Why should Jesus die if men are not sinners? Why should anybody try to save sinners if men are not sinners? And if they are only small sinners, and if they can correct and atone for their own sins, why the horrible sufferings of Jesus on Calvary? The death of Christ was a stupid blunder, a terrible, senseless crime, unless men are sinners doomed to an awful Hell just like the Bible teaches. - John R. Rice [Twelve Tremendous Themes, pg. 54]
The Bible teaching about sin is the only safeguard against false religions. Only the blood of Christ can solve the sin question. Self-righteousness, lodge membership, religious rites and ceremonies, human priest-craft and other fake remedies will never satisfy the heart that has learned the truth about the awful depravity of the human heart--the fact that "there is no difference: for all have sinned." That is why God's Holy Spirit inspired this passage in the third chapter of Romans, that "all the world may become guilty before God" (verse 19). "By the law is the knowledge of sin," says verse 20. So Paul preached the law to show men they were sinners and to stop the mouth of every self-righteous boaster, to stop alibis and excuses until all should see themselves guilty, condemned before God! - John R. Rice [Twelve Tremendous Themes, pg. 54]
"There is none that seeketh after God" (Rom. 3:11). Man is not righteous, does not understand God and His ways, and worse yet, does not even seek after God nor try to find the goodness of God. What is wrong with man is not only that he is a sinner by nature, but that he is a sinner by choice as well! - John R. Rice [Twelve Tremendous Themes, pg. 56]
"They are all gone out of the way" (Rom. 3:12). Here we find that the sinner not only does not seek God, he does deliberately go away from God. People are not LED away from God, do not primarily DRIFT away, but GO away of their own choice. Satan tempts us, but we have a wicked nature that gladly listens and cooperates with Satan's efforts to get us to sin. Sin comes from the heart, not from outside. - John R. Rice [Twelve Tremendous Themes, pg. 56]
"They are together become unprofitable" (Rom. 3:12). Man is so far gone as to be unprofitable to God. God will never get back His investment in man, man can never pay his way since by nature men are such sinners. Therefore any kind dealing toward man must be on the basis of God's unmerited mercy. There is no ground of justice by which man could claim anything but condemnation and destruction. So when a Christian worker does all he can do, even to dying for the Saviour who loves him, he must say, "I am an unprofitable servant" (Luke 17:10). - John R. Rice [Twelve Tremendous Themes, pg. 56]
"There is none that doeth good, no, not one" (Rom. 3:12). Men do not think this is so. They think that men do good in some respects, even unsaved men, heathen men. But God says, "No, not one!" All man's goodness is a fake goodness just as Satan's minister appear as angels of light. Men often, like the Pharisees, "outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity," Jesus said (Matt. 23:28). In God's sight even "the plowing of the wicked, is sin" (Prov. 21:4). Even the prayer of the wicked is an abomination (Prov. 28:9). "The flesh profiteth nothing" (John 6:63). - John R. Rice [Twelve Tremendous Themes, pg. 56]
"Destruction and misery are in their ways" (Rom. 3:16). This is not EVOLUTION, it is DEVOLUTION. It is not man climbing upward; it is man degenerating. Human government, human culture, human morals, have an inescapable tendency toward destruction and ruin. The whole world is getting farther from God, with governments less stable, life and property less secure, homes less happy, and ruin inevitable for the race as a whole. - John R. Rice [Twelve Tremendous Themes, pg. 56-57]
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