Father God, I praise you for making a wretch such as I, your treasure.
And I thank you, Father, that you accomplish this through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.
!
And so I pray, God, that you come, that you work deep works in our souls this morning.
We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.
First, I want to say, I apologize for the very fragmented way I've taken you through chapter 3
as I've been here and then not been here and then had things laid on my heart that were different.
And I promise, at least Lord willing, that next week we'll finish chapter 3
and let Chris get started on chapter 4.
But I'm really blessed to come to this text today.
It's what I will call the crux of the Bible.
And in case you don't know what a crux is, I've got to tell you a little bit of my background.
In my younger days, not too long ago, I did quite a bit of rock climbing.
It was actually kind of a consuming passion for me.
And in rock climbing, you're setting always new challenges for yourself.
It's a fairly independent sport.
And you're always wanting to climb new routes, new routes.
And in every route, you have a guidebook and you look at it and you know the rating.
You know, this is a little harder than what I've done before.
This has particular moves on it that will be a challenge to me.
And you get what's called beta.
You ask other people who have climbed it, what are the challenges of this climb?
What do I need to be doing to prepare myself to accomplish this task?
I had a climbing wall, a little climbing wall in my room.
And I would actually set up the moves that I knew I was going to have to do and practice them over and over and over again to be able to accomplish this climb.
But every climb always had a crux.
The most difficult part.
The part that if you could get it down, if you could do that part, you could do the rest of the climb.
And every part of the climb, everything leading up to that spot was about getting to that spot.
Being able to conserve your energy, have the strength you needed left to pull off those couple of very difficult moves.
And then beyond that, everything was just a celebration of accomplishing the most difficult part of the climb.
That was the crux.
This text, this is the crux of the Bible.
Martin Luther called this the central passage of all of Scripture.
So we've been ascending.
We've been climbing throughout our Scriptures.
We've seen God create the world and original sin.
We've seen Him destroy the world except a remnant of people and animals through the flood.
We've seen the Tower of Babel.
We've seen the captivity in Egypt of the Israelites, the exodus, all the plagues, the exodus.
We've seen 40 years in the desert, the giving of the Mosaic Law, the temple being built.
We've seen God's people scattered and regathered.
The times of the judges, the prophets.
And then we see in our New Testament, the culmination of redemptive history in Christ coming and dying for the sins of His people.
This text speaks of that.
Paul so far in Romans has left us guilty.
He starts out laying out a very careful case that all men are guilt.
We're all under just condemnation, both Gentile and Jew.
He begins kind of his thesis statement in chapter 1, verse 16.
He says,
The gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
And he goes on to show us how everyone needs to place their faith in Christ
because everyone is justly condemned, those without the law and those with the law.
The last passage in chapter 3, he fires off a bunch of Old Testament quotations for us.
None is righteous.
No, not one.
No one understands.
No one seeks after God.
He's not leaving us any room to think that anyone is going to escape the judgment of God.
And I think if you look around at the world, you'll find that the world knows.
We all know that we're guilty.
We all carry within us this sense that we haven't lived rightly,
that we deserve some kind of condemnation for the way that we live.
And I think we know that that doesn't just extend horizontally, but it also extends vertically.
We know that it's not just that we sin against our fellow man and we should be judged by our fellow man,
but that we've transgressed some kind of greater law and we deserve the wrath and judgment of God.
If you look in verse 19 and 20, I just want you to see two phrases there,
that we'll be held accountable to God and that no human being will be justified in His sight.
And that's the great tragedy of sin, that we've offended God.
That's the primary problem with sin.
Are there other problems with sin?
Sure.
Social issues as we sin against our fellow man?
Absolutely.
But the primary issue, the number one issue, is that we've sinned against God Himself.
Psalm 51.4, which is David's psalm of repentance after he has taken Bathsheba,
had her husband killed, had a baby by her that died.
He says in 51.4,
Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.
He says to God, against you and you only have I sinned.
That kind of seems like an audacious claim, doesn't it?
It seems that He reduces everything that He's done.
He's really sinned against the entire nation of Israel as their king.
He's reduced all of that to say, against you only have I sinned.
But what David understood was that this vertical access of his sin,
this issue that he has with God, is greater than those things.
That sin trumped all the other sin that he had done.
So we all carry this guilt around with us.
In our daily living, and I think we know that someday we'll be judged.
There's coming this final judgment.
And we do some things to cope with that.
Look at the world around you.
I'm going to give you some evidences of this.
Everybody knows the guilt that they carry with them.
I'm going to tell you quickly about three coping mechanisms.
You can see the world carrying out.
We tend to cope intellectually, physically, and religiously.
We cope intellectually by trying to justify our actions,
turning vices into virtues,
such as greed and intimidation and self-exaltation.
Our culture is about that, about justifying sinful acts,
about justifying transgression of God's law.
We cope physically with the abuse of alcohol and drugs,
both legal and illegal,
things just to kind of numb the pain of living.
We wrap ourselves up in things like TV,
social activities, and sports,
to occupy our minds with other things than the guilt,
just so that we won't let in that deafening sound of silence,
as Simon and Garfunkel talked about.
We're afraid that if we stop for just a moment,
we might hear the condemnation that's upon us.
And most divisive among all of them,
we cope with things with religion.
Religiously, we cope.
And you see the world about this action.
Because of explaining away our guilt or distracting us from it,
religion tells us that we shouldn't be guilty.
That if we do certain things,
if we face a certain way and pray a certain number of times a day,
if we're really careful about stepping on grasshoppers,
if we follow a man's written code,
that we're okay.
We're going to be all right.
We're going to achieve a higher level of understanding,
or we're not going to be judged for our actions.
But none of these coping mechanisms,
none of these things actually get rid of the guilt, do they?
None of them actually free us from the condemnation of God.
Thankfully, the text goes on, right?
Chris asked me before we started,
we were singing the sheet song,
and he said,
are you going to preach after this?
And I said, thankfully no,
but this is a really happy text,
so it wouldn't be a terrible mood setting for such a text.
So we all have this guilt.
We know that.
We have a guilt bearing down upon us prior to being saved,
but thankfully we have salvation in Christ.
And that's where Paul begins to turn,
and why this is the crux.
If we can get this right, everybody,
if we can understand the salvation that comes through Jesus Christ,
how it is that that exchange happens,
we're going to get the rest of it.
It's all going to turn out okay.
We're going to understand the rest of the book of Romans
if we can get this one clear point.
So let's get after it.
Verses 21 through 23.
But now, and he doesn't mean now in my argument,
he means now in this present age,
but now the righteousness of God
has been manifested apart from the law.
What is he talking about?
The righteousness of God,
the right living,
the perfect, holy, right living of God.
Can people do good things?
Absolutely.
I'm not going to negate that.
People can do good philanthropic things.
We saw Mother Teresa live a very sacrificial life.
But if Mother Teresa didn't place her faith in Jesus Christ
for his righteousness,
her righteousness,
the things she did,
will not be enough before God.
So we can do good things apart from Christ.
We can go about the activity
of what the Bible tells us to do.
I can share with others.
I can love people.
I can share the gospel with people
and not be justified in his sight.
So the righteousness of God,
Christ himself,
has been manifested apart from the law,
although the law and the prophets
bear witness to it.
And I want to point out to you
that he has been talking repetitively
about the law lowercase in my ESV,
but then here,
the last part of 21,
he says law uppercase and the prophets.
And what he's essentially saying is
the scriptures that we have up to now.
So all that ascending I was talking about,
all those stories that I mentioned,
all of those things,
the law and the prophets,
have been speaking of the righteousness of God
that we find in Christ,
have led us to this point.
Verse 22,
the righteousness of God
through faith in Jesus Christ
for all who believe.
Now I'm going to get there.
I'm going to go beyond what I'm about to say,
but I want you to see
that there is an action required on our part
to have the righteousness of God.
We have responsibility
in this equation.
