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Sunday School Lesson
Struggling Under Sin’s Power (Romans 3:9–20)
phrase power of does not occur in the Greek text. It says, “To be under sin.” That is it. People have an amazing ability to dupe themselves and others because they are under sin.
Locating Sin | Romans 3:10-18
Paul located sin in people with metaphors and from the Scriptures. There is some comfort in saying, “God hates the sin, but loves the sinner.” But God does not locate sin abstractly. He locates it in people who sin.
Paul strung together a se- ries of Old Testament texts (variously called a catena or catalog). Verses 10-12 draw primarily upon Psalms 14 and 53. The verses have some small patterns in them. The heading seems to be, There is no one righteous (living by God’s standard and the desire to set the world right). The phrase, not even one appears at the beginning and ending of
this brief section. Verses 11 and 12 show strong paral- lelism—no one understands and no one seeks; all have turned away and no one does good. The end result is being worthless (which means “use- less” in Greek and “sour” in Hebrew).
Paul strung together an- other series of Old Testament texts to draw upon Psalms 5, 140, 10, 36, and Isaiah 59. Once again Paul was adopting phrases from those Old Testa- ment passages. While there is value in noting the individual contexts from which they come, the force of Paul’s argu- ment comes in the cluster. The difference in verses 13-18 is in the high use of metaphor. Throats, tongues, lips, mouths all help emphasize deception, harm, and corruption. We know from the New Testa- ment that the mouth only speaks what is in the heart (Matthew 12:34-37). Paul also used the metaphor of
feet. Feet do not technically shed blood, but they take peo- ple places where they will shed blood (Proverbs 1:11). Sin is labeled as having lost the way of peace and having lost fear (reverent respect) for God.
Knowing Sin | Romans 3:19, 20
These verses frame up Paul’s big conclusion from this first major section in Ro- mans. Since he was still speaking of the Jewish per- son, Paul wrote these two verses from the standpoint of the law. As good as the law was (Romans 7:12), it basi- cally shut people up. They had no defense. The law could not fix the problem. It could only show the problem. Every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held account- able to God. No one can be de- clared righteous (justified—put right in God’s sight) by the law. The law sim- ply helps us become conscious (know intimately) of our sin.
Paul was concluding his first major movement of his letter to the Romans (Romans 1:18–3:20). He had con- fronted head-on the Gentile sin problem (1:18-32; 2:12- 16) and the Jewish sin prob- lem (2:1-11; 2:17–3:8). Now he wiped out any chance of human self-justification. All people, no matter what eth- nicity, struggle under sin’s power. All people have to own their depravity factor.
Under Sin | Roman 3:9
The text begins with a ques- tion, What shall we conclude then? Paul was following up on the question raised in Ro- mans 3:1: “What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew?” Actually Paul answered his own question—twice. Does a Jew have any advantage? Yes, the Jews have the Scriptures. But no, the Jews have not kept the Scriptures.
Paul charged (accused) both Jews and Gentiles of being under the power of sin. The
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