condemnation of Jews and Gentiles There is no

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October 28, 2012

If you were to say that Romans 3:23-26 is the richest text in all the Bible, I wouldn’t argue with you. There is so much packed into this text that we will never exhaust all its depth, especially not in one week. I wish we could cover 3:23-26 in one week, because the connections in these verses are so awesome and so powerful that I hate to break them up over two weeks. But there’s just too much here! So, let’s remember where we are and then jump in. Paul has delivered the indictment of universal human sinfulness in 1:18-3:20. All are sinners, because all have failed to glorify God as God. All deserve God’s wrath, because all are unrighteous. And no one has any hope of getting righteous before God on the basis of good works. Then, in 3:21-22, Paul restates the big idea of Romans and the great truth of the gospel, “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.” Even though all are unrighteous sinners, God offers His own righteousness as a gift of grace to meet His own righteous demands, and He offers it to all who will believe in Jesus. That leads to the last phrase of 3:22, “There is no difference.” Paul is emphasizing that God’s gracious gift of righteousness really is offered to all people. And we know from our time in 1:18-3:20 that Paul is especially emphasizing that this offer is for both Jew and Gentile. And then our text today starts with an explanation of why there is no difference between Jew and Gentile. Look at 3:23-24, “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.” Do you see the two reasons why there is no difference between Jew and Gentile? First, in 3:23, there is no difference, because all are sinners. All fall short of the glory of God. There is no difference in the guilt and condemnation of Jews and Gentiles (all of chapter 2 proved this). All are unrighteous. Therefore, all need the righteousness that comes from God through faith in Jesus. There is no difference in the need of Jews and Gentiles. Second, in 3:24, there is no difference, because all are justified freely by God’s grace through Jesus. There is no difference in the way Jews and Gentiles are made right with God . All are justified freely. All are justified by God’s grace. All are justified through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. It’s not law for some and grace for others. It’s not works for some and faith for others. There is no difference in the

justification of Jews and Gentiles.

There are so many important concepts in these two verses: 1.

Make sure you notice how Paul describes sin in 3:23, “fall short of the glory of God.” The word translated “fall short” means to lack. In other words, our sin is that we lack the glory of God. What does that mean? Does it mean that we are supposed to be as glorious as God, and our failure to be that glorious is sin? No. Chapter 1 has already explained this for us. 1:21 says our sin is that we fail to glorify God as God, and 1:23 says we exchanged the glory of God for images. In other words, the glory we lack is not glory for ourselves but glory for God. It’s not that we’ve fallen short of being as glorious as God. It’s that we’ve fallen short of giving God the glory He deserves. We were created to give God glory, but we have exchanged His glory for other things, and we do not fulfill the purpose for which we were created. There is only one category that matters in all reality: How much glory do you give to God? And we are sorely lacking in that category. And that is our sin. Be reminded that everything is about God’s glory, because all reality is God-centered. It is from Him and through Him and to Him (11:36).

2. Make sure you notice how Paul describes the solution to our sin in 3:24. There are four descriptions of the solution: We are (1) justified (2) freely (3) by God’s grace (4) through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Before we look at those four descriptions, notice two things right off the bat. First, everything in this verse is about what God has done to save us, not what we do to save ourselves. Second, this verse more fully explains the big idea from 1:17 and 3:21-22. Those verses told us “a righteousness from God has been revealed.” In other words, something has happened to show the righteousness from God. Verse 24 explains both what has happened and how it shows the righteousness from God. Look at the four pieces:

(1) Justified—Remember the connection in Greek between “justified” (dikaio-o) and “righteous” (dikaios). They are the verb and the noun for the same word. Justified literally means “to declare righteous.” You can see the connection better in English when you see the word “just” in “justified.” “Just” is a synonym for “righteous” and “justify” means “to declare just/righteous.” So connect 3:21-22 to 3:24, “But now a righteousness from God has been made known… This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus to all who believe... All are declared righteous (justified)…” In other words, 3:24 explains that the righteousness from God that is being revealed is not His standard of righteousness that condemns us as unrighteous sinners, but His gift of righteousness that declares us righteous by grace through faith. (2) Freely—Translates the Greek word dorean. It is directly connected to the Greek word dorea, which means “gift.” In other words, this righteousness from God is given as a gift. We don’t pay for it. God gives it freely without us having made any payment toward it. The righteousness from God by which He justifies us is a free gift from Him. (3) By His Grace—This explains God’s gift even more fully. Just a few verses later, in 4:4, Paul contrasts grace with wages. He says, “Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift (literally “grace”), but as an obligation (literally “debt”).” In other words, if you work and earn something, what you get is not grace; it’s wages. They owe you wages for your work, so their payment to you is to pay off the debt they owe for your labor. We’ll come back to this more and more, but notice that this is why it’s such an insult… why it’s so heinously sinful… to think that you would work for your righteousness before God. If you earn your righteousness, then God owes it to you as a debt. Would you dare claim that God is in your debt… that God owes you? That very claim denies God’s glory as God and is the heart of the self-centered sin we saw in 1:18-21. So if something is going to be a gift of grace, you can’t work for it. Grace is the good someone gives you when he owes you nothing. And that’s how Paul says God gives us righteousness and justifies us: as a gift by His grace. So “freely” means you can’t pay for justification. And “by God’s grace” means you can’t work for justification. That leaves a huge question: Then how can a righteous God declare unrighteous sinners righteous? If we don’t pay for it or work for it… if we don’t earn it or deserve it… how can it be just and right for God to say that we are righteous? Isn’t it a lie and an unjust judgment for God to declare us righteous? No, it isn’t a lie, and it isn’t unjust, because of the way God does it: (4) Through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus—The key to understanding the beautiful truth of this phrase is in the word “redemption.” Redemption translates the Greek word apolutroseos. Look in the middle of that word, and you can see that it’s built on a smaller Greek word, lutron. Well, lutron means “ransom.” So redemption is when someone is delivered or released by payment of a ransom. What’s the ransom? The word only appears one other time in the New Testament: In the gospels, when Jesus says, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). In other words, Jesus pays the ransom with His life. That’s what Paul means when He says redemption “came by Christ Jesus.” Jesus pays the ransom with His life so that we can be redeemed… so that we can be released and delivered. What do we need to be released and delivered from? From the guilt and condemnation and wrath of God that come on us because we have “all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” And make sure you see that Jesus paying our ransom is intimately connected to God’s righteousness in justifying us. We owed a price for our sin. It would be unjust for God to just let that debt go. But when Jesus pays the price with His redeeming death, the debt is satisfied. God can declare us out of debt, and that declaration is true and just, because the debt really has been paid. That’s also why our justification is “freely by God’s grace”: Because it comes completely by the redeeming death of Jesus. You don't do anything to earn it. You don’t pay for it. You don’t work for it. Jesus pays for it by His work on the cross. It is all through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

