Or, The Law of the God-Seeker
Scripture: Romans 3:9-20
Date: February 20, 2022
Speaker: Sean Higgins
There are at least three great reasons to be a Calvinist: 1) other people, 2) my heart, 3) God’s Word. It’s the Bible that has the ultimate authority, but personal experience and observation affirm the Scripture.
Maybe you’ve heard of the “cage stage” of Calvinism, where enthusiasm (for a newly understood theological perspective) is rabid and needs some restraints. But by (irresistible) grace you may get to the Sage Stage, where you don’t even care if other people use the words, but you know the truth anyway.
Here is a foundational truth: people are not “good.” In general people are not good, and no person is generally good. Doing good is inconsistent with what most people actually believe, it is inconsistent with who most people are. The problem that people have is not a bad environment; people are the ones who make their environment bad. The problem is not that people don’t know enough; people are the ones who reject education. We choose not to learn. I don’t say this from a position of superiority; I am one of these people.
This doesn’t mean that every man is as bad or evil as he could be. The Bible explains how that’s possible, and it’s something we can be thankful about, but we’re thankful to God for it, not men. Every single day we’re confronted by what we see in the media and what we see in the mirror. It’s not a good picture, and the biggest surprise is that it’s not worse.
The evil in men and committed by men is a symptom of a systemic problem. While it may not present itself in the same way, it starts with how a man relates to God, or, more specifically, how he refuses to.
This is where Paul began in Romans 1:18. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against those who know enough from creation to know that there is a God who governs and gives but who still refuse to honor God or give Him thanks. Out of that spiritual reality their minds can’t process reality and they become more and more blind to it. Their minds are darkened and debased, and out of that their conduct is disobedient to God’s standards and dishonorable. Sure, they try to redefine all this to say that they are free and fulfilled, but this is like putting a gold-colored twist-tie in a pig’s snout (compare with Proverbs 11:22).
Even the ones who retain more of their sense of morality undermine it by hypocritical behavior (starting in Romans 2:1) and, for Paul, none represented that better than the Jews (Romans 2:17), the ones chosen by God as a nation to receive God’s law and God’s blessings, who still didn’t obey.
All men are sinners, all men need the good news of salvation in Christ. They need deliverance from depravity, from their innate nature of wrath (Ephesians 2:3). It’s the first petal of TULIP, Total Depravity, and whether you call it that or total inability or radical corruption or spiritual death (Ephesians 2:1), it means that from head to toe, from heart to tongue, from inside to society, all men stand guilty as charged before God and cannot do any amount of good works to overcome their condition.
Paul rests his case in Romans 3:9-20 as he prepares to launch into the gospel of justification by faith alone in 3:21 and following. There isn’t anyone who doesn’t need the gospel because there isn’t anyone who, on his own, knows and seeks and loves and obeys God. Not even one.
We can see three steps in this summary sequence, as if Paul was in a courtroom: 1) The Indictment, 2) The Testimony, 3) The Verdict
“What then?” is the first question that prepares for the summary.
The second question in verse 9 requires us to answer some questions about it. Who are the “we”? The ESV adds the word “Jews”: “are we (Jews) any better off?” But in Greek the question is only one word, “are we having advantages?” “Are we better off?” (NET). Who are the “we”? Better off how?
”We” could be Jews. Paul was a Jew, and he’s been talking about Jews since 2:17. What’s challenging is that he just asked and answered that Jews do have advantages (3:1-2). Yet it makes less sense to say there is a third group, such as Christians, because he’s about to bring it back to only two categories, Jew and Gentile.
It seems that he recognizes it is difficult for the Jews to be thankful for their God-given, distinctive benefits and still help them realize that those benefits, by themselves, are not sufficient. Even if they really thought that they could follow all the law, which none did, it wouldn’t be sufficient for salvation. Like those in Revelation 3:17, they thought, after all of this, that they didn’t have need.
For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Gentiles, are under sin .
The scandalous part, at least for Jews, would be to include Jews in the accusation. The serious part, though, is being “under sin.” It’s a simple phrase, but so are phrases such as under water, or in debt. The relationship is defined, and all men, no matter their religious backgrounds, their possession of the Torah (like Jews) or their production of idols (like Greeks), are dominated by sin. As Paul illustrated in chapter 6:16-19, we are slaves to sin, sin is every man’s master. The great tyrant of all is sin.
