UPON WHAT GROUNDS COMES MAN’S SENTENCE OF GUILT? Rom.3:19-21

Are you someone who has been taught to believe that everyone has been put under the law to make them guilty before God for sins defined by the law? If so then this message will help you find your way free from that deception.

And it is a deception. Because what that thinking does is make people believe in a salvation by works doctrine. One in which someone’s good works are needed to make you righteous.

One place that is used by such people to propagate this deception is found in Rom.3 where Paul says,

Rom. 3:19 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.

20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Does this scripture place all men under the law? So that because they are under the law they are guilty by their violation of it? Is this what makes all men guilty before God? The short answer is no. But, to understand why the short answer is no we must look deeper at this question.

Here Paul says that whatever the law says it says only to them that are under it. See that? Only to them that are under it. To see who that is ask yourself this question. To whom did God give the law? Israel for sure. So for Israel alone there was condemnation by the law.

But, was there anyone else? Is there somewhere the scripture says God gave the law to anyone other than Israel? The short answer agin is no there is not. Look all you want in the Old Testament and you will find no one except Israel through Moses given the law.

But, in the New Covenant we see that even the Jew who was originally given the law, and held accountable and under condemnation by God to keep it, is set free from it through faith in Jesus so that he will no longer be a slave to it. This is Paul’s message to the Jew in Rom.6,7, and 8.

In Deut.4:44 we see the scriptures clearly saying, “44 And this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel:

45 These are the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which Moses spake unto the children of Israel, after they came forth out of Egypt.” And again in Lev.26:46 saying, “46 These are the statutes and judgments and laws, which the Lord made between him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.”

This makes it so abundantly clear that the law and it’s condemnation was only ever given to and for Israel why would anyone come to the conclusion that for all men to be guilty before God they had to first be placed under the law? The answer. Because these people have only learned about sin as it is defined by the law. And apart from the law they have no concept how else sin can be defined. They are stuck in the wrong covenant.

Even though Paul tells the Jew in Rom.2:12 that there are 2 ways God judges men. One is “by the law” for those who were under it. And the other is “apart from the law” for those who are without the law.

What?! There is a judgment for those who were never under the law? Then why do churches teach that everyone was placed under the law to make all men guilty before God? And what is this judgment for sin that is apart from the law?

Jesus defines this sin that is apart from the law in John16 when He said that when the Holy Spirit comes He will reprove the world of the sin of unbelief. By saying this Jesus makes this sin the only sin the Holy Spirit will be here reproving the world of after Jesus has gone to be with the Father.

Which means that this is the only sin men are currently judged for regarding salvation. Let me say that again. This means that the only sin the world is being judged for regarding salvation is the sin of unbelief. Let that sink in.

The reason it is the only sin He reproves the world of is because it is now, and has always been, the only sin that can separate men from God. And when a man does believe he is joined to God by a spirit God creates in him. He is born again. Born of the Spirit of God. Because as Jesus said in John3, “what is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

So this is what takes care of the sin problem for man. When he believes in Jesus he is no longer a sinner, but righteous. A righteous man who in 1John3:9 John says can not sin specifically because he is born of God. And is why in 1Tim.1:9 Paul says, “Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man…”

The righteous man can not not believe in Jesus. Because he is joined to him by the spiritual birth that took place in him when his trust in Jesus made him righteous and was born again.

So this inability to sin has nothing to do with sins defined by the law. Because he who is born again in his relationship with Jesus has no consciousness of sin as it is defined by the law. That consciousness was purged. He no longer thinks in terms of “the law of sin and death.” The law of condemnation and death written in stone.

Because Paul tells us in Rom.8:2 that the Jew has been delivered from this. Something the gentile never had need of because he was never under the law. Nor will he ever be. Which is why the guilt all men are under can not be by the law.

Because as the Jew who believes in Jesus is delivered from the law. So too is the gentile who believes in Jesus delivered from their unbelief and from idols to serve the living and true God.

And in Heb.9:14 Paul says again that the Jew who believes in Jesus has his conscience purged from those dead works of the law to serve the living God. And that it is “for this cause He(Jesus) is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.”

So it is the salvation by works under the law doctrine that Jesus was referring to in Mt.18 when speaking of the leaven of the Pharisees. He said, “11 How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees?

12 Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.”

These religious leaders in Israel then, as it is today in churches everywhere, are they who God tells us to beware of. And their leaven is the false doctrine they teach. False doctrine that led Israel to believe that they were righteous by the works of the law. And false doctrine that puts people under the law to make them guilty before God who were never given the law or meant to be under it.

For Israel it was salvation by the works of the law. And for us today it is strangely enough still salvation by works. A message that comes from the false doctrine of original sin and sin nature that was codified through the teachings of Augustine. A doctrine that is taught in every church today since the time of Augustine. A doctrine that is of the spirit of antichrist because it denies that Jesus came in the same flesh all men have.

And propagated through Augustine’s disciples John Calvin, Martin Luther, seminaries, and others. As it makes works the focus concerning salvation. Rather than faith which is simply to believe in Jesus unto eternal life.

This is why when the churches read Rom.3:19,20 they see all men put under the law to make them accountable for keeping it. So that this is what they teach makes all men guilty before God that creates their need for Jesus.

But, as we can now see this was not where the guilt Paul was speaking about came from. This guilt is the result of not knowing Jesus. Not having a personal relationship with Him as a result of a personal faith in Him. A faith that would make them children of God and heirs to His kingdom.

This guilt is that the way, truth, and life, had not delivered them from being only natural to become also spiritual. This guilt is in relation to the person Jesus. Not a relationship to laws written in stone.

It is not a guilty feeling Paul is talking about here. It is a real guilt established by the fact that only knowing Jesus can save men from death to life. And instead the guilty have rejected Him. So that when they stand before God at the judgment they will be without excuse. Having heard the gospel and rejecting it.

If you are in this place of being guilty before God by not knowing Jesus. And would like to have the sentence of guilt that is when Jesus says away from me ye that work iniquity for I never knew you removed. All you have to do is trust in Jesus and His resurrection.

In Rom.10:9,10 Paul says that if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus. And believe in your heart that He has raised from the dead. You shall be saved. By doing this you have believed which makes you righteous before God. And have confessed Jesus and are saved.

Do this and a spirit will be created in you by God that joins you to Him for eternity. Do this and you will be made His child and therefore heir to His kingdom. Do this and you will have eternal life now, and immortality at the resurrection. Do this… and I will see you there or in the air!

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