Romans 3:21-31: The Righteousness of God Revealed

[0:00] 21 through 31 can be found on page 916 of the Red View Bibles. At this time, any children and the helpers up to age 5th grade are dismissed for their classes.

[0:23] Once again, that's Romans chapter 3, verses 21 through 31. Please stand for the reading of God's word. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

[1:11] 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. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded.

[1:24] By what kind of law? By the law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also?

[1:39] Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one. He will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?

[1:50] By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law. This is the word of the Lord. You can be seated. It was the year 1997 when Oxford's Clarendon Press published J.E. Linden's Empire of Honor, the art of government in the Roman world.

[2:31] In many respects, Linden's thesis complemented the University of Chicago's own Richard Saller's earlier work, titled Personal Patronage Under the Early Empire.

[2:48] Two interesting words to describe the way in which Rome worked. Honor and patronage.

[3:04] Words which have great affinity to the way in which we work. Perhaps we're Roman after all. One reviewer said of Linden's work, quote, Ancient Rome was what one might call a prestige society.

[3:29] Everyone was quite conscious of their place in the social hierarchy and sought constantly to elevate it. The strength, wealth, and reputation of a man was his social currency.

[3:49] Also given was the fact that those with any means to do so would jostle for a higher seat on the hierarchy. One sought unabashedly to be obeyed by one's inferiors, to be accepted by one's peers, and to be rewarded by one's betters.

[4:17] The reviewer finishes, To have glory and to rightfully enjoy it, that was honor in a nutshell.

[4:30] Into this kind of social setting, I'm wondering if Paul's letter to the Romans landed like a bombshell, and why it jars our senses today.

[4:54] Indeed, we work by honor and patronage. We are always trying to elevate ourselves.

[5:05] It wasn't long ago that I was publishing a work and was eager for particular commendations. Why? Because if one's superiors would speak well of the work, well then your own work is elevated with it.

[5:26] Patronage is no new word to Chicago, whether you publish or not. For the better part of three chapters now, Paul has been systematically cratering the idea that God's spiritual community would be constructed or maintained by the notion of human honor or prestige.

[6:03] If you've been traveling through the letter with us, we saw most recently in chapter 2, 17 through 3, 20, this detonation of any previously held conviction for the Jew that their election by God or their being entrusted with the oracles of God somehow would work to their elevated place of spiritual safety come the future day of wrath.

[6:44] They who relied on the law, who boasted in God, who had received His very word, who were teachers to all, Paul has said, come that final day, you stand at no advantage concerning the imminent wrath of God.

[7:12] Prior to that, chapter 2, 1 to 16, we saw him level any romantic notion of the self-proclaimed moralist, whether Jews or otherwise, among us, who would think that we might acquire some particular advantage on the day of the great ordeal because we had accumulated some personal moral currency that could be cashed in when we looked at the moral bankruptcy of those around us.

[7:59] Paul has taken that down. On the contrary, he says, God's wrath is inescapable, even for those who would excuse themselves from it on the basis of possessing sound judgment.

[8:22] Further back, one step beyond that, we saw in chapter 1, verses 18 to 32, this explosion of humanity's naive supposition that we might feel anything but shame in the presence of God on that great and final day.

[8:47] Instead, God's wrath was said to be manifested because of our dishonoring of Him. Do you remember those words in chapter 1 and verse 21?

[9:02] For although they knew God, they did not honor Him. Such has been Paul's devastating argument on the spiritual culture built on prestige, patronage, or honor.

[9:18] The fuse, he says, of God's wrath has been lit in the past, is working in the present, will come on a future day, and it will be universal, inescapable, and humanity in total is fully culpable.

[9:42] So when you arrive at chapter 3, verse 20, Rome, the empire of honor, has been humbled into a state of complete silence.

[9:58] Recalling the words of last week, every mouth now stopped. You could call chapter 118 through 320, Paul's song of wrath, revealed from the empire of heaven, meant to devastate a human empire that thought otherwise on the basis of honor.

