The Ungodliness and Pervasiveness of Sin
What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”
“Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.”
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
ruin and misery mark their ways,
and the way of peace they do not know.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin. Romans 3:9-20
Paul is coming to the end of his lengthy argument about sin and God’s wrath in 1:18 – 3:8 and asks himself, ‘What shall we conclude then?’ He has exposed in succession the open unrighteousness of the Gentile world (1:18-32), the hypocritical righteousness of moralisers (2:1-16) and the confident self-righteousness of Jewish people (3:1-8) who boast of God’s law but break it. He will now bring this together to declare the whole human race guilty before God.
Three features should be noted in the passage before us: the ungodliness of sin, the pervasiveness of sin and the universality of sin. Here we touch on the first two.
(1) the ungodliness of sin
Scripture identifies the essence of sin as ungodliness. Toward the beginning we read ‘There is … no one who seeks God’ and at the end ‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.’ Sin is the revolt of ‘self’ against God, dethroning Him so we can take control. Ultimately sin is self-deification, the determination to occupy the throne that belongs to God alone
(2) the pervasiveness of sin
Sin affects every part of us, our mind, emotions, conscience and will. There is a deliberate listing of different parts of the body focusing first on sins of speech: ‘their throats are open graves,’ corrupt and infected; ‘their tongues practice deceit,’ instead of truth; ‘the poison of vipers is on their lips,’ speaking poisonous words; ‘their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness,’ so their language hurts and harms. Our throat, tongue, lips and mouths cover each part of speech.
Then Paul lists sins of violence: ‘their feet are swift to shed blood’; in pursuing violence ‘ruin and misery mark their ways’; ‘and the way of peace they do not know’ as if they are incapable of walking consistently in a peaceful way; and finally ‘there is no fear of God before their eyes,’ so they don’t reverence God.
Our body was created and given to us so we could serve people and glorify God, but instead our body has been our instrument to harm people and rebel against God. The totality of our corruption is vividly described. This does not mean that we are as evil as we could possibly be but it does mean that every part of our humanness has been twisted and tainted.
When a piece of chalk is dipped into ink and then broken in half, anyone can see how far the ink has seeped into the chalk. It doesn’t take long for the ink to go right though the chalk until all of it is affected by the ink. This is how sin affects us. We find freedom from the penalty of sin immediately we trust Christ for our salvation but freedom from the power of sin is a process of identifying with Christ in His death and resurrection, resisting temptation and yielding to the Holy Spirit. The final victory over the very presence of sin will be won instantly at Christ’s return.