“Throw the book at them!” I would say as I dropped off one of my daughters to participate in our city’s “Teen Court” program. It’s a system where teenagers pleading guilty to minor offences are redirected to a “court” of their peers for appropriate sentencing like restitution, community service, and even Teen Court service time of their own. The program seems to work as a way of holding young people (and their parents) accountable in a substantive way.
It’s general wisdom that both children and adults with no accountability system in place are more likely to misbehave. That’s one of the reasons I am very glad to be part of a denomination that supervises and holds accountable its clergy. It is a blessing, although sometimes a harsh one, to be held accountable.
Our text this Sunday from Romans 3:1-20 is focused on emphasizing that everyone is sinful, whether Jew or Gentile. In verses 10-18 Paul quotes a string of Old Testament texts, mostly from the Psalms, to that effect. Many of them emphasize the sinfulness of human speech in corrupt throats, tongues, lips and mouths.
Paul is arguing the universality of sin in order to eliminate any claim to escape accountability on the basis of presumed membership in God’s people through external Jewish identity markers like circumcision (verse 1). Though Jewishness offers an initial advantage (verse 2), it does not eliminate accountability. Verse 19 says that God will silence every mouth that claims a righteousness it does not really have.
It’s better to translate verse 20 more literally as “Therefore no flesh will be justified before him through works of the law, for through the law comes knowledge of sin.” “Works of the law” should be understood in the New Perspective on Paul sense of not all good works or commandments, but those which are specific Jewish identity markers, like circumcision or a kosher diet. In other words, Jewish identity alone does not justify; everyone is sinful and accountable before God. Mere possession of the law only heightens one’s awareness of sin.
So in chapter 2 Paul argued that both Jew and Gentile would be judged and here in chapter 3 now maintains that both Jew and Gentile will be held accountable for sin that is the universal human condition.
The whole thrust is to drive us forward into the concluding part of the chapter about the righteousness of God made available through faith in Jesus Christ (verses 22-24). But there’s nice precursor to that while still remaining in the present text, verses 3 and 4, which show us that though we are unfaithful, God remains faithful. Though every human mouth lies, God remains truthful. That is the hope in the midst of our own failure. The God to whom we are accountable is faithful and true, and continuing in the words of I John 1:9 “will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Paul wants to remove every excuse for claiming our own righteousness, whether it’s a natural goodness or an inherited connection with the people of God, and drive us toward a righteousness that results from belonging to the community of people redeemed by Jesus Christ. Acknowledging accountability is a first step toward receiving grace.