Depravity and Equality – 1/14/23

As Matt mentioned, this is MLK Jr. Weekend, and our country pauses to consider race relations. As the church, we want to pray into that because it’s a big theme in the Bible. But I want to talk about it from a little different perspective—which you’ve grown accustomed to, or maybe frustrated by—and talk about depravity and equality, the relationship between depravity and equality. You’re not going to hear this in schools or in the news, or even in most churches. I’m referring to the conviction that all people are sinful as one of the primary ingredients in viewing all people as equal.

Let me introduce with a little C.S. Lewis quote. This is from a paper he wrote back in 1943. He said, “I am a Democrat.” Now he’s writing in England, so he’s not talking about political parties. He’s talking about a very general view of democracy, a belief in political and legal equality. He says,

“I am a Democrat because I believe in the fall of man. And take that in. I’m a Democrat because I believe in the fall of man. I think most people are Democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of Democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good, everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true … I find it that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. Nor do most people. … The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no man fit to be masters.”

Lewis is not minimizing the fact that we are all made in the image of God, and therefore, all equally valuable. But since the fall of man, a just society cannot ignore human corruption and remain a just society.

Think about October 7, 2023, the worst terrorist attack against Jews since the Holocaust. Immediately after 1,200 Israelis were killed (hundreds more injured, raped, kidnapped, burned), celebrations began erupting around the globe. In Gaza, the bodies of abused, raped women were carted through the streets as people spat upon them, hit them, cheered. In the West Bank and in cities throughout the Middle East, crowds of people filled the streets cheering. And soon, long before Israel responded at all in Gaza, celebrations began to be seen in cities throughout the U.S. and Europe, especially on college campuses.

Take that in for a moment: hundreds of civilians killed, raped, babies murdered, kidnapped, and people are cheering. How does a society get to that point? How does an individual get to that point where you can cheer at the massacre of people? Are these individuals a different kind of people than us? Yes or no? No. No. So, something has to happen to allow a celebration because women have been raped, people have been kidnaped.

One of the key things that has to happen is you have to dehumanize the victims. They can’t be viewed as victims. They have to be viewed as oppressors. You actually have to reclassify everyone involved as either an oppressor or the oppressed. And whatever the oppressor does, it’s bad, even if it’s good. And whatever the oppressed does, it’s good, even if it’s bad. And so, from the perspective of the celebrants, those who were celebrating a massacre, all Israelis are categorized as oppressors, as colonizers, Palestinian parasites, sponsors of an apartheid state. And all terrorists must be viewed not as murderers or rapists but as freedom fighters, part of the resistance, fulfilling the glorious call of decolonization. To reinforce these categories, it’s very important to rewrite or at least exclude large sections of history.

I want to take a moment to illustrate this, and I know it’s going to be extremely lopsided because I’m only giving you one side of the history because the other side is everywhere: on the news, in books taught in our schools. This side is nowhere. Three historical facts you will not hear.

Number one: in the 1940s, there were far more Jewish refugees from North Africa, the Middle East, and Iraq than Palestinian refugees. And I’m not talking about the European Holocaust. I’m talking about the Middle Eastern Holocaust. Many of these families had lived in the Middle East or Iraq for over a thousand years before Islam began. They spoke Arabic. They loved their countries. Some were, but most were not drawn by Zionism. They were driven by antisemitism. Fact number one.

Fact number two: throughout the 20th century, Arab countries passed laws demeaning and criminalizing Jewishness. For example, in many countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and Iraq, Jews were fined for being Jews, forbidden to buy or sell property, banned from travel, forbidden to hold public office, not to mention thousands who were killed in antisemitic riots.

Fact number three: the land, homes, and businesses confiscated from the Jews is at least 4-5 times greater than the size of the state of Israel and worth around $250 billion. I said billion.

This does not minimize at all the suffering of the Palestinians, which is real. The UN estimated they lost about $1.85 billion. It does humanize the problem because there wasn’t one Nakba. There were two Nakbas. You’re familiar with the word. Nakba is the Arabic word for catastrophe. The Palestinians described what happened in the 1940s as a Nakba.