Okay?
And what is that responsibility?
It is belief.
That we believe that Jesus
is the Son of God
and the only way
back to God
to restore our relationship
with Him.
We're all under condemnation.
We all carry this guilt of sin.
The only way back
is Jesus Christ.
And faith requires our belief
in Him.
Our salvation is dependent
on that very thing.
Last part of 22,
for there is no distinction.
Verse 23,
for all have sinned
and fall short
of the glory of God.
Right?
This fits.
This fits where He's been
and where He's going.
Okay?
He's been talking about
the Jew and the Gentile
all under condemnation.
all must then
place their faith in Christ
for their salvation.
Right?
There is no distinction
between the two.
All must place their faith
because all of us
have sinned
and we fall short
of the glory of God.
All right,
man,
I just lost my thought.
Verse 24 and 25.
And are justified
by His grace
as a gift
through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus,
whom God put forward
as a propitiation
by His blood
to be received
by faith.
All right,
let me stop there.
So we see
that what is required of us
is a belief of faith
in Jesus Christ
and what happens
in that equation.
And Paul gives us
some pretty big words here.
We have three
rather churchy words
that I think are very
important for us
to define.
Many people take
words like
redemption,
I'm redeemed,
I'm forgiven,
I'm justified.
Those terms,
we take them
and we simply make them
synonyms to say.
And in one sense,
they are.
But they're different lenses
by which to look
at our salvation.
There are different ways
to understand
this great exchange,
as Martin Luther called it,
where we got
the righteousness of God
and he took our sin
and bore the wrath of God.
Different lenses
by which to look at it.
So he starts out
by talking about
being justified.
So what does it mean
to be justified?
And it's fairly simple,
it's kind of a court term.
It means simply to be
declared not guilty.
It's a declaration.
So you stand before the judge
with your traffic ticket
and you say,
Judge, I actually
was not speeding.
This was a false ticket.
Cops crazy.
He says he radared me,
but he didn't.
And the judge says,
I believe you.
You did not do the thing
that you did.
And you're justified
in that thing.
You've been forgiven
of the possibility
that you even had
anything to do
with the wrongdoing
that you've been
blamed for.
That's justification.
So we're in a right standing
if we have our faith in Christ.
We're in a right standing
before God.
We've been justified,
but how is it
that we've been justified?
We've been justified
by his grace
as a gift,
a free gift
given to us
through redemption
in Christ
who was our propitiation.
So these are terms
we need to understand.
Redemption
and propitiation.
Now Paul was not
trying to be
super booky
and smart
and blow everybody
in the Church of Rome's
minds
when the letter was read.
His intention was not
that somebody stood up
in front of the church
and read this letter
and they all said,
that Paul is amazing.
He uses big words
that we don't even understand.
Paul spoke very plain language
so that people totally got
what he was saying.
We just don't live
in that culture.
We don't really use
the word redeemed.
in our culture.
Or certainly
we don't use the term
propitiation
in our culture.
So we have to kind of
look at what was going on.
What is the culture?
What is this
Greco-Roman world
that they lived in?
And redemption
was a big deal.
It was a term
that they really
would have taken hold of.
I've explained to you
before that
the redemption
process in war
looked a little like
this.
If I were to conquer
another king,
I would capture
that king
or take him back
to my city
and I would put
a price on his head.
So I would say
your people,
in order for your king
to be redeemed,
I need this much
in gold.
And if you paid
that price,
your king was said
to be redeemed
and I would return
him to you.
So it's a picture
of redemption.
A price
that the captor
cannot pay
is paid by somebody else
and the captor
is set free.
But it gets
a little neater
than that.
A little deeper
to the common man
that lived in this time.
Today,
we file bankruptcy
if we have to default
on our loans.
We just say,
I cannot pay my loans
and we have a little
loophole
that gets us out of that.
But there wasn't
a loophole like that
in this day.
And the way
they got out of debt
was they either
sold themselves
to somebody
into slavery
and used the money
to pay their debtor
or they became slaves
of that person
that they owed money to.
