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THE KING’S BUSINESS
of Romans a description’ of the heathen only, or is it a picture of civilization too? Is the apostle describing the low; brutal Hottentot, or the refined Greek of Ephesus (cf. Ephesians 2:1-4) and of Corinth (cf. 1 Corinthians cc. S and 7) ? Was not this same catalog of sins repeated in Pompeii, and was it not probably for this reason that God destroyed that city? Is not this same catalog of sins true of conditions in America at this present hour? Is not this catalog of sins a description of the age in which we live until the time of the end (cf. first and second epis'tles to Timothy)? Have we not here a description,, not of the sins of some men, so much as the sin of man? Do we, you and I, stand out-' side this chapter? Are we ready and willing to say that the hearts we carry within our breasts are not capable of these sins jji we wire let go of by God, if He 'did not hold us fast? 2. The failure of the respectable Gentile, 2 : 1 - 16 . The apostle, having shown that the openly and notoriously immoral Gentile is desti tute of the righteousness o'i God, and con sequently under God's wrath and ip need of justification, proceeds now to show that the respectable and so-called moral Gentile is in practically the same condition before God. It is a much more difficult task-that the apostle has before him to convince the moral man that he is in need of the right eousness of God. The kind of person that Paul has in mind in (his section is the man of Pharisaic spirit who, instead of taking his place with the sinner at the bar of God as a condemned man, would take his place' beside the Judge in the chair, listening unmoved and undismayed at the sentence of the court upon the person at the bar, instead of realizing that he himself is an actual accomplice arid should be by the prisoner’s side receiving the sentence. It is the man who sits in judgment upon his fellowmen,- who says, “This indictment of the apostle may -be true of others, but it is not true of me. I am not a bad man like the rest of men;” the man who, like
the Pharisee in the temple, said, “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, . . . even as this publican” (Luke 18:11). It is the purpose of the apostle to show that the so-called moral man is as desti tu te of the righteousness of God as the mari whd is called grossly immoral. What is a moral man? The questions arise, What is morality? and who may, properly be called a nwral man? Is there such a thing in the world as a strictly moral man? Morality is the observance, of the law, the strict keeping of the commandments of God. The moral man, therefore, is the man who keeps the law and commandments of God,—inwardly as well as outwardly, in thought as well as act, in motive as well as deed. To break one, even the least of the commandments, constitutes immorality: “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2 : 10 ); Where is the man, then, who, in the light of all this, can say, “I have not sinned?” If we have not sinned in deed, we have in word; if we have not sinned in word, we have in thought and imagination, and that a thousand times. “There is none righteous; no, not one” (Romans 3:10). For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). One act of stealing constitutes a man a thief; so one act of disobedience to the moral law con stitutes a man immoral. Judged by this standard, they, there is no such thing as a moral man. For this reason salvation by morality or by character is impossible (cf. Romans 3:19, 20; Galatians 2:16). “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not (literally: perpetually) in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Gala tians 3:10). Such an obedience is .impos sible to man; therefore salvation by works is out of the question. Degrees of Sin. It is not to be understood by this that
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