[10:38] Now, that extended introduction is critical because today, in our text, the letter turns. And you should know that preachers have been known to play this text with great dramatic flair, waxing in the homiletics that would almost present you, the listener, as if there was only one thing now remaining to be done.

[11:16] We should expect God's final sentence of condemnation to fall, and the parishioner is made to feel that with one final assault on mankind, God will, in a sense, bring in his last air raid, and it'll all be over.

[11:37] And then the preacher relishes 321, but now. Right?

[11:50] But now. Preachers, we could spend three weeks on those two words. But I'm not going to do it.

[12:03] I'm going to treat you like an adult. You come to Holy Trinity. We believe you are adults. We'll treat you like adults. These are not the first words that Paul has put forward concerning hope for the human race.

[12:23] These verses have rightly been called the turning point in the letter. We will give you that.

[12:35] And by others, the most important paragraph in Romans. And indeed, we could argue that. And others have stood over these ten verses and actually declared that they are the greatest words ever written.

[12:53] And we could give you that. But! Well, this is all true. These are not the first words of hope in Paul's letter to the Romans.

[13:09] Thoughtful readers will have been primed for the truths that stand behind these verses. And they will have been primed from the very opening. And so I want you to look back. Look at how Paul has consistently shown God to be more than a God of wrath.

[13:28] In fact, before he ever entered into the argument on wrath, he declared that this God was a God of grace. Chapter 1 and verse 5, he says, through whom we have received grace.

[13:42] He argued that right out of the blocks. Our entire conception of God has never been limited. He said to 118 to 320. In verse 7 of chapter 1, he said to all those who are in Rome who are what?

[13:58] Hated by God? No! Loved by God! Called to be saints! These great warming words taking in then the fullness of who God is.

[14:12] How about those wonderful words in verses 16 and 17 of the opening chapter? For I am not ashamed in this culture of honor and shame.

[14:22] Don't you love this phrase then? For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.

[14:36] As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. He's been there! We don't arrive there today. And as tempting as it would be to preach it as if these were the first words of hope, the text requires us to look at it differently.

[15:00] In other words, these verses are not simply the first explication of the gospel. When you come to these words, you do come to the hinge in Paul's argument.

[15:18] But it's a hinge that is bent purposely in answering two questions which there is no interlocutor at this point to ask.

[15:30] And the questions are questions that we would bring to God, humanly speaking, on the basis of all that Paul has said to this point.

[15:41] And they are these. Paul, what will God do to establish his rightful rule over all of his created order once again?

[15:54] Given this rolling, lyrical, song of wrath, but given our understanding of God that he creates with intention and purpose and design, what will he do to restore his honor, his glory, his intention for all of creation.

[16:20] For indeed, all things were created for his glory. All things have eternally been meant for his honor. And now that all things appear to be spoiled, what will he do?

[16:33] Well, he hasn't told us that yet. And secondly, these questions must answer not only what God does to establish his rightful rule, where the universe is operating for his honor, but it must ask how will he do this and yet remain righteous?

[16:58] And so Paul launches in. The verses are a little bit difficult to divide, but for the sake of simplicity, I'm going to look at them along the lines of those two questions.

[17:10] In verses 21 to 24, what God does to establish his rightful rule over all of created order that he might receive honor and glory and dominion.

[17:24] And then verses 25 through 26, how that remedy for the human condition avoids making him an unrighteous God.

[17:41] And so here we look at it and first we see that whatever he has done, it is something, verse 21, that entails the righteousness of God being manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.

[18:05] Now, do you remember the last phrase from the last message, the verse before, where we learn that by the works of the law no human being future tense will be justified in his sight since through the law comes the knowledge of sin?

[18:22] Well, the way he answers the question is that that righteousness of God somehow is manifested now in the present and apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.

[18:38] This is what God does. He brings his righteousness into the world before the day of righteous judgment.

[18:49] and he brings it into the world into the now time and makes it manifest. Now, the translation is going to be difficult for you that you need to know that the word righteous or righteousness and the word that you see in the text just or justice is the same in the original language it's just translated in different ways so what you actually see here is a language that speaks of the righteousness or the justice of God or the just justices of God entering into now to bring a universal solution to a universal problem namely a humanity that is fully culpable and under a wrath of which they are there is no escape.

[19:44] So he says the righteousness righteousness of God is now made manifest and notice verse 22 it's a righteousness that is in verse 22 that is in Jesus Christ now this is an unfortunate translation I think this word in I'm not sure exactly what to do with it but it's not a dative in the sense of being in Christ it's a genitive which would mean it's really of Christ so that you could actually translate this phrase the righteousness of God that he brings into the world to solve this problem of our human rebellion is a righteousness that is made through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ and the righteousness of Jesus Christ his faithfulness is available for all who believe I think that's a better way to look at it this is what God does he brings his righteousness into the world i.e. the activity in the actions of his son and in the fidelity of his own son in his faithfulness makes available to all who will believe the righteousness that belong to his son what a wonderful thing this is what God does to establish his rightful rule over all of the created order he brings his son into the world who lives in complete fidelity to God's word and therefore himself is not subject to death or his wrath and through him through your belief in him through your dependence in Jesus through your reliance upon him through your trust in his righteousness by faith you receive a divine declaration on that final day of righteousness not that you are righteous you are guilty not that I am ever anything but guilty but I might be declared not guilty because God has put his righteousness into the world through the fidelity of his son and that as I attach myself in reliance upon his righteousness

[22:06] God declares me his son ever guilty ever in Christ made alive in the presence of the one under whom I was to receive wrath now look who this is available to in verses 22 and 23 notice the little words all they've been very important even in the chapters preceding but this righteousness through the fidelity of Christ is available for all who believe for there is no distinction or the word here would almost be like like a scalpel an incision or there's no separation and then you have that wonderful phrase that's so often repeated in evangelistic discussions today for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God but when we normally use that phrase we're using that phrase to declare yourself a sinner for all have sinned but when you actually look at the context of it what he's saying is the righteousness of Christ his faithfulness is available for all who believe for all have sinned but all are justified or made right set right by him even though we have fallen short or lack his glory it's available to all that means it's available to you and I don't even know you

[23:47] I don't know what the heart of a bad man is like but I know what the heart of a good man is like and it's terrible and it's available to me hey guys like me can be right with God that's amazing I know it must be amazing for you to be set right to be declared in proper relation because you are relying in faith upon his fidelity being transferred to you as an act of mercy and grace and a gift and redemption that's good news look three times over he mentions this this sense that it's not only what Jesus has done not only is it available to all but verse 24 we are justified or maybe better translated we are set right how by his grace one as a gift to through the redemption or the purchasing back that he does on our behalf that's the gospel now

[25:13] I want to pause here for a moment because today's churchdom world is relegating the proclamation of the word to imperatives rather than indicatives and I for one am tired of it so that the church member is coming to services wanting to know what I must do and in every text preachers are more than willing to preach to you the commands of the Bible to give you the imperatives of the scripture and the churchgoer goes out saying oh this is tough this is hard I got hit on the head but I at least know what I'm supposed to be doing during the week he told me what to do between Monday and Friday but that is not the gospel have you seen a command here yet no the gospel is the indicatives it's what

[26:15] God has done that's the gospel that's why this is the greatest paragraph in all the Bible there's nothing here for you to do there's nothing you can do you're supposed to sit and listen and reflect upon what God has done and this is what the text says when you were without hope inescapably under his wrath working your own honor system forward and thinking it somehow might apply graciously in the sight of God on the last day and when that whole wall has crumbled down he says that the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law that's what God has done that the righteousness of God through the fidelity of Christ is available for all who believe that's what God has done and there is no distinction between a

[27:18] Jew or a Gentile a moralist or an amoralist you can be the worst the vilest of all sinners like me and still get in on that great day if the righteousness of Christ robes you covers you protects you in the sight of an almighty God who will be just hey the gospel is about the indicative it's all about what God has done you cannot fix yourself I cannot fix myself God fixes us God establishes his rightful rule over all of creation through his work from beginning to end it is all what he does freeing isn't it

[28:29] I think of Flannery O'Connor in moments like this no writer was more deeply in tune with the angst of the human soul the dark side of the person and yet who understood the activity of God I think of Flannery O'Connor's work called The River where the parents are painfully aware of their son's failings that need to be fixed it opens with the child standing glum and limp in the middle of a dark living room while the father is pulling him into a plaid coat and his right arm was hung in the sleeve but the father buttons the coat anyway and pushes the son forward to a pale spotted hand that is struck through the half open door and a voice from the hallway says he ain't fixed right to which the father says well then for Christ's sake fix him isn't that beautiful that the father was aware not only of the son's failings but of his own we need saving can't do it can't walk through that threshold can't get through that door although I know the voice from the other side of the door says he ain't fixed yet that's what

[30:25] Jesus does that's what God does he regains his intention for us in Christ and enables us through his spirit to walk through that door blameless saved how then does God do this with still without violating his own righteousness how do you do that how do you let someone get in free of charge if you are a just God who requires payment how does one do this I mean remember God in the book of Romans is the holder of divine justice and as a consequence

[31:27] God must be absolutely fair in rendering his verdict the present day notion that God somehow loves you this way oh don't worry about it God is a God of love he'll turn a blind eye to that that is not the Christian gospel that is a that is a dismantling of a God who would render verdicts fairly or justly and how can we ever have a God who isn't righteous or just in all of his dealings this is in human terms is a dilemma for God he's not like us he cannot turn his back on unrighteousness he is just sin must be punished and the Christian message can never be relegated to oh that's okay God doesn't mind he loves you anyway that's not the

[32:27] Christian message and so how does he do this well look at verses 25 and 26 I think Paul here is answering how God provides a remedy for the human condition without violating his own righteous character whom back to Jesus Christ God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith this was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins 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 this answers how he does it and remains righteous he puts forward Jesus Christ as a propitiation now this is a very big and important word and indeed translations of the Bible have been laid aside and other translations of the

[33:29] Bible have been done depending upon how this one word was translated Tyndale gave it to us beautifully in his translation in 1526 he just simply translated it the seat of mercy C.H. Dodd preferred a translation expiation as if what God did in Christ was to put him forward for the forgiveness of sin to which others went ballistic and said we must translate it propitiation because it's not merely that God does something in Christ that forgives sins God does something in Christ that turns God's wrath away and if we have seen anything in Romans you cannot have a God of Romans who is not a God of wrath so it's important but it's a mercy seat it's the word that in the

[34:32] Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures refers to the mercy seat in the tabernacle in the temple that's the word here translated propitiation God puts him forward publicly as the mercy seat which was what it was both the place where sacrifices were made and it was also the means by which God's wrath was turned away so when the sacrificial blood was spread upon the seat of mercy this was the place where sin was dealt with and this was the means by which God's wrath is turned that's what God says he does in Jesus' death whom

[35:33] God put forward as appreciation by his blood notice to be received by faith now this is the first time in the letter that faith has a content we've heard about faith but we've never heard about the content of faith to be a Christian is not merely to have faith in God and then you define faith here's the content of faith by his blood that the wages of sin is death that the just God will carry it out upon all impartially that Jesus himself is put forward as a sacrifice and the means by which God's wrath is turned away and that as you receive that in faith that is in his blood a death was required if a life was to be gained substitutionary atonement so when you are wrestling now with whether or not to become a

