THE GREAT ACQUITTAL
Text: Rom. 3:21-26
Introduction
1. Illustration: Back during the Civil War Era there was a law where a black slave could earn money for his work, and after they had saved up enough money, they could actually buy their freedom from their master. During Sherman’s infamous march to the sea, the army encountered a former black slave who had already purchased his freedom. Apparently, he said to the soldiers, “If I’d have known you gun men were a comin’, I’d of saved my money!”
2. We live in a different era than the Civil War, and we have lived in it for about 2000 years. It’s called the Era of the New Covenant. In this era, we are all slaves, slaves to sin. Unlike the Civil War era, we cannot buy our own freedom, but the good news is we don’t have to, because Jesus has already paid the bill in full!
3. Up until now most of Paul’s letter has focused on the fact that we’re all in the same boat; we are sinners who stand guilty before God.
4. Now Paul talks about the good news. He talks about…
a. Righteousness Of God Revealed
b. Righteousness Of God Received
c. Righteousness Of God Achieved
5. Let’s stand together out of respect for the Word of God as we read Rom. 3:21-26.
Proposition: The bad news is that we are guilty before God; the good news is that Jesus paid the price for our redemption, and now we are acquitted of all our sins by receiving it by faith.
Transition: First, Paul talks about…
I. Righteousness Of God Revealed (21).
A. God Has Shown Us A Way
1. Again, Paul has been telling us how we are all in the same boat in regard to sin, and the fact that we could not please God by keeping the law because we were incapable of keeping it.
2. So, if we are guilty of sin and unable to keep the law what are we supposed to do? Is there no hope for us? Of course not!
3. Look at what Paul says in v. 21, “But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago.”
a. With the phrase but now Paul returns to the idea he presented way back in 1:17, the righteousness of God, or as the NLT puts it a way to be made right.
b. Paul tells us in this verse that because of Jesus sacrificial death on the cross a new era, one of salvation, has begun.
c. A historical shift has happened between the old covenant of the law and a new covenant of grace.
d. Based on 1:17, righteousness from God refers to an act of being made right or justifying sinners in God's eyes.
e. This divine act of making us right has now been made known to the human race by the coming of Jesus.
f. Paul also makes it clear that this comes without keep the requirements of the law.
g. In other words, we are not made right with God by keeping the law, or being good, but only through the blood of Jesus shed for us on the cross.
h. Furthermore, Paul adds, that this change is not contrary to the teaching of the OT, but rather they are a fulfillment of the writings of Moses and the Prophets, which was a common way of referring to the entire OT.
i. So, God's plan all along was not for us to struggle to keep the law, or be good in our eyes, but rather that through the saving work of Jesus on the cross that we would be declared right with God again.
B. New Life-Giving Way
1. Illustration: Justification means "just-as-if-I-never-sinned." The doctrine of justification is the foundation that supports all of the other benefits we receive from Christ. -- Erwin W. Lutzer
2. Through the blood of Jesus God has made a new way for us to be made right with him again.
a. Hebrews 10:19-20 (NLT2)
19 And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus.
20 By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place.
b. The old way of being justified and made right with God was if we could possibly keep the law, but we couldn’t keep it!
c. We were destined to be judged by God and sentenced to an eternity in hell.
d. But God! He created a new life-giving way for us to be made right with him again.
e. Now because of what Jesus has done we are in a right relationship with God.
f. Now because of what Jesus has done we can boldly enter into the Most Holy Place!
g. We can have fellowship with God.
h. Instead of being filthy rags our robes have been washed clean by the precious blood of Jesus!
Transition: So, Paul talks about the righteousness of God revealed and the…
II. Righteousness Of God Received (22-23).
A. Faith In Jesus Christ
1. So how do we go about receiving this new life-giving way? Simple, it’s by faith in Jesus!
2. In v. 22 Paul says, “We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.”
a. The way in which we are made right with God again is not by our own acts of righteousness, but rather by faith.
b. This does not come about by our works, but only by the gift of God through Jesus.
c. As the Holy Spirit works on our hearts and opens us up to God, faith is the passive acceptance of God's gift of salvation.
d. It is still a faith decision, but it is our response to the Spirit’s work.
e. We do not control the process; God does. It is only the convicting power of the Holy Spirit that allows us to make that decision, that it, to accept God's offer of salvation or reject it.
3. Paul then reiterates why we needed this gift. In v. 23 he says, “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.”
a. Paul has made it clear in everything that he has written in this letter from 1:18-3:20 that we are all in the same situation, namely, that we are all sinners and guilty before God.
b. So, Paul summarizes this concept in this very famous verse, for everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard.
c. The term sinned is universal, referring to all of the sins of the human race from the beginning of time until now.
d. We all stand guilty before a holy God and deserve his judgment.
e. None of us are worthy of his grace. The reason for this is that we have fallen short, which is a present tense verb indicating the present results and fact of sin.
f. In other words, this is the state in which we find ourselves right now.
g. We cannot meet the standard of God's righteousness on our own.
h. As Bishop Handley Moule puts it, "The harlot, the liar, the murderer, are short of God's standard, but so are you. Perhaps they are at the bottom of the mine, and you are on the crest of an Alp; but you are as little able to touch the stars as they."
i. While in one sense both unbelievers and believers lack this glorious standard, the emphasis here is entirely on unbelievers.
j. Yet this glory is being restored to those who are in Christ.
B. All Who Believe And Accept
1. Illustration: Jimmy, and his son, Davey, were playing in the ocean down in Mexico, while his family -- his wife, daughters, parents, and a cousin -- were on the beach. Suddenly, a rogue riptide swept Davey out to the sea. Immediately Jimmy started to do whatever he could to help Davey get back to the shore, but he, too, was soon swept away in the tide. He knew that in a few minutes, both he and Davey would drown. He tried to scream, but his family couldn't hear him. Jimmy's a strong guy--an Olympic decathlete--but he was powerless in this situation. As he was carried along by the water, he had a single, chilling thought: My wife and my daughters are going to have to have a double funeral. Meanwhile, his cousin, who understood something about the ocean, saw what was happening. He walked out into the water where he knew there was a sandbar. He had learned that if you try to fight a riptide, you will die. So, he walked to the sandbar, stood as close as he could get to Jimmy and Davey, and then he just lifted his hand up and said, "You come to me. You come to me." (John Ortberg, in the sermon, The Way of Wisdom) That's Christ's invitation to us: "Come to me and you will live!" If we go the way our gut tells us, we will die, but if we trust the one who died for us and rose again, we will live forever with Him in Heaven. Accept God's gift to you and accept life instead of death.
2. By faith we must accept God’s free gift of salvation.
a. John 1:12-13 (NLT2)
12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.
13 They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.
b. No matter how good we are we cannot earn salvation.
c. No matter how kind we are we cannot earn salvation.
d. No matter much we struggle to good we will never be good enough to meet God’s standard.
e. But here’s the thing, we don’t have to! All we have to do is accept what Jesus has already done for us!
f. That’s right, we have to accept it. Just like if you win the lottery the money’s not yours until you go and collect the money!
g. We are not God’s children until we believe in and accept what Jesus did for us on the cross!
h. Believe and receive!
Transition: So, there’s the righteousness of God revealed, the righteousness of God received, and the…
III. Righteousness Of God Achieved (24-26).
A. Declared That We Are Righteous
1. We are in a situation to which there is seemingly no way out. We are sinners who are guilty before God. But like the old saying goes, “we owed a price we could not pay; he paid a price he did not owe.”
2. In v. 24 Paul says, “Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.”
a. What humans couldn't do on their own God provided through the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross.
b. The phrase declares that we are righteous means that "all who believe from among the sinners is justified or declared right by God.
c. On the basis of what Jesus did for us on the cross God has legally declared the repentant sinner righteous, He has acquitted us from the penalty and guilt of our sins.
d. As Bible scholar Douglas Moo states, "this judicial verdict, for which one had to wait until the last judgment according to Jewish theology, is according to Paul rendered the moment a person believes."
e. He did this as a free to us gift called grace, or as the NLT calls it undeserved kindness.
3. The reason that God was able to declare us righteous is because Jesus stood in our place. In vv. 25-26 Paul says, “For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, 26 for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.”
a. This gracious verdict was achieved by the redemption or sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross.
b. This is another major theme for Paul (seven of the ten NT occurrences are in his writings), which refers to the payment of a ransom in order to free a person from bondage.
c. The concept of payment is found in the fact that this free gift of salvation was paid for by Christ.
d. His sacrificial death is the payment that brought about our redemption from sin.
e. The terms for redemption were often used in the ancient world for the emancipation of a slave or the freeing of a prisoner or person in bondage due to a debt.
f. So, Jesus' death is a ransom payment made to free the repentant person from the slavery of sin.
g. Why did the punishment require shed blood? God had said from the beginning, “For the life of any creature is in its blood . . . It is the blood, representing life, that brings you atonement” (Leviticus 17:11).
h. But the blood Paul mentions here is a particular blood—it is Christ’s blood.
i. Only the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross was the effective atonement for our sins.
j. Christ stands in our place, having paid the penalty of death for our sin, and he could satisfy God’s anger against us.
B. Through His Blood
1. Illustration: A little boy went up to a missionary Sunday School leader in another country. The boy said, "I like what you say about the God of the Bible, but I can’t see him. But if I go to the temple, I can see my God." The missionary said to the little boy, "Son, may I ask you a question? Does your God bleed?" The boy said, "I don’t know." The missionary gave him a pin and said, "Next time you go to the temple, when no one else is watching, prick him and see what happens." The following week the boy returned to his Sunday School class. He said to the missionary, "I did it, I did it, I pricked the idol." The missionary said, "And what happened?" The boy replied, "Nothing, my god doesn’t bleed." Then the missionary said, "But my God did! He bled for my sins and he bled for your sins, too!"
2. The righteousness of God is achieved only through the shed blood of Jesus on the cross.
a. Ephesians 1:6-7 (NLT2)
6 So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son.
7 He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.
b. The law couldn’t do it.
c. Our efforts couldn’t do it.
d. But the blood of Jesus can, and it did!
e. The blood of Jesus forgave our sins.
f. The blood of Jesus made us right with God again.
g. The blood of Jesus takes our sins and throws them as far as the east is from the west.
h. The blood of Jesus gives us the hope of eternal life.
3. The blood that Jesus shed for me
Way back on Calvary
The blood that gives me strength
From day to day
It will never lose its power
It reaches to the highest mountain
It flows to the lowest valley
The blood that gives me strength
From day to day
It will never lose its power
Conclusion
1. Paul talks about the good news. He talks about…
a. Righteousness Of God Revealed
b. Righteousness Of God Received
c. Righteousness Of God Achieved
2. THREE THINGS TO REMEMBER…
a. THE NEXT TIME THE DEVIL POINTS OUT YOUR FAILURES REMIND HIM OF THE CROSS.
b. THOSE WHO HAVE BY FAITH ACCEPTED WHAT JESUS DID FOR THEM ON THE CROSS ARE RIGHT WITH GOD.
c. REMEMBER THAT THE GUILT OF SIN HAS BEEN RENDERED NULL AND VOID BY THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF JESUS.