That was the way it worked.
That was your way out.
So if I borrowed
a great sum of money
to start a business
and my business failed,
I would become a slave.
Unable to pay the debt,
I'd have no possessions
left at this point.
Me and my family
as slaves.
Now let's say
I'm in slavery,
I'm sold into slavery
and I have a cousin
who lives in another city
who's well-to-do
and hears
that I have this problem.
The way that cousin
would go about
buying my redemption
is they would go
to the local pagan temple.
This is so cool.
They would go
to the local pagan temple
and they would pay
the amount that I owed,
my debt,
they would pay my debt
plus a fee
to the priest
at the pagan temple.
The priest then
at the pagan temple
would take the money
owed to my slaveholder
and I would be
set free
from that slaveholder
but I would become
the slave
of the pagan god.
That way,
culturally,
I still had the shame
of being a person
who defaulted on my loans
but because pagan gods
had no real rules,
I could go about
my business.
Isn't that fascinating?
As Paul talks
all throughout
the Old Testament
about us being set free
but being slaves.
You understand that?
If we lived in that culture,
we would have really understood
what was going on.
We've been set free
from the captivity of sin,
from the dominion
of the devil,
but we're now slaves
of a new god,
the god,
who causes us
to live
in a different way.
And that's the picture
of redemption.
Isn't that an amazing way
to look
at your salvation?
Every time I think
of redemption,
I think I'm getting
a little broken record-ish
about this,
but I think of
the prophet Hosea
who was told by God
to marry a woman
who he knew
would be unfaithful to him.
Her name was Gomer.
And the picture,
this real-life charade
that God carried out
in Hosea's life
was the picture
of Israel and God.
Israel was a harlot,
not faithful to God.
So you see this process
in the first three chapters
of her continual betrayal
of Hosea.
And she gets herself
to the position
where she's living
with another man
and finds herself
in such a hard financial time
that she is sold
into slavery.
And then God tells Hosea
to go to the slave market
and to purchase her back.
And the amount
he purchases for
is a huge amount,
a huge amount of money.
He goes back
and he purchases
his bride
who had betrayed him.
It's a picture
of redemption.
We ought to hear
the word redeemed
sing these songs
and it ought
to blow our minds.
Totally without
any worth
of our own.
Isn't that what
Paul has been saying?
None of us are righteous.
I don't care
if you were born
in Georgia.
I don't care
if your parents
took you
to the Southern Baptist Church.
It doesn't matter.
You could have worn
a tie from the time
you were six months old.
No righteousness
of your own.
It doesn't matter
how many mission trips
you've been on
at all.
None of that
matters
if you don't
place your faith
in Christ
for your salvation.
You are a
poor,
wretched slave.
Nothing
of your own.
Pitiful.
The slave market,
slaves were put
on display
without any clothes on
so people could see
what they were buying.
That's you.
You have nothing
of your own
to offer
to God.
But yet
he's
purchased us.
And how has he purchased us?
Through
a propitiation.
Christ himself
is our
propitiation.
Now here's another term
that we have to understand.
In this Greco-Roman world
there were many
gods.
And if you wanted
a god to favor you,
to be
proprietous
towards you,
you offered
a sacrifice
to that god.
So if I were
to sail
someplace
and I wanted
to offer
a sacrifice
to the god
of Neptune,
I wanted
the god
of Neptune
to shine
on me
to make sure
that I wasn't
in a terrible
wreck
as I was
sailing,
I would
offer
a
propitiation
to turn
God's anger
to
propietousness,
towards favor
toward me.
See,
the Greco-gods
were seen
as kind of
fickle.
I mean,
you've never read
any of the
Greek literature?
Very fickle gods,
easily angered,
bickering amongst
each other.
And so these people
understood
Jesus Christ
is a propitiation.
We are enemies
of God.
Now our God
is not fickle.
Our God
is full of wrath,
full of indignation.
The law and the
prophets have spoken
of that all
throughout the Old
Testament.
We've seen God's
wrath and His love
combined.
