Spoken at SGBC

4-26-98

Romans #21

3:26-31

The Great Demonstration

Today's text will be found in the third chapter of Romans. Some brief comments on verses nineteen through twenty-four will serve as an introduction to our new material, verses twenty-five through thirty-one.

Let's begin with verse nineteen. Romans 3:19-31 NASB. "Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may become accountable to God; (This text refers to everyone who boasts of their law-keeping or good deeds as a basis for salvation. Before a work of the Holy Spirit one might think he is a righteous person but when the demands of God's law are understood the boasting stops, the mouth is shut. For the requirement is perfection. At this point a person understands he is lost and hopeless.) {20} because BY THE WORKS OF THE LAW NO FLESH WILL BE JUSTIFIED IN HIS SIGHT; FOR THROUGH THE LAW COMES THE KNOWLEDGE OF SIN."

Throughout the book of Romans Paul has argued against a, "keep the law salvation." He has shown that no man has ever been saved by keeping the Ten Commandments. The law was not given to save. It was given to point out and magnify our sin, thus proving that we do not have the righteousness required for salvation. The law was meant to condemn us. It was meant to shut our boasting mouths, to reveal our guilt before God. Paul makes these things very clear. When understood, the words of Paul will cause men to ask, "How then can I be forgiven and accepted by God?" If not by ancestry, law keeping, ceremony, or religion, what hope is there?

Beginning with the words, "But now," in verse twenty one, the glorious light of God's grace comes shining through. Here is the Good News.

(Romans 3:21-22 NASB) "But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, (revealed, made known) being witnessed (or spoken of before hand) 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;"

Here our brother begins to describe a salvation that has nothing to do with rules and regulations. This salvation is entirely outside of us. It is based on the righteousness of God revealed to mankind in the person and work of Jesus Christ the Lord and communicated to us by the Holy Spirit. Why is this righteousness called, "the righteousness of God?" It is because God is the source and center of all righteousness. It is because men have NO righteousness of their own. God alone is righteous. Yet, He requires that all who would be saved from the wrath to come be righteous as He is righteous. This requirement would be the undoing and damnation of the whole human race were it not for the Good News contained in the following sentence. God GIVES the righteousness required for salvation to sinners who believe in Jesus Christ. He imputes, or gives the very "Righteousness of God" to believing sinners! It must be this way, {23} "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

This blessed text means at least four things. First, that sinners have fallen from the glorious position of fellowship once enjoyed in the garden. There is no communion or fellowship between God and unbelieving sinners. Unbelievers are called the enemies of God with whom, the scriptures declare, He is angry every day. Then second, the phrase means that sinful man will not participate in the promised glory of the age to come. Heaven, and the glory that it holds, is reserved for those redeemed by the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ the Lord. No human will share in the glory of the coming kingdom who dies without being joined to Christ by faith and thereby obtaining the "righteousness of God." Third, Romans 3:23 tells us that man is no longer ABLE glorify God. The Bible tells us that sinful man is evil from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. From the scriptures we learn that everything a person does BEFORE he comes to faith in Jesus is sinful, (Romans 14:23). On an unbeliever's best day he falls short of pleasing God and that is sin. Fourth, and finally the twenty-third verse of Romans chapter three tells us that sinners do not come up to God's standard of acceptance. They are not glorious or righteousness enough to come into the presence of God. Therefore, they are rejected and lost forever. No man, woman, or child will be accepted by God as a son or daughter if they do not possess the very righteousness of God. Sinners must be perfect and holy as He is perfect and holy if they ever hope to be saved from the wrath of God.

Now the age old question. How can a sinner obtain the glorious righteousness of God for himself? How could this ever come to pass? Where can this glory, this perfection, this holiness be found? God's glory is found in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only person that has not fallen short of the glory of God. He is the embodiment of all that God is. Jesus is the glory of God. Jesus is the righteousness we must have for acceptance with God. But how is it obtained? The righteousness of God is obtained through faith in Christ. By trusting in Jesus, by believing that He is the righteousness, holiness, and perfection that God requires of the sinner. The righteousness of God is communicated to believing sinners through faith in Jesus. You are saved by trusting in Him to meet God's standard of glorious perfection for you. By faith in Him you no longer come up short of the glory of God. Jesus is all that God requires for your salvation. He is the one who justifies the sinner before God.

In the next two verses there are three great Christian truths brought to our attention. Justification, Redemption and Propitiation. {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. . . "

The Shorter Catechism defines Justification like this, it is; "An act of God's free grace wherein He pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in His sight because of the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone." This is a beautiful and accurate definition of Justification.

Redemption has to do with purchasing or paying a ransom for something. Hear the words of 1 Peter 1:17-19 NASB. "And if you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each man's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay upon earth; {18} knowing that YOU WERE NOT REDEEMED (purchased, or ransomed) WITH PERISHABLE THINGS like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, {19} BUT WITH PRECIOUS BLOOD, AS OF A LAMB UNBLEMISHED AND SPOTLESS, THE BLOOD OF CHRIST."

By sin the entire human race became slaves of sin, self and the devil. If any were to be saved, or set free to serve the living God the appropriate ransom price had to be paid. Christ has paid the appropriate price for our freedom. That price was the life and blood of the very Son of God. This is redemption.

The third great doctrine, found in verse twenty-five of our present text, is Propitiation. This has to do with God's disposition toward sinners. The Bible tells us that God's wrath rests on unbelievers daily. Psalms seven and verse eleven says that He is angry with the wicked every day. Unless something is done about God's wrath sinners cannot and will not be saved. Rather, they will remain separate from God in a tormenting hell forever. This is where Propitiation comes in. John Murray's definition of this all important doctrine will serve us well today. He wrote;"The doctrine of propitiation is precisely this that God loved the objects of His wrath (His lost sheep) so much that He gave His own Son to the end that He, by His blood, should make provision for the removal of His wrath. It was Christ's (job) so to deal with the wrath, that those loved would no longer be the objects of wrath and, therefore, love would achieve it's aim of making the children of wrath the children of God's good pleasure." (End Quote) In other words, God, in Christ, has quenched His own wrath for the sake of those He loved and wished to save. (1 John 4:10 NASB) "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the PROPITIATION for our sins."

The sum of these three truths is this. Believing sinners are made right or justified by God through the redemption accomplished when Jesus gave His life for them on the cross. The sacrifice of Christ extinguished God's wrath toward those He intended to save. The benefits of Justification, Redemption, and Propitiation are communicated to the believing sinner through faith in Jesus Christ, which faith is itself a gift from God.

Verses twenty-four and twenty-five tell us that God did all of this publicly to demonstrate or make public His righteousness. The crucifixion of Christ on the stage of human history was meant to show that God has dealt with sin in accord with the demands of His Law. But why did He need to do this? The answer is given in verse twenty five. "Because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed." William Hendricksen's translation of verses 25a and 26 captures the meaning well. Hendricksen wrote, "(God did this, i.e., accomplished justification, redemption, propitiation by the crucifixion of Christ) to demonstrate His justice, because in His forbearance He had treated past sins with indulgence. (So he did it) to demonstrate His justice in the present time, that He might be (or be proven to be) just and the One who justifies the person who has faith in Jesus."

Following his translation of the verses in question Hendricksen, speaking of God putting Christ to death publically says; "This happened in order to prove or demonstrate that God had not been unfair or unjust when, in his "forbearance" He had treated with indulgence or had passed over - "overlooked" - for the time being the sins of His people committed in earlier days; that is, during the old dispensation, i.e., old testament days. When God's Son suffered and died, He did so to atone for the sins of all who had accepted or were going to accept Him by a living faith. That is, for all believers in both dispensations. The merits of the cross reach backward as well as forward. By not allowing the earlier sins to be left forever unpunished but loading them on Christ (Isaiah 53:6), God demonstrated that He was, is, and forever will be just. And since He is just, (or has dealt with sin in a way that accords with His law), who can deny that He, He alone, has a right to be, and actually is, the justifier of all who put their trust in Jesus?" (End Quote)

I must try to make this simpler yet? Through out the ages men have sinned against God, they have broken His law. The law says that when one sins he must die for that sin. That is why, in the days of Noah, God destroyed the earth with a flood. Those people, one might say, got what they deserved for breaking the law. God was just, He was acting in accord with His law, when He put them to death. From the flood forward, however, men sinned up a storm and God did nothing about it. What was going on? Had God changed His mind about sin? Had He rewritten His law? Had He chosen to defy His own law? Did He now accept and condone sin? Why did He not destroy all? For all were sinners? To confuse things further there were men and women from among these wicked people, before and after the flood, who were declared righteous in the eyes of God by faith. How could this be? How could a man like Abraham, a sinner, an idolater, be accepted by God when the demands of the law had not been met? The law said, "The soul that sins it shall die." The scriptures declare that without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness of sins. Yet God saved and forgave many in the Old Testament without, it appeared, the killing of an appropriate sacrifice, (The blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin). To many it would appear that God himself was a law-breaker.

Our text tells us that the crucifixion of Christ was carried out in public to disprove any such accusations against God. Christ was crucified publically to demonstrate how or on what basis He had saved believing sinners in the past. How did He spare the lives of those in Noah's ark? How did He accept a man like Abraham or King David, sinners from the get go? His acceptance of them was based on the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ even though He had not yet died for sins. You see, the death of the Spotless Lamb reached backward and atoned for the sins of those who believed before the crucifixion. It also reaches forward to us who believe today. There was one sacrifice of the Son of God which was sufficient for the salvation of all who have been or will be saved. God laid upon Christ the sins of His Elect people from every age and nation, and then He put Him to death in their place to satisfy the demands of His law. This is how God saves sinners without punishing them for their sin. As Hendricksen put it, "God loads on Christ the sins of His lost people and put Him to death in their place. Christ's death satisfies the demands of the law for all those whose sins He bore. Therefore God can save to the uttermost sinners who will never be punished for their sins. Is this remarkable or what? Let's look for a moment at Isaiah chapter fifty-three.

