This morning, we are continuing our series on Romans title Paul’s Magnum Opus. And in this series, we will be going verse by verse through what is arguably Paul’s greatest work, and that is saying something considering Paul wrote over a third of the New Testament.
And over the past few weeks, we have been looking at some critically important verses. These verses are thought of by some as the heart of the entire Bible. For all of us, they should be verses we either have memorized or know intimately. That is how important these verses are.
And each week, we have been breaking down a different part of these verses in order to make sure that we understand what they are saying. And that makes sense if these verses are really as important as we say they are.
So this week, we will be looking at the last part of these verses, which I really haven’t highlighted or talked about much to this point. And then we will go on to finish the chapter to see how it all comes together with everything that Paul has been saying.
And as a way of reminder of what we have been looking at, here are the verses we have been walking through:
Romans 3:23–25 (ESV) 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. …
So, bringing together what we have covered so far, we are all sinners who fall short of the glory of God … every single one of us. But we are justified … made right with God … through His grace as a gift. We don’t deserve it and could never be made right with Him boys ourselves, but He graciously justifies us.
And that justification comes through the redemption … our freedom from the bondage and enslavement to sin … that is earned for us in Christ Jesus. And we are redeemed because a price has been paid.
And as we saw last week, the price was paid because Christ was put forward as our propitiation … a sacrifice that satisfies the just wrath and judgment against God for our sin and rebellion. Really incredible stuff, but Paul is not done yet.
Romans 3:25–26 (ESV) 25 … This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Continuing on with the second part of verse 25, Paul tells us something rather important about all of this. While all of this says a lot about us and what we gain as a result of what Christ has done, everything Paul is saying is not simply about us. It also tells us something rather important about God.
Paul says that Christ becoming our propitiating sacrifice shows us something about God and His righteousness. And remember, we have talked a lot about righteousness in this section.
Mostly, we have been talking about our unrighteousness … how we could never be right with God and measure up because of our sin problem … but we have also been talking about God’s righteousness.
And really, God’s righteousness has been at the center. And if you don’t remember how we defined God’s righteousness, we defined it this way:
the righteousness of God is the work of God in the world and in our lives to bring us into right relationship with Him while always acting in accordance with His nature and who He is
So God’s righteousness is His work to bring sinful humans back into right relationship with Himself. But as the second part makes clear, God will always act in accordance with His nature and who He is.
And that part of God’s righteousness is bad news for us. As we have talked about, God cannot just simply overlook sin … just forget about it or “take it easy” on us as sinners. If he did that, he wouldn’t be righteous because He wouldn’t be acting according to who He is and His nature … which includes being just and good … and letting sin go unpunished would be neither.
So God cannot just simply overlook sin and not punish us as sinners. He simply can’t do it. Again, it is against His very nature and characteristics as a righteous and good and just God.
So this is bad news for us as sinners. We are faced with God’s wrath and judgment, and we absolutely deserve it. And we cannot save ourselves from it … there is no way to avoid it on our own. We cannot just become right with God because our sin separates us from Him.
But as we have been talking about as we have looked at these verses over the past few weeks, God made a way for us to be declared righteous before Him … He made a way for us to be free from sin and our bondage from it … and it centers around Christ’s sacrifice.
He was our propitiation … He took the judgment and wrath we rightfully deserved, allowing God to declare us righteous, which is why Paul said this in the verses that immediately preceded the ones we have been looking at:
Romans 3:21–22 ESV
21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction:
All of this … everything we have been talking about … is how God’s righteousness has been manifested and made clear to us … how He could bring sinful humans back into right relationship with Himself, which entails freeing us from sin and spare us from death and His wrath, while simultaneously upholding His holy and rights nature.
But while all this is incredible, I think this naturally leads to a question. This reality is great for us, but what about those before Christ?
No one thinks that people like Abraham, Moses, and David are separated from God, but how can that be since Christ came after them? How can they stand before a just God when the sacrifice that was necessary for them to be declared righteous hadn’t been given yet?
Well, look back at verse 25 … Paul says that God passed over their sin. Now, you may say, “Wait, what? How can God do that? I thought that He was bound by His very nature to where He couldn’t overlook sin or just ignore it. But now you’re saying He did just that?”
And it’s true … He can’t. But Paul explains this reality as a very part of God’s righteousness, even though it seems like it would go against the righteousness of God. But the reason Paul says this is because God … in His forbearance … passed over fully punishing sins because He knew that Christ was coming to be the necessary, propitiating sacrifice, even for those who were before Him.
And this is pretty amazing with what it shows us about God and who He is. As I have said, God has to judge sin, but God also wants to justify us and make us right with Himself. So how can that be done?
Well, going back to what we have seen, it is Christ’s sacrifice. But what about those who came before it? Well, God did not punish them for their sins … He passed over them with a view of what was to come.
So Paul here is taking time to potentially answer an objection that could be raised. How can a just and righteous God not give a right judgment and His full wrath on sin when those who died without Christ did not have the sacrifice necessary for their sins?
And the answer is God knew what Christ would do and what His sacrifice would accomplish. So there is actually nothing wrong with God not fully judging and punishing past sins. It fits right in with His character because Christ paid the price for all sins … past, present, and future.
So no one can make an accusation against God’s character. God is still just even though He passed over previous sins. He is still righteous because Christ is the propitiating sacrifice of all. Again, there can be no question of God’s character. He is still righteous.
As a matter of fact, Paul will go even further in verse 26 talking about God’s righteousness and His character. Not only is God’s righteousness maintained despite His passing over of past sins, but this act also reveals something incredible about God and His righteousness … God is the justifier of those who do not deserve to be justified.
