If you’ve got a Bible now, would you go with me to Romans chapter three? I’ll get there here in a moment. The title of this sermon is an unlikely title. It is the “Glorious Doctrine of Condemnation” (Romans 3:9-18). That does not seem to be a fitting statement. Seems a little bit of a misnomer. I get it almost an oxymoron but the doctrine of condemnation is exactly what we’re going to deal with because that is how this part of Romans is finishing out. Let me bring up again a reminder to you of the five peaks of the book of Romans. This is an easy way for you to understand Romans in five different categories.
The Five Peaks Of Romans:
1. Condemnation (1:18-3:20)
2. Justification (3:21-5:21)
3. Sanctification (6:1-8:39)
4. Illustration (9:1-11:36)
5. Application (12:1-15:13)
We covered these five peaks just briefly when we taught Romans in the Cover To Cover series. We taught Romans one day. Covered the whole book and these five peaks. And what you’ll notice is we’re still in the first peak. And the first peak is the peak of condemnation. Oh, by the way, watch the red pen on this. Isn’t that awesome? I’ve got tricks now. I can get creative. So while we’re at that peak, here’s why we need to finish well and understand it. Because if you don’t get this one, none of these will make any sense. You get them wrong. If you just jump over in your Bible and you go down to Romans eight and you’re like, “Hey, here’s a good verse for my refrigerator”. Well, you’re going to misunderstand that the Bible assumes that you’re going to read and understand the whole thing and that you’re going to actually apply it for what it says, and it means by what it says and how it applies in the finished work of Jesus. So that’s why we have to cover this. Why is it a glorious doctrine? It is a glorious doctrine. The doctrine of condemnation is glorious because, listen to me, it tells mankind what the real problem is, and it tells mankind what the real problem is while there’s time to fix it. Do you understand this is a big deal? If you’re forewarned, you can be forearmed. If you’re warned about something, you can fix that thing. But oftentimes learning about something too late is what makes it fatal. Cancer is a perfect example of that, isn’t it? 1961 is when the PET scan came out. Photonics, I can’t remember what it is. P, E, T tomography. Basically what the PET scan is, is they inject your body with a radioactive marker. It spreads throughout your cells except it tends to gather around a place in your cells where there’s overactivity at a cellular level at a metabolic level, and that’s how they’ll go and they’ll identify places where that could be cancer, or that could be heart disease or that could be brain damage. It gives you an early warning. That’s what this is. PET scan is saved who knows how many millions of people from dying of diseases? This is more important than the PET scan. This tells us the root problem so that we can run and find the solution in the Savior. And so, what we’re going to do is we’re going to go through Romans 3:9-18 Now that’s still going to leave a couple of verses. We’ll cover that next week, but I want to walk you through this glorious doctrine of condemnation the way it’s
So, let’s walk through this. Start Romans 3:9, “What then? Are we Jews any better off?…” Any better off than who? Everybody, right? What do we go through in Romans one? Here’s the heathen, and they’re condemned in sin. Romans chapter two, here are the self-righteous religious people, and they’re condemned without Jesus, right? Here’s Romans chapter three, he’s summing it up and driving it home to each and every one of us. “Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all, for we have already charged that (look) all, both Jews and Greeks are under sin.” That’s another way to say condemnation. Condemnation. You’re condemned. Under sin is everybody who’s ever been born, who had an earthly father. You inherited it from your ancestor, Adam. This is 1 Corinthians 15:22a, the very first part of that verse. It says, “For as in Adam, all die…” “All die.” What does in Adam mean? Again, it means you have an earthly father. Being in Adam simply means you’re part of the human race. You had an earthly father. The only human who’s ever lived who did not have an earthly father was Jesus Christ. He was conceived in the womb of a virgin by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, He was without original sin. He was not in Adam. He’s the second Adam or the last Adam. But this is what this says “in Adam. All die. Now, how many die? All die. I know it’s a bit morbid, but just to keep you updated on this statistic, the human mortality rate still hovers right at 100%. I’m not trying to bum you out. I hope you have a great Sunday. Hope you go home and eat to your heart’s content love your family and have a great day. I want to do that. Again, I want to live peacefully and godly in this life, a quiet life. I love that. That’s wonderful. But we need to understand there’s a problem. It is appointed to men once to die, and after that the judgment. And here’s why because we’re in Adam. This is why it’s a glorious doctrine. It’s letting us know. Now, by the way, it’s not a result of what you did, what you do, it’s a result of who you are. It’s not an issue of nurture. It’s an issue of nature.
