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.Now we know that whatever things the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God.Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it speaketh to them that are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God:
10 sermons cite this verse
… There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth is silenced. The whole world is held accountable to God. And no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law. Rather, through the law, we become conscious of sin. But now a righteousness from God apart from the law has been made known, to which the law and the prophets testify, and this righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice because in his forbearance, he left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. He did it to demonstrate his justice in the present time so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. …
… he just reiterates that we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God. Every mouth silenced before God. Whole world held accountable to God. And by works of the law no human being was justified in this sight since through the law comes knowledge of sin. In other words, the more we try to do good to overcome our bad, the more we sink deeper into our own depravity. You stand condemned before God. This is so key, right? Because the question is often phrased, well, what happens to the innocent guy in Africa or Asia who's never heard the gospel? And we know that's not a good question. Why? Because he doesn't exist. There's no innocent guy in Africa waiting to hear the gospel. If he was innocent, he wouldn't need the gospel. He's innocent. There's no sin. Why does he need to be saved from sin? …
… Look up at verse 19. We know whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped. The implied argument there is the Jews had the law and they failed. Therefore, all of you without the law will also fail. So, the contrast is the condemnation that rests upon those under the law with the possibility of standing righteous before God apart from the law. Look at verse 21. Now, in English, we need to do a lot with, in order to make sense of things, word order matters a lot. You can't just throw words around wherever you please. The word order tells you how things fit together. Many of you know other languages aren't like that. They have endings for their nouns which tell you how the nouns relate to other nouns and how they relate to the verbs, which allow other languages like Greek to place emphasis upon certain things by putting them earlier in a sentence or at the end of a sentence. …
… Romans 3, just two verses, 19 and 20. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. Paul has been making the case as the prosecuting attorney against the whole human race, first dealing with the Gentiles, or sometimes they're called the Greeks, and then dealing with the Jews, or you might say first dealing with the religious outsiders, and then people like most of us, the religious insiders. And time and time again, he has proven the total spiritual inability of the whole human race. You see in verse 9, both Jews and Greeks, he has concluded, are under sin. Under sin, that means controlled by the power of sin, marred by the guilt of sin. And it's a sin and a sin nature that is completely comprehensive. …
I'm the CEO of Living Waters, the chief evangelism officer. Romans 3 verse 19, if you would open your Bibles I would be grateful. Our television program has been broadcast worldwide, 190 countries for about 20 years, it's in its 11th season. So when I go to Huntington Beach each Saturday to film in the mornings, it's common for people to come up and say, could I do a selfie? Some time ago I was standing by a wall, it's got names on it, the base of the pier, and And an Asian gentleman, very politely, said, Can I take a photo? I was looking at my phone, I said, Sure, go ahead. He said, Well, get out of the way. And that's my earnest prayer with this message today that I would get out of the way. In the late 1970s, God very graciously opened an itinerant ministry to me, and as I began to travel, I found that I had access to church growth records and found in my horrors something like 80 to 90 percent of those making decisions for Christ were falling away from the faith. …
… self-idolatry by teaching the universality of human sinfulness and the hopelessness of self-salvation. Romans 3 19, we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped. And the whole world held accountable to God for by works of the law no human being will be justified in the sight of God since through the law comes the knowledge of sin. One of the great purposes of the law is to teach that law-keeping as a way of getting right with God is hopeless. That's the point of the law, to teach that law-keeping as a way of getting right with God is hopeless. Scripture imprisoned everything under sin. Galatians 3 22. God has consigned all to disobedience. Romans 11 32. That's the starting point for the death of self idolatry. Left to ourselves before the holiness of God, we are hopeless. On the day you eat of it, you will die. And in Adam, all died. You died. …
… and the mouth of the whole world is stopped. Our mouth is stopped, according to Romans 3.19, because we would have done the same thing. So, as we saw, the natural Jewish branches then were broken off. And for the last 2,000 years, God has been grafting in these wild olive branches, most of you in this room, into the tree of salvation, the Abrahamic covenant, making Gentiles into sons of Abraham by faith in the Jewish Messiah, Galatians 3 7, creating the church. And now the church is being made glorious. Here's two pictures of it. One is the picture of a wife that you're very familiar with, and the other is a picture of brothers. You know both these texts. Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water and the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. …
… And then chapter 3 verse 19. We know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world. And then the final indictment in chapter 3, verse 20, for by works of the law, no human being will be justified. Did you notice there that every, the all, the no, Paul is making this argument with hammer blow after hammer blow that every human being falls under this universal indictment of sin. You can think about it in chapter 1, 18 through 32, he's primarily focused on the world of the Gentiles. And then in chapter 2, verse 1 through 3, verse 8, he's primarily going to talk about the Jews, that they too fall under the condemnation of sin. So the Gentile world, the Jews, and then in chapter 3, 9 through 20 is where it brings it together with no, not one, every single person. So the context here is a series of arguments, first about the Gentiles, then about the Jews to insist with hammer blow after hammer blow, there is no one righteous, no not one. Now look at verse 18. You see that word, which is such an important word in Romans, the word for. So this connects us to what has gone before. Yes, this is starting a new section, but it's also connected to what came before. Notice these three phrases in verses 16, 17, and 18. The power of God, verse 16. The righteousness of God, verse 17. The wrath of God, …
… he outlines the weakness of the dew to make us righteous in verse 19 of chapter 3, Romans. He says, 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. Now, I know nobody came to church to hear this today, but just under the grace of God, can we all receive it from God today? Every one of us is going to stand before God, and when we do, we're not going to do any talking. So, you don't need to worry about rehearsing the, yeah, but, and I was going to, but then I couldn't, and if they had, I would have, and I tried this, and I did that, and of course you know that. There's not going to be any of that. God is going to see into our hearts in a nanosecond and know everything there is to know about our lives. Every mouth is going to be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. …
… All people stand condemned for rejecting God. again this is so sobering but Romans 3 19 and 20 just sums it up we know that whatever the law says it says to those who are under the law so that every mouth is silenced and the whole world accountable to God no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law rather through the law we become conscious of sin in other words not only are all people guilty silenced before God but there is no amount of good we can do to overcome our guilt. All people are condemned for rejecting God and this is true regardless of whether or not we've heard the gospel. This too is really significant because I think many professing Christians think like the pastor I mentioned is teaching. and unfortunately I would say the majority of pastors in America are teaching that if certain people never hear the gospel, like God is loving, that God will let them into heaven. …