You are in a sinking ship... but there's hope. Romans Lesson Four: Chapter 3b

[To watch this on YouTube when it was first given on Facebook Live, and on Zoom, please visit https://youtu.be/KZD-D9XISy8 ]

The book’s general theme: How to be right with God.

Today’s topic: We are all in a sinking boat, but there is a patch to fix it!

Welcome to those of you who are new to our class in this the 4^th lesson, as we take up Paul’s comments recorded in chapter 3 of this seminal work The Book of Romans. So far, we have listened to the overture of the themes that the symphonic conductor introduced to us in chapter one including faith and the Sonship of Yeshua, our Saviour and the Gospel itself which is the power of God. We saw the apostolic priorities of Jewish people first, and also a comprehensive inclusion of Gentiles in the Kingdom of God. Then Rabbi Saul has painted a fairly comprehensive picture for all people that everyone is guilty of sin and thus worthy of God’s judgment. At least I thought it was exhaustive, but like the late-night infomercial says, “Wait, there’s more!” That’s where we pick up today’s lesson, from chapter 3, verse 9 to the end of the chapter. [For those online, the whole text is at the end of this blog]

Paul asks questions throughout this letter, and verse 9 gives us the next one. Are we better than they? Paul almost shouts his answer, NOT AT ALL! This notion that forgiven people are better than those who don’t believe is a Shanda. (Yiddish for ‘shame’) The point of the apostle’s argument so far is that we are all in the same boat and no one is the captain, no one is above and no one is below anyone else. Paul’s answer to his own query is “We have previously charged both Jews and Greeks”. Those two categories are all with which he is dealing at this point. Yes, of course, there are other categories, but in religion, these are the two at this point. 

He then quotes 8 biblical passages back to back to back. (Psalm 14.1-2, Ecclesiastes 7.20, Psalm 5.9, 140.3, Psalm 10.7, Prov. 1.16, Isa. 59.7-8, and finally Psalm 36.1.) The links are clear between each of these passages. Everyone sins. Sin results in penalty. Sin is not good. Sin brings death and the curse. And it malaffects the sinner so that he is left with nothing but misery. 

Listen to these considerations, 

1)    No understanding

2)    They are together unprofitable

3)    Their throat is an open tomb

4)    Mouth is full of cursing and bitterness

5)    Destruction and misery are in their ways

6)    They don’t know peace

Let’s just say, that sin is not the kind of thing you want to keep doing, at all, according to Paul. And in verse 9 we see the word ‘sin’ for the first time in this epistle. It won’t be the last time! And what is the litany of citations intended to correct? Those Jewish people who were claiming special status. Paul writes with clarity that there is not a single Jewish person alive who has not sinned and who will not continue to sin. It’s the “Bad News” with which Paul introduces his theses.

Given that all of us are hopeless, then what are our options? How can we, if we want to do so, get right with the Almighty? There are really only two. One, to fix it ourselves, by religious activity and religious dignity and propriety. We will earn our way into God’s favor. That’s called “Justification by works.” The other is what Paul has already told us in chapter one, and that’s “justification by faith.” We will see those contrasted again and again, both in Romans, and in our own lives.

THE LAW

There are many Gentiles in the community of faith who are captivated by and long to be part of something Jewish. I’m not sure that I am altogether unhappy with that. In fact, it gives me kind of a warm, glowing feeling inside. People affirm our religion. That’s a comfort, isn’t it? Thus, when Paul says in verse 19 “whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law’ then he seems to be excluding those Gentiles who fancy our religion. In fact, he’s making that point very clear. The law, a word Paul uses 70 times in this epistle, and with different meanings at times (which can be very confusing), is not for Gentiles. Never was. Never will be. We’ll get to that subject down the track in this letter again.

Every month I hear about another group or gathering of people using the title ‘messianic.’ On further investigation, I find out it’s often a group of Gentiles who want to please a God who demands obedience and is almost an agro-deity, never pleased, always angry. He judges those who fail. He keeps score. He’s the god imagined by the prodigal son while the boy was living in the pigpen. He’s the exact opposite of the God Paul came to know. And what and who I want you to know. In chapter 8 we will see this come to the front and I will give you a bit of a tease for it: NOTHING can separate you from the love of God in Yeshua. Nothing!