This is Ephesians 2:3, speaking of believers. But it still says, “Among whom we all (all, everyone) once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, (and were by what?) and were by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” By nature, innate, born into it. Nobody had to teach you how to sin. You knew how to sin from the moment you were born. You just had to gain the cognitive ability to do it. You don’t have to teach a kid to sin in case you don’t believe this, rent a two-year-old. You say, “Why would I want to rent?” Because you’re going to want to give them back. I kid, right? I’m playing. Obviously, we love our kids but those little vipers in diapers, come on, man, we know what the deal is. You didn’t train them to lie. “Did you hit your sister?” “No, never, ever do that.” This is why everybody celebrates when their kids turn four. “It’s over!” Parents think that. Oh yeah, wait, buckle up buttercup, 13 is coming. They live out their innate nature just as we did. It’s good that the Bible shows us this. We need to see us for who we really are in relation to the final one that we’re going to meet.
Let’s go back to Romans three. This is what we’re going to do. We’re going to bounce back and forth a couple of times. Romans three will start at nine where we left off. “What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged it all, both Jews and Greeks, are under condemnation.” Look at the next verse, “As it is written…” Now he’s going to quote the Old Testament in the New Testament. The Bible teaches the Bible. It’s the best way. He says, “As it is written: ‘None is righteous…’” And then look, the Holy Spirit knows people are going to be like “But what about my Aunt Edna? And what about My great-grandpa? He was a great man.” No, not one. You say, “Well, that offends me because you didn’t know my Aunt Edna.” You’re right. I never met your Aunt Edna or your great grandpappy. But guess what? If they had an earthly father, they were born with a sin nature, and the Bible says that makes them unrighteous. “…There’s none righteous, no, not one.” Again. This is a good thing, guys, this is a good thing. This is a PET scan to find the problem. Allows you to look for the solution and allows you to accept the treatment. There’s no downside to this. If you say, “Well, I think I’m righteous. I’m more righteous than a lot of people I know.” Well, okay, I think we can all. You can always find someone through history that you’re better than, right? I had a guy tell me once I told you this before he said, “Well, it’s not like I’m Hitler.” Like, Oh, good job, man. Like, what? Way to go. You nailed it. You’re just Mussolini. If we think we have righteousness before God, God’s Word shuts that down so that we don’t falsely believe something that will come back to bite us, if you will, on the Day of Judgment.
Isaiah 64:6 says this, “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds (that’s everything we would do to think that we are somehow righteous) all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment…” It doesn’t just mean a dirty garment. I’ll just say it this way. I’m not going to camp here. These words in the Hebrew refer to the menstrual cycle. That’s what it is. That means polluted. It’s that polluted. It’s that filthy. Some translations say that’s what your self-righteousness looks like to a perfectly righteous, holy God, mine as well. It says “…we all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” This is universal but men love to compare themselves to other men. I mean, we ought to be careful with that, don’t we? There are people you see on the news, and you can easily start to feel, “Well, I’m not like that.” See, that’s not the standard in the Scripture. God is. God is the plumb line. God is the measuring stick. God Himself is.
So, Jesus, when He addresses self-righteousness, I’ll tell you what He calls it something really bad. Luke 16:15. Look at this. This is Jesus speaking. “And he said to them, ‘You are those who justify yourselves (look) before men, but God knows your hearts….” See men can only look at the outward but God sees the heart. He says, you justify yourself toward men but God sees the heart. “…For what is exalted among men…” I want you to think about that. What is exalted among men? Think about it, strength, and self-sufficiency, right? Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. We got it done. Ooh ah, right? That kind of mantra. That’s not the Marine Corps. By the Marine Corps is Ooh rod and that one’s okay. It’s a machismo. It’s a pride. That’s what that is. So, what is exalted among men? It’s what? It’s an abomination in the sight of God. When God looks at it, abomination is something that makes Him sick. It’s that bad again. PET scan. If you’re here and you’re going, “Yeah, but I’ve got this and I’ve got that, and I, you know, I pray sometimes, and I help my neighbor with the trash. And, you know, I’ve never done this and I’ve never done that, and you should aim this at my husband.” Some ladies actually laughed when I said that. Did you notice that, gentlemen? You should take note of them. Nope, our personal self-righteousness that we produce is an abomination to God. There are none righteous. No, not one.
Romans three again. Here start where we left off. “As it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one; (Watch the next statement) no one understands…” Now what does that mean? It means they don’t understand spirituality. They don’t understand their true condition. They don’t understand God’s true character and His glory. This is the carnal mind. It’s enmity against God. It does not accept spiritual things. “…No one understands (and then look at this), no one seeks for God.” You might say, “Well, that’s not true.” I had a guy tell me one time he said, “I think everybody in every religion is seeking for God.” No, they’re not. Do you know how I know? Because God told me, “No one understands; no one seeks for God.” Now, don’t get me wrong, people do seek for the things from God. That’s different than seeking for God Himself. People want the things from God, don’t they? Oh, yeah, they do. They do. What do they want? They want His protection, right? God protect us. They want His provision. God, provide for us. They want. They want. They want Him to provide the things that they want so they can live autonomously without Him. That’s not seeking God. When it says, “No one seeks for God.” This is the person. This is the person of God as described in the Bible, not the God of your own making that you dreamed up in your head. Have you ever heard somebody make this statement? Maybe something like this statement, “Well, I like to think of Jesus as…” Okay, well, how would you feel if I did that to you? Well, I like to think of you as, and then I said some really bad things. And you’d be like, “Hey, man, that’s mean. That’s not even true.” Well, the things they say about Jesus, when they say I like to think of Him as are never going to be what’s described in the Bible. That’s why we have to receive the truth. We have to sit under the truth. We have to let God tell us who He is and what He’s like: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the work that He’s accomplished through the Son. There’s none that truly seek God. Now that seems a little bit messed up because you can find several places in the Bible where people are commanded to seek God. And that’s true. The Bible does command people to seek God. It also commands people to keep the law perfectly, and no one’s going to do that either.
Let me give you one instance. Isaiah 55:6-7. And this is, by the way, a very sincere commandment, “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” And you say, “Well, how can the Bible say, ‘Seek the Lord?’ And then it says, ‘No one seeks after God.’” Well because He’s commanding it. That doesn’t mean people are doing it. The only people who seek after God, listen to me, are people who God sought after first. Nobody seeks after God until Jesus seeks them. This is what Jesus actually says. This is what He came to do. Luke 19:10, Jesus says, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” When you’re lost, you’re not seeking God, you’re just seeking pleasure. You’re trying to seek your daily provision, your own glory, your own grandeur. That’s what people are doing. Jesus comes and seeks someone. He finds them and they get a new heart. And now what do they do? They turn to Him and now they start seeking Him. It’s only a Christian that can seek God. It’s kind of silly when a church says, “Well, we want to be seeker-sensitive.” Okay, we’ll teach the scriptures. Right? You say, “Is this church seeker sensitive?” Absolutely. We’re very sensitive to seekers, that’s every single sincere disciple and no one else. How do I know that? Romans told me that.
Romans 3:11, “No one understands; no one seeks for God.” Without Christ, you’re not seeking God. He goes on in some of the details of behaviors that emanate from this. He says, “All have turned aside; together they have become worthless…” It’s interesting. Greek is such a great language because this word is the same word that you would use for spoiled milk. Soured milk. They’ve become like sour milk. What’s sour milk good for? Nothing. What’s curdled cream good for? Nothing, nothing at all. Have you ever smelled the milk and found it to be sour? What did you do? You pour it out. You pour it down the drain. You take too big a hit of it. What does it do to you? You get that (disgusted noise). Have you ever poured it, not smelling it, and then taken a drink? Have you? You said that with confidence. Was it chunky? Wow. I want you to imagine it’s chunky milk. It’s in your mouth. It’s not that cold. There are lumps and it’s sour. There it is. There it is. Worthless. “No one does good (look), not even one.” Everybody is sour milk according to scripture. How is this a glorious doctrine? Because it’s a PET scan. You’re finding the problem. It’s the problem is the heart. That’s where all this is emanating out of. He goes through the details of it. Look at verse 13. “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood, and their paths are ruined and misery in the way of peace…” Think about that. Think about that in light of 1 Timothy 2:2. “…The way of peace they have not known.” Now in a very rabbinical way, what he does, he gives all of this case, and then he gives the root at the end. It’s a very rabbinical way. I could say another way of handling the argument. He caps it off with this statement in Romans 3:18. This is the last piece of our major text. “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Listen to me, that is the root of the sin problem as man lives out his sinful nature, the reason why it’s not kept curbed. You say, “Well, I don’t think people are as bad as they could be.” Right? They aren’t. Because they haven’t been given enough time or opportunity. Did you know that? Did you know, apart from Christ, a man or a woman given enough time, and I’m not talking about 80 years, I’m talking about 8000 years, and say you didn’t, you were not going to die and opportunity in other words, there’s no punishment, and you get to continue to be more and more and more iniquitous. The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn. It grows brighter till the full day. The path of the unrighteous gets worse and worse. People don’t get better. They actually get worse. If you were given time and opportunity with no fear of God before your eyes, you would be the next Hitler. “No fear of God before their eyes.”
So, when we say before their eyes, that’s an interesting statement. Look at Psalm 36:1. It’s actually what Paul is quoting here. It says, “Transgression speaks to the wicked (where?) deep in his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes.” “His eyes”. The eyes of what? The eyes of his heart. It’s not talking about the eyes in your head. It’s talking about the eyes in your heart. That when the heart is in action, making decisions, conjuring up motives, it’s at work before it can never get to the mind before it ever comes out in action in the body. The problem is there’s no fear of God in the heart. The eyes of the heart. They don’t see God in that way. This is always the case. Look at Ephesians 1:18a. I know this is to believers but I just want you to see this. Paul writes, “Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened…” The eyes of your hearts enlightened. It’s always talking about that. It’s not talking about physical eyes. So, when Romans 3:18 says there is no fear of God before their eyes, that means there’s no fear of God in their heart. They don’t regard Him. They don’t see Him high and lifted up. They’re far from Him. How many of you know that? When you’re far from something, no matter how big it is, it doesn’t really look that scary. Maybe you’ve driven to the Rocky Mountains? We drive to the Rocky Mountains every year. We pull our little toaster out there. We glamp. You don’t know what that is. I tell people I go camping, and then when they find out that I sleep on a king-size memory foam inside of the trailer I pull, they laugh at me. So have at it. We’re driving to the mountains and when you get into Colorado, you expect to see the Rocky Mountains but not always. You can’t see them yet. Bottom line, a lot of Colorado is the theological term is ugly. It’s flat. It’s like a desert. And you’re driving and you’re driving, and then very distant, you start to see what looks like clouds poking up from the ground. And if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll think those are clouds but those are actually the Rocky Mountains. But because you’re so far away, they don’t look big, they don’t look intimidating, listen to me, they don’t look fearful. I can take you to places in the Rocky Mountains. I can take you up the alpine trail and some places that will make you terrified. Ride behind me on a little motorcycle on a little bitty path with a sheer cliff of 850 feet. I’ll tell you what. And now I’m not going to say that. It’s scary but it’s not when you’re far away. Listen, it’s the same thing with God. If you’re far from Him, there’s no need to fear Him. He doesn’t look like that big a deal but the further you draw to God, the closer you come to Him, the more fear of the Lord enters into the heart of a man, and for a Christian, there is no excuse not to fear the LORD except for the fact that He’s still conquering pieces of your heart to fear Him.
Here’s the solution to the problem. Psalm 86:11, the Psalmist writes, “Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; (look at this statement) unite my heart to fear your name.” How does a man come to fear God? His heart becomes united. What does that mean? In other words, his heart, instead of pointing after all these different idols and all these different motives, his heart is united and fixed upon Yahweh. And that happens how? It happens because of the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made, that is how man is brought back to God. The Bible says there’s one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. That’s what He did. He laid down His life. He gave His life as a ransom to buy us back so that we would be raised from the dead by grace through faith. And when a man is raised from the dead by grace through faith, he hears the gospel. The first thing he does, he sees his sin and he despises it so he repents. He sees his Savior and loves Him. So, what does he do? He believes. And from that moment on, he is in relationship with God. And there is a fear of God even in the believer, as his heart is further and further and further united, cutting off this idol, tearing down that high place, bringing him into line to where his whole heart is in complete devotion to Jesus Christ. That is the fear of the Lord including for the believer. God always promised He would do this in many, many places.
Let me show you one, Jeremiah 32:39-40. God says, “I will give them (look at this) one heart (that’s a united heart) I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them.” How many of you think if every single American woke up tomorrow morning and feared God, it would be good for you and your children? It’d be awesome. That’d be wonderful. God promised He would do it. He didn’t say everybody but He said He would do it. Here’s what He says. Verse 40 says, “I will make with them an everlasting covenant…” What covenant? That’s the covenant in Christ’s blood. That’s the new covenant I will make with them, an everlasting covenant “…That I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will (look at this) I will put (what?) the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.” You say, “Wait a minute, that sounds like a robot.” No, no, no, no, no. That’s not at all. When God puts the fear of Him in your heart that’s because you’re seeing Him as He is more and more and more. And that is a relationship where you fear Him righteously and you love Him. And it’s no longer a fear that makes you want to flee. It’s a fear that makes you want to come closer and closer and closer. I’m telling you to know Him is to love Him. People who say they’re Christians and they don’t love God, I don’t think they really know Him because to know Him is to love Him. You fall in love with Him. And people say, “Well, then if you’ve really fallen in love with Jesus then I won’t fear God anymore, right?” Wrong, wrong. It’s just a different kind of fear. It’s a different kind of fear. It’s still in awe but it’s an awe with reverence. Rather than wanting to run away, you’ll run to.
How do we know that? Well, let me just give you one example. I’m not going to go to this text but how many of you guys remember the Apostle John? Right? We read out of John a lot, right? The Apostle John had a nickname that he gave himself. Remember what it was? “The disciple whom Jesus loved.” He was super confident in Jesus’ love for him. John was actually the guy at the Last Supper who laid his head on Jesus’ chest and said, “Lord, who is it?” Right? He was, sitting right next to Him. He was that close. He’s very intimate with Him. How many of you think that John was probably really spiritual when he was about 90 years old? Yeah, he’d been used to author New Testament books by the power of the Holy Spirit and was actually taken to the third heaven to see the book of Revelation. Now I don’t know how close you think you are to Jesus experientially but I think John’s got me beat. I guarantee it. What a walk, what a walk. He was discipled by Him personally. Saw Him die, saw Him raised from the dead, saw Him ascend, saw the birth of the church. And had faced persecution and God had preserved his life, and when he’s taken into heaven to see that heavenly vision, do you remember what happens when he sees Jesus? He says, “And I fell down as a dead man.” That is the healthy fear of the Lord. He falls down like a dead man. Why? Because Jesus is still God, and he sees Him. He falls down dead. In fact, Jesus comes over to him. What does He do? “And he put his right hand on me and said, (What?) ‘Fear not. I am the Alpha and the Omega.’” Christians are still to fear God. Absolutely. In fact, the more you know Him, the more you’ll love Him, and the more you’ll fear Him. It’s just a different kind.
Look at Hebrews 10:30-31, “For we know him who said (watch), ‘Vengeance is mine. I will repay.’ And again, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’” The next verse says, “It is a fearful thing (a fearful thing) to fall into the hands of the living God.” Why? Because He’s God. It’s just a different kind of fear. It changes from wanting to run away to wanting to run to and if you’re here and you say, “Well, I don’t feel like I’m afraid of God. I don’t feel like I have a fear of God.” Maybe that’s because you’re far away from Him because the more intimacy you have, the more rightful fear you’ll actually have of Him not the other way around. People who are far from God try to fake like they’re intimate with the Lord by saying they’re not afraid but to those who are maturing, they’ll realize that’s actually an immature statement. The more you know and the more you’ll fear Him. 2 Corinthians 7:1 puts it this way, “Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves (that is cooperating with the Holy Spirit in sanctification) let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness (that’s the outward work) to completion in the fear of God.” That means the more you know Him, the more you’ll love Him, the greater you’ll fear Him, and the quicker you’ll depart from evil. The Bible is very clear by the fear of the Lord, a man departs from his iniquity. People quit doing things when they realize not only do I love You but I fear You. You’re God and I’m going to do what You said. That’s our heart as disciples. It certainly was the Apostle John’s heart. Here’s a great description later in Hebrews 12:2. It says, “Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken (here it is) and thus, let us offer to God acceptable worship (how?) with reverence and awe.” And that is another way to say the fear of the Lord. That’s the fear of God. It’s not a wanting to run away. It’s a wanting to run to but nevertheless, when the Bible says there is no fear of God before their eyes, who’s he talking about? He’s talking about people who’ve never seen him, talking about people who’ve never met him, and the diagnosis of that PET scan, if you will, is so helpful that if we’re going to understand the rest of Romans. We’ve got to get this part right here, that the problem is real and the problem is in the heart. It manifests through life and absolutely, through the actions of the body, yes, it does, but the heart is always the issue. There’s no fear of God.
So, the diagnosis is there. What’s the solution? It’s Jesus. It’s come to Jesus. And the way God does that is He reveals Himself. We pray that He’s doing that even right now so that you can worship like that. Let me end here. This is 1 John 4:16-19. John, by the way, remember the Apostle John? “So we have come to know and (look) to believe…” Did you know you can know and not believe? Did you know that you can know up here but belief happens here? So, if you say, “Well, somebody knows the gospel.” Well good. That’s helpful but do they believe the gospel? So, he’s talking to people that have come to know and believe. He goes into the intellect and goes down into the heart. That’s where the Holy Spirit goes to work. “…We have come to know and believe (what?) the love that God has for us…” Love that He has for us. We’ve come to know and we come to believe it. There’s the foundational context of what we’re reading. “…God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected…” This simply means matured. This is a form of the Greek word teleos. It means perfected. It means matured. And so, by this is love perfected. In other words, we’d see that as growing, as increasing, as maturing, by this is love perfected with us. What? By knowing and believing that God. The love that God has for us “…So that we may have confidence for (when?) confidence for the day of judgment…” That’s not the confidence of the day of the White Throne Judgment. That’s confidence for the day of the judgment that God will bring to believers at the Bema Seat. That’s a judgment for rewards. And we can have confidence. Confidence of what? That we’re not going to be condemned, that we’re not going to get there, and He’s going to be like, “Oh, you. How’d you get in here? What are you doing here?” No, we grow in the knowledge of Him and the fear of God, which manifests in actually loving Him more for the Day of Judgment. “…Because as he is so also are we in this world.” Why? Because we’re no longer in Adam. We’re in Christ. But then he makes the statement, that if you don’t understand it in the context of what we’ve been covering, you’ll get it wrong. Look, if you just go here, you get it wrong. “There is no fear in love….” This is what people will say, “Look, Steve, you’re wrong.” Your argument’s not with Steve, your argument’s with Paul and Isaiah and God. But when they read this, they say there’s no fear in love, and so if you love God, you won’t fear Him anymore. No, no. This is the dreadfulness that makes you want to run away. That kind of fear is wiped away. It’s removed by love. In fact, the Bible says right here, it’s cast out. But it doesn’t remove the reverence in awe. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” It removes, that that part of fear that makes you want to drive away and get away from it because He’s terrifying you. It makes you want to draw near to Him. Come closer. Why? “…For fear has to do with (what? that kind of fear has to do with what?) punishment, and whoever fears like that has not been perfected (or maturing) in love.” A new believer struggles from time to time often with the question simply this, “Am I really saved?” And I think it’s a pretty good question to ask. I mean I think it’s a great question to ask. Am I really saved? Because later on in your life, you’re going to need to be going, hey ask your friends and family. Husbands ask your wife, “Hey, am I really saved?” Because they see the fruit of your life. They see if you’re repented, they see if you’re seeking for God, they see if you have a heart that’s been changed. They really do. But a young believer will still have a fear of punishment. They’ll still think, “Yeah, but my old sins.” And the mindfulness of that and other stuff comes up as you start feel condemned. But listen to me, that’s actually a healthy fear of God if it drives you to Him but if it moves you away under condemnation. There’s no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Are you seeing this? That’s the fear of God before your eyes. It’s a good thing but the dread is taken away as you’re maturing in love. And then finally, verse 19, “We love because he first loved us.” He does it first.
Here’s the progression: there’s no fear of God before the eyes of the heart of an unregenerate man. The gospel comes, the Word of God is taught, the Word of God is explained, and the Word of God is understood. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ, the man hears the gospel and by faith, the Holy Spirit raises him from the dead, gives him faith to believe, repent of his sins, believe in his Savior, and the fear of God is now in his life. He’s been convicted of sin, righteousness, and judgment, so he wants to repent, and he wants to run after his Savior in belief and love, and now his fear has changed from condemnation to the fear of reverence and awe. When you see it that way then when we get past Romans 3:20 and we get into that second peak, rather, you’re going to understand justification in a whole new light and at a whole new level.
SPEAKER
Steve LeBlanc
KEYWORDS
God, Gospel, Bible, Scripture, Jesus, Condemnation, Condemn, Nature, Righteous, Unrighteous, Self-righteousness, Great White Throne Judgment, Heart, Eyes, Judgment Day, Bema Seat, Polluted Garment, Spoiled milk, Fear, Reverence, Awe, Glorious, United, Unite, Teleos, Romans, Online Sermon, Sherman, Texas