The Guilt of All Men: The Conduct of the Accused

Romans 3:15-17

¹⁵ “Their feet are swift to shed blood; ¹⁶ Destruction and misery are in their ways; ¹⁷ And the way of peace they have not known.”

(Verse 15-17) - The last three charges in Paul’s indictment relate to the conduct of the natural man. The eleventh charge is that the ungodly are innately murderous: their feet are swift to shed blood. The quotation in this and the two following verses is abridged or condensed from Isa. 59:7-8. The expressions occur in the midst of a description of the character of the nation in the time of the prophet. The apostle has selected a few expressions out of many, rather making a reference to the entire passage, than a formal quotation. The expression, “their feet are swift,” etc., denotes the eagerness of the nation to commit crime, particularly deeds of injustice and cruelty. They thirsted for the blood of innocence, and hasted to shed it, to gratify their malice, or to satisfy their vengeance.

The cannibalism that still exists in a few primitive tribes and the mass executions of innocent civilians that have taken place in numerous “developed” countries in modern times are but extreme manifestations of the basically destructive disposition of fallen mankind. The nineteenth-century Scottish evangelist Robert Haldane wrote, “The most savage animals do not destroy so many of their own species to appease their hunger, as man destroys of his fellows’, to satiate his ambition, his revenge, or his cupidity [greed]”

Even in the United States, with its Christian heritage, since the turn of the twentieth century twice as many of its citizens have been slain in private acts of murder than have been killed in all the wars of its entire history. According to researcher Arnold Barnett of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a child born today in any one of the fifty largest cities in the United States has the chance of one in fifty of being murdered. Dr. Barnett estimated that a baby born in the 1980s is more likely to be murdered than an American soldier in World War II was of being killed in combat.

Whether in peace or in war, man kills man. The mass exterminations by Nazis and Marxists in our own century have their counterparts in past history. The notorious terrorist Chang Hsien-chung in seventeenth-century China killed practically all the people in the Szechwan province. During that same century in Hungary, a certain countess systematically tortured and murdered more than six hundred young girls.

Obviously most people are far from possessing such extreme brutality. But Scripture makes clear that the seed of murder is one of a multitude of evil seeds that are universally found in every human heart and that, to some degree, inevitably grow and bear fruit.

The twelfth charge in the overall indictment, and the second one that is manifested in man’s conduct, is that of general destructiveness. Destruction and misery are in their paths. Destruction is a compound word that denotes breaking in pieces and completely shattering, causing total devastation. That is, they “cause” the destruction or the ruin of the reputation, happiness, and peace of others.

The manifestation of wanton destruction is becoming more and more evident in much of modern society. Victims are often robbed or raped and then beaten or murdered for no reason other than sheer brutality. The terms “abused children” and “abused wives” have become common in contemporary vocabularies. Special divisions of many police departments and social service agencies are devoted specifically to dealing with the crimes and victims that those terms relate to.

Misery, or calamity and ruin, is a general term that denotes the resulting harm that is always in the wake of man’s acts of destruction against his fellow man. His destructiveness inevitably leaves a trail of pain and despair.

In their ways - Wherever they go. This is a striking description not only of the wicked then, but of all times. The tendency of their conduct is to destroy the virtue, happiness, and peace of all with whom they come in contact.

The thirteenth and last of the charges in Paul’s indictment of condemned man is that of his peacelessness: And the path of peace have they not known. What tends to promote their own happiness, or that of others, they do not regard. Intent on their plans of evil, they do not know or regard what is suited to promote the welfare of themselves or others. This is the case with all who are selfish, and who seek to gain their own purposes of crime and ambition.  The apostle is not speaking of the lack of inner peace - although that is certainly a characteristic of the ungodly person - but of man’s essential inclination away from peace. This charge is therefore something of a counterpart to the previous one. We must be careful not to lay the greatest emphasis here on the accomplishment of secular or human peace for that is not what is in view.  Paul here is speaking of the general tendency of man away from anything peaceful, and the way that shows itself is certainly in human violence and human conflict individually as well as nationally.  Bu the chief idea that needs to be grappled with in the understanding of the believer is that of spiritual peace.  Because man is inclined away from God, and thus away from spiritual peace, his life manifests the lack of the presence of God.  One of the manifestations of that presence of God is peace with our neighbors.  The solution to human conflict is not to stop fighting, that too short-sighted and too insufficient to really solve the problem in the long run.  What needs to happen is that men need to submit to the Gospel  and to God and thus truly be transformed and remove the cause of these conflicts at their root.

Peace has never been more highly extolled than in our own day. But few would argue that peace, whether personal or international, actually characterizes our times. Nevertheless, as in Jeremiah’s day, many modern leaders are trying to heal the brokenness of their people superficially crying, “Peace; peace,” when obviously there is no peace (see Jer. 6:14).

God’s Word gives much counsel as to what makes for peace, and those individuals and societies who have chosen to follow His guidance have experienced relative times of peacefulness. But Scripture makes clear that peace will never dominate human society until the Prince of Peace returns to establish His kingdom on earth. There can be no earthly peace, will be no earthly peace until then, not because we are incapable of it, but because we refuse it.  I suppose, in a sense, we could argue inability, but really, we never, in practical terms, ever get there – we get stuck at the “I don’t want to” part!  Any argument about the inability of man to receive the Gospel is, in practical terms, moot, because there is none that is even seeking, and thus, none ever gets close enough to the Gospel to have a shot at it!  Our only hope, and it is a reality and a surety the Scriptures tell us, is the return of Christ to establish His Kingdom on the earth.  It is only then that we will see righteousness exalted and holiness enacted and upheld.  Until then, sin reigns over the affairs of men and they will continue to manifest the symptoms of being dominated by sin’s ravaging power.

Note this gripping description of sin:

It is a debt, a burden, a thief, a sickness, a leprosy; a plague, poison, a serpent, a sting; everything that man hates it is; a load of curses, and calamities beneath whose crushing most intolerable pressure, the whole creation groaneth.…

Who is the hoary sexton that digs man a grave? Who is the painted temptress that steals his virtue? Who is the murderess that destroys his life? Who is this sorceress that first deceives, and then damns his soul? - Sin.

Who with icy breath, blights the fair blossoms of youth? Who breaks the hearts of parents? Who brings old men’s grey hairs with sorrow to the grave? - Sin.

Who, by a more hideous metamorphosis than Ovid even fancied, changes gentle children into vipers, tender mothers into monsters and their fathers into worse than Herods, the murderers of their own innocents? - Sin.

Who casts the apple of discord on household hearts? Who lights the torch of war, and bears it blazing over trembling lands? Who by divisions in the church, rends Christ’s seamless robe? - Sin.

Who is this Delilah that sings the Nazirite asleep and delivers up the strength of God into the hands of the uncircumcised? Who with winning smiles on her face, honey flattery on her tongue, stands in the door to offer the sacred rites of hospitality and when suspicion sleeps, treacherously pierces our temples with a nail? What fair siren is this who seated on a rock by the deadly pool smiles to deceive, sings to lure, kisses to betray, and flings her arm around our neck to leap with us into perdition? - Sin.

Who turns the soft and gentlest heart to stone? Who hurls reason from her lofty throne, and impels sinners, mad as Gadarene swine, down the precipice, into a lake of fire? - Sin.

I need to be sure that I am communicating the tremendous power of sin and the horrible effect it has on men – and thus pave the way for the declaring of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the solution to the sin problem.