OK, back to verses 19-20. Listen to the purpose of the Torah in 19. It’s as if Paul is addressing those people exactly. “Whatever Torah says, … it’s “that every mouth is closed, and all the world is accountable to God.” It’s not about obedience and thus boasting. Verse 27 says, “where is boasting?” The point Paul is making is that Torah’s place is not to be accomplished but to close our mouths from boasting and to boast in the Lord!  Why? Verse 20: we understood our own disobedience through the schoolmaster of Torah. We understand sin, he says, by reading Torah. We all fall short, he insists in verse 23, that’s Jews and Gentiles alike. 

The Law is therefore GREAT in its usefulness to instruct us, to help us be humble, to school us, even these days. 

But wait a minute, if Torah informs us of our failures, where is there real and genuine hope? Remember, we titled this section, “First, the Bad News.” So, come on already, where is the Good news? How is a man to be made right (biblically the word is ‘righteous’) with God? 

Verses 21-22 tells us! The Torah and Nevi’im both announce and witness the righteousness of God apart from Torah. Gentiles don’t have to work harder to catch up with us Jewish people. Being right with God is a matter of righteousness and faith. 

My friend Ernie Gruen died some years ago and he would characterize some people whom I’m guessing are listening to this talk just now as Billy Goat believers. What’s a billy goat known for? Butting heads. He would announce something like Paul is saying here, that right standing with God comes to all people on the basis of their faith, and Ernie would hear someone say, “But…” and try to change the conversation. But, but, but… that’s billy goat believers, he would say. There are no ‘but’s’ in the answer to how is someone born again and how is someone made right with God. By faith in the righteousness of God.

Remember what Yeshua said of the Spirit of God who would come after Yeshua himself departed? 

 “And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; ⁹concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; ¹⁰ and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; (John 16.8-10)

Sin is unbelief, Yeshua said. Righteousness is summed up in Yeshua being received by the Father in heaven after the crucifixion because the door of “Approved” or “Right standing” is opened by the Risen One. 

Verse 23 is one of the most quoted verses from this letter. “All have sinned” implies what Paul has been teaching for the last two chapters, that Jews and non-Jews alike are the fallen short folks. Sinned (hamartia) means ‘missing the mark’ which is an archery term. We try; we shoot our arrows, and we just miss. Sins of omission and sins of commission are abundant. 

Honestly, self-evaluate just now. Yes, there are times when your fearless moral inventory will show you do a good thing, in fact, perhaps many good things. And you should feel that just now; you should rejoice that God is leading you to do good to and for others. And in your continued self-evaluation, you will unpack more and more of your own sinfulness. You will see that much of your good behavior springs from a desire to be known or to be adored or from a place of selfishness. That’s missing the mark. That’s failure. Paul wrote the Corinthians about this in his first letter. Chapter 13. 

“if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.” (13.3)

Doing good is excellent, as long as we are seriously loving and giving with no thought for ourselves or the good we will receive as a result. Sin is so insidious, even when we do well, we can fail, you know?

Sin in verse 23 both shows our wrongdoing and our wrong not-going. (Fall short or ‘lack’) What, you say? Sin both sends us to hell and prevents our going to heaven. It brings ruin and doesn’t help us get repaired. 

One word I want to highlight is in verse 24. It’s translated ‘redemption’ in our text. The Greek word is “apolutrosis’ meaning to deliver by paying the ransom. The word for ransom is ‘lutron’ and was the price, usually massive, to buy a slave off the trading block. 

Then did you see verse 25 and the use of the verb ‘pass over.’ That has to hearken our minds back to Moses and the Exodus. God spared the Hebrews because of the blood of lambs, and here in verses 25 and 26 the justifier is using blood to do this. Thanks be to God!

