Sermons citing Romans 1:18–3:20

^1:20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse.

^1:21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts.

^1:22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools,

^1:23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

^1:24 Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies with one another.

^1:25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is forever worthy of praise! Amen.

^1:26 For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.

^1:27 Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

^1:28 Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.

^1:29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips,

^1:30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent new forms of evil; they disobey their parents.

^1:31 They are senseless, faithless, heartless, merciless.

^1:32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things are worthy of death, they not only continue to do these things, but also approve of those who practice them.

^2:1 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on another. For on whatever grounds you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.

^2:2 And we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth.

^2:3 So when you, O man, pass judgment on others, yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?

^2:4 Or do you disregard the riches of His kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you to repentance?

^2:5 But because of your hard and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

^2:6 God “will repay each one according to his deeds.”

^2:7 To those who by perseverance in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, He will give eternal life.

^2:8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow wickedness, there will be wrath and anger.

^2:9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil, first for the Jew, then for the Greek;

^2:10 but glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does good, first for the Jew, then for the Greek.

^2:11 For God does not show favoritism.

^2:12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.

^2:13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but it is the doers of the law who will be declared righteous.

^2:14 Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.

^2:15 So they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts either accusing or defending them

^2:16 on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Christ Jesus, as proclaimed by my gospel.

^2:17 Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God;

^2:18 if you know His will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law;

^2:19 if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those in darkness,

^2:20 an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth—

^2:21 you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal?

^2:22 You who forbid adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?

^2:23 You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?

^2:24 As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

^2:25 Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

^2:26 If a man who is not circumcised keeps the requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?

^2:27 The one who is physically uncircumcised yet keeps the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.

^2:28 A man is not a Jew because he is one outwardly, nor is circumcision only outward and physical.

^2:29 No, a man is a Jew because he is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man’s praise does not come from men, but from God.

^3:1 What, then, is the advantage of being a Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision?

^3:2 Much in every way. First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God.

^3:3 What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness?

^3:4 Certainly not! Let God be true and every man a liar. As it is written: “So that You may be proved right when You speak and victorious when You judge.”

^3:5 But if our unrighteousness highlights the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unjust to inflict His wrath on us? I am speaking in human terms.

^3:6 Certainly not! In that case, how could God judge the world?

^3:7 However, if my falsehood accentuates God’s truthfulness, to the increase of His glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?

^3:8 Why not say, as some slanderously claim that we say, “Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is deserved!

^3:9 What then? Are we any better? Not at all. For we have already made the charge that Jews and Greeks alike are all under sin.

^3:10 As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one.

^3:11 There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.

^3:12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

^3:13 “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The venom of vipers is on their lips.”

^3:14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”

^3:15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;

^3:16 ruin and misery lie in their wake,

^3:17 and the way of peace they have not known.”

^3:18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

^3:19 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.

^3:20 Therefore no one will be justified in His sight by works of the law. For the law merely brings awareness of sin.