Romans 3 - Righteousness by God’s Grace - 1/25/09
Turn with me again this morning to Romans 1. In Romans, Paul gives us as explanation of the gospel. The word “gospel” literally means “good news.” The essence of Paul’s letter to the Romans is that there is good news that is truly good: we have no righteousness of our own, but in Christ we came be made in right standing with the God of all creation.
Romans is a real letter to real people about a real question - the key question of life:
How can a sinful man be made right with a holy God? The answer Paul gives us is that on our own, we can never find right standing with God. All men are condemned. For those who state they never knew about God, Paul condemns them in chapter 1 showing that even creation itself is a witness to the existence of God. For those who might claim they never had the Bible, Paul says they are without excuse in chapter 2 because even their conscience shows them they are sinful and in need of a savior. Paul says that whether you are an out and out sinner, a good moral person, or even a religious Jew, we are all under the condemnation of our sin.
Paul wirtes in chapter 3 and shows us that religious Jews and wicked Gentiles are basically the same: we are all completely sinful. Look at 3:10 with me: As it is written: “There is no-one righteous, not even one; there is no-one who understands, no-one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no-one who does good, not even one.” “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips.” “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
When you ask the average non-Christian if they plan to go to heaven, they will normally answer “I hope so!” When you ask how they expect to get there, they normally answer - I’m a good person; I try not to hurt others; I hope my good will outweigh my bad. But the reality is that we all are under the condemnation of a life full of sin. And even if we lived our life perfectly except for one tiny sin, that one sin would keep us from heaven.
The second thing non-Christians say is I try to keep the 10 commandments. But Paul tells us here in 3:19, Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no-one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.
Why did God give the OT law? The Jews thought they were made right with God by keeping the law. But God says NO ONE will be declared righteous by keeping the law! Why not? Because no one CAN keep the law. The law was NEVER intended to make us right with God. The law was given to show us that we are guilty before God and deserve God’s condemnation! The next time someone claims to try to keep the 10 commandments, ask them if they have ever told a lie. If so, show them Revelation 21:8 - and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. The OT law just showed us that none of us can be made right with God on our own efforts.
How can a sinful man be made right with a holy God? The answer Paul gives us is that on our own, we can never find right standing with God. This is one of those bad news, good news stories. Paul first shares the bad news -- no matter how good we think we are, we can NEVER be right with God by trying to live a good life. But now the good news. And this is what we want to look at today. Look in verse 21:
But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. And that is what we want to talk about today. How can we be made right with God? Not by the law, not by what we can DO, but apart from the law, through faith in what Jesus Christ has already DONE.
This passage today might seem to be more acadamic, more teaching, than emotion. But we understand that it is understanding the facts that helps us appreciate emotionally our great salvation. So this morning my goal is not to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but to help you understand the truth about salvation, about how we are made right with God, so when tht when we understand what God has done for us, our hearts can overflow with gratitude and praise to God.
Paul says we can’t be made right with God through the law, but apart from the law, through faith in Jesus, we CAN be made right with God. There are three things about this righteousness we want to see this morning.
First, we see that this righteousness is
• Consistently Demonstrated - it is not some new invention of the NT, but this has been God’s plan all along. The Jews somehow had developed the wrong idea that God’s plan was to make them righteous by keeping the law, but Paul tells them that is wrong. All along it had been God’s plan to make people righteous, in a right relationship with a holy God, through faith. Paul says here in verse 21, But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. The words “made known” is literally the word “manifested” -- to bring to light, to show what had previously not been noticed. All along it was God’s plan, but now we take notice of it clearly. Paul tells the church at Galatia in Galatians 3:24 - So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. What was the purpose of the OT law - all the rules and regulations, all the sacrifices and rituals -- they were given to us to show us our sinfulness and that we needed a perfect sacrifice to take away our sin. In the book of Isaiah 64:6 - we are told that our works can never save us: All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. In the book of Habakkuk 2:4 we are told the plan for being right with God: the righteous will live by his faith. Throughout the OT, we see prophecies of the Messiah, the perfect sacrifice that God would send for us. So is this a new plan of God, an afterthought, a plan B -- not at all! In Revelation 13:8 it refers to Jesus as the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.