FAITH DISALLOWS BOASTING

Paul asks the question in verse 27. By the way, we will see a continual and steady stream of questions by the apostle throughout his letter. It helps put voice to objections by other billy goat believers, and then he will quickly answer those charges or allegations or objections. I like that about the apostle. 

What’s the question in verse 27? Where then is boasting? I watched the movie “Risen” again the other day. Hollywood made a great one there. Yeshua rises from the dead after being crucified under the auspices of a Roman tribune played by Joseph Fiennes. All the troubles of the possible responses of people to the story of the resurrection are played out. Very well, I might add. And at the end, when the apostles are going out in the power of God, their proclamations are wrapped in the love of God that Yeshua taught. There is no boasting in themselves. There is no betterness unfolding here; they are redeemed and Paul’s legal term (Justified) by grace through faith in the blood of Jesus. Real sinners who know the real bad news, when we meet the Risen One, rejoice. Why? Because of our accomplishments? Not even close… by the grace of God extended to us, since he is (verse 26) both Just (another word for righteous) and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 

We are justified, that is acquitted of all wrongdoing. We are forgiven. And as in these days, once you are acquitted of a crime, there is no double jeopardy allowed. You cannot be brought to trial again. New evidence cannot be forthcoming. Why? All our sins were in view in the first trial! And the blood of Jesus is the propitiation (verse 25) or the application of mercy to us then and to the end of the age.

The final question of the chapter is about Torah itself. If faith is so special, does this nullify Torah? The apostle will answer that in the next chapter, but his one-shop answer in this one verse is “No way, Jose, faith actually establishes the Torah!” 

We will talk more about where Paul is going next week.

NEXT WEEK, this business of faith and credit and justification is personalized by looking at Torah itself, and our father Abraham specifically. Was Abraham a Jew or a Gentile when he was declared righteous? And how did he gain that declaration?

We have much more to get through in this letter, and I’m delighted to be able to read and help us understand it each Friday here from my lockdown in Sydney. 

[For those reading this online, please watch this 7-minute 47-second video which showcases with great graphics the first four chapters of this book.  https://youtu.be/ej_6dVdJSIU ] 

The actual text:

Rom. 3:9   What then? ^1aAre we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin;

¹⁰         as it is written, 

            “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE;

¹¹         THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, 

            THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD;

¹²         ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; 

            THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, 

            THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.”

¹³         “THEIR THROAT IS AN OPEN GRAVE, 

            WITH THEIR TONGUES THEY KEEP DECEIVING,” 

            “THE POISON OF ASPS IS UNDER THEIR LIPS”;

¹⁴         “WHOSE MOUTH IS FULL OF CURSING AND BITTERNESS”;

¹⁵         “THEIR FEET ARE SWIFT TO SHED BLOOD,

¹⁶         DESTRUCTION AND MISERY ARE IN THEIR PATHS,

¹⁷         AND THE PATH OF PEACE THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN.”

¹⁸         “THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE THEIR EYES.”

Rom. 3:19   Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; ²⁰ because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.

Rom. 3:21   But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, ²² even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; ²⁵ whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; ²⁶ for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who ¹has faith in Jesus.

Rom. 3:27   Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. ^28 1For ^awe maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. ²⁹ Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, ³⁰ since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one.

Rom. 3:31   Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law.

Religion won't help you (Lesson 3 in the series on the Book of Romans)

The Book of Romans: A Bible study series in 16 parts

Lesson Three: Religion is not enough

To watch this talk first given on Zoom, please visit this link 

The theme of the letter continues to be: How to be right with God.

The apostle turns his attention away from general judgment, that is, that the people of the world have suppressed the truth and have turned God’s glory into their own. They have made idols of their own institutions and their own pleasures and as a result, God has had to move in judgment against them. Now Paul, a former rabbi named Saul, turns his attention to his own people, and may I add, my own people, the Jewish people. He will ask a question in chapter 3 about the benefits of being Jewish, but first he carries on in his notification of the justice of God against all mankind.

