Better Than the Next Guy—Not!

How would you convince someone he is a sinner? OK, I confess. It's a trick question. You are unable to convince anyone: that is the job of the Holy Spirit (John 16:7-11). But it got me to thinking of ways to let people know that even the best people are doomed. This led me to Romans 1:29-2:5. The first group Paul mentions are those people who live outside God's word. Notice how they are described:

They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.

Based on this description of their character, almost anyone can assume he or she is better than these barbarians. One wonders what deeds such debased and savage humans would inflect on others to demonstrate the level of corruption to which they had fallen. Paul tells us:

They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Gossips? Boastful? That cannot be the modus operandi of this loathsome scum, can it? Doesn't that describe most of the world's population? Yes, it does. Even the most refined and religious of the world are this way. That is why Paul goes on:

Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.

If I am a religious person and look on the savage person to judge him for being and acting that way, I need to understand that I am condemning myself when performing the same small sins. It demonstrates that down deep I am just as corrupt.

What is the solution for the human condition?

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. (Romans 3:21-25a)