7 Ways Sin Affects us from Romans 3:10-18
Below are 7 ways that sin affects us from Romans 3:10-18. The following affects of sin are why we need the gospel. This blog serves simply to remind believers that the gospel is not only what saves you, but also what sustains your salvation. Without the gospel, we would have absolutely no hope of salvation. As you read, read through the lens of the finished work of Christ.
1 Sin affects our legal standing:
10 ...as it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one.
Righteousness is a legal term. To be righteous is to have right standing before God. It means not being guilty of sin. Paul reminds us, here, that no one, by themselves, has a right standing before God. So legally, before God, we are all guilty. This is the first way that sin affects us. To be in sin is to be guilty before God.
2 Sin affects our minds:
11a There is no one who understands…
Because we are sinners by nature, which means that every part of our being is affected by sin, we are darkened in our understanding (Ep 4:18). It’s not that our lack of knowledge of God causes us to be sinners, but the fact that we are sinners causes us to have a lack of knowledge of God. Knowledge of God, in this sense, is understanding and intimacy.
Psalm 14:1 (which is where Paul got this from) says, “the fool says in his heart, ‘there is no God.” The literal translation of this verse is, “the fool says in his heart, no God.” Our sin causes us to be foolish. Because of our unrighteousness, or guilt before God, it is more natural for us to suppress the truth about God than it is for us to seek after God (Rom 1:18). And when we suppress the truth about God, or say NO to God, our ignorance of God gets worse and worse.
3 Sin affects our motives:
11b ...there is no one who seeks God.
Because our very nature is affected by sin, which is opposed to God, naturally we don’t want to seek after God. Which also means that God has to seek after us in order for us to know him. Because it is our natural inclination to say no to God, we are motivated by over-desires. An over-desire is an idol. We make something an idol when we worship it instead of God. Idolatry is taking a good thing and making it a god-thing. And we make a good thing a god-thing when we seek after it instead of God.
4 Sin affects our desires:
12 All have turned away;
All alike have become worthless.
There is no one who does what is good,
Not even one.
Again, because sin affects every part of our nature, we are self-determined people. Even when we do good, most of the time we are motivated by something we want and not serving others. Tim Keller defines sin as our demand for self-determination. “It’s my right to choose what path I take in my life and you cannot tell me any different. I’m going to do what I want.”
When we talk about our ‘wills’ we are talking about our desires. What we desire we seek after. The great thing about desiring and seeking after God is that God has already done everything necessary for us to receive him. And when we receive him, we become like him. One of the saddest realities about the way sin affects our desires is that when we desire and seek after something that is not God, we become the sum of that thing. Whatever that may be. When we seek after and desire worthless things, we in turn become worthless (Jer 2:5) and our desires are never fulfilled.
5 Sin affects our words:
13 Their throat is an open grave;
They deceive with their tongues.
Vipers venom is under their lips.
14 Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.
Our words are like an open grave. Because every part of our nature is affected by sin, our words, BY NATURE, are deceitful, poisonous, bitter, and full of curses. With our mouths we lie to protect ourselves and to curse or damage others. The image that Paul uses here comes from Psalm 5:9. It is the image of a grave with dead and rotting bodies in it. Our minds, our motives, our wills, and our words are proof that we are deeply affected by sin. All of us.
6 Sin affects our relationships with people:
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 Ruin and wretchedness are in their paths,
17 And the path of peace they have not known.
Loving our neighbors as ourselves is the second greatest commandment which is like the first (Matt 22:39). Because of our guilt before God, our lack of knowledge of God, our desires, and our words, sin affects the way we relate to people.
I’m just going to quote Tim Keller on this one because he says it so well, “This is how sin affects our relationships: we are after each other’s blood— sometimes literally, more often in seeking to push down those who get in our way. Why do we become angry with people? Because they have blocked us from access to an idol— they have compromised our comfort, or prevented a promotion, or made us feel out of control, or are enjoying a relationship we feel we need. When we do not live enjoying God’s approval in the gospel, we do not know peace ourselves, nor can we live in peace with others.”
7 Sin affects our relationship with God:
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
Sin affects every part of us. And where our sin leads us is having no fear of God. Having no fear of God means having no faith. If you have no fear of God that means that you have forgotten just how bad your sin is. Faith begins with believing what God says about salvation. God says that you are a sinner. Sin deserves death. That’s how bad your sin is. Having no fear of God means that you’ve forgotten, or don’t know, that you deserve to die. And if you don’t believe that you deserve to die because of your sin, that means that you are trusting in something else that’s not God for salvation.
Sin causes us to lack the fear of God. And when we talk about fear, we are talking about reverence. Having a reverence for God means understanding that God is bigger and more powerful than anything you could ever imagine. God is completely good, holy, and just. And God, being a just God cannot allow sin to go unpunished.