Can I just say how much I love baptisms. It’s great to be able to share the joy of parents and family and friends as they welcome a new person into the world and especially as we welcome that new person into the life of God’s Church. And it’s perhaps fitting that today we’re looking at a passage that explains the basis on which we can indeed welcome a little child like Claudia into God’s family and say with confidence that God has called her into his Church, that he’s brought her out of darkness into his marvellous light. For those who are visitors today we’ve been going through the letter to the Romans over the past few weeks and today we come to 3:9-21.
What we’ve discovered so far in the first few chapters of Romans is that the great need, the great longing of people throughout history has been to know that they’re right with God. There’s an awareness in all of us, if we’re honest with ourselves, of how far we fall short of God’s standards. And it doesn’t matter where we come from. As we’ve discovered over the last couple of weeks, those who are outside the people of God, who don’t have the written law to guide them, show that they have a form of God’s law written on their hearts every time they experience guilt or a bad conscience for doing something they seem to know innately is wrong. And yet they’re unable to consistently do the right thing. And we spoke last week of how even those who do have the written law of God to guide them, Jews and Christians alike, are unable to keep that law.
Of course, Paul says, the Jews do have an advantage as the custodians of the very words of God. Yet even that doesn’t help them. As he says here in v9 "Are we any better off? No, not at all; for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin."
Now this isn’t a new discovery of Paul’s. He hasn’t just worked this out. He’s actually learnt it by reading his Old Testament. So he brings out a whole series of quotations from the Old Testament, especially the Psalms: Ps 14; Ps 53; Eccles 7; Ps 5, Ps 140; Ps 10; Is 59; Ps 36. It’s an amazing list of comments about the evil we find in human nature. Now I don’t think he quotes all these passages just to get us depressed about human nature. We’re certainly not meant to read them as though every human being does all these sorts of things. I have a feeling that that’s how some people have read them in the past. As saying that there’s nothing of any worth in human nature. That the fall has totally destroyed anything good. I don’t believe that that’s Paul’s or God’s intention here at all. We’ll see in a moment what he wants us to understand from all these quotes. But I think it’s important before we go further that we be reminded of the fact that every human being on this earth is a person made in the image of God. So every one of us has a value that can’t be calculated and mustn’t be underestimated. And it certainly shouldn’t be downplayed through an overemphasis on our failure to live like creatures made in God’s image.
But having said that, we also mustn’t try to deny that failure. We mustn’t think that because we’re made in God’s image everything’s just fine. You see, our culture has a strong propensity for excusing or explaining away sinfulness in people. There’s an interesting movie around, called ’15 Minutes’. It’s about a pair of communist bloc criminals who come to America looking for an accomplice who’s run off with their loot. They discover that he’s spent the money, so in their rage they kill him and then go into hiding. As they’re laying low, they pass the time watching daytime television. And of course what they see is talk shows like Oprah and Roseanne and Jerry Springer. They watch as a parade of wrongdoers confess their infidelities to their spouses and then explain it away by the way they’ve been treated or brought up; by passing on the blame to someone else. And in the end the spouse accepts their explanation and everything’s OK again. Then they see a murderer get off because he pleads insanity. And not only that, but he’s paid millions for his story and the movie rights. So these 2 guys decide if that’s how America sees evil, they might as well go on a crime spree, killing anyone who gets in their way, knowing that when they get caught they’ll just have to plead insanity and they’ll get off.
Well, you’ll be pleased to know they don’t get away with it in the end, though it appears like they will for quite a while. But the point is that there’s this attitude in western culture society that sin doesn’t exist; that wrongdoing can be explained away by psychology or sociology, or even genetics.
But that’s to deny the reality revealed to us by God in his word. One of the reasons for giving us the law, you see, is that it shows up our sinfulness, our need for another solution. Look at v20. What does it say? "Through the law comes the knowledge of sin."
There are still people around who rely on their ability to do the right thing. They say, "I’m OK. I’ve always tried to do the right thing, to live by the golden rule. I’m sure God will think I’m OK." But if you want to live by the law, if you hope to get by according to the way you live, then you need to watch out don’t you? Because in the end all the law is going to do is to show up our faults, show how far we’ve fallen short. No, if we want to be right with God, then we need a better way than our ability to do the right thing.
And that’s what God has provided for us. Look at v21: "But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, 22the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe." God has provided a way of salvation, a path to righteousness, that’s law-free, grace based and Christ centred.
You may have been wondering what all this depressing stuff has to do with a joyful occasion like a baptism. Well, this is where the baptism bit comes in. Because baptism, particularly of a child, is all about the salvation that God offers us, free of law, independent of our performance, based instead on his freely offered gift of righteousness, won for us by Jesus Christ.
You see a child can’t do anything to earn God’s favour. All she can do is rely on God’s love and kindness, the same as she relies on her parents’ love and kindness. Does a child need God’s salvation? Well, if you’d seen my angelic 21 month old grandson the other day screaming because he couldn’t get his own way, you’d have no doubt about it.
The fact is, as we read in v23, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Even a little child like Claudia will try to control her universe if her parents will let her. All of us want to be the ruler of our own world, rather than live as subjects of the one who is rightly Lord of the universe. So what hope is there for us, as far as getting right with God goes?