There were two Nakbas, the Arab Nakba and the Jewish Nakba, but no one talks about this. Why? Well, because it would dismantle the narrative, the addiction to classify people according to immutable categories of oppressor and oppressed. There are a few Arab nations that have acknowledged this and a few Arabs that have written about this. I’ve numerous examples. Let me just give you one.

Egyptian journalist Nabil Sharaf Eldin wrote,

“We owe our Egyptian Jewish brothers a historic apology for the injustice we caused them, for causing a community, whose roots in the land of Egypt go back to the prophet Musa [Moses] to disappear.”

Lyn Julius summarized what happened:

“Apart from enduring dispossession, humiliation, arrest, torture, and murder, the Jews lost their entire civilization, their Judeo-Arabic language, and much of their culture. Their displacement was on a larger scale than that of the Palestinians, and their material losses were greater. Whereas Arab refugees fled a war which Arab leaders had instigated the Jews were victims of unpredictable violence and a deliberate legislative policy of scapegoating them for being Jews. The proof is in the pudding: 1.4 million Arabs live in Israel today, whereas fewer than 4,500 Jews from a 1948 population of 1 million live in Arab countries.”

Why does this matter? If you don’t think accurately about people, we will not respond helpfully. Jews are not more righteous than Arabs, and Arabs are not more righteous than Jews. I would love at this point to spin off and walk through some practical implications as to how that would resolve the unending conflict that’s going on because these implications are massive, but that is beyond the scope of this message. What I want us to do is go beneath that. This is what we’re talking about: the truths beneath the conflict that would dismantle the conflict, not just there, but globally. This is where Paul begins his masterpiece of Romans.

In Romans 1-3, Paul is arguing that all people, irreligious and religious, have the same baseline problem: we fall short of the glory of God. We have exchanged the glory of God for stuff and for status. His argument comes to a climax in 3:9-31, and this is where I want us to land this morning and summarize two big points that will lead to a number of implications.

Number one, we all have the same problem (9-20). We all have the same problem. Paul says it several different ways. Number one, our depravity is universal. Look at verse nine.

“What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Gentiles, are under sin, as it is written—”

And notice how exclusive this language is.

“…’None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.’”

There is a solidarity in depravity. Do you feel that? We are all in this together. We are all in a mess together. We are all broken together. Paul is arguing there are no exceptions. There’s no one you can watch on television. There’s no country you will go where they are a different kind of people than we are. We’re all sinners. You’ll never hear this argument today, but that’s where Paul begins because if you all acknowledge your brokenness, all of a sudden, you’re united in what Piper calls “the camaraderie of condemnation.” Woo! It’s terrible news, but it’s the truth, and it unites us, and it deflates us (as we’re going to see later), pops the balloon of our egotism, and brings us into this all together.

Second, not only is our depravity universal, our depravity is total. Total. Look at verse 13 and following. Notice how Paul uses body parts to poetically communicate the comprehensiveness of our problem.

“Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

As John Stott has pointed out,

“The only people who reject total depravity are people who don’t understand it.”

Let’s talk about what it isn’t and what it is. First, by “total depravity,” we do not mean that we lack all sense of good and bad. Paul just said in Romans 2:15 that every human being has a conscience, a sense of right and wrong.

Second, we do not mean we are as bad as we can be. When you begin to talk about total depravity, you get looks from people like, “I think you’re mixing me up with Hitler.” “I think you’re thinking of Jeffrey Dahmer or Madonna.” Like, you’re not thinking of me. No. Thinking that total depravity means we’re as bad as we can possibly be. We don’t mean that.

We don’t mean we do every kind of sin. Again, when we talk about total depravity, our minds immediately go, “Well, I haven’t murdered anyone recently. I haven’t done what she’s done, what he’s done. So therefore, I can’t be totally depraved.” No, we don’t mean that.