And then we see
Christ as the
propitiation,
this sacrifice
to turn God's
favor back to
us.
It's a beautiful,
beautiful picture.
So,
in the Old
Testament we see
the picture of
the Passover,
the final plague
that God brought
amongst Egypt
to bring about
the Exodus.
And what happens
in the Passover?
The firstborn
of all the
Egyptians is killed.
The angel of
death comes
through.
But those who
have killed a
spotless lamb and
spread the blood
on the doorpost
of their house,
the angel of
death passed
over.
Right?
What is that a
picture of?
That's a picture
of the wrath
of God
against sinful
man.
And those of
us who are
found in
Christ,
the perfect
Passover lamb
being passed
over.
Living as a
result of
such a thing.
Christ is the
bull slaughtered
on the day of
atonement.
I've spoken to
you about this
before.
In the temple,
the Holy of
Holies, there was a
day, one day a
year, the day of
atonement.
And I won't get
into all the
particulars of it,
but there was a
blood sacrifice
required one time
a year as part
of the Mosaic
Law to make an
atonement for all
the sins of
Israel.
There was a
constant sacrifice
happening amongst
individuals, but
this was the big
sacrifice, the big
laying of blood
on the altar to
atone for those
sins.
And as I
mentioned, Christ
is the price.
He's the price
that Gomer paid.
Hosea paid to
purchase Gomer
out of slavery.
Last part of
verse 25,
verse 26.
So all this,
all this activity,
this was to
show God's
righteousness
because in
his divine
forbearance,
he had passed
over former
sins.
Stop there for
a second.
This was to
show God's
righteousness.
This process of
placing our
faith in Christ,
the perfect
sacrifice,
came in order
to show us,
to show us
God's righteousness
because in the
past, he had
passed over sin,
hadn't he?
He had given a
way out.
The way was
always Christ,
but it was
faith that God
would deliver his
people.
Does that make
sense?
faith in
the Old Testament.
The New Testament
has not nullified
the Old Testament.
It was always
the same.
It was faith
in Christ.
They didn't
know that.
They didn't
know it was
Christ, but it
was in the
promises of
God that he
would deliver
them that
justified them
in his sight.
Because he had
passed over
those former
sins.
So you see
both his
wrath and his
love, even
in the Old
Testament.
Verse 26.
It was to
show his
righteousness at
the present
time.
So in the
past his
righteousness,
now in the
present time,
so that he
might be just
and the
justifier of
the one who
has faith in
Jesus.
These are some
interesting words
here, doesn't
he?
Some nice
choice of
words, so
that he
might be
just.
In order for
God to be
just, he
must condemn
sin.
We've all
transgressed
the law.
And no
righteous judge,
no earthly
righteous judge,
ever forgives
a lawbreaker,
they justly
deliver the
sentence due
to the
person, right?
You have
done this
thing, here's
the consequence,
there you
go.
That is a
just judge.
God is
perfect justice,
completely
holy.
He's just.
So how is
it, what's
the loophole
that we've
survived in
if we're
Christians?
How is
it that we're
not given
the condemnation
due us?
Because Christ
bore it for
us.
See that?
God had to
punish the
sin.
Every single
sin you
commit in
your lifetime
was punished
in Christ.
You see that
picture?
He had to
punish sin.
I've done this
also before for
you.
I heard this
somewhere, I
don't remember
who, but I
just want you
to know this
is not original
to me.
We all as
individuals have
at some point
in our life
stood at the
bottom of a
dam 10,000
miles tall and
10,000 miles
wide.
And what that
dam is holding
back is the
wrath of God
against all of
our sin.
Can you picture
that, standing
at the bottom
of this dam?
And that dam
splits open and
that water comes
rushing forward.
none of us
would survive
such a thing.
That amount
of water,
wrath in this
case.
And because of
what Christ has
done, if you
place your faith
in Him, a
gaping hole
opens up just
before you.
And all of
that water goes
rushing in to
that gaping hole.
You're standing
at the edