Were Those Who Became Christians Better
Than Those Who Did’t? (Pt. 2)
Romans 3:11
Has anyone here ever been congratulated or made much of because you made a decision to come to Christ and be saved? Have you ever congratulated or made a big to-do about your children coming to Christ for their salvation? My guess is that we have all experienced something like this at some point in our Christian lives but however well-meaning the congratulations may have been or the making much of someone’s decision to come to Christ may be—it is wrong for the simple reason that you had nothing to do with it.
You see, to praise someone for becoming a Christian means that the person must have had something to do with this decision that is worthy of praising. In other words—they must have contributed something to their salvation in terms of some kind of merit. And if they had something in them like some sort of intrinsic righteousness, knowledge, understanding, or sensitivity to God that contributed to their salvation in someway then they should get some of the praise and some of the glory for their salvation. And thus—the salvation of sinners is a shared experience of glory in which God gets some of the glory for His work in the transaction and you and I get a portion of the glory and praise for our part. And if this is true then we can also conclude that those who did not get saved probably had nothing to contribute or at least were unwilling to contribute anything to accomplish their salvation. And this leads us right into Romans 3:9-11.
Last week we with the Apostle Paul asked the question whether we who became Christians were back in our unsaved state and condition better than those people who did not become Christians? Perhaps you were saved at a Billy Graham Crusade or at a Christian concert or at some evangelistic event or maybe you were saved at a church service where the Gospel was being preached—well, why if you had several unbelievers listening to the same Gospel presentation—were you saved and not others? If you all were hearing the same Gospel proclamation from the same preacher at the same time why did you respond to it and not others? Were you spiritually more in tune with God? Were you smarter? Were you more sensitive to the Holy Spirit? Did you have more understanding? Were you perhaps already seeking God? In other words, was there something about you even in your unsaved condition that was better than those who did not respond to the Gospel when you did?
This is the question Paul is asking in Romans 3:9 and answering in the rest of that verse and on down through verse 18. As we saw last week—his initial answer is a resounding “NO WAY”! Look at verse 9. He says—there is absolutely no way that you were any better than any other unbeliever because of the fact that all unbelievers are completely under the rule and the dominion of sin so that all unbelievers are completely captive to sin and alienated from God so that all unbelievers, according to Romans 5:10—are the enemies of God and according to Romans 8:7-8—are unable to even obey God or be considered pleasing to God in any way. Then, as we saw last week in Romans 3:10, there are absolutely no unbelievers who are or were righteous in God’s sight—not even one single person!
So again, were you somehow better than those who did not come to Christ? Was your condition as an unbeliever not quite as bad as those others who being unbelievers themselves did not come to Christ? No—absolutely not! And now in our text for this morning, Romans 3:10, Paul takes his answer one step further and makes the point that not only were we not any better in terms of having any intrinsic righteousness of our own than those who failed to respond to the Gospel and come to Christ—we weren’t even better in the sense of our spiritual understanding let alone that we were somehow seeking for God because the fact of the matter is we weren’t seeking God and we did not possess a greater or better understanding of God and spiritual things.
Let me remind us again of how Paul prefaces these arguments in verse 10. He states and I quote: “As it is written. . . .” In other words, your argument, if you have one today, is not with me but with the inspired, revealed, recorded and true Word of God. So, with no further introduction, let’s jump in here in verse 11 and see what Paul means by saying that even in our unsaved condition we were no better than any other unbeliever because there is absolutely no such thing as an unbeliever who understands or who seeks for God so as to be saved.
1. We Were No Better Than Any Other Unbeliever Because We Were Exactly The Same As Them In Our Lack of Understanding. (11a)
The Greek rendering of this first phrase in verse 11 is simply translated: “None there is who understands” or “There is not one who understands.” The phrase itself does not point out what it is the unbeliever lacks understanding in. But the word Paul uses for “understanding” is helpful. Essentially, the word means to comprehend or understand something by taking all the facts and putting them together so as to see how they all relate and what they all are pointing to, so as to make sense of what is being seen, heard, felt, perceived, and experienced. In other words, it means that there is no such person as an unbeliever who has the ability to grasp all of the facts of life and of his particular experience in living life so as to put all those facts together and rightly understand them so as to understand what life is all about. To put it another way—all unbelievers are universally and completely ignorant of why we are here and what we are here for. Thus, they are all completely ignorant and unable—don’t miss the point of what Paul is saying—to figure out life and thus they are unable to figure out God.
Listen, if all the facts of creation are pointing to the existence of God and the reality of God and making known certain attributes of God but you as an unbeliever do not have the ability to recognize these facts or to string them together so as to see how they relate to one another and especially to the One Who created them as facts—then you really are unable to understand life, the reason for life, and especially the Creator of life.
Now, this has great ramifications for education and who is doing the educating—doesn’t it? I mean—if you believe the Bible to be true then what the Bible is telling us here is that unbelievers, while recognizing certain facts about the universe and life can’t connect them to come up with their very reason for being and certainly cannot trace them back to a Personal Creator so as to understand them fully and correctly. Thus, non-believing teachers who are teaching science, who while knowing that the people exist—cannot figure out why, how, or for what reason they exist and so they in concert with their non-ability to put all the facts of what they see together so as to see the facts of science all pointing back to God and for God—simply teach that there is no reason for all these facts—they all simply appeared and evolved into what we have today for no apparent reason whatsoever.
The historian who is a non-believer looks at history the same way. He sees the facts of history but does not see the Providential Hand behind history and so interprets history with complete inaccuracy so that things just happen because they happen. I saw one example of this while reading through the preface of a history book last month. It was a book about George Washington in a series of books about pivotal moments in American History. Listen to the introduction to the series:
“Each book in this series examines a large historical event or process that changed the course of American Development. These events were not the products of ineluctable forces outside the boundaries of human choice; they were the results of decisions and actions by people who had opportunities to choose and act otherwise.”
In other words, this is a series of history books that believes that the only thing acting upon history is the human hand apart from divine Providence and so they miss the whole point of history, which is that God is behind all human events—moving human history to its climax. You see, again the unbeliever sees the facts—he just doesn’t understand them and in fact cannot understand them apart from a relationship with God. Thus, who educates your children and their relationship or non-relationship with God has a direct bearing upon the quality of education your children are receiving from them.
It also has direct bearing upon the influence Hollywood has upon those believers who spend countless precious hours in front of the TV being bombarded with mindless entertainment that bears no resemblance to the truth of God as revealed in creation.
Listen—the fact of the matter is that unbelievers can see the dots but they cannot connect them. And thus they cannot understand God or themselves correctly let alone their dire need of God and His salvation. And when you and I were unsaved we were no better than they nor any better off. We too, were ignormases in every category of life, having a knowledge of the existence of facts but without the ability to put them together to know and understand the truth. Thus, as unbelievers none of us possessed true knowledge about anything because true knowledge always finds its source in God who is the Truth. Unless, what you know points you to God—what you know is not true knowledge or complete knowledge. You only have a portion of the story because you are not seeing how everything ties back to God as its source and very reason for being.
Look at Romans 11:36 and Colossians 1:16-17. If these verse are true there is absolutely no way one can be truly educated apart from knowing God and thus there is no way one can be a true educator apart from knowing God. Look at Colossians 2:1-3. If this is true then—apart from Christ there simply is no such thing as true education or wisdom because in Christ all the facts of life and in life that there are to know find their source, their reason for being, and their meaning.
If God is exhaustively sovereign over everything and there is not a square inch in the Universe, not a split second of time, nor even the most insignificant atom that is not dependent upon, controlled by, and subservient to Him—then there is no such thing as a “secular” subject or any field of study that is not related to and in fact dependent upon God. In fact, there is absolutely nothing that we can do, enjoy, and know that does not find its absolute and unperverted source in God. And thus the reason why we are taught in Proverbs 1:7, that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. . .” Listen, when you live in a Universe created by God, controlled by God, and which constantly is revealing God—this universe cannot be understood correctly apart from God and apart from knowing God. Thus, there is absolutely no subject matter you can talk about in the world that at the same time you cannot and should not talk about God—from sports to hunting to quilting to sex to work to playing with the kids to physics and algebra. It is all His stuff—we didn’t create any of it. Therefore, to rightly understand it and use it and enjoy it—the way God intended for it to be—you must know Him. That is why no one should enjoy life more than the believer who knows the God of life.