Chapter 2, beginning at verse 17 sounds like it could come from Jeremiah or Isaiah, the ancient Jewish prophets. He seriously charges all Jewish people (but in the singular, helping us to be the individual accused) with the following assumptions about our person. He says we:

1)    Call ourselves a Jew

2)    Rest on the Torah

3)    Make our boast in God

4)    Know God’s will

5)    Approve excellent things

6)    Are instructed from Torah

7)    Are confident that we are

a.     A guide to the blind

b.     A light to those in darkness

c.     An instructor of the foolish

d.     A teacher of babes

e.     Have the form of knowledge and truth in Torah

Paul then moves to a series of questions which are accusations of our wrongdoing:

1)             Do you not teach yourself

2)             Do you steal

3)             Do you commit adultery

4)             Do you rob temples

5)             Do you dishonour God through breaking the Law

The summary is found at verse 24, a quote from the 52^nd chapter of Isaiah, verse 5, ““Now therefore, what do I have here,” declares the LORD, “seeing that My people have been taken away without cause?” Again the LORD declares, “Those who rule over them howl, and My name is continually blasphemed all day long.”

Paul is saying that although the Gentiles of the opening section of chapter 2 are aware of some natural information, what is called in theological terms “general revelation”, and therefore able to be judged by their dismissal of what God had shown them, the Jewish people are even more worthy of judgment because they knew all too well the fulness of God’s more specific revelation. 

Consider the text of Isaiah, in fact, I like this whole section of Isaiah:

Is. 52:3   For thus says the LORD, “You were sold for nothing and you will be redeemed without money.” ⁴ For thus says the Lord GOD, “My people went down at the first into Egypt to reside there; then the Assyrian oppressed them without cause. ⁵ “Now therefore, what do I have here,” declares the LORD, “seeing that My people have been taken away without cause?” Again the LORD declares, “Those who rule over them howl, and My name is continually blasphemed all day long. ⁶ “Therefore My people shall know My name; therefore in that day I am the one who is speaking, ‘Here I am.’”

When a text is cited, in Jewish and biblical rendering, it could be pulled way out of the text, without reason, and given new meaning. Talmud is filled with the likes of that. But in this case, I see the use of a phrase in verse 5 to highlight the entirety of the last half of Isaiah! Specifically, the point being that it’s God himself who is praise-worthy. It’s God who wants HIS name known, and not the name of Israel, of Isaiah or Jewish people. The Egyptians and the Assyrians of Isaiah’s day are, if you will, the same as the ethnoi of Paul’s day. They are against the Jewish people having incarcerated them or captivated them, and it says ‘without cause.’ (verse 4 and 5, but with two different Hebrew words)

Was it causeless? The apostle in Romans is arguing that there are ample evidences of cause. The Jewish person is self-assuming and counting on a litany of high marks, thus his scorekeeping allows him to boast and to consider himself unjudgable, without reason to be condemned along with the Gentiles Paul has already consigned to the judgment seat of the Lord.

Paul’s use of the Isaiah passage brings to the reader the entire text, and thus the subsequent peak of the second half of Isaiah’s book, the Suffering Servant, whom we have now discovered in the Gospel and the One and Only. 

With all that as my take on this section, let’s go back to these accusations and see if you react in the same way as I did. 

Do you steal?

Do you commit adultery?

Do you rob God and worship idols? 

See, how you reacted with self-approval? Did you agree with Paul and really with Yeshua, or did you self-validate? What is murder, for instance? Is it hating your brother? The bible amplifies it in Leviticus 19.16:

‘You shall not go about as a slanderer among your people, and you are not to act against (Heb: stand on) the life (Heb: bloods) of your neighbor; I am the LORD.'

What is slander? What is a talebearer? What does it mean to ‘stand on the life/bloods of your neighbor?’ It’s listening to others gossip about a person. It’s defaming others. It’s murdering their reputation. Have you ever done that? 

