Romans 1: 18-20 Paul: The Depravity Of Man

The depravity of man
After his introduction Paul does not waste any time before he catapults into a discourse of the depravity of man. Before Paul can tell his readers of their grace and freedom in Christ, he must establish the wretched depravity of all mankind. Paul spends the first three chapters of his letter making evident the total depravity of mankind as he addresses the sin of the Gentiles, the Jews and finally all of mankind (Osborne, 44). In Romans 1:18-20 Paul addresses the sinfulness of the Gentiles as he writes of men falling away from the truth of God and following the passions of their hearts. He points out sins such as idolatry, sexuality, and immorality. As the people grow in their forgetfulness of God their own sinfulness
The sin of the Gentiles is unacceptable and very serious, deserving of death. Paul continues in Romans 2:1-3:8 to address the sin of the Jews. Their sin is very different than the outright disobedience of the Gentiles. The Jews struggle with letting go of the law. They are holding on to the food laws and circumcision as a necessity to be saved. The Jews hold onto their law so tightly that they fail to see the truth in the grace of the cross. They cannot see past their want to earn salvation to see the provision of freedom in Christ. Paul makes evident the seriousness of their sin in 2:8 by stating that the wrath of God will fall upon them. This is the righteous anger of God and the intensity of His feelings against the Jewish sin (Lancaster, 28). Paul is rebuking the Jew making it obvious that no one is righteous and that the works they are holding onto are useless because of the brokenness of human nature. Breaking the law only one time makes it void and since no man could perfectly fulfill the law, there is no point in trying to continue in a broken law. Trying to fulfill it is simply diminishing the work of the cross for the Jew and according to Paul, this is not acceptable. Finally, Paul addressed the general
As Paul makes the depravity of mankind known, he then brings hope in his letter by sharing the simple gospel that is so freeing to both the Gentiles who are stuck in immorality, and the Jews who are stuck in the law. Schreiner clearly states, “The promises made in the OT about the vindication of Israel have been fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ” (p. 200). God has made a way to fulfill the law and simultaneously bring the Gentiles into his family, and because of this both the Jews and the Gentiles are called away from their old ways and invited into being the people of God through faith. Being saved by faith has implications for the Jews and the Gentiles. The first implication we see is that because one obtains righteousness only through faith in the cross, there is absolutely no room for boasting (Schreiner, 200). One of the main disagreements in the Roman church was the gospel. The Jews, were refusing the gospel by stressing the importance of the Torah and works of the law while Gentiles were thinking that the Jews were not able to come to faith because of their lack of understanding of the gospel (Keck 31). Each were boasting in their own way of salvation, but Paul makes it clear that neither belief is adequate and both in the end lead to death. For Paul to be supported when he arrived in Rome and for the church to grow in Rome, it was immanent that Paul correct both the Jews and the