Pastor Hirsch has been preaching though Romans for several weeks, now, and all he seems to want to talk about is sin and how sinful people are and how desperately far from God everyone is. Isn't Romans about the gospel and grace and justification and faith and other good stuff like that? Let's get off this sin thing and get on to what Paul is really talking about! Why all the talk about sin?
The answer, of course, is that Pastor Hirsch has been focusing on sin because Paul is focusing on sin. Paul begins in Romans 1:18 saying, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth," and continues until he concludes in 3:9 with "What then? Are Jews any better off? No, not at all, for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin." Paul spends the intervening two chapters explaining exactly why the wrath of God has been revealed and why all are under sin.
And the talk of sin continues, even as Paul moves into a long discussion of justification by faith. The number of occurrences of the word 'sin' in the book of Romans is concentrated in chapters 4-7, so Paul has only just breached the topic in this book. In fact, a quick-and-dirty word frequency study of my English copy of Romans reveals that sin is mentioned more times (46) than faith (40), grace (20), hope (16), justified (11) or any of the other words we commonly associate with this book. So Pastor Hirsch has focused on sin because Paul has been focusing -- and will continue to focus -- on sin. But why, then does Paul focus so heavily on sin?
Paul first hints at his purpose in the verse just before he talks about God's revealed wrath. In 1:17 he says that "in [the gospel] the righteous of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, 'The righteous shall live by faith.'" One purpose for talking so much about sin is to make it abundantly clear that righteousness is by faith and not by anything good within ourselves. Jesus said that "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners" (Mark 2:17; cf. Matt. 9:12-13; Luke 5:31-32).
The second hint we get at Paul's purpose comes after he states God's solution (3:21-26) to humanity's hopeless, sinful state (1:18--3:20). In 3:27-28, he asks, "Then what becomes of our boasting?" and immediately answers, "It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law." Another purpose for talking so much about sin is to squash any thought that we are justified by something we have done. In describing our sinful condition, Paul wants to obliterate any possibility that justification is based on any merit of our own.
You see, it is only when we understand sin that we can understand faith. It in only when we understand Romans 1-3 that we can understand the rest of the book. The cure is academic if we count ourselves healthy, and the doctor is irrelevant if we imagine that we can treat ourselves.
This is critical for those who are not yet in Christ. No one will ever seek the gift of the cross who has not come face to face with sin and God's resulting wrath, at least not in a way that leads to repentance and new life. In fact, we've seen this borne out on our body as some who have been confronted with this message over the past weeks have seen their need for a savior and have turned to Christ.
This is also critical for those who are in Christ. The New Testament repeatedly emphasises where we came from as evidence of the greatness of where we are now. We should never tire of looking at who we used to be and rejoicing that that's who we used to be. I am not nearly as astonished to be alive as Lazarus must have been because the taste of death was fresh in his mouth (so to speak). The greatness of God in salvation is proportional to the desperateness of the condition he saved me from.
Finally, all this talk about sin is not an end to itself. It wasn't for Paul and shouldn't be for us. That can only lead to guilt and shame and doubt, where Paul's intended destination for us is faith and grace and hope and love. Jesus tells us that "he who is forgiven little, loves little" (Luke 7:47). Let us who are in Christ take every opportunity to savor how much we have been forgiven, and let it fuel our love for God and for each other in Christ.
Press on!
Greg