Romans 3:19-26
After trial and conviction, before the judge utters the sentence, he asks the prisoner if he has anything to say why sentence should not be pronounced upon him. So every human soul is tried at the bar of divine law and convicted and stands dumb. “What things so ever the law saith, it saith … that every mouth may be stopped.” No one can claim to have kept the law without ever breaking it. We have but to read this chapter from the beginning to see where we all stand. We are all guilty before God. The man without the wedding garment, when he stood before the host, was speechless. He had no excuse to offer for his lack of proper dress. He was guilty and could not say a word in extenuation of his guilt. So do men stand before the divine law. They are dressed only in rags; they have not on a wedding garment. They are speechless, too, when accused, for the garment was provided for them and offered to them, and they rejected it.
Some people fancy that their morality is enough to save them. They do not know what they are saying. Paul said, “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight.” As well hope to climb to the stars by going up the tallest mountain, as to gain heaven by the best moralities. Moralities are only a few tinseled garments put on a dead body. No man can live well enough to merit salvation. No one can live without sin, and wherever there is sin, even the least, the law is broken and its penalties are incurred. “The wages of sin is death.” There have been some very holy people in this world, who have lived very close to God in faithful obedience and loving service; but there never has been one who was received into heaven on the ground of his own good works. The law is so broad and deep, extending not only to acts and words, but to thoughts, motives, feelings and affections, that is utterly impossible for any fallen being fully and perfectly to meet all its demands. If this verse were the last word of the Bible; if the book of inspiration revealed to us only the law and our sinfulness, inability and guilt, declaring that by our own works none of us ever can be justified in God’s sight, it would be a dark and terrible finality. But thank God, this is not the last word. We are not left without hope.
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