Salvation- The Reality Of God's Righteousness Series

Text: Romans 3:21-26

Title: Salvation- The Reality of God’s Righteousness

Romans 3:21-31 21 But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; 26 for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. 28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one. 31 Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law.

How are we Saved? Vs. 21-26

1. Not by keeping the law- v21

2. Righteousness- v21-22

3. Faith- v22

4. Justification- v23-24

5. Redemption- v24

6. Propitiation- v25

Please Open your Bibles to Romans 3:21-31…

At the beginning of this sermon series on Romans I talked about how many theologians and pastors consider Romans to be the crown jewel of the New Testament. Because of how deep and detailed this book is in dealing with how salvation works, many consider it to be the most important book in the whole Bible.

Well in the same way, many would consider the passage we will be studying today to be one of the most important passages in the whole Bible. It is so full of important terminology and descriptions of how salvation works. It is a section of scripture that is just very dense. It is jam packed with a lot of good stuff.

The big question that we will deal with today is How are we saved? In order to better understand the details of the salvation process we will define and describe some of the key theological terms that are found in this passage. There is a lot of good stuff here.

But before we dig in, I want to start by reviewing some of the doctrinal truths that we have discovered in Romans up to this point. Like we talked about a few weeks back, Paul is constructing a theological house for us. I want to make sure that we have a clear picture in our minds of each of these concepts, because they are all interconnected and will build off of each other.

The foundation of our theological house is what? That’s right, the doctrine of revelation. We believe that God has revealed Himself to His creation. Through the created order, through the Bible, and through the incarnate Word-Jesus Christ, God has revealed something about Himself to us.

This is the foundation of our theological house because without God revealing Himself to us we would be lost. Without Him communicating to us through the prophets and through the written word, we would not have access to Him.

So the doctrine of revelation is our foundation. The doctrine of sin was the first wall of our house. We have been studying the doctrine of sin for the past month or so. Paul spends a lot of time there because it is such an important truth. It is something that many people ignore or deny, but without a proper diagnosis there can’t be a proper cure.

The doctrine of sin teaches us a couple of truths about us and our relationship with God.

First, humanity is completely sinful and corrupted. We are totally, completely, pervasively depraved. There is nothing good about us. We are slaves to sin and enemies of God.

Second, God is a holy and just God and will punish sin. God will not ever let sin go unpunished. If we ignored sin or didn’t punish it that would compromise His holiness.

Third, because God is perfect and holy and we are not we have become enemies of God.

Fourth, we don’t have the ability to keep the law, obey God, or pull ourselves out of the pit of sin that we are in.

So because all of these things are true we are left in a tough spot. We are helpless. We are stuck. Without some kind of divine intervention we would ultimately be separated from God forever. Without God stepping in and providing some way to fix our problem we would be stuck spinning our wheels. Trying to obey, but destined to fail under our own power.