea how advantageous that is to you and your children to be under the preaching of the Word of God?

I am dismayed by the experimental worship we see in the church today that moves away from a serious exposition of the Word of God. The Word of God is where the power is. That is where the advantage is. The church that moves away from the Word disadvantages its own people. But it is a tremendous advantage to you—even if you do not like it, even if you do not believe it—to hear the Word of God. So, I urge you to take advantage of that advantage.

The Keeper of Promises

Paul tells his kinsman according to the flesh that the great advantage of the Jew was, “To them were committed the oracles of God.” He continues with this line of reasoning: “For what if some did not believe?” The oracles of God contained the promises of God, the covenant promises of redemption God gave to Abraham and his seed, and to the people of Israel. Paul asks, “If some of them don’t believe, does that mean that the promises of God become suddenly null and void?”

What does it mean if we see people baptized, we track them through life, and we see that some of them—in many cases, a majority of them—never come to faith? Does that mean we should do away with baptism? Do we throw the baby out with the bathwater? Do we say that since baptism does not guarantee salvation, there is no advantage to it? No. Baptism is a visible expression of God’s Word of promise to all who believe. Those who do not believe in no way diminish the value of the promise God makes to those who do believe. If every one of us is a covenant breaker, that does not destroy the integrity of God in His part of the covenant.

Paul is essentially saying to the Jews: “I know how you’re thinking. If people don’t believe in the significance of circumcision, if they don’t believe in the oracles of God, doesn’t that unbelief destroy the faithfulness of God? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect?”

How does Paul answer this objection? He says: “Certainly not! Indeed, let God be true, but every man a liar.” The Bible does make the condemnation that all men are liars. We are all promise breakers. The only One who is a perfect promise keeper is God. That is how we live as Christians: we trust that He is not like us. We break our promises. We lie to each other. We do not always tell the truth. But one of the things that God cannot do is lie, because His eternal being and character is truth.

It is impossible for God to lie. Just because I lie does not mean that He does. Just because I ignore His Word does not mean that His Word becomes worthless. Paul says: “Don’t think like that. Don’t let that kind of thinking get into your head. Let God be true, but every man a liar.”

True Confession

“As it is written,” and now Paul cites a passage from Psalm 51, the great penitential Psalm of David. After David had been confronted by Nathan for his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba, David was driven to his knees, and he wrote the greatest Psalm of repentance ever penned, where he says:

Have mercy upon me, O God,
According to Your lovingkindness;
according to the multitude of Your tender mercies,
Blot out my transgressions. (Ps. 51:1)

Listen to the words David goes on to write in this Psalm. Here is the most powerful point of the prayer, where he exemplifies true confession:

For I acknowledge my transgressions,
And my sin is always before me. (Ps. 51:2)

It’s as if David were saying: “O God, I am a haunted man. I’m like Lady Macbeth scrubbing her hands to get the blood out, saying, ‘Out, out, damned spot,’ and I can’t get rid of it. It’s always there. I know it. I can’t hide from it.”

Then David says to God in this prayer:

Against You, You only, have I sinned,
And done this evil in Your sight. (Ps. 51:3)

In one sense, that is hyperbole, is it not? When you think about it, David sinned against his wives, against his children, against Bathsheba, against her husband, and against all of his subjects in Israel who looked to their king to be a moral exemplar. He let them down. He disappointed them. It does not seem that he is making much sense when he says, “God, it’s only against You that I’ve sinned.”

David understood that he had violated Bathsheba and that he had violated his own wives. He had violated his family and the whole nation. But David is speaking in the ultimate sense in this Psalm, recognizing that the wickedness of sin does violence to the perfection, majesty, and holiness of God. In the final analysis, David says, “You’re the One against whom I’ve committed this evil.”

Listen to David’s next words. I love these words, because if you want to know what real repentance is, here it is:

That You may be found just when You speak
And blameless when You judge. (Ps. 51:3)

In true repentance, there is no rationalization. There is no attempt to minimize our guilt. There is no attempt at self-justification, which is the human tendency. Even when we confess our sins, we always tend to hold back something, some of the gravity of our sin. Not David.

What is David saying when he says, “O God, that You may be blameless when You judge”? He is saying: “God, I understand that if You respond to my actions according to the law, according to Your own character of righteousness, however You choose to punish me, You have every right to do it. That’s why I throw myself on the mercy of the court. That’s why I ask for you to deal with me not according to Your justice but according to Your tender mercy. That’s my only hope.” Friends, that is our only hope in the presence of a holy God.

In our text in Romans, Paul quotes David, saying:

As it is written:

“That You may be justified in Your words,
and may overcome when You are judged.”

The Lord’s Indictment of Eli

The embodiment of the spirit of what Paul is saying in our text and what David was saying in Psalm 51 took place when Eli was judging Israel and was negligent and derelict in disciplining his wayward sons, Hophni and Phinehas. We get the story in 1 Samuel 3.

One night, God awakened Eli’s young student, Samuel, from his sleep by Eli’s side. God spoke from heaven and said, “Samuel!” Samuel thought that it was Eli, so he woke up, went over and tugged Eli, and said, “Did you call me?” Eli said: “No, you must have indigestion or a bad dream. Go back to sleep.” So, Samuel went back to sleep. A few minutes later, God said, “Samuel!” Again, Samuel jumped up, ran over to Eli, tugged at him, and said, “Did you call me?” Eli again said, “No, I didn’t call you.”

At this point, Eli was beginning to think. He started to put two and two together, and he said to Samuel: “Wait a minute. Maybe it’s the Lord who’s speaking to you. If you hear the voice again, say, ‘Speak Lord, for Your servant hears.’” Again God spoke, saying: “Samuel! Samuel!” Samuel responded by saying, “Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears.”

Then God revealed to Samuel what He planned to do to judge the house of Eli. The Lord was going to kill Eli. He was going to kill his sons, and the ark of the covenant was going to be taken away from the nation.

In the morning, Eli asked to Samuel, “Did the Lord speak to you?” We can picture Samuel afraid, saying, “Yes, He did,” and Eli asking, “What did He say?” Then Samuel might have said, “Oh, never mind. It was nothing, really.” But Eli caught on. He realized that he was the subject of whatever it was that God had reported to Samuel. So now, Eli insisted. He essentially said to Samuel, “Samuel, you tell me what the Lord said to you, or whatever He said to you, may it happen to you.” Then Samuel bore the whole story to Eli. He told Eli that God was going to judge him.

In ninety-nine cases out of one hundred, nay, in 999 out of one thousand cases, someone who heard that indictment would say: “That seems a little harsh. That can’t be God. God wouldn’t treat me like that.” But when Eli heard the indictment against him, what was his response? “It is the Lord. It’s the Lord. I recognize the Word of God here. I’ve been wrong. God has every right to do to me what He will.”

God’s Fair Judgment

Every one of us has been a victim of injustice at the hands of other people. Every one of us has been falsely accused of things that we have never done. Every one of us has been subjected to slander, jealousy, and so on. Every one of us has also inflicted that kind of damage on other people.

Remember that even if you are treated in a grossly unfair manner by a mortal person, you have the right according to the Word of God to seek redress in those situations—to confront people, to go to the church, and even to go to the law. But on the horizontal plane when we are unfairly treated, we also have to look to heaven, vertically, and say, “Lord, what do You have in mind,” because I can never say that it is unfair of God to allow me to be treated unfairly by people.

Let me say it again: I can never say that it is unfair of God for Him to allow me to be treated unfairly by people. No matter what I suffer at the hands of people, it is not worthy to be compared to the grace by which I am covered by God in the forgiveness of my sins. If God were to call me to account for my life, He would be perfectly justified to send me to hell forever.

Do you realize that? If you do not know that, then you have never really dealt with your sin. You do not really know who God is and His holiness. If I die tonight and wake up in hell tomorrow morning, I will be one unhappy person. I will be in torment and misery. But I will know that it is just that I am there.

Deceptive and Distorted Thinking

Paul is talking about how people want to blame God for their own unbelief, their own infidelity. He says: “But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust who inflicts wrath? (I speak as a man.) Certainly not! For then how will God judge the world?”

This is how deceptive we are. We think: “Even when I sin, my unrighteousness indirectly bears witness to the righteousness of God. How would we ever recognize sin for what it is if we did not have a standard by which to judge it?”

Nobody is really a relativist. People in our culture claim to be moral relativists, and the person who says that there is no morality is the first one to scream foul when someone steals his wallet. We know better than that. But we excuse our sinfulness and say: “Boys will be boys. To err is human; to forgive is divine. Everyone is entitled to one mistake.” We have a moral entitlement program in our culture. But the truth is that God does not entitle you to any mistakes—not one sin. If He gave you one sin, how long ago did you use it up?

But we begin to think: “Even my sinfulness indirectly, in some way, bears witness to God’s glory. God is glorified in my unrighteousness. So, I might as well keep being unrighteous. I will continue in sin that grace may abound.” This is how distorted we are. We say: “Let God be God. I’ll be who I am. I’m just being myself. At least I’m honest about it. At least I’m an honest sinner.” There is no such thing. Paul tells us not to think that way.

Righteousness in Wrath

“For then how will God judge the world?” If God were unjust when He inflicts wrath, if that were an injustice in God, then He would never be able to judge the world. What could be more obvious than that? Yet nothing is more repugnant to the culture—and in many cases, the church—than the idea that God is capable of judging people by pouring out His wrath.

Dear friends, what do you think salvation is? The Bible says that salvation is being saved from the wrath that is to come. No preacher in the history of the world spoke more ominously about the certainty of the wrath of God than Jesus. God will not hold back His wrath forever. Every single person will face the judgment of God. You either face it on your own or you face it with God’s appointed defense attorney, who is Jesus Christ.

Paul is essentially saying, “If it is not right for God to have wrath, how could He ever judge the world?” Paul is astonished with the thinking of his contemporaries. He should be around today. He would say: “Have you people lost your mind? How can you have no room in your theology for the wrath of God? Does that mean there is no judgment? Does that mean everyone gets a free pass? Everyone gets a get-out-of-hell-free card, forever? How can you think that God is never going to judge you?”

That is the secret hope of every impenitent person in this world. People think: “I’m fifteen, eighteen, twenty-five, forty-five, seventy-five. I haven’t been judged thus far. I haven’t experienced the wrath of God yet. All that stuff about the wrath of God is just scare tactics the preachers use to keep us in line and manipulate us with guilt. I have nothing to fear from God’s judgment because a good, loving judge would never punish anybody. He hates the sin but loves the sinner unconditionally.” But God does not send sin to hell. He sends sinners there, as their just judgment.

The Apostle Paul is saying: “Don’t forget the righteousness of God. It’s because God is righteous that He is wrathful. His wrath is not a manifestation of a lack of righteousness in God. It is a manifestation of the fullness of righteousness in Him.”

The Cry of Judas

The text continues, “For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?” Is this not the cry of Judas on the last day? Judas might say: “What are you picking on me for? Isn’t the crucifixion of Jesus the best thing that ever happened to the world? If it weren’t for me, you’d have no atonement. You should be thanking me that I fulfilled the Scripture and delivered Jesus into the hands of the gentiles. You should give me a pat on the back, because through my sin, glory has come to pass. Why am I judged as a sinner?”

Paul says, “And why not say, ‘Let us do evil that good may come’?—as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say.” Paul was accused of being an antinomian, of being one who so despised the law of the Old Testament and was so intoxicated by the primacy of grace and the sweetness of the gospel that he completely dispensed with the law of God. This slander went around the community, saying that Paul was denying the law of God.

Paul never denied the law of God. He always understood the proper relationship between the law of God and the gospel of God. Paul is setting the record straight: “I’m not saying, ‘Free from the law, O blessed condition, I can sin all I want and still have remission.’” There is no room in Paul’s theology for the carnal Christian who takes Christ as Savior but does not take Him as Lord. That would be nonsense to the Apostle Paul. Do not put that slander at the feet of Paul.

Paul never said, “Let’s do evil that good may come.” The Apostle Paul never entertained the idea that the ends justify the means. We want good ends and good means. We are rightly limited in that way in the ethics of Christ. Paul says: “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.” Paul says, “Those who twist my teaching, the Apostolic word, and claim that I am teaching antinomianism will be condemned, and justly so.”

The Universal Guilt of Humanity

Now comes the coup de grace, setting up the next session, where Paul says: “Okay, what then, so what? What’s the final result of all I’ve been teaching you here through these first two-and-a-half chapters?” He says: “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.”

Paul will now develop the universal guilt of humanity. Jew and Greek, Jew and gentile, every last one of us is under the weight and condemnation of sin. Paul will turn to the Old Testament to spell that out in detail before he reaches a crescendo in which he brings every human being before the divine tribunal, showing that all of us need the gospel. God willing, we will look at that explanation next Sabbath evening. Let us pray.

Father, oh how we love Your Word. What a tremendous advantage it is for our lives to hear Your Word. Give us such a hunger and thirst that we want to devour Your Word, that we want to take advantage of that singular gift You have given to the church, where You have focused the means of grace. We pray, O Father, that we may never despise that advantage, but that we may seek the full measure of the benefit You have set before us. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.