There is no list this long in any of Paul’s other letters. He quotes from six Old Testament passages, which some have called a catena, a chain.
This is the evidence, which has more authority than his experience. Some flow could be seen in three groupings and the conclusion, and the point is that none are good, not even one.
as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have
become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
(Romans 3:10–12 ESV)
It’s mostly from Psalm 14:1-3, and it is comprehensive, exhaustive, universal. Five times we read a version of the phrase “there is not one.” It’s a great start for a good proof text for total depravity. In terms of ethics (“righteous”), in terms of truth (“understands”), in terms of worship (“seeks for God”), no one gets it, and have become “worthless” in the process. “Like salt that has lost its savour or as fruit that is rotten no longer serves any useful purpose, so all men are viewed as having ‘gone bad’” (John Murray).
Someone says, “But I know a guy…” But you don’t know a guy who is pleasing God who isn’t explicitly praising God, and no one does that on his own.
These quotes are from a few places, but making the same point. Want to find depravity in action? Just listen to how men talk.
“Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
(Romans 3:13–14 ESV)
Throat, tongue, lips, then the whole mouth; from the inside out. An “open grave” could emphasize that what comes out is rotten as if from a corpse, or it could emphasize that the words swallow up others to death (see Psalm 5:9). Tongues “deceive” and for all kinds of reasons. Lips conceal poison (see Psalm 140:3). Their vocabulary is like venom. Their speech hygiene is hellish (“the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness….setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell” James 3:6). The mouth is “full of curses and bitterness” (Psalm 10:7), which is grumbling and blaming on others.
Social media has not made men into monsters, though it has amplified our voices and provided a streaming record for us to add our own complaining comments.
They are hating their neighbors, shown in another combination of passages.
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known.”
(Romans 3:15–17 ESV)
From the head/mouth to the feet (as in Isaiah 59:7-8). They run to cause hurt, they don’t stumble into you. They intended to ruin your reputation, to take all your stuff. One of them surely has a Twitter bio that says, “I’m coming at you, bro.” They leave a trail of destruction and sadness behind them. They don’t know peace. It’s not whether or not, but how much drama swirls around them.
This is the core of the problem.
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:18 ESV)
This quotes Psalm 36:1. “Inhumanity commonly follows where there is ignorance of God” (John Calvin).
Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:19–20 ESV)
None of the quotations were from the Pentateuch, the Law “proper.” Most are from the Psalms and a couple from the Prophets. One implication is that we see how Paul uses the word “law” in a broad sense for the Old Testament. Another implication is that “the whole world” (πᾶς ὁ κόσμος) is accountable to this law, a universally applicable law, whether or not they’d ever read Moses.
To be “held accountable to God” is to be answerable to Him (see also Hebrews 4:13).
No public defender, not even the most expensive attorney, has anything to say. Every one is guilty as charged, not even one can justify himself.
Do men seek God? Paul says in Romans 3:11, quoting Psalm 14, NO. It’s also true that Paul told the men in Athens:
[God] made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. (Acts 17:26–27 ESV)
What I’m calling the “law of the God-seeker” has a double meaning. First, this law says that there are no God-seekers. Second, if there is a God-seeker, he needs to be brought before God’s law that he might give up his excuses.
The Sage Stage Calvinist can hold these things together.
A man could if, and only if, God’s is working in him. Any acknowledgement on his part is a grace, though it may be common, as in, a grace that increases his accountability rather than bringing him to eternal life. And if you run in to a seeker, what they need is the law, that they might have knowledge of sin, that they would believe in Christ who fulfilled it perfectly.
So the law says that men, under sin and on their own, do not seek God. There is no one who seeks God. And, if they do give the outward appearance of seeking God, they should be exposed to His law, so that they can stop their excuses. They have no good answer.
Bring them to the Psalms. You don’t have to master the law in Leviticus to be effective. Follow the apostolic example.
And let’s be honest, the group that has the hardest time giving up their defenses is the religious people. The catena of OT quotes are piled up against the walls of the Jews. They didn’t have any problem at all seeing how the Gentiles needed to shut their mouths before God. Paul says, “Duh, and you, too.”
This morning we’ve been exhorted not to be discontent (but patient), not defensive (but humbled before God’s law), not divided (but sharing in His feast). You are a disciple of Christ. Follow His example (1 Peter 2:21), follow Him. God will supply every need for you according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19).
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. (2 Peter 1:3–4, ESV)