In the OT, many thought that their righteousness came by behaving, by keeping the law. But no one could ever keep the law. The NT makes it clear that righteousness comes by believing, by faith. Righteousness by faith has always been God’s plan. We’ll see this more clearly next week as we look at chapter 4. This faith was the means of salvation for Jew and Gentile alike. Verse 23 explains: There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
The second thing we see in this passage about being made right with God is that this righteousness is
• Graciously Declared - Paul uses a legal term here in verse 23: justified. It is a term that means righteousness has been declared. It is not something we attain over time. Instead it is a one time act, decision, declaration.
As we go through Romans, we will explain a lot of big theological terms. We will look at
glorification - which is when we are saved from the presence of sin and receive a heavenly body, we’ll see
sanctification - which is a process by which we become more and more like Jesus, being saved from the power sin holds over us, living out the reality of the victory that Christ has given us, but today we see
justification - which is a one time act, a declaration by God that as a sinner we are “not guilty.” Some times we use the term “just as if I had never sinned.” God sees us not as if we never sinned, but as those who sinned and deserve full condemnation, but who have been given a credit to their account. Just like a person who went on a crazy shopping spree and spent tens of thousands of dollars, but when the bill came in the mail, there was a zero balance. The bill was “paid in full.”
This is a declaration by God. A statement of fact. God’s declaration that all the demands of the law for punishment and justive are fulfilled on behalf of the believing sinner through the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Verse 24 says we are justified freely -- the word freely is translated in John 15:25 as “without a cause.” Why does God declare us free from the penalty of our sin. There is nothing we have done to cause God to do this. It is freely a choice of his gracious will. That’s what verse 23 says, we are justified freely by his grace. What is grace? It is God giving us that which we do not deserve.
When we see in chapters 1-3 what terrible sinners we are and how unable we are to save ourselves, it leaves us relying totally on the graciousness of our God.
A soldier in Napoleon’s army once fell asleep on his watch and was about to be executed. The soldier’s mother came to Napoleon and asked for mercy. Napoleon said “he doesn’t deserve mercy!” But the mother replied, “true sir, for if he deserved it, it wouldn’t be mercy.” God gives us that which we don’t deserve, that is His grace. God keeps us from getting the punishment we truly do deserve, that is His mercy.God’s grace is his giving all the riches of heaven to those who deserve all the horrors of hell.
So, our right standing with God is graciously declared -- God declares that the righteousness of Jesus Christ is credited to our account. We have a zero payment due, because Jesus has paid all of our bills. It is a one-time act by which we are given right standing with God.
So, how can a holy, just God choose to release us from the penalty of our sin? If he just chose to do so on a whim, on His free choice, he would not be just. But verse 26 tells us that God IS just. The penalty of the sin HAS to be paid. But WE don’t have to pay it. It was paid by Jesus Christ for us! And that is the third thing we see about our salvation. We are
• Sacrificially Delivered - How can God offer his grace to us? Verse 24 tells us we are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. We need to understand this word “redemption.” The word literally means “to buy back out of the slave market.”
My brother Dale once bought an old pickup truck from a co-worker named Jake for $200. He drove it for a couple weeks, gave it a new coat of paint, and Jake thought it looked so good, he bought it back for $300. Jake put some new tires on it, fixed it up a little, and Dale bought it back for $500. After a few weeks, Dale sold it to someone else. Jake came to him and said, “Dale, what did you sell that truck for? You and I were both making a good living off of it!” But that’s not the idea of redemption. Redemption is totally one-sided.
The picture is of a slave, being sold at auction. There is nothing the slave can do to free himself. But a master generously buys the slave and then sets him free.
We are redeemed, bought back, from the slave market of sin. All men fell into the bondage and slavery of sin. But Christ paid the price to free us from that bondage. Look at verse 25 - God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished-- he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
The only way we could be bought back from the power and penalty of sin was to have a sacrifice made for us. The NIV calls it a sacrifice of atonement. The term in the KJV is propitiation. Here’s another one of these big theological terms. The word propitiation literally means satisfaction. Jesus Christ satisfies the penalty of the law. He sacrificed himself to pay our debt. 2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us, God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. The word for propitiation or sacrifice of atonement is also the word used in the OT for the mercy seat. If you remember the tabernacle, the tent that was in the middle of the Jewish camp as they wandered in the wilderness. In the inner room of the tent was the Ark of the Covenant. This was where the presence of God dwelt. It was set apart as holy, and one man who reached out and touched it to stabilize it was killed on the spot. The high priest would come into the tabernacle, into the inner room, called the holy of holies, or the most holy place, and sprinkle the blood of a sacrificial lamb on the lid of this ark of the covenant to atone for the sins of the people. This lid was called the mercy seat. For this was the place where the people found mercy and had their sins covered.
In the same picture, Jesus is called the mercy seat, the propitiation, the sacrifice that satisfies the penalty of God for our sins. The sacrifice needed to pay for our sins was the death of Jesus, the sacrifice of his blood when he was crucified on the cross. God was not just flippant and unjust in declaring us righteous, but he had justifiable reason to do so: the sacrifice of Jesus paid our penalty. Verse 25 told us, He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished - We need to understand that Jesus needed to die to be able to pay the penalty of all men.
Throughout the OT, animals were sacrificed, but those sacrifices never took away sin. They merely “covered over” them for a time. Hebrews 10:4 says, it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. They merely covered over them until the day when Jesus would come and once for all deal with the sins of all mankind. Just like the storekeeper who extends you credit -- that debt eventually has to be paid.
God is just in punishing sin, for he punished it in the death of his son Jesus, who took our sin upon himself, and therefore God, as it says in verse 26, both just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
The story is told of a 17 year old who was arrested for reckless driving in a rural community. As he was brought to court, he was relieved to see that his father was the presiding judge. He thought surely he would get off with just a warning. But as the trial went on, an hour later the judge gave the verdict: Your reckless driving has endangered the people of our community. Consequently justice must be served. You will either pay two thousand dollars or serve 6 months in jail.
Dad, the boy replied, You know I don’t have a penny to my name!
Young man said the father, you will address me as Your Honor. I am your judge! And down went the gavel as the boy stood before the judge not believing what had just happened.
The bailiff approached, ready to take the boy to jail, when the judge stood up, took off his robe, and left the bench to come stand by his son. Behind the bench he said, I am your judge. But here beside you, I stand as your father. And he took a checkbook from his pocket to pay his son’s fine.
And that is the picture that Paul paints for us. God is just, and demands that penalty of sin be paid. But he is also our justifier, paying the penalty through the sacrifice of his one of a kind son Jesus.
And that leads Paul to come to the conclusion in verse 27 - Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.
There is no one who can boast of their goodness, their righteousness, their right standing before God. For we are all guilty, we are all condemned, we are all without excuse. But our God himself paid the penalty of our sin and offers to us the righteousness of Christ himself. Through placing our faith in Jesus for salvation we can see that this right standing with God is
consistently demonstrated - this was the intent of the OT law, to show our need of salvation
graciously declared - God gives us by His free will that which we could never achieve on our own
sacrificially delivered - God declares us righteous because Jesus was the sacrifice who stood in our place.
As a result, none of us has a reason to boast. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:30 - It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God--that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”
Today, we are reminded how blest we are to be given this free salvation. But the sad fact is that today, many die and go to hell because they are trusting in what they DO - their good works, instead of what Jesus has already DONE for them. Today, as we close, I wonder if there might be anyone here today who may have gone to church for some time now, you might be a good person, but you have never chosen to place your faith in Jesus Christ and ask for the forgiveness of your sins. If so, I would invite you to make that decision today.
Let’s pray.