The only hope we have is the hope that God offers us. V23, you see, becomes v24: "23since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith." There’s a lot of jargon in there so I thought it might be helpful to unpack it. So, first:
Everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
It’s as though there’s a scale that measures our standard of behaviour. If we could get to the top of the scale then we’d be like God. We’d be able to stand next to him and show forth the glory that he has. The idea of a halo around the head of a saint was meant to portray that idea. The halo was the glow that emanated from someone who was so good they were getting close to the glory of God. Well, imagine that that scale is like one of those growth charts you might have on your wall if you’ve got growing children. But this one reaches all the way up to the ceiling. And when we stand beside it we can measure ourselves against the glory of God. Some days we’ll feel like we’ve done really well. We might even feel like we’re getting up near the picture rails. Not quite to the top, but fairly high. But then some days we fail and slip down the chart a bit. Then other days we do really badly and feel like we’ve got to start all over again. Then we do well and feel good about ourselves again.
But the trouble is, when God looks at the chart, he isn’t just looking at where we are today, he’s looking at our whole history. To attain the glory of God requires an entire lifetime at the top of the chart. Or to change the image, it’s like getting your shirts OMO clean. It doesn’t help that most of the shirt is clean if you have a great big ink stain on the cuff. No, you want the whole shirt to be clean. So it is with our lives. We’ve all fallen short at some stage, if not at most stages, of the standard of perfection that God requires; that is of the glory of God.
So what’s the answer?.
They are now justified.
He says they are now justified. That is we’re declared to be right with God. This is a legal term that has the idea of being declared innocent. A helpful way of understanding this, that I was taught as a teenager, was that it’s ’just as if I’d never sinned.’ God looks at us and sees the glory of Jesus Christ rather than our own failure to meet his standards.
And how can we receive this new status?
By his grace as a gift
Grace is one of those jargon words that Christians use in quite a different way to the way it’s most commonly used. Usually it has the idea of the way someone carries themselves or the measure of social skill and politeness they exhibit. Or else it’s used of a thanksgiving prayer before a meal. But what it means here is God’s freely offered, unearned, favour towards us. The righteousness that we long for, the justification we need, is offered to us by God as a gift, without condition, other than a willingness to accept that it comes from the one who is the Lord of the universe.
And how is this gift of righteousness brought about?
Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
Again, redemption is a jargon word. It comes from the context of a slave market, where someone who had been captured and made a slave, or had been sold as a slave could be bought out of that slavery by the payment of a price. In our case the price that had to be paid was what we owed for our disobedience. As we’ll discover when we get to ch6 that price was death. But the death we owed has been paid for us by Jesus Christ, by his death on the cross. Jesus has redeemed us. That is, he’s bought us back from slavery to sin and death, by dying in our place on the cross.
Whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood.
That phrase sacrifice of atonement has been the source of a lot of discussion and controversy over the years. We don’t have time to go into the various arguments here, though if you’re interested I’m happy to discuss them with you later. But for now let me suggest that the idea behind the phrase is that Jesus’ death is a sacrifice which removes God’s anger at the sin in our lives and makes us right with him again. In other words it’s an idea that has to do with our relationship with God. This is a very imperfect example, but it’s as though, when we disobey God, God feels towards us a bit like a wife might feel towards her husband if he were unfaithful to her, if he had an affair. But Jesus takes away that anger, he takes on himself the punishment that we deserve, by his death on the Cross. And finally:
This is made effective through faith
The only thing we need to do to receive this gift from God is to believe. To believe in God, to believe that Jesus Christ is his only Son. To believe his promise that he’ll make us right with God. Again, there’s nothing new about this. This is how God has always provided forgiveness of sins. Look at what he says in v25: "He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed." In the days of the Old Testament, God had instituted a system of sacrifices by which people could ask for forgiveness. But of course sacrificing a sheep or a goat couldn’t actually cleanse them of sin. So how could God justly forgive them? He could only forgive them if they were to be justified on the same basis as us. On the basis of faith in God’s promise to forgive them. On the basis that Jesus Christ took their sins on himself.
And so he says, there are no grounds for boasting. Don’t ever say you’ve been good enough. Especially don’t think that you’re a Christian because of some value inherent in yourself. No, if you’re a Christian it’s solely on the basis of the grace of God, given to you as a gift: unearned, unmerited, freely given.
Do know that you’re right with God? Not that you’re good enough for God, not that you’ve lived an OK life, but that he sees you as good, as one who is righteous, just. Would you like to be sure of that fact? There’s nothing difficult about it. How does he say we come by that righteousness? "They are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith." If you want to be sure of your standing before God all you need to do is to believe. Believe that Jesus did indeed die to bring you redemption, forgiveness from sin. Believe that God wants you as his child, that he’ll welcome you into his family the same as he’s welcomed Claudia today. Ask him for the forgiveness, the righteousness that he freely offers, a righteousness that comes through his grace, freely given, law free, based on what Jesus Christ has done for us on the cross. And then you can enter into the life of God’s people in freedom and joy, not bound down by your inability to do what’s right, but freed by God’s Spirit to live for him in faith the rest of your life.
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