That’s the end of verse 24, but it’s not the end of the thought. Verse 25 explains more fully how redemption comes by Christ Jesus, “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” Notice three aspects of that sentence: 1.

God presented Him—God is the one doing this. Justification is God’s work. God makes the way and provides the ransom, so that we can be redeemed and justified.

2. As a sacrifice of atonement—”Sacrifice of atonement” translates a single Greek word, hilasterion. The theological term that is used in some translations is “propitiation.” Propitiation means to be a sacrifice that bears God’s wrath and thereby turns His wrath into favor. The word has a very important Old Testament connection. In Exodus 25:17, God gives instructions for building the tabernacle (and later the temple). The innermost part of the tabernacle was the Holy of Holies. Only the High Priest could enter, and only once a year, on the Day of Atonement. The Ark of the Covenant was kept in the Holy of Holies. And on top of the ark was built a “mercy seat,” or an “atonement cover” (NIV). Both of these phrases translate hilasterion (propitiation) in the Greek OT. On the Day of Atonement, the High Priest was to sprinkle the blood of a bull on the atonement cover/mercy seat as propitiation for the people’s sins (Leviticus 16:14). In other words, God’s wrath against their sin is satisfied in the sacrifice of the bull, and God turns His mercy and favor toward His people, because their sins have been atoned for (covered over). And that is exactly how God redeems us and justifies us through Jesus. The blood of Jesus is poured out, satisfying God’s righteous wrath against sin. Jesus’ death provides atonement for our sins, so that God can show us mercy without being unjust. 3. Through faith in His blood—Paul continues to emphasize that redemption and justification come through faith. Now, he gives us even more of the content of that faith. It is faith in Jesus’ blood. In other words, we are trusting that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross really does bear God’s wrath, really does satisfy God’s righteous standards, really does redeem us and pay the price for our sin, really does cover our sin and atone for us, really does cleanse us and secure forgiveness… and all of that, so that God can look at us and justly and rightly declare, “Righteous. Justified.” We trust that Jesus’ blood accomplishes everything that needs to be accomplished before God on our behalf. And that, by itself, is huge. We’re going to stop there tonight. Think about what we’ve seen. We’ve seen what God did in history to reveal His gift of righteousness to us: He sent Jesus as an atoning sacrifice. We’ve peered into the depths of how God justifies us through Jesus: His justice is satisfied by the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus paying our debt and covering our sin. We’ve seen the connection between redemption and propitiation and justification and faith. We’ve seen what is the absolute most important truth for our souls: How we can be right with God. And yet, our text doesn't stop there. In the next verse and a half, Paul goes even deeper and tells us why God sent Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement to redeem us and justify us. Not just how God did it, but why. Before we study these verses next week, prepare yourself for what we’ll be seeing in them. We’re seeing the mind of God. God is letting us look into His mind and see why He chose to send Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement. These verses describe the reasoning… the motivation… of God Himself in His great act of salvation. We are treading on the most holy of ground here.

E'er since, by faith, I saw the stream thy flowing wounds supply, redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.

Dear dying Lamb, thy precious blood shall never lose its power till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.

The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day; and there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away.

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins; and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

Because the sinless Savior died, My sinful soul is counted free; For God the just is satisfied To look on Him and pardon me.

When Satan tempts me to despair, And tells me of the guilt within, Upward I look, and see Him there Who made an end to all my sin.

My name is graven on His hands, My name is written on His heart; I know that while in heaven He stands No tongue can bid me thence depart.

Before the throne of God above I have a strong and perfect plea: A great High Priest, whose name is Love, Who ever lives and pleads for me.

Behold Him there, the Risen Lamb My perfect, spotless righteousness, The great unchangeable I am, The King of glory and of grace! One with Himself I cannot die My soul is purchased by His blood My life is hid with Christ on high, With Christ, my Savior and my God

Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee; let the water and the blood, from thy wounded side which flowed, be of sin the double cure; save from wrath and make me pure.

Not the labors of my hands can fulfill thy law's commands; could my zeal no respite know, could my tears forever flow, all for sin could not atone; thou must save, and thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling; naked, come to thee for dress; helpless, look to thee for grace; foul, I to the fountain fly; wash me, Savior, or I die.

While I draw this fleeting breath, when mine eyes shall close in death, when I soar to worlds unknown, see thee on thy judgment throne, Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee.