Every Single Person Has Sinned
(Romans 3:9-20)

The apostle Paul sat down to write a letter to the Christians in Rome. He had never visited them before, but he wanted them to understand a very important truth. Paul had been a teacher of God's law for many years. He knew the law inside and out. But something had changed his life completely. Paul had met Jesus on the road to Damascus, and now he knew that following the law could never save anyone. Only Jesus could do that.

Paul wrote, "What shall we conclude then? Are we any better?" He was asking about the Jewish people and the Gentiles - that means everyone who was not Jewish. Some people thought that being born a Jew made them special to God. Others thought that Gentiles were hopeless sinners. But Paul said something surprising. He said that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin. Every single person has sinned. No one is better than anyone else when it comes to sin.

Paul went on to quote from the Old Testament, the holy writings that God had given to His people long ago. He pulled together verses from Psalms and Isaiah to make his point clear. He wrote, "There is no one righteous, not even one." Righteous means being perfectly good and right in God's eyes. Paul said that no one understands God on their own. No one seeks after God. Everyone has turned away from God. Together, all people have become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one person.

Paul did not stop there. He kept piling up evidence from the Scriptures. He quoted verses about the mouth, the tongue, and the feet. He wrote that people's tongues practice deceit - that means they tell lies. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are quick to rush into violence and shed blood. Wherever they go, they leave behind ruin and misery. They do not know the way of peace. And worst of all, there is no fear of God before their eyes. That means they do not show respect or awe for the Creator of the universe.

Paul was painting a picture of the whole human race. Every person - from the most religious to the most rebellious - has sinned against God. No one can stand before God and say, "I have always been good." The evidence from the Old Testament was clear. All people are guilty. The prophet Isaiah had written hundreds of years earlier that all of us have gone astray. King David had written in the Psalms that no one does good. Paul was showing that this was not a new problem. It had been true from the very beginning.

Then Paul explained something that might sound strange at first. He said that the law - the rules God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai - was not meant to make people righteous. That was never its purpose. The law was given to make people conscious of their sin. Think of it like a mirror. When you look in a mirror, you see dirt on your face. The mirror does not clean your face. It just shows you that you are dirty. In the same way, the law shows us our sin. It helps us see that we have broken God's commands. But the law cannot wash away our sin. It cannot make us clean. It only points out that we need to be washed.

Paul wanted the Romans to understand that no one will be declared righteous by observing the law. The law was like a teacher that points to a problem. The problem is that every single person has sinned and falls short of God's glory. No one can fix that problem on their own. The law makes us aware of our sin so that we will look for someone who can save us. And that someone is Jesus Christ. He came to do what the law could never do. He lived a perfect, sinless life and then died on the cross to take the punishment for our sins. He rose from the dead to give us new life. The law shows us our need. Jesus meets our need.

So Paul's message to the Romans was clear and simple. All people have sinned. No one is righteous on their own. The law shows us our sin but cannot save us. Only Jesus can save us. That is the good news of the gospel. We all need a Savior, and Jesus is that Savior.