Some of you will know the works of Ray Comfort from New Zealand and his ministry, “The Way of the Master.” (his website: https://www.livingwaters.com ) He has much to say about so much, but one of the things for which he is most known is his evangelistic strategy. He uses the 10 commandments as a guide, and I think Paul is Ray’s advisor on this one. Ray will often ask a person, “Have you ever stolen anything?” To that, no thinking person will ever say “No.” Everyone has stolen something in their lifetime. Ray will ask them if that makes them a ‘thief.’ Most decline that nomenclature, but after a short series of further questions, they will agree with him. “Have you ever lusted after a woman?” he asks young men on university campuses. Eventually, they will agree that lust and adultery was in their heart. That’s the same line of reasoning or tactic that the Apostle Paul is using here. 

The conversation partner Paul is addressing, the individual Jewish people we are imagining is actually all of Israel. Each of us needs to read this section and see ourselves in the ‘hearer’ role. Paul is talking to me. Yes, he’s talking to you in Canada and in New Zealand and here in Australia. Yes, he’s talking to those who lived in his day. AND YES, he’s talking to me. I’m the brunt of his convo. I’m the one he wants to convince. 

If you read the Bible like that, where you are the accused, you will find great success. You will be able to be repaired. You will find the truth and true happiness. When you self-justify, when you proclaim yourself the one who is ok, you will miss out on so much.

Remember the story Yeshua told about a couple of men? It’s in Luke 18

Luke 18:9   And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: ¹⁰ “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹ The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ¹² ‘I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ ¹³ But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ ¹⁴ “I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The writing here in Romans by Paul sounds like he’s taking the words of his rabbi, Yeshua, and applying them to national Israel, one person at a time. 

Verses 25-29 roundly and soundly chastise the Jewish people, who called themselves in those days, ‘the circumcision.’ And they were proud of their distinctions. I hear that a lot these days as well. There is an assumption that our chosenness is a proclamation from heaven of our betterness. That, the apostle says, couldn’t be further from the truth. Since we know better, we should act better, and we do not. Thus God is right and righteous to judge us.

I’ve talked to too many people who insist that Gentiles are less… it’s one of our national sins.

Remember the point of this whole epistle is to talk about and confirm that there is a way to be Right with God. And that is the way of faith. Not boasting about who we are, or our activities or our chosenness, but rather in the God who does all things well. 

Interestingly, the name “Jew” (verse 17) comes from the Hebrew word Yehudah, the 4^th son of Jacob. What does that word mean? Praise. Our national identity as Jews is to be in the praise of the Almighty, NOT in the praise of self-justification. 

Luke makes that crystal clear in his choice of including this parable taught by Yeshua. ^“trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt:” If you trust in yourself, you can only view others as less. 

Tick-box religion only affords you two actions at the end. Either you will be smug and self-satisfied that you are one who accomplishes the religion, or you will be condemned for all your failures. Neither is what God wants of you. He wants you to get your eyes on Him and not on your own accomplishments. He has done it all!

So the term “a Jew is one inwardly” vs one who is “outward” is saying the same thing. It doesn’t matter if you are an insider like a Jew or an outsider like a pagan Roman. Neither is acceptable in their own being; it takes something outside ourselves to make us right. 

Jeremiah said the same thing about circumcision in (Jer. 4.4) “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and take away the foreskin of your heart…lest my fury come like fire and burn… because of the evil of your doings.”  (See Deut. 10.16 also)

Dunn says this, “The return to the opening theme of passing judgment makes for a rounded whole, the thought having started with the Jewish interlocutor’s judgment of Gentiles (vv 1–3), and passed through the assertion of God’s righteous judgment (vv 5, 12–16) to the climactic reverse where the law-keeping Gentile passes judgment on the too literal Jew (v 27). The degree to which the thought of vv 25–29 parallels that of vv 12–16 confirms that Paul’s purpose was not so much to break fresh ground at each stage as to bring home the same charge with increasing pointedness to his Jewish contemporaries.”

More from Dunn, “God alone can see and approve (the hidden secrets of the heart—2:16). With this final thrust, Paul’s readers would recognize once again that he was not turning his back on, far less rejecting, all these fundamental elements of Jewish self-understanding. On the contrary, he was affirming them and claiming them anew so that Jew first but also Gentile could appropriate them as something eschatologically fresh from God, but at the deeper level previously called for and hitherto promised (of the heart and by the Spirit), and now, at last, a present possibility and reality for those listening to his words in the congregations of Rome.”

