Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Romans.  Tonight is study #24 in Romans 3,  and we will read Romans 3:12-18:

They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood:  Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes.

I will stop reading there.  We are looking again at verse 12.  We looked at the phrase, “They are all gone out of the way,” in our last study.  So this time we are going to look at the next phrase in Romans 3:12:

… they are together become unprofitable…

This is a word we are familiar with, as it is used in a couple of other places in the Bible.  This Greek word translated as “unprofitable” is a compound word.  It has the Alpha prefix that negates the other word, plus a word derived from Strong’s #5534, which comes from #5532.  I think it is more helpful to look at the Greek word #5532 which is translated as “needful” or “necessity,” and could be understood as “useful.”  Since it is negated, it literally means “not needful” or “not useful.”  We can see that anyone that is not needful, or not useful, would be “unprofitable.” 

Again, this word “unprofitable” is only found here, and it is Strong’s #889, but it has a related word, Strong’s #888, that we have seen elsewhere.  For example, it says in Matthew 25:25:

And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.

So the setting is that this is the parable of the talents, and the lord has returned to reckon with his servants to see how they have conducted themselves concerning the talents they were entrusted with.  It goes on to say in Matthew 25:26-30:

His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

There was an unprofitable (not useful or not necessary) servant, and he was judged and cast into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.  We understand that the “talents” identify with the Word of God, the Gospel which is entrusted to the people of God, both the professed people of God and the true people of God.  So when God comes, and He has come at this time, as we are living now in the Day of Judgment, and God is reckoning with His servants, which goes on over the course of the Judgment Day period.  And God has determined that this particular servant is “unprofitable,” and we can see why; he did nothing with the talent.  He did not multiply his talent, and there was no increase.

There is another related Greek word, Strong’s #890, which appears in the book of Philemon, which comes right before the book of Hebrews.  In this account, the Apostle Paul is a type of Christ, and he says in Philemon 1:10-11:

I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds: Which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me:

That is, Onesimus had not been a profitable servant in his past service to Philemon, which is mentioned in verse 1: “Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellowlabourer.”  And this Onesimus, a servant of Philemon, had departed.  It says in Philemon 1:15:

For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him for ever;

And that sets up Philemon as a type of God because he accepted his servant back after the servant had previously departed from his servitude and went away.  What does that sound like?  God created man to serve Him.  Mankind is always a servant.  We are creatures that were created to serve.  Even in our fallen condition, we serve “sin and Satan,” but we were originally created good and to serve God, so Onesimus would be a figure of those that God elected to save out of mankind, and he was a servant of God, so to speak, and then went away.  Onesimus was a servant of Philemon, but he went away from him and departed.  Again, it said back in Philemon 1:11:

Which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me:

Again, Paul is often a pattern of believers, but here I think he is a type of Christ, and Philemon would be a picture of God the Father, so when there is a redeemed servant (someone who has become saved), that person becomes profitable to God.  God reveals Himself as one God, but three Persons, so the significant thing in verse 11 is that he was unprofitable in the past, but there was a change, and he became profitable to Paul (a type of Christ) and to Philemon (a type of God the Father).  He is now profitable in His service to God.  If we returned to the parable of the talents, which we will not do, in the case of the other servants who increased their talents, they were profitable in the task they had been given.  So too, God’s people that are truly saved become profitable servants to the Lord Jesus Christ.

This word “profitable” in verse 11 is also used in 2Timothy 4:10-11:

For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry.

It is thought that Mark, who was said to be profitable for the ministry, is the same Mark where there was a cause of contention between Paul and Barnabas, in Acts 15:37:

And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname was Mark. But Paul thought not good to take him with them, who departed from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work.

If that is the case (and I am not 100% sure), then it would be a similar situation to Onesimus who departed from Philemon for a season.  Likewise, Mark departed from them, and it was to the point that Paul decided, “It is not good to take him on our next trip.  What if he does it again?”  But now in 2Timothy 4, the Apostle Paul was moved to say, “Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry.” 

So I think we have to make allowance for people at times that have done wrong, maybe even departing from the work of serving the Lord.  Over the course of the Great Tribulation and in this time of Judgment Day, much pressure has been put to bear on people, and it is possible for some to get confused, make a wrong decision, and turn in a wrong direction.  But God is a very merciful God, and He can restore such a one, and that was the case with Onesimus who was restored to Philemon.  God is saying, “In time past, he was unprofitable, but now he will be profitable to thee and to me.”

