Romans 3:11 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Romans 3:11

Comments

‘There is none that understandeth.’ The reference is to Psalm 53:2. Paul, under inspiration, takes what is a narrative in the psalm, and turns it into a statement. The Lord who sees all things, has made this search, and found that not one human being is searching for God. Man, by all his investigation of the created world, has learned nothing about the true God. Therefore we cannot turn to human learning to find out about God. We can only learn about him from his revealed truth.Nobody understands the purpose of life: why God has created things, what his plan is, what he will do about fallen mankind, what it is to seek him and to repent of sin and to trust in Christ who came to be our Saviour. If so then it is not our fault, if we don't understand! Oh, but it is, because this is wilful. We don't understand, because we don't want to understand. We don't want God. We don't want to seek him and obey him and be under his jurisdiction and his rule, serving him. Right from dawning consciousness and the earliest years of our responsible lives, we don't want him. I refuse to understand. ‘There is none that seeketh after God.’ Here you have the unreasonableness of fallen human nature. Why is it unreasonable? Because we have got minds, a rational faculty. There is a Creator, and if we thought just the smallest amount about this, we could see that this world hasn't just come about by accident. What are the implications of there being a Creator? The Creator must at the very least be bigger than I am, and more than I am. If I have consciousness and thought and intelligence and feelings as a created being, then my Maker must have all those things in order to have designed them and made them. It is inconceivable that a Creator could make things bigger than himself or more expansive than himself. That's ridiculous. If he had such power and he lacked those things, then he would give them to himself. So the slightest thought tells me that God is personal; he is a living being. God sees me; he has a view about me. God has a reason for all this. He is findable, and perhaps he can be related to. All that is so obvious. The implications crowd in upon us, but we push them away. We don't want them; we are so unreasonable.

Application

If I find myself clothed with standards of conduct which I can't keep because I have an intrinsic weakness, so that I fall into sin and choose to do so often, then God must be better than that. He will be faultless. I need the Holy One, the true and the living God. Can I find him? Can I find out about him? You would think that we would all be to some extent seeking, searching, inquiring, wondering about God, but we are not. We are running from him.

‘There is none that seeketh after God.’ This is the extent of human depravity: we will not even search for God until his Spirit draws us irresistibly to Christ. ‘But surely,’ people say, ‘human beings want to find God. Look how much effort they put into religion.’ People may say, ‘I would like to come to church; I would like a ticket to heaven; I would like some religious information’, but until God shakes us we do not really want God. We do not want to serve him and love him, yield our lives to him, and obey him. There is no one will understand, there is no one who really seeks and thirsts after God. If there is none that understands, then how is anybody going to be saved? It is only because God makes us understand. As the gospel is proclaimed, in his wonderful mercy he touches our hearts, and we see it. We suddenly say, ‘Is it as bad as that? Is my need as great as that?’ and we are awakened spiritually.

What we do instead – which is an act of rebellion – is to create our own gods. ‘Yes, I know there is something there; I know there is a Creator. But I want one that suits me, so I will invent a god.’ That's why there are thousands of religions. The human race is very good at this. What sort of a god will I invent and create for myself? Well, I'll create a god that will pat me on the head, and approve of me no matter what I do. I'll create for myself a god that won't mind my sin. I'll create a god who's only there if I want good fortune or healing, or something for me to carry on with my life as I want it. So there are thousands of religions that are all catering along these lines. There's only religion one in the world that says, ‘No, God is one and true and holy, and you are a sinner. You are alienated from him, but he has revealed himself and he has provided a way of salvation to draw you near.’ There is only one and you must repent of your sin and yield to him and he will rebuild you and you will walk with him, and know him and you'll be heaven-bound. But we don't want that god, so there is none that understand it. There is none that seeketh after the true God, only the phony gods that will give me what I want.

Questions

What do we not understand before we are saved? We may know the outline. I knew about God even as an unbeliever. I knew about Christ. I knew about his death on Calvary. Many people do not even know that, but some of us do, even before conversion, even if we do not come from Christian homes. I knew the theory of how Christ died in the place of sinners, to be their sin-bearer, their representative, to atone for their sin. In what way did I not understand it? I understood the theory, but I did not grasp that I really was condemned, and would perish, and die, and be judged, and go to hell. That part of it seemed to be fairy tale; that part of it did not seem realistic and true. I did not understand the predicament, the danger. There are those who know the theory very well, but they do not understand it is true – you are condemned, you will perish; God is against you; God must punish you for all the lightness and all the sin. That is what we have to come to understand.

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Romans 3:11 Commentary and Bible Study

The meaning of Romans 3:11 explained