Eternity Daily Bible Study: No. 511 Romans 1-8 - A Righteousness That Is By Faith Verses: Romans 3:5-9 Topic: Light and Shadow Date: 21st September 2005 Romans 3:5-9 HCSB But if our unrighteousness highlights God's righteousness, what are we to say? I use a human argument: Is God unrighteous to inflict wrath? (6) Absolutely not! Otherwise, how will God judge the world? (7) But if by my lie God's truth is amplified to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? (8) And why not say, just as some people slanderously claim we say, "Let us do evil so that good may come"? Their condemnation is deserved! (9) What then? Are we any better? Not at all! For we have previously charged that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin, A few weeks ago I did some counseling with a very dysfunctional woman who lurched from one crisis to the next. My reaction afterwards was to truly appreciate the wonderfully sensible and wise wife the Lord has given me in my wife Minda. It is as if the darkness of the shadow made the light seem brighter. So in a way, the darkness of our sin can make God seem more glorious. And this is Paul's point. Sin is still sin, even if in the end it ends up bringing glory to God albeit in an upside down sort of a way. "If our unrighteousness highlights God righteousness.." - as we have seen our sin can make God seem more holy. Our small-mindedness can make God seem great, and our petty impatience can make God seem long-suffering and kind. Yet these are not good things. How can God inflict wrath on people that make Him seem more glorious? Surely it is unfair to punish those who make you look good? Not so - a poor student may make the teacher look brilliant - but nonetheless the poor student needs to be rebuked soundly. "I use a human argument: Is God unrighteous to inflict wrath? (6) Absolutely not! Otherwise, how will God judge the world?" For God to judge the world He must punish evil and reward good. He must inflict wrath on those who disobey Him and those who love and pursue wickedness, that is only right and fair - and thus it is not unrighteous for God to inflict wrath. In some dysfunctional corporations there is an unwritten rule that you must make the boss "look good" and promotion depends on this factor. If you play golf with the boss you must lose, if you tell jokes the boss must have the last laugh. God is not like that. God does not suffer from ego problems and personal insecurity. God wants us to perform to the very best of our ability and rewards us accordingly, and there is no reward for "making God look good by messing up". In verses 7 & 8 Paul addresses two misunderstandings of the nature of sin and grace: "But if by my lie God's truth is amplified to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? And why not say, just as some people slanderously claim we say, "Let us do evil so that good may come"? Their condemnation is deserved!" The first misunderstanding is of the nature of sin. There can be two categories of sin, subjective - hurt feelings and reputations and objective - broken rules. A perfect example of this occurred this evening when someone wanted to pass some funds through the church account in a way that was against the IRS laws. I refused and the person accused me of thinking they were dishonest and slammed down the phone. I was made out to be the "bad person" for hurting the relationship and reputation (subjective guilt) while on the other hand I insisted that the request was procedurally wrong and illegal (broken rules - objective guilt). Now making God seem glorious is subjectively good. But if doing so means breaking commandments then it is objectively wrong. In these verses Paul is staking Christianity as an objective and impartial faith. Paul is repudiating notions that God is akin to some Middle Eastern potentate that must be faltered, cajoled and made to look good. There is no need to flatter God, to make Him look good, or to make Him feel a certain way. God is not concerned with how you make Him look or feel but how you serve and how you obey His commandments and belief His Word. Christianity is at its core an absolutely objective and impartial faith, with an objective and impartial God who expects us also to act without favoritism: Romans 2:11 HCSB There is no favoritism with God. 1 Peter 1:17 HCSB And if you address as Father the One who judges impartially based on each one's work, you are to conduct yourselves in reverence during this time of temporary residence. James 3:17 MKJV But the wisdom that is from above is first truly pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. 1 Timothy 5:21 MKJV I charge you before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that you guard these things without prejudice, doing nothing by partiality. The classic passage on this is the "rich man, poor man" illustration in James 2: James 2:1-10 HCSB My brothers, hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ without showing favoritism. (2) For suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring, dressed in fine clothes, and a poor man dressed in dirty clothes also comes in. (3) If you look with favor on the man wearing the fine clothes so that you say, "Sit here in a good place," and yet you say to the poor man, "Stand over there," or, "Sit here on the floor by my footstool," (4) haven't you discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? (5) Listen, my dear brothers: Didn't God choose the poor in this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that He has promised to those who love Him? (6) Yet you dishonored that poor man. Don't the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? (7) Don't they blaspheme the noble name that you bear? (8) If you really carry out the royal law prescribed in Scripture, You shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well. (9) But if you show favoritism, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. (10) For whoever keeps the entire law, yet fails in one point, is guilty of breaking it all. Now by God's objective standards there are no favorites and Jews and Greeks stand equally before God and are equally under sin: "What then? Are we any better? Not at all! For we have previously charged that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin," Thus the Jew who commits adultery is as unrighteous as a Gentile that commits adultery. Going to the "right church" makes no difference. And the Samaritan who loves his neighbor is better than the orthodox Jew who passes by on the other side. Now for the second problem in verse eight - "just as some people slanderously claim we say, "Let us do evil so that good may come"? Since both Jew and Greek are under sin, both need forgiveness and grace from God through Jesus Christ and both receive it because of God's great love. The fact that the often licentious Gentiles could know God's grace along with the generally better behaved Jews created a problem similar to that of the elder son in the parable of the Prodigal Son. The returning wastrel seems to get all the attention and all the "good stuff" so that "let us sin so good may result" could be one interpretation. It was the elder son's interpretation and it was a wrong one! God (and Paul) wants each of us to dwell in righteousness and not to sin. Grace is given in order to give us a clean slate so that we can get on with being good. Grace lifts the burden of guilt from off our shoulders so that we can better run the race. The whole of idea of grace is in the race. We are not given grace as a way to keep on sinning without penalty. Rather we are given grace so we can pursue righteousness. Fundamental to grace is repentance and contrition and the ardent faith-full desire for personal holiness. Superficially grace may seem to reward sin but it does not do so. The elder son had the whole farm "all I have is yours", while the wastrel prodigal had nothing except a restored relationship (See Luke 15:11-32). Grace is not to be wasted. Some will get to Heaven "as through fire" (1 Corinthians 3:10-15) but I would prefer to have works of "gold, silver and precious stones" that survive the "fire" on that day. Blessings, John Edmiston (johned@aibi.ph) REFER OTHERS: If this devotional is a blessing to you, maybe you have a friend or family member that would like to start receiving this daily bible study. 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