Every session has a point—what each participant should walk away from the discussion knowing, feeling, and doing.

Main Idea: The purpose of God’s law is to show us our need for redemption and point us to Jesus, the one through whom our salvation comes.

Head Change: To know that the law cannot remove our need for salvation but illuminates our need for salvation.

Heart Change: To feel convicted that we’re unable to keep the law and grateful for God’s grace.

Life Change: To cease all attempts to earn salvation and depend instead on the grace of God offered in Christ.

As we discussed in the last session, religion, or moral rule-keeping, is often used as a mechanism for earning salvation: we obey a so-called moral law, we achieve moral “goodness”, then we experience salvation. Simple as that.

But the law was never meant to remove our need for salvation, it was meant to illuminate our need for salvation. When we use religion and law-keeping to earn salvation, we prove our ignorance. In this session, J.D. will help us better understand the goodness of God’s law.

Read Romans 3:1–20.

Show Session 4: Romans 3:1–20 (12 minutes).

In Romans 3, Paul continues building his argument that moral rule-keeping, or following the law, cannot save us—it cannot fix the problem of our sinfulness. Reflecting on previous sessions, why are religion and religious activity unable to grant us salvation?

In what ways have you used religion either to mask your need to be saved or as a means of saving yourself?

In these first eight verses, Paul addresses an objection he anticipated from his readers about the “advantage” of being Jewish and the “benefit” of the law. Why, according to J.D., would Paul’s readers object to what he has said thus far in Romans 1 and 2 regarding religion’s inability to save?

Paul raises several questions that continue to pester us today. In verse 3, for instance, he asks if our acts of unfaithfulness cancel out God’s faithfulness. In verse 5, he asks if God is unrighteous to exact wrath upon us when we sin. How does Paul answer these questions? If a friend or neighbor asked you one of these questions today, how would you answer them? 

Paul raises another question in verse 7: Why should we be judged when our sin could magnify God’s grace? But this question may lead us to the insidious conclusion summarized in verse 8: “Let us do what is evil so that good may come.” Have you ever heard someone asking a form of Paul’s question in verse 7? When we view sin primarily as something that magnifies God’s grace, how does that lead us to “do evil so that good may come”?

What Paul is describing in these verses is our tendency to take advantage of the grace of God. When we try to justify our sin by saying God will extend grace to us, so we might as well sin, we fall into what theologians call the sin of presumption. Have you ever justified sinning by saying your sin would be covered by God’s grace? Why is the sin of presumption a dangerous one to fall into?

To further establish his claim that religion can’t transform hearts, Paul says in verse 9 “both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin.” How does Paul’s statement that all are under sin support the argument that religion, apart from the gospel, is powerless to save?

J.D. said, “to prove that he’s not introducing anything new,” Paul grounds his claim with this phrase: “as it is written” (v. 10). In other words, Paul is arguing from the Bible. Why was it important for Paul, in this instance, to reason from God’s Word?

In our current moment, when truth is seen as subjective, why is it important for us to root our reasoning in God’s Word?

Paul goes on to quote several Old Testament passages (v. 10–18), proving his point that “all are under sin.” When you read verses 10–18, what words and phrases stand out most to you? Why?

Paul quotes Psalm 14:3, saying that not even one person is righteous. In other words, no matter how good a person is, they can never be good enough to earn God’s favor. When it comes to sin, no one is innocent. Who in your life have you assumed is completely righteous? How does this passage correct your assumptions?

Going further, Paul says “there is no one who understands.” J.D. described Paul’s statement saying, “our sin makes us distort and corrupt the truth about God.” What are some ways we tend to distort and corrupt the truth about God?

The result of our unrighteousness and lack of understanding is that “there is no one who seeks God . . . All have turned away” and “become worthless.” What does it look like to turn away from God? In what ways does our behavior prove that we have turned away from God?

Paul goes further, still, cementing all of humanity’s status as sinners with one final statement, quoting Psalm 36:1: “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” As sinners, we are not righteous, do not understand God, and, as a result, do not think we need to pay any attention to him. All of us are indicted under these charges. In what ways do we tend to disregard or ignore God in our day-to-day life? In what ways does a lack of fear of God keep us living in sin?

 J.D. said most people don’t feel their need to be saved because we’ve never realized how truly lost we are. Have you come to the place of realizing how lost you are? When did you understand your need to be saved? What was that experience like?

As we learned in this session, the purpose of God’s law is to show us our need for redemption and point us to Jesus. In what areas of your life might you be trying to earn God’s attention, favor, or blessings? What could it look like for you to stop working for the redemption God has already given to you in Christ?

Humankind is inherently religious. Whether overt or hidden, religious or irreligious, our expressions of devotion reveal our innate pursuit of salvation, even if we don’t recognize it as such. Apart from Christ, all our religious pursuits fall short because religion was never meant to achieve salvation for us.

So, what is religion good for? It is meant to reveal our sin and to point us to our need for saving. It is meant to bring us to the place where we cry out to God for his grace because there is nothing we can do to fix our brokenness.

This week, what could you do to reacquaint yourself with your ongoing need for the gospel? Spend a few focused moments reading through Romans 3:10–18, and then look forward to the good news we’ll encounter in Session 5.