[36:37] Christian I'm telling you the nature of your faith you're not to walk out of here and go I'm starting to think that God's got good things in store I'm starting to have faith that he's real I'm starting to have faith that he's going to help me that may be true or not but the content of your faith must be in his blood that the death of Christ I am looking to that blood shed to be the means by which God's wrath is turned away from me for it was placed on him and that I might gain his righteousness as he took all of my sin that's the gospel and that is the only means by which God can be declared both the just or just and the justifier this is what he's trying to demonstrate God just doesn't love you anyway he loves you in a particular way this way through the death of his son and that this is the only blood that will cover you on that future and final day so he's all and this then makes sense of that phrase about those former sins which he passed over in previous days what he's really saying is you know all of that era isn't as if they went off scot-free either

[38:06] I mean the work of Christ is complete and full and necessary for all the things he had been waiting for as well as your birth and mine all the things that would be required the work of Christ fills all of humanity's need from beginning and Jesus' death alone is the means by which God is both just and the justifier now what are the implications I'm just going to list three of them the text lists three of them first boasting is now shut out the phrase there in verse 27 then what becomes of our boasting it is excluded it's almost like the door is now shut in the face of boasting or a culture of patronage or honor or prestige we have nothing to bring to the doorway of

[39:07] God that would in any way approximate the ability for entrance boasting is shut out I don't care if you grew up in church from your earliest moment and now you're in your eighth decade none of it will avail you the slightest advantage on that day why because God has done it all he's done it all Jesus Christ my all in all there is no ethnic boast remember chapter 2 and verse 17 for if you call yourself a Jew and rely upon the law and boast in God that is boast in the sense of divine privilege for having been entrusted with the things of God or if you have grown up your entire life in the church and heard the gospel and you thought that that somehow added to your honor it's all shut down your ethics you think that somehow you'd be able to boast because you could bring something to the table we bring nothing to

[40:18] God but our sin now that ought to cultivate the church with a culture of humility grace and thanksgiving let me give you the new the line of the new empire you want an empire of honor here's the line all honor to Jesus that's it that's the gospel to the God of Abraham praise which I sang this morning in a different church the whole triumphant host giving thanks to God on high hail father son and holy ghost they ever cry hail Abram's God and mine I join the heavenly lays all might and majesty are thine and endless praise that's the hymn of the church hail father son and holy ghost hail

[41:33] Abram's God and mine all honor it's a fascinating letter then isn't it I mean at one level the letter to the to the Romans you might actually say could be somehow responsible for the decline of the Roman Empire for it replaces this civilization of honor and prestige with this infiltrating communities that honor Jesus overall and therefore relate to one another with absolute impartiality regardless of your race regardless of your background regardless of your history regardless of your sin your life my life in Christ level ground hail father son and holy ghost what happens to boasting the door has been closed not only is boasting shut out but another implication is that

[42:33] Gentiles are brought in that's the subject he's dealing with there in verses 29 and 30 is God the God of Jews only is he not the God of Gentiles also yes of Gentiles also since God is one he will justify or make right the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith what's the implication of the gospel it's available for anybody all what good good news boasting is shut out Gentiles are brought in we have seen a universal solution for a universal problem and I'm wondering today if there are some here who have not yet walked in that door through faith it's available to you the righteousness of God manifested in the fidelity of Christ whom God put forward as a mercy seat for your sins it's all there by faith and thereby entering into the language of what it is to be beloved of God and called as saints finally verse 31 the law itself is upheld not only is boasting shut out not only are Gentiles brought in but the law itself is upheld while it was accomplished apart from the law it does not mean that the law somehow has fallen out of usefulness what Paul has been arguing is that the law had faith built in and he's going to amplify on this issue throughout all of chapter 4 so if you're saying hey you really short skirted short shirted verse 31 well come back next week because this is this question is just going to roll off into how it is that the law is upheld by faith and so we come this far in the letter of Paul to the

[44:45] Romans and I wonder if you are still relating to God under the auspices of honor and patronage or have you seen your way clear are you ready to embrace Christ by faith for he has done it all our heavenly father we thank you for these words hope filled as they are and we pray that we would be learning here to love you well to be living lives that give you honor and thanksgiving glory for indeed in the cross you have loved us well in Jesus name amen