            Chapter 3 then is somewhat startling, if this were a court of law or just a series of thoughts. Paul pivots 180 degrees and says that the Jewish people are ADVANTAGED! We have the oracles of God. Paul is going to answer the question of God’s faithfulness to national Israel again and again in Romans, and here’s the first time. Verse 3:

It’s FAITH that is the key, and that dear friend is how we are made right with God, back in Paul’s day, in Moses’ day, in Abraham’s day, and certainly in the days of coronavirus in our day.

Verse 3 also says that the end of chapter 2 was not about all Jews. He will point that out in chapters 9-11, specifically calling us the remnant, but for now, the word ‘some’ helps me see that all of national Israel is not cast aside. The ones who remain are the faithful, the ones who practice ‘faith.’ 

The citation of verse 4 will take too long to unpack today, but let it be clear that the text is probably a compilation of other quotes from both the OT in Hebrew and in the LXX. Especially Psalm 115.2. 

Paul ends this section with a call to holy living, indicating some have charged him with a lie, “Let’s sin so that good may come.” He will come back to that one later in the letter, so I’ll reserve more comments until then. 

For now, let me highlight where Paul is going next week.

NEXT WEEK, since no one is advantaged and there is almost no hope in religion, then where can one turn for help?  Stay tuned!

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I recommend you watch this 7-minute 47-second video which showcases with great graphics the first four chapters of this book. 

The actual text:

2.17 But if you bear the name “Jew” and rely upon the Law and boast in God, ¹⁸ and know His will and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law, ¹⁹ and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, ²⁰ a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth, ²¹ you, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal? ²² You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? ²³ You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God? ²⁴ For “THE NAME OF GOD IS BLASPHEMED AMONG THE GENTILES BECAUSE OF YOU,” just as it is written.

Rom. 2:25   For indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the Law; but if you are a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. ^26 aSo if the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? ²⁷ And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law? ²⁸ For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. ²⁹ But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.

Rom. 3:1   Then what ¹advantage has the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? ² Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God. ³ What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it? ⁴ May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found^ba liar, as it is written, 

            “THAT YOU MAY BE JUSTIFIED IN YOUR WORDS, 

            AND PREVAIL WHEN YOU ARE JUDGED.”

⁵ But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He? (I am speaking in human terms.) ⁶ May it never be! For otherwise, how will God judge the world? ⁷ But if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner? ⁸ And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), “Let us do evil that good may come”? Their condemnation is just.

Finding certainty in uncertain times: is this a pipedream?

If you'd like to watch this given as a sermon, watch the YouTube version here:
    Sermon


Introduction

The news media is relentless in telling us that these times are unprecedented. They remind us that the world as we know it is very different than ever before. Most people had never heard of the virus named corona, even though it has been a known category of disease for decades. I have to admit that sometimes it’s all so overwhelming, all the information, all the numbers of cases and deaths. There are those who remind us that the greater disease, the harsher virus, is the fear of the pandemic. They say these are unpredictable times, and even precarious. This all adds up to uncertainty. How should we respond? 

Many of us are locked down in our homes or apartments. Some countries worldwide are already loosening their restrictions and mitigation activity. Some students are going back to school while others of us are teaching children at home or watching them on their computer screens with their classmates. They still have to wash their hands and stay a bit separated.

For others, entertainment is taking centre stage. There are those who respond with choirs on their computers singing together using Zoom. I personally liked Andrea Bocelli singing Amazing Grace in Italy all alone. Music can certainly lift my soul and maybe it has the same effect on you. Having just gone through the celebrations of Passover and Easter, with the reminders of history reflected in song and prayers, these celebrations linked the music with the real story, and I like that. But in the midst of this, we feel uncertain.

Uncertainty: what is it?