God loved us so much that He did not want us to face His wrath and right judgment, even though we deserve it. So, Jesus came into the world to do everything we talked about … become our propitiating sacrifice … the sacrifice that pays our debt and takes the wrath and judgment we deserve from God.
Now, because of what Christ has done, God can justify us .. declare us righteous. The unrighteous become righteous. We can now have a right relationship with God and spend eternity with Him instead of being separated from Him!
So there are so many aspects of God’s character and righteousness that come together through Christ’s sacrifice. God’s holiness is here in that He cannot be in relationship with sin. God’s just nature is here in that He must do what is right, which includes punishing and pouring out His wrath on sin. God’s love is here in that He does not want us to be separated from Him, so He makes a way for us to be made right with Him again.
So God, through Christ’s sacrifice, becomes the justifier of the ungodly while still being just. And this goes back to verses 21 and 22. Previously, God’s righteousness … His nature and who He is … was manifested in the law and prophets. It showed us who God was and His way … one we could never measure up to.
But now, Christ’s righteousness is manifested apart from the law. It has been manifested through Jesus Christ and what He did. And it is for all who believe and have faith in Him and what He accomplished for us. And I love the way John puts it
1 John 4:9–10 ESV
9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
God’s love … and really, overall, His righteousness, which would include His love … was manifested and made clear to us through Jesus and what He has done. So God’s character and nature are shown clearly through this work of God in Christ Jesus. The justifier of the ungodly … the one who makes the unrighteous righteous.
But don’t miss the mechanism by which all this comes about. You see it over and over again in these verses:
Romans 3:22 ESV
22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction:
Romans 3:25 (ESV) 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. …
Romans 3:26 ESV
26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
It comes through faith. There is no other way. And this leads Paul to say some very important things with the last few verses of chapter 3:
Romans 3:27–31 ESV
27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 For we hold that one 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 God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.
So if our justification comes through faith, then guess what? We have no ground to boast. There is nothing we could do or accomplish that would justify us, so how could we boast at all?
And remember that Paul has been addressing the Jewish people and Christians throughout this entire section. Earlier, we saw Paul start his talk to his Jewish audience and any religious people saying that they had no reason to feel superior to others because they had and kept the law. All people are under God’s wrath.
So in an important way … after making his case about God’s wrath and faithfulness and the solution to our sin problem and our justification … Paul calls back to how he started.
He rhetorically asks … in light of everything, what happens to our boasting? And the answer it that it is completely excluded. And our boasting is excluded because our righteousness comes not from law but from faith. Our justification is through faith alone, which Paul makes clear in verse 28.
And the result of this isn’t that we have no ground to boast in our world or what we can do and how we uphold the law. The incredible thing about our justification being by faith is that God can justify both the circumcised and uncircumcised … both the Jew and the gentile.
One does not need the law or the old covenant with God. Anyone who has faith in Christ and what He has accomplished can be justified.
And Paul concludes this section with one more rhetorical question that can serve as an objection. Still of course talking to his Jewish audience and the religious, he asks … in light of all this and that faith is the mechanism to our justification … do we overthrow the law by this faith? And the answer is no. Rather, Paul says we uphold the law.
And this may seem like an odd thing to include, but Paul will be able to expand on the balance of law and faith later. But really, in a way, Paul is not saying that it is either law or faith, as so many seem to think.
Paul sees faith as being able to actually fulfill the law. Remember, if we could perfectly keep the law, we would be righteous. But we can’t … and that wasn’t even why the law was given. But since we can’t be righteous through that, God has made a new way … through faith. And now, our faith is what justifies us and makes us righteous before God.
So in these verses that we have looked at, Paul has done a lot. He ends the important section we have been looking at by showing how God maintained His righteousness and character even though He passed over past sins. And it shows how God is the justifier of the ungodly.
And it all comes down to Jesus and His sacrifice. But how does it come about … what is the mechanism of our justification? It is faith. There is no amount of works or keeping the law that could ever get us to God and make us right with Him. It is through faith in Jesus and what He has accomplished for us.
So as Paul ends this important section that we have spent weeks on … one that is so important in so many ways … Paul is launching off into another incredibly important theme and aspect of Christianity. And that is that we are justified by faith alone.
And when you bring it all together … and in some ways boil it down … that is the character of God’s righteousness …that we are justified by faith alone in Christ’s sacrifice.
So church, again, there is no other way for us to be justified and be made right with God. It is all faith.
And while many of us knew this before hand, we still forget it so often and in so many ways. Unfortunately, so often, we don’t live our lives in light of this reality. We continue to try to earn God’s favor and all that despite the fact we never could.
And another way … maybe the way that affects so many of us more than that … we live our lives proud of who we are and what we have accomplished as good religious people and good Christians … how we live such great Christians lives. It’s like we are boasting about what we’ve done and how we’ve followed the law.
But as we saw, Paul says that we have no grounds to boast. None at all. It is excluded. If not for Jesus, none of us would be right with God. So why do we so often live such proud lives looking down on others in our pride? How can we continue to boast in the way we live and judge others?
It is because we forget that it is all by faith alone, through the gracious and incredible gift of God. Of course, we need to live lives worthy of the gospel truth we claim to believe, but we live them not in pride or boasting about all we are doing …
Instead, we live them in humility and in awe of the fact that God has taken care of everything. We live it in light of the fact that this is our story:
Romans 3:23–25 (ESV) 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. …
So as we end this incredibly important section, never forget those words and what they mean. And make them personal and realize that it all comes through faith.
And then let that humble us before our incredible God as we glorify Him for His righteousness … that He would love us enough to make a way to bring us back to Him through the sacrifice of Christ …
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