Many assume that their church membership and moral standing will shield them
on the day of judgement.  We tend to see ourselves as “good people”, at least in comparison to the wicked people out there. The one point Paul is seeking to pound home is that there is no native difference among men. All, from the most godly Jew to the most reprobate Gentile, are “under sin”. 

If you ask the question: “What’s wrong with the world?”, the human mind will
immediately look outward in search of answers. But Paul answers the question in a profoundly different way: the problem with the world is the universal bondage to sin – and it starts right here in every human heart.

Paul’s goal, in this portion of the letter, is to help people understand that we really are
worse than we imagined; to understand that our sin problem goes far beyond a struggle
here and that the law leaves us helpless and hopeless under the judgment of God. He
wants people to understand this precisely so that they will cast aside all self-salvation
projects and trust for salvation in Christ and Christ alone.

It is the issue of false assurance that Paul addresses in our text. He’s speaking to Jews
who fully believed in the coming day of judgement and yet felt no need to come to Jesus
Christ for salvation. This is exactly the world we live in. God has said that there is a coming moment of crisis, when this world will crash to a halt, and every person that ever lived will stand before the judgement throne of God.

The primary purpose of this letter to the Romans is to display the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ as the power of God unto salvation. Paul wants people to personally experience its glorious saving power. The only way to experience the gospel truth in life is to accept the designation as sinner. 

Every one of us has done wicked things that have confounded us. What were we thinking? Why do we do things we know are wrong? Why do we do things that we know will offend our Lord and deeply wound those who love? The great evil of mankind is that we did not see fit to acknowledge God as God.  

Our text deals with one of the most perplexing questions of our time: How did our culture become so perverse? Paul is out to prove that the gospel is the one and only hope for this world – and that salvation must, by necessity, be a free gift of grace received by faith.

Paul’s letter deals very specifically with the reality of man’s sin. Paul’s purpose in this is not to discourage. He isn’t angrily rebuking his readers. He is patiently, carefully, like a skilled doctor of the soul, explaining what is wrong with you. It is essential that you have a correct understanding of the reality of our soul disease. 

God reveals himself to be both a God of wrath and a God of love – and in fact the category of wrath exists precisely because of God’s love. The gospel is the stunning news of God’s infinite love in which He rescued us from His own holy and just wrath through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross bearing our sin.

Paul delights not only in that fact that God saves sinners through the gospel – but in HOW God saves through the gospel. The gospel is specifically the proclamation of God saving lost sinners by not by their works, not by asking them to do their best, but by granting to sinners the gift of righteousness freely received by faith