(Isaiah 53 NASB) "He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. {4} Surely OUR GRIEFS HE HIMSELF BORE, AND OUR SORROWS HE CARRIED; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, SMITTEN OF GOD, and afflicted. {5} But He was pierced through FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS, He was crushed FOR OUR INIQUITIES; The chastening FOR OUR WELL-BEING fell upon Him, And by His scourging WE ARE HEALED. {6} All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall ON HIM. . . {10} But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a GUILT OFFERING," We were the guilty, He was the innocent. God loaded out sin upon Him and crushed Him to death for our guilt and sin. This is the substitutionary work of Jesus for the Elect of every age. This one death of the one and only Son of God atoned for the sins of all God's lost sheep. Praise the Lord!

At this point in Romans Paul has made clear that salvation is not dependant on man's performance or law keeping. The salvation of God's lost, sinful, sheep has been ordered by God. It is based on the redemptive work of Christ on the cross. It is applied to the helpless, hopeless, sinner by God the Holy Spirit through the instrument of faith. Salvation, brothers and sisters is all of grace! Paul follows quickly with a question in verse twenty seven. {27} Where then is boasting? (That is, in light of the truths set forth above does a redeemed man have anything to brag about? The answer follows . . ) It (boasting) is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. (If salvation was based on works or law keeping then the saved person would have something to brag about. Since, however, salvation has nothing to do with law keeping but with faith, boasting is not possible.) {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? (The Jews were the custodians of God's law. Did God intend to save only Jews? If so perhaps the law does make a difference, but He is not exclusive to the Jews.) Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, (The same God who saved believing Jews apart from keeping the law also saved believing Gentiles who had not been given God's written law. He saved Gentiles apart from the law also.) {30} since indeed God who will justify the circumcised (the Jew) BY FAITH and the uncircumcised THROUGH FAITH is one. (The Gentile was saved by faith just like the believing Jew in spite of the fact he did not possess the written law and did not submit to circumcision which most Jews believed to be necessary for acceptance with God. So, what does this say about the law?) {31} Do we then nullify (abolish or render inoperative) the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the (function of the) Law."

Paul has spent a great deal of time and effort showing that works or obedience to the law cannot save or contribute to salvation. Some, the Jews primarily, thought he was trying to do away with the law altogether. The apostle, with great earnestness, says, "May it never be!" "Let no one ever say such a thing!" The law still has a valid function. That function is the same as it has always been. A few minutes in the book of Galatians will reveal what that is.

Galatians {3:22} "But the Scripture (The Old Testament scriptures, often called the law . . ) has shut up all men under sin, (Here is part of the function of the law. The law has proven that all men are sinners and can do nothing about it, they are "shut up" to this truth.) that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. {23} But before faith came, (when we were still unbelievers) we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. (The phrase "shut up to faith" speaks of there being only one way to safety, one way to God. When the law, by the blessing of the Holy Spirit, does its work in a sinners heart it convinces him of his sin. It proves to the sinner that there is no way one can be saved but by faith in Jesus Christ. Thus the sinner is "shut up to faith." Meaning, there is only one course of action left open to him. He will die in his sin or go to God by faith in Jesus Christ.) {24} Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, (The law was never meant to save. It was put in place to point sinners away from themselves to Jesus . . ) that we may be justified by faith. {25} But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor." Now that we have come to have faith in Christ the law no longer serves this purpose for us. The believing sinner has a new heart upon which is written the law of God. We understand that we are to love God and our neighbor according to the law of love which fulfills or is the summation of all of God's law to us. This is the delight and desire of our hearts. The law once condemned us to death for our sin and pointed us to Christ. Now the law of love, written on our hearts, guides us in our worship of God and our relations with our fellow humans.

Where are you in relation to God's law? (Luke 10:27 NASB) And he answered and said, "YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." This is God's law to all men. The breaking of this law is sin.

When blessed by the Spirit of God this law convinces the sinner of his guilt and the coming judgement. By the Spirit he understands that he has fallen short of God's requirement. He knows that he has not loved God and his fellow man perfectly and he must die an eternal death. He is doomed and he knows it. But there is more, by the Holy Spirit this sinner is shut up to Christ. This man is now convinced that if he does not run by faith to Jesus for salvation he will be lost forever. Then at last, by the Spirit, this sinner does go to Christ believing that He alone can save him. This person has become a Christian.

Has the law condemned you? Has it convinced you of your sin and the death that you must die? If so, I encourage you to go to Christ for eternal life, surely you will find forgiveness in Him.

For the Christian this law of love is his standard of living. These are his marching orders. By grace this is how he relates to God and man, on the basis of love. He does not do so perfectly and never will but the fulfilment of this royal law is his goal and desire toward which he labors, runs, and prays. Does his failure to love God and man perfectly separate him from God? No it does not. For the perfect keeper of God's law stands in his place before God. I speak of Jesus Christ. He is the fulfilment of the law for all who believe. He is my Righteousness, my Law Keeper, my Access to God and to His heaven.

Where do you stand in relation to the law? Has it shut you up to sin and pointed you to Christ? If so I beg you flee from the terrors promised by the law to Him who saves all who come to Him by faith.