What do we mean? We mean sin affects our entire person: mind, emotions, will. There’s no part of me that is unscathed by sin. Second, sin contaminates our motives. There are times when I do really good things for really bad reasons. And third, sin renders us helpless before God. As Ephesians 2:1 says, we were

“dead in trespasses and sins.”

Dead. In other words, to expect a man or woman to make himself/herself right with God is like expecting a carcass, a corpse, a cadaver to build a house, to mow the lawn. It’s not going to happen. You can do a lot of things. He’s not talking about being physically dead. You’re still physically alive. You’re spiritually dead. You can’t make yourself right with God.

As John Bunyan writes,

“Many are sorry for actual transgressions, because afterwards they bring them to shame before me [like, it’s embarrassing]; but few are sorry for the defects that sin has made in nature, because they see not those defects themselves. A man cannot be sorry for the sinful defects of nature, till he sees they have rendered him contemptible to God; nor is it anything but a sight of God, that can make him truly see what he is, and so be heartily sorry for being so.”

Our depravity is total.

Third, our depravity is inexcusable. Paul is anticipating his Jewish readers excusing themselves with law-keeping. “Yeah, yeah, those pagans are in trouble. But we have the mosaic law. We keep the law.” He says in verse 19,

“Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped—”

Pause for a second. In other words, it doesn’t matter how good you are at litigating your own case, justifying, rationalizing, theologically gaslighting. You’re not going to argue your way out in the presence of God.

“…every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by the works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”

Paul is saying, if you’re looking to the law to justify you, the law exposes sin. It doesn’t expunge sin. You’re looking to the wrong source. It will expose your wrong. It will not remove it. So, where do we turn? Whether you’re a good lawbreaker or a good law-keeper, we have all fallen short of the glory of God. We all have the same problem.

Second, we all have the same solution. There’s so much here. We’re moving toward what is often called the heart of the gospel. And it’s rich. And I’m going to fly over it, painfully so, with just three statements.

Number one, God promised to provide righteousness. Verse 21, God promised to provide righteousness. In other words, morality, spirituality, education— all these things can’t do it. Verse 21,

“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the Prophets bear witness to it—”

So the law and the prophets point to, God is promising he’s going to provide this.

Second, God justifies us only by faith in Christ. And here it is: the heart of the gospel. Verse 22, “…the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation—”

Lots of theological words, sorry. That last one, propitiation, means “to appease wrath,” like to cover wrath.

“…by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.”

So much here. Let me try to just define one of those terms. I keep using “justified,” “justification.” It says Michael Barrett. It’s actually from The Confession.

“Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us—”

That means just put on our account.

“…and received by faith alone.”

That’s what it means to be justified.

Then, number three, God justifies us while remaining just. Look at verse 26,

“To demonstrate at the present time his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

Now what does that mean? Just and the justifier. The way many people talk about salvation by grace, it sounds like they’re describing God like he was really strict in the Old Testament, and then in the New Testament, you caught him on a good day. And he says, I used to think adultery was bad, racism was bad, stealing was bad, hatred was bad, pride was bad. But you caught me on a good day, and I’m good with those things now. So, come on in! Is that salvation by grace? No. No, what Paul is saying is he didn’t lower his justice. He didn’t lower the standard. So how does God remain just and justify unjust people? Like, that’s not just! Only through Jesus he remains just, and he becomes the justifier in making us right with him on the basis of Jesus’ sacrifice. Whew! Amen.

This is where we’re heading: What difference does this make? What does this have to do with race relations or viewing people of another ethnicity? Paul mentions three implications here.

Number one, it excludes boasting. Verse 27,

“Where is boasting then? It is excluded.”

It got boxed out. There’s no space for boasting.

“By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.”

If you were spiritual enough, or consistent enough, or disciplined enough, “church-ed” enough to make it to God, then you would have a basis of boasting. But it’s all of grace, so there’s no space for boasting.

This also moves us into the space our enemy occupies because when you’re saved by grace, you know, “I deserve the same thing they deserve. If I’ve been given grace, it’s not because of me. I am broken like they’re broken. I am sinful, like they’re sinful.” So now all of a sudden, you’re not viewing someone over there (of a different ethnicity or political party, someone different from you) as having a monopoly on evil. No, it’s we need God’s grace.

