For all have sinned…(Romans 3:23).
I remember many years ago, as a very new Christian, reading Romans 3:23. The text says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” In the twisted way my mind worked back then (not that it is any better these days) I was immediately reminded of an old comic album from the 60’s by an off-beat comedy troupe called the Firesign Theater. The album title was “I think we’re all bozos on this bus!” It seemed to me that this was the message of Paul’s statement in Romans. It has become a personal theme of mine throughout the years to remember to not take myself so seriously, and to take Jesus very seriously.
In chapters one through three in the book of Romans Paul develops a polemic that is summarized by today’s text. We really are all bozos on this bus! If the theme of Romans is the “good news”, then Paul makes a point to be sure people understand the need for “good news” by spelling out in great detail the “bad news”. He acts like a prosecuting attorney building a case against the possibility that anyone can earn the favor of God by doing “works of law” (by human effort). Whether it is the revelation of God in his creation, or the more specific revelation of God in the Old Testament and now the New, no one except Jesus has ever responded to the knowledge of God in a way that would lead to God’s evaluation that they are righteous. Everybody is a bozo. Everybody needs “good news”.
Of course the good news is that there is good news! Even though humanity suppressed the truth of God, and as a result spiraled from immorality, to perversion, to depravity, God still has good news. What humanity could never do, Jesus did. As we move on through Romans, we will discover that the reason God gave the Law to begin with was to demonstrate our inability to keep it, thus stirring our need for rescue from our unrighteousness and spiritual death. The prosecutor will now become the defense attorney as he sets forth a new way to be “justified”; i.e. be declared right with God. That will be the focus of my next piece.