In legal terms contracts with ambiguity are more easily dismissed and nullified than those with clarity and certainty. In fact, as humans, we long for certainty and for the stability that brings us. Even the most adventurous, who don’t mind the uncertainty of walking tightropes in the circus feel the rush of landing on solid ground at the end of their walk. A symphony longs to be finished, with the uncertainty of 7^th chords yielding gladly to landing back at the tonic. I believe that certainty gives calm or as the legal dictionary records, “certainty is the mother of repose.”

With all the lockdown upon us, and our palms barely drying out from previous handwashing, we still have a desire for certainty. This is a confidence and a conviction. We want the repose of certainty, but this is not afforded us just now. We are in restlessness. We are in distress. We are unsure of the road ahead, or who will even be on the road with us.

The certainty of uncertainty

To be fair, we have always been in uncertain times. What we are experiencing with the daily news barrage is the reality that death is upon us. We may not know who started this. We may not know who should have done what by when. We don’t know if there will be toilet paper on the shelves at the store; we don’t even know if that store will be open when next we want to shop. Millions of jobs are lost; economies are shaken. Ends are easier to see than reboots. Lengthening lines at government unemployment offices tell us that the situation is dire and worsening. Even when the curves are flattening, we are not sure how quickly things will reopen. We don’t really trust the ‘happy days are coming’ forecasters. 

Whether health is missing, or wealth is gone, and the certainty of a steady stream of income is demolished, one thing is clear. We are in uncertain times. But then, honestly, we have always been in uncertain times.

Think back to this time last year. 

No one knew last year if they had the next day. Or 2020. 

41 people died in the US last year in tornadoes. 

No one was really sure that their health would last. Unusual influenzas and traffic accidents cause loss-of-life in a cosmic moment. 

Here in Australia, we saw millions of hectares of bushland destroyed in fires that lasted for months in 2019.  34 people died. Over 400 million animals died in those fires. Where was certainty then?

Over half a million cattle died in floods last year in Australia, in one state alone! Imagine being a rancher or a farmer in the bush. What did you count on to get you through financially? Imagine counting on your own survival.

In the USA in 2019, Payless Shoe store closed as did Dress Barn and Shopco. Diesel and Forever 21 filed for bankruptcy. Sears shut in 2018. Nothing is certain!

People who live in parts of the Middle East who practice Christianity have often described their lot in life as one of suspicion and danger. According to Open Doors organization, over 4,000 Christians were killed for their (wrong) faith in 2018. They also report over 200 million Christians experienced persecution for their faith in the same period. (https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/stories/christian-persecution-by-the-numbers)

This doesn’t surprise me, but it deeply saddens me. 

Why doesn’t it surprise me? The Bible makes it clear that our lives are a vapor and that no one of us is promised tomorrow. Listen to these two texts. First from King Solomon in the Proverbs:

“Do not boast about tomorrow for you do not know what a day may bring forth.” (27.1) and then from James, the brother of Yeshua, 

“Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.” (4.13-14)

in spite of it all: Gaining certainty

In the midst of our uncertainty, however, God wants to assure us. He wants to comfort us. The human tragedy is ever before us, so wishful thinking or any simpleton’s cheers are not the answer for us in these troubled times. Where is certainty if not in our wealth or our health? 

In certain churches there is time in the adult service for a ‘children’s talk.’ The youth pastor will call the children to come forward and he or she will sit down, the children will sit around in semicircles and await the weekly ‘word.’ Because it’s church, and because these are young children, the questions will often be targeted to help the young ones to learn about God and Jesus and the Bible. Usually these are simple questions.

One Sunday the youth pastor called the children forward and after they sat down, he asked, “OK, kids, what is grey, has a bushy tail, and gathers nuts in the autumn (US: use ‘fall’)? Surprisingly none of the children even raised their hands. No one answered him. He asked again. Again no answer. Finally, the pastor’s own daughter sheepishly raised her hand and said, “I know the answer is ‘Jesus’, but it sure sounds like a squirrel to me.”

Here I am, ready to tell you about certainty, and because this is a sermon, and we are in a setting where the predictable answer is ‘Jesus’ you might miss this part. Please don’t. 

I believe the answers are found in the Scriptures. Please turn there with me for the answers.

In Luke chapter 1, we read Luke’s explanation of what he is writing. He says that he has investigated and come away with certain information. He now wants to pass on that information, in verse 4 he says, “so that you may be certain about the things you have been taught.” The Greek word here for certain is epiginosko.   It is used elsewhere in the Newer Testament of recognition of what a person really is. It is found in other Gospels like Matthew (14.35) who records that people from the entire Galilee region came to see and experience the healing touch of Jesus because some men ‘recognized’ him. In Luke’s account of Resurrection Sunday, Yeshua walks alongside two people, Cleopas and maybe Mrs Cleopas, but their eyes are prevented from ‘recognizing’ him (24.16), until after he begins a meal with these two, then their eyes are opened and they ‘recognize’ him (.31). 

Think of an out-of-focus lens then finally taking shape and we shout, “I can see!” Those old Polaroid images that began as fuzz and then became a photo while we watched it unfold. All the while we could see, but we couldn’t make certain what we were seeing. That’s the meaning of epiginosko. Things which are uncertain or cloudy are now taking form and becoming certain to us. 

The certainty we have is in the recognizing of the Messiah, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Yes, Messiah suffered and died. Yes, he took upon himself the sins of all humanity. He suffered and bled, spilling his lifeblood on the earth. (Isa. 63.6) And my certainty is that all he did, in his teaching, in his healings, in his manifestations of glory while he walked on the earth, all of that, it’s all evidence of what is to come. The Spirit was given on Pentecost as a down payment for us of all that God is going to do in glory. My hope is not a new house in the suburbs. My hope is not the end of coronavirus. My hope is not wealth and health. My hope is the soon return of Jesus, our Messiah and King. He is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Yes, he came as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And He is coming again in glory to judge the living and the dead.

THAT, dear friends, is certain. And when we see him, we shall be like him. (1 John 3.2)

The return of Jesus, not as a sufferer again, not as a humble take-it-on-the-chin wounded warrior, but as the Conquering King of Glory… that is my hope! And that is my certainty. 

This in no way diminishes the victory of the cross. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin (Heb 9.22, Lev. 17.11) What it highlights is that the one who died and rose, ascended and IS SEATED at the right hand of the Father. He has finished the work. The victory is ours because it is HIS. Every other priest had to stand and serve in the Temple. Yeshua, the Great High Priest in the order of the greater one, Melchizedek, is no longer standing. He’s no longer trying to accomplish something. He did it all. He paid it all. He sealed my pardon on Calvary’s tree. Hallelujah—what a Saviour!

In the meantime: Certainty in our actions

Knowing that Yeshua is returning as Victor-King, we have a job. Actually many jobs to perform. We serve others; we care for our families; we reach out to the lost and the needy. Because of the certainty of the Risen One, we work among the many who don’t yet know him. And the suffering we experience is not even worthy of comparison with the glory which we anticipate. 

Paul wrote the Corinthians, “momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Cor 4.17-18) Our hope is eternal; it’s the anchor of our souls. (Heb 6.19) If we want that hope to work, if we want our anxieties and uncertainties to diminish, we have to look at the Eternal, at what is going to outlive coronavirus and whatever bushfire or flood or tornado is mal-affecting us at this moment. If we only look at the natural, temporal things, we will be hopeless and live in uncertainty. Paul says that if you want to live above that, you have to look to the one who is above it all. Yeshua. 

Back in the 1960s, the Young Rascals sang “How can I be sure?” Their concern was about a relationship with a young woman and their uncertainty gave them confusion. Dear friends, today I want you to know that Yeshua is Lord of all, that his love is greater than all the confusion of the media’s broadcasts, that his grace extends to those in Wuhan (China) and Wyoming (USA) and Wagga Wagga (Australia). There is no place over which he will not rule as King Messiah. May it be that this certainty will give you repose. Hallelujah- what a Saviour!

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