No one understood this better than the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who, shortly before being executed by the Nazis, wrote a letter from prison where he said this:

“There is a very real danger of our drifting into an attitude of contempt for humanity… The faults we despise in others are always, to some extent at least, our own too. How often have we expected from others more than we are prepared to do ourselves! Why have we until now held such lofty views about human nature?”

Now, Bonhoeffer is not at all minimizing the horror of Naziism. The reason he was martyred is he opposed it, so we’re not talking about just graying out all wrong. What he’s getting at is, when we’ve seen our own hearts, we look at others differently. Arrogance bonds us to the evil we oppose rather than the people we are called to love. Let me say that again. Arrogance bonds us to the evil we oppose rather than the people we are called to love. And that is why Paul says it is vital to see our own depravity and our need of mercy, because it excludes boasting.

Secondly, it eliminates segregation. Look at verse 29,

“Or is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.”

I don’t think we have any idea how controversial that statement would have been for Paul to make in his day, and it didn’t matter from what perspective— whether you were a Roman or a Jew or any other kind of person. This was revolutionary to actually believe that God is colorblind when it comes to salvation. I know we’re not allowed to use that term anymore, but on this weekend, when people are remembering Dr. King, he used that term and believed it was good. It has become bad, but it does not mean that God doesn’t delight in the diverse cultures and ethnicities. Read Revelation. It’s going to be a kaleidoscope of nations and tongues and cultures, colors in heaven worshiping Jesus. God delights in that. But when he looks upon humanity, he does not view our depravity or our need of mercy through any kind of color difference. Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he the God of the Gentiles? Paul is saying that’s all gone. It eliminates segregation.

Some of you may say, “He’s talking about salvation here. He’s not talking about social equality or neighborliness.” True. He’s talking about salvation, but he’s building a foundation, the implications of which he will work out later in Romans. For example, in Romans 15:7, he says these words,

“Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you.”

If you’re having a hard time welcoming someone who’s different from you, look back at how God welcomed you. You are totally different from him. He is holy. You’re a sinner. He welcomed you through Christ. Now welcome others in the way you have been welcomed. That’s the implication of this teaching.

Let me show you one other example. In Titus 3, Paul calls on Titus to remind his church, Titus 3:2,

“…to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling—”

Which literally means “to be non-fighting.” Don’t be contentious.

“…to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.”

Whew! “Perfect courtesy toward all people.” You could literally translate that “show all kinds of courtesy toward all kinds of people.” Hmhm. Why? What is the basis of that call, to show all kinds of courtesy toward all kinds of people? Look at verse three,

“For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one hating one another.”

Pause for a second. You see what Paul just did? If you’re going to show perfect courtesy toward all people, you’re going to have to remember who you were apart from God’s grace, or you won’t show courtesy. Verse four,

“But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy.”

Paul is saying, “People! You know what it’s like to be a villain.” Look at verse three. You were foolish. You were disobedient. You know what it’s like to be a victim. Verse three again: you were led astray. You were slaves to various passions and pleasures. Doesn’t matter if you grew up in a Christian home and you were saved at three, you know what this is like. Paul is saying, if you’re not showing courtesy towards someone who is different from you, you’ve forgotten what you were apart from God’s grace and what he does by his grace. You will never meet a racist who has a deep conviction of his own sinfulness. You won’t. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a white supremacist or Ibram Kendi. Whatever form of racism, you won’t meet a racist who has a deep conviction of his own sinfulness and need of grace. This is why it’s so important for us as Christians to remember what we deserved and by his grace what we’ve been given because it has huge implications on segregation in our nation.

Segregation is actually intentionally on the rise. Like several years ago, New York University called for racially segregated dorms, but they creatively described it as “themed engagement floors” so that you could be on a floor with just people like you. I think Dr. King would call that racism, separate but equal. Aren’t we going back rather than forward? Some have called it black affinity housing, ironically pushed by diversity coordinators and DEI departments. Antiracism leaders like Ibram Kendi believe that “babies can be racist.” In other words, based on the color of your skin, you’re born an oppressor or an oppressed and that’s it. It’s an immutable category that everything will be filtered through. Paul is saying, no, we’re all born broken. We’re all depraved. And we’re all, though, made in the image of God and remade by the grace of Christ. That changes everything. So, it eliminates segregation.

Number three, it establishes the law. This last one I can’t develop but I’ll mention it. Verse 31,

“Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.”

What does this mean? Let me let Keller summarize.

“So, the gospel upholds the law by demonstrating that law-breaking is so serious that it brings death and judgment; and that law-keeping is so fundamental that no one can pass through judgment without it being kept on their behalf. The law is upheld in Christ’s life and in his death, not nullified.”

The law democratizes our problem and our solution. Rather than explaining that, let me illustrate that.

Olaudah Equiano was born in 1745 in what is today Nigeria. When he was 11, he and his sister were kidnaped from their village, sold into slavery, transported to Barbados, and then Virginia. He had several different masters, but he was able to learn to read and write and even to eventually purchase his own freedom. He moved to England and he became a powerful abolitionist. His autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, exposed the horrors of the slave trade and was influential in changing perspectives of many in the British Isles. Equiano had also become a Christian and he worshiped with the believers in England.

Now think about that. Here’s a man who was stolen, sold, enslaved, who is now worshiping with people just like his enslavers. How is that possible? Andrew Wilson hints at this when he says that Equiano had a deep conviction of his own sin that was greater than his awareness of another person’s sin. Let me let Equiano describe it. This is from his book, The Narrative:

“Again, I was convinced that the Lord was better to me than I deserved, and I was better off in the world than many. … I was sensible of the invisible hand of God, which guided and protected me, when in truth I knew it not; still the Lord pursued me, although I slighted and disregarded it; this mercy melted me down. When I considered my poor, wretched state, I wept, seeing what a great debtor I was to sovereign free grace.”

Now pause. A great debtor? A former slave, a great debtor? See, he is not viewing himself as a perpetual victim. Something has changed as he’s seen his own heart, not just the heart of the villainous people who enslaved him— which is real, and he fought against that, he wrote against that. He was part of removing that from the British Empire. We’re not negating that. But his deepest conviction was first his own heart. And then the Lord saved him,

“Oh! The amazing things of that hour can never be told – it was joy in the Holy Ghost! I felt an astonishing change. … By free grace I was persuaded that I had a part and lot in the first resurrection, and was enlightened with the ‘light of the living.’”

This is a miracle of God’s grace. We instinctively see the other person’s depravity. Interview an Israeli about a Palestinian or a Palestinian about an Israeli. We see the other person as the problem. A Republican about a Democrat, or a Democrat about a Republican. We can tell you what’s wrong with them. What Paul is saying is we need to start with our own heart. That doesn’t just make salvation personal, which it is, but it has huge implications on society and changes the way we view and interact with other people. Let’s pray.

Father, you are starting with us. You know my heart. I can so easily try to work at getting the speck out of the other’s eye and be blind to the beam in my own. Thank you for opening my eyes. Through soaking in Romans 3, you’ve helped me see things that I was blind to in my own heart. We pray that you would do that in us today. I pray specifically that you would protect those with overly sensitive consciences and can hear a message like this and it can cause them to spiral. Comfort them with your mercy. I pray for those with overly insensitive consciences who tend to think this is a sermon for someone else that, Spirit, you would do that diverse work simultaneously of comforting and convicting. Lord, your gospel levels us and shows us we all have the same problem, we all have the same solution, and we beg you that you would teach us to stand firm in truth. Without arrogance. With humility. Showing perfect courtesy toward all people. Somehow, we have grown to believe that if we show perfect courtesy toward all people, somehow, we think we’re compromising, if we’re not a jerk. So, Lord help us live out the life of Jesus in us. Bear the fruit of the Spirit in us, fruit of love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. We praise you in Jesus’ name. Amen.