Now, is Paul arguing in Romans 3:11 that the unbeliever cannot know or understand anything at all? No, the word he uses has to do with being able to understand how to relate the facts that he does know and especially how to relate them back to God. In other words, Paul does not mean an unbeliever cannot understand individual facts and even a multiplicity of facts and work with these facts to observe, learn, teach, manufacture, produce, and solve problems—it simply means he cannot understand them in relation to and in reference to God and thus cannot understand them completely or correctly apart from having these facts related to God for him by some external source such as a Christian influence or by an internal source such as the fact that in spite of his unbelief, he still is a creature created in the image of God. You see, Paul is simply arguing that the unbeliever in and of himself has no intrinsic ability to see life and understand life from God’s point of view because he has no connection to God. He is not arguing that the unbeliever is a complete idiot because he isn’t or else he would have an excuse before God at the judgment. In fact, the unbeliever actually reveals that he still retains within his being the image of God he was created in by the fact that he can so much with the facts he has been given in spite of the fact that he doesn’t and in fact can’t relate them back to God.
What Paul is really arguing is that the unbeliever is a complete fool in that he is sees life and tries to live life apart from God and God’s perspective—the very creator, giver, and sustainer of life. Thus, the unbeliever is a fool. Now understand, that the Scriptures do not describe the fool as a shallow-minded illiterate ignoramus—no, he can be quite educated and very much worldly wise but he is a fool because he has forsaken God and has no desire for God or to see life from God’s point of view. And if you look back to the very passages of Scripture that Paul is alluding to in Romans 3, you will see what the biblical definition of a fool is. Look at Psalm 14:1-3. Did you see what verse 1 said?
“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”
Look at the other Old Testament passage he is alluding to—Psalm 53:1-3. Again in verse 1, it says:
“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”
You see, all unbelievers—ourselves included back when we were unbelievers were fools in that we lived our lives as though there was no God we were responsible to. We operated as though life could be lived correctly and with fulfillment apart from God.
We tried to find meaning in life without God. And ultimately, we could not make sense out of life and the big questions of life such as—
• Why am I here?
• What is my purpose?
• Why does life seem so meaningless?
• Why can’t I find lasting satisfaction and happiness in the people, things, and experiences I thought would give it to me?
• Where am I going?
• And What is the meaning of it all anyway?
And the reason we could not make sense of life and find the answers to these questions in and by ourselves was because we lacked the understanding to be able to see all of life in relation to God and so we just stumbled along just as badly as unbelievers do today. And the reason we lacked this understanding was because we were not of God but were of the devil.
Look at what Jesus said in John 8:43-47. Listen, this is the situation all unbelievers are in—they cannot understand what God has to do with anything because they cannot hear His Word. Oh they hear the sound of it but they cannot perceive it or comprehend it because they are of the devil just like we were before we were saved. And not only is the unbeliever deaf to the Word of God—he is also blind to the glory of God. He can’t hear what we can hear and he can’t see what we can see and that is why all this stuff that we do on a Sunday morning makes absolutely no sense to him at all.
Do you see the desperate position and condition that the unbeliever is in? Don’t you remember the desperateness of your own lostness and your life without Christ?
We were just as spiritually deaf, spiritually blind, and spiritually dead as they were. So what happened? What made the change?
God reached down and unplugged your ears so you could hear and took the blinders off your eyes so you could see and once you really heard the Gospel for the first time with ears that could hear and once you saw the beauty and the glory of God in the Christ presented to you in the Gospel—all of a sudden you were able to understand your desperate condition apart from God and to your great surprise—now you wanted Him with every fiber of your being and at that point no one could hold you back from coming to Christ to have Him as your own Lord and Savior forever.
As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:30-31
“But by His [God’s] doing you are in Christ Jesus . . .so that just as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.’”
We weren’t any better—we didn’t possess a greater understanding—we were no different from those who could care less about Christ and a new life in Christ. We were no better—we were no different—we were simply the recipients of great mercy and undeserved grace. So when people congratulate you or your children and try to make much of you because you made the decision to give your lives to Christ—you may want to kindly correct them and make it clear that there was simply nothing in you that is worth making much of and then tell them Who is the only One worthy of praise and the One Who is totally responsible for your salvation—God.
Let’s pray.
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