Lesson 2 The World Guilty - Romans 1:18-3:20
A. The Pagan World Guilty 1:18-32
1. According to Romans 1:17, (the theme verse for the book) how is the God’s righteousness revealed?
a) It is reveal through faith.
2. And in verse 18 what reveals His wrath?
a) The ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold (suppress, hold down) the truth in unrighteousness.
3. “What does a godless or unrighteous man do? He holds down or suppresses the truth in the sphere of unrighteousness where he is living. He wants to avoid the truth about what he is and about what he is doing. So, he foolishly tries to get rid of the truth. – Wycliffe Bible Commentary
4. Vs. 19: What reason does Paul give to show pagans as worthy of God’s wrath?
a) The knowledge of God is plain to them, God has revealed it to them.
5. Vs. 20 How are the invisible attributes of God, especially His eternal power and divine nature clearly seen?
a) In creation, in the things that were made by God.
6. By observing his work, men are confronted with the living God. As a result, they are without excuse. - The Wycliffe Bible Commentary.
7. Vs. 21 Wouldn’t those who have never heard the Gospel have an excuse before God? Why or why not?
a) Because they once knew God. Through creation and revelation, they knew Him but did not honor or worship Him. God cannot be blamed for what their pagan ancestors did in rejecting God.
8. Have there been times in the history of the world when all the world or much of the world knew God?
a) Yes, after the Garden, after the Flood and to a degree the Roman world after the resurrection. Also, in the future during the tribulation.
9. Seven Stages of Sacrilege
a) When they knew God,
b) they glorified him not as God,
c) neither were thankful;
d) but became vain in their imaginations,
e) and their foolish heart was darkened.
f) Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
g) And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.
10. What did God do in response to man’s rejection of Him?
a) He gave them up (released them) to the uncleanness they desired.
b) What was the result of God's release of man?
c) They dishonored their bodies between themselves. (Sexual sin)
11. What did God do to these "who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped the creature instead of the Creator?"
a) He gave them up to vile affections.
b) Women with women (lesbianism)
c) Men with men (homosexuality)
12. These perverted sexual sins are common in pagan societies.
13. What was the result of God's release of man?
a) They dishonored their bodies between themselves. (Sexual sin)
14. What do you think Paul means by "receiving the recompense of their error?"
a) The consequences, physical, emotional and spiritual, which accompany sexual sin, immorality and homosexuality.
15. Since they did choose to keep God in their knowledge, God did what?
a) He gave them over to a reprobate (base, worthless, condemned) mind. They did not value God in their minds and so their minds became worthless.
b) This caused them to do things not convenient (not proper, not decent, things not fitting.)
16. Such a mind destroys itself and those around it. What are the evidences Paul gives of those with reprobate minds?
a) Fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, (gossip) backbiters (slander), haters of God, despiteful (insolent), proud, boasters, inventors of (new) evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding (conscience or sympathy), covenant beakers (unable to keep their word), without natural affection (no natural love), implacable (unmoving), unmerciful.
17. These people know they are going to be judged yet what do they do?
a) They encourage others to do the same, to join them in the anarchy and to reap the same judgment.
B. The Moralist Guilty 2:1-16
1. Why is the man who judges actually judging himself?
a) He practices the same things he condemns in others.
2. How does this moralist "despise" the riches of God's goodness?
a) He thinks that God's forbearance is ignorance of his sin and therefore does not bother to repent.
3. What are they actually doing by refusing to turn to God?
a) Storing up wrath, increasing the coming punishment.
4. Vs. 6 How will God judge?
a) He will render to every man according to his deeds.
5. Vss. 7-19 What two classes of deeds are there?
a) Well doing and evil doing
6. What do the outward deeds tell us of the inward man?
a) They reveal the inward man. The righteous man does righteousness and the wicked man does evil.
7. What are the reward or punishments for these deeds?
a) For well doing: immortality and eternal life, glory, honor and peace.
b) For evil doing: indignation, wrath, tribulation, and anguish.
8. Vs. 11-12 Tell us that God is impartial and just in His judgment. How is this true if the Jews were given the revelation of God’s Law and the pagan Gentiles were not?
a) all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.
9. Vs. 13-15 Paul’s parenthetical statement contains the moral argument for the existence of God and the means for judgment by God. What it the Moral Argument?
a) That the knowledge of right and wrong (morality) is proof of God’s creation of man.
10. Vs. 14 Why is ignorance of the law not an excuse?
a) Paul says that those without the Law have a law unto themselves and they know they guilty of breaking that.
11. Vs. 15 Where does this law originally come from?
a) It was written in their hearts and affirmed in their conscience. Since they were created in God's image part of that image in the form of natural law remains.
12. Vs. 16 Paul says it is not man's thoughts that will excuse or accuse him. What then is the sole means of judgment?
a) The Gospel of Jesus Christ.
C. The Jew Guilty 2:17-3:8
1. What is Paul saying about the Jew by the manner in which he describes him?
a) The Jew is proud of his heritage and vocation as a child of Abraham.
2. What is the Jew's condemnation?
a) They teach others the law but do not learn or practice it themselves.
3. What truth is Paul teaching when he uses circumcision and the keeping of the law as his proof?
a) The outward keeping of the law (circumcision, et. al.) mean nothing without the inward circumcision (identified as belonging to God) in the heart, the spirit not in the letter (the physical).
b) The only thing that matters is inward and not outward, the heart and the spirit not the letter and or the physical.
D. All the World Guilty Before God – Romans 3:1-20
1. Romans 3:1 What then is the advantage of being a Jew?
a) They first received the revelation, oracles and truth of God.
2. Paul now asks several rhetorical questions which those in Rome might ask. In a sense he debates with himself.
3. 1st, was God wrong in trusting the Jews with the scriptures since they did not believe Jesus? Will their unbelief void God's promises?
a) His answer: God forbid (double negative in Gk., strongest negative in the language)
b) But their unbelief is God's opportunity to be proven right and to ultimately win, to be shown as righteous.
4. 2nd Vs. 5 But if our sin demonstrates the righteousness of God then God is wrong in punishing us, isn't He?
a) By no means, if that were true God couldn't judge at all. (God judges sin because of who He is. His holiness and righteousness is not conditional upon my sinning.)
5. 3rd, But if God's truth is seen more through my lie, my sin, then why am I judged a sinner? Shouldn't we do more evil, so that more good could come?
a) Those who say this are justly damned. (Those who think and act this way will get what they deserve.)
6. 4th Vs. 9, Are the Jew’s better than the Gentiles?
a) Not in any way, all are proven as guilty before God.
7. Vss.10-18 what does Paul use as final proof of his point that none are righteous before God?
a) The Old Testament scriptures especially Psalms 3, 5, 10 and 14.
8. What is Paul's conclusion in verse 20.
a) No one can be justified by doing the law. The purpose of the law is to bring knowledge of sin not to save
E. Application
1. Two of the classic argument of the existence of God are echoed in Romans 1. We talked of the Moral Argument; what argument is seen in 1:19-20 that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.
a) The Teleological Argument: Design, order and purpose show a designer, a creator.
2. Judging from Paul's use of the phrase "gave them up" what is the reason for most suffering and pain in this world?
a) Our own choices, or the choices of those who preceded us and prevented us from knowing the truth.
3. What do you say to the person who tells you that LGTQ+ should not be condemned as sin?
F. How can even those saved by grace be guilty of using the law to judge others or to justify ourselves?
Conclusion
Like a master apologist Paul begins his treatise on God and salvation by showing that all the world is guilty before God and unable to save itself. God Himself must be both judge and advocate for the guilty or there will be no hope for any.
Paul begins with God’s righteousness and man’s guilt; he will continue with God’s mercy through Jesus Christ and man’s need to believe in God’s redemption as seen in Jesus Christ.
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