That is not the case with (unsaved) mankind.  He has become unprofitable.  He is not useful to God in his natural, sinful, and rebellious condition.  He is anything but useful.  He is contrary to God.  He is against God, and he is fighting God and is at enmity with Him, so it is not helpful to have someone like that doing the work of God.  That is why God must do a spiritual transformation through salvation.

Romans 3 has been quoting, again, and again, from Psalm 14, as well as Psalm 53.  But when we turn to Psalm 14, we do not find the word “unprofitable.”  It says in Psalm 14:3:

They are all gone aside…

That part is similar to what we read in Romans 3:12, but then it goes on to say in Psalm 14:3:

… they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

In Psalm 53, we read the same thing in Psalm 53:3:

Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

How can God write, “They are together become unprofitable,” when both Psalm 14 and Psalm 53 say, “They are altogether become filthy”?   It is a very different word, and this word does mean “filthy.”  We will look at that a little bit.

We have to keep in mind that God will at times pull from the Old Testament and quote it in the New Testament, but He will change some of the wording.  A good example of that would be the quotation in Acts 2 from the book of Joel concerning sons and daughters in the last days, and God changes a key word (but we will not go there). 

It is God’s Word.  It is not as though He is quoting incorrectly, or that He is not permitted to make a change to a quotation.  This is divine revelation.  When you read Psalm 14 and Psalm 53, they seem like they are almost word-for-word.  They may not be exactly the same, but they are very similar.  Why did God duplicate it?  He has His purposes. 

Likewise, why did God quote accurately, for the most part, in verses 10, 11, and 12, but changed this?  He has His purposes.  All we know is that He uses the word “unprofitable” in the New Testament, but uses the word “filthy” in the Old Testament.  “They are altogether become filthy.”  And that word “filthy” that is found in Psalm 14 and Psalm 53 is only used one other place.  We read in Job 15:14-16:

What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?

Man is “filthy” in his sin-cursed condition.  You know that expression “dirty, rotten sinner.”  It does not go far enough.  The first couple of times I heard it, it was stunning because we do not normally think of mankind in those terms.  People like to think of themselves as “basically good,” and clean, and righteous.  But God says that none are good, and none are righteous, and none are clean.  You cannot bring a “clean” out of an “unclean.”  What you can bring from the unclean are dirty, rotten, filthy sinners.  That is the teaching of the Bible, and of course it is anything but flattering.  The Bible is that mirror of the soul, and that reflection that man sees there is shocking and frightening, and it is horrifying to him, which is why he must turn aside and get away from it.  He must flee from the light that is shining and showing him the true condition of his inner soul, and what it really looks like.  It is an ugly, ugly picture, but it is a truthful picture.  That is why God gave us the Bible so that all the world could see their guilt and shame, and their spiritual filthiness, and their wickedness, that they might see the evil that they have become in their sins, and the wickedness of rebelling against God and going away from Him and His Word.

And yet many did not listen long enough to hear the remedy during the day of salvation.  If only they had stayed long enough after seeing the terrible reflection from the Bible of their souls, then they would have seen the beautiful remedy, the “balm” that could have healed them and cleansed their filthiness, turning them to the righteousness of Christ that could make them beautiful and holy within through God’s salvation program.  But too many ran away from the light.

As we see here that “they have altogether become filthy,” it makes us think of a verse that has really come to the forefront in the Day of Judgment, although it may have been hardly noticed during the church age.  It declares in Revelation 22:11:

He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.

We have talked about this often.  This is the fixing of mankind’s spiritual condition once the door (to heaven) shut, and we entered into this final phase of Judgment Day.   Everyone that was saved would continue to be saved, and everyone that was unsaved would remain in an unsaved condition, and that condition is a “filthy” condition, as far as God is concerned.  They are unclean, and that is why He uses this word.

Again, it is interesting that these words we are looking at are only used a few times in the Bible, and that is also true of the word “filthy.”  The word “filthy” is Strong’s #4510.  It is only found here, but it is derived from a word used in 1Peter 3.  It says in 1Peter 3:19-21:

By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:

It refers to the “filth of the flesh.”  In the Bible, if someone is in the “flesh,” it indicates they have not been born again.  They are carnal.  God identifies them with the flesh, and the flesh is, of course, unsaved. 

There may be a reference to washing away the dirt of the flesh with water, but God is joining “filth” and “flesh” together, and that would indicate that the sinner is unclean (unsaved) in His sight, and it is a filthy condition, as far as God is concerned.

We will continue our study next time in Romans 3.  This is a very hard passage to look at, but it is certainly an honest assessment of people.  It explains why we see all the wickedness that we see in the world, but, again, it is not a very flattering picture.