"The Doctor Will See You Now"

If there is one thing that keeps people away from Christ, it is that they do not see a need for Him in their life. In Mark 2, Jesus is accused of eating and fraternizing with the lower class of his society, and He responded: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). Jesus did not mean that people were righteous so that they didn’t need salvation, but that some people actually think they are righteous.

The reason we go to the doctor is that we cannot cure ourselves. Woe to the man who actually thinks that he can cure himself, or even worse, that he doesn’t need a doctor at all. And woe to the souls who insist they are not guilty of sin nor do they need help from a Savior.

Now I do not think we need to stimulate guilt within our peers so that they will “come to the truth.” However, I cannot leave that person alone in their supposed innocence. Our Christian duty, like a doctor’s, is to bring people to accept their true diagnosis. Otherwise, they will never respond to the Gospel.

This is the principle that is behind the first three chapters of Romans. Paul intends to show his readers that salvation is available to everyone--Jew and Greek (Romans 1:16). Before he acts as their doctor, he becomes a lawyer and brings a case against them. He portrays Gentile Society as idolatrous, immoral, and antisocial (1:18-32). He accuses the legalists of imposing high ethical standards on everyone else but themselves (2:1-16). He then addresses the Jews who boast of their knowledge of God’s law, but do not obey it (2:17-3:8). Finally he indicts the entire human race and concludes that all are guilty and without excuse before God (3:9-20).

Every group had knowledge of God but had not lived up to that knowledge. Paul has made it clear that they have deliberately suppressed or contradicted what they knew to be right, and he will not allow them to be innocent by pleading ignorance. They must admit to their sinfulness and come to the conclusion that they are not healthy and they need a doctor.

Throughout the first three chapters, Paul never loses sight of what is most important. His job is not to condemn those who are guilty…but to light the path to healing. In 1:17, he says that “in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed.” And at the end of his indictment, he says “Now a righteousness from God…has been made known” (3:21). If we want to change people’s lives, we must convince them that they need to be changed. Sometimes their behavior has to be exposed, but let us always remember that exposing someone’s illness is not worth much if we cannot prescribe the proper medicine.

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