The Great Remedy – Romans 3 | Michael Penfold

What this episode covers

In the third of a series of sermons on 4 great “Chapter 3’s” in the Bible, Michael Penfold looks at the apostle Paul’s devastating argument in Romans 3 in which he finds all human beings guilty, but the reveals the way for those same sinners to be declared righteous through the atoning work of Jesus Christ. (Recorded in Thunder Bay Gospel Hall, ON, Canada on 12th Nov 2025) Complete series on Great Bible Chapter 3’s: The Great Tragedy – Genesis 3 The Great Necessity – John 3 The Great Remedy – Romans 3 The Great Mystery – Ephesians 3 Feedback: [email protected] Transcript: This is a court scene, a divine court scene. So what we’re going to do for the next 40 minutes is we’re going to go through this court case. And it will end big time in Chapter 3. And we’re going to outline who the judge is, who the accused is, who the prosecutor is, what the charges are, who the witnesses are. And as you piece all these things together, you’ll be following the mind of Paul, obviously, but you’ll be following the mind of the Spirit of God. You’ll be following the workings of salvation. You won’t just be thinking in terms of, I got saved because I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. You will get a thrilling, a logical, a spiritual, a deep understanding of exactly how this great plan of salvation plays out from a court scene. So who is the judge? Well, it’s pretty obvious that God must be the judge. The judge is God. Now come over to chapter two, and we’ll look about what kind of judge we’re dealing with. Number one, the judge is faithful. Look in verse two. We are sure the judgment of God is according to truth. He judges according to truth. He’s an absolutely faithful judge. Number two, the judge that we’re up against is factual. Look in verse six, who will render to every man according to his deeds? He knows what has been done. You don’t have to redact anything. The Epstein files don’t have to be released. He knows it all. He’s fair, sorry, he’s faithful, he’s factual. And now look to verse 11, he’s fair. There is no respect of persons with God. So when we think of this court case, and we think of the judge, he can’t be bribed, he can’t be blinkered, he can’t in any way have the wool pulled over his eyes. He’s faithful, he’s factual, he’s fair, and he knows everything, he’s omniscient. You say, who are the accused? In the dock is humanity. Every human being who’s ever lived is in the dock in this chapter, including you. Oh, you say, I’m saved. No, but I’m just thinking back to before you were saved. You were in the dock. Now, although the whole of humanity is in the dock, Paul will address this humanity in two parts. He’ll talk about Gentiles and he’ll talk about Jews. Now if you want to know who Gentiles are, they’re all the people that are not Jews. So that’s nice and easy. So Noah wasn’t a Jew. The first Jew or Hebrew was Abraham. And through his seed we have, physical seed we have, the nation of Israel. Humanity’s in the dock, but we’ll be dealing with them in two groups. Gentiles first, and then Jews. Now, who’s the prosecutor? Who’s bringing the case? Well, Paul is going to be the prosecutor. That doesn’t mean that Paul is your judge or my judge, but Paul is the writer who’s laying out the case. It’s really God’s case, but Paul is acting in the prosecution’s manner by laying out the case and bringing in the witnesses and so on. So we have the judge, the accused, and the prosecutor. Now, let’s come to the charges. The charges against the Gentiles are actually somewhat different to the charges against the Jews. Now come back to chapter 1, and let’s look at the charges against the Gentiles, because he deals with the charges against the Gentiles in chapter 1, and then he deals with the charges against the Jews in chapter 2. Now there are many things that the Gentiles have done wrong, which are listed from verse 29 to 32. There are something like 20 sins listed in that list. It’s a pretty desperate list. But before he gets to that

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