How Bad Is it?

In his letter to the Romans, Paul sets out to explain the gospel. The first step in explaining the gospel -- the good news -- is to explain why it is good news. The problem, it seems, is this: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth" (Rom 1:18). So, from Romans 1:19 through mid-Romans 3, Paul is addressing the question, essentially, of "Okay ... so how bad is this?" You know ... "How angry is God?" Now, you can and should read through his discussion, but I want to look at his summation.

⁹ We have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, ¹⁰ as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; ¹¹ no one understands; no one seeks for God. ¹² All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." ¹³ "Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive." "The venom of asps is under their lips." ¹⁴ "Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness." ¹⁵ "Their feet are swift to shed blood; ¹⁶ in their paths are ruin and misery, ¹⁷ and the way of peace they have not known." ¹⁸ "There is no fear of God before their eyes" (Rom 3:9-18).

There is more to the summation, but this is drastic enough to make my point. Summing up how much wrath God must have based on our ungodliness and unrighteousness and suppression of truth, it would appear that the answer is "a whole lot!" Assuming that Paul is accurate in his account, it is easy to see that humans are in serious trouble both in our relationship with God and in what we can expect from God. That is, natural man has zero relationship with God and can expect nothing but wrath.

Yeah, yeah, that's all well and good, but in almost every case I have known, the first response to Paul's diatribe is ... denial. The first thing (and often long beyond the first thing) I typically hear from people on this text is something to the effect that we can't take Paul at his word. Oh, no, it's not that Paul was wrong. It's just that he didn't actually literally mean what he was saying. They'll say things like, "Oh, that's just hyperbole" or "He was just quoting from the Old Testament to make a point." Now, I understand the reason for the step back. While some might be denying Paul's words for personal reasons ("I'm not as bad as all that."), I think the primary reason is, well, experience says otherwise. Paul says "No one seeks for God." Now, haven't we all heard stories of people who went to great lengths in their search for God? Paul says, "No one does good, not even one." Come on, Paul! I can list lots of nice people who are not Christians. There are even well-behaved atheists. Paul seems to suggest that there is no good in anyone, but our experience suggests otherwise. It seems, instead, that there is likely good in everyone. And so we tend to back off of Paul's harsh terminology and suggest, considering experience, that he's not really intending to convey what the words actually convey.

This concept is found elsewhere as well. We can find passages in the Bible that seem to contradict other passages in the Bible. We can find some passages, for example, that seem to say that salvation is universal. On the other hand, there are very clear references to the unavoidable fact that not everyone will be saved. So what do we do? We try to correlate one with the other. We try to examine what is being said very carefully -- supposing we may have misunderstood -- and look to see if there isn't a rational explanation. And for the most part we find them. So ... see? It's not like we're assaulting the Bible. We're just making sense of it.

Here is the problem. Comparing God's Word to God's Word and expecting it to make sense is reasonable. God cannot contradict Himself. On the other hand, comparing God's Word to my experience isn't quite so reasonable. God can certainly contradict my experience. More to the point, we recall "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jer 17:9) and realize that, of the two (God's Word and my experience), the most likely error is in my perception of my experience rather than in God's Word.

If I carry this thinking back to Romans 3, I end up someplace else entirely. There is nothing in the text that contradicts anything else in the Bible. There is nothing in the text that suggests that Paul is not intending to say exactly what he says. Therefore, I can only assume that Paul is speaking plainly about the human condition. Given that, how would I explain our experience? Well, if we understand that the purpose of all creation is to glorify God, that should be a pretty big hint. If the ultimate purpose for every human being (along with all creation) is to glorify God, we can easily see that, even if natural man does "good" things, they don't qualify as good because they are not intended to glorify God. Further, if we understand that, "The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot" (Rom 8:7), it would seem obvious that, in the flesh, there is none who seeks for God.

Now we find ourselves, instead of trying to explain away Paul, in agreement with him. When we see people who appear "good", we would need to acknowledge that it is due to our own shortsightedness, our own skewed comprehension of "good". The standard is God and the goal is His glory and when we allow "good" to be anything less ... our experience is in error. Once again, "Let God be true though every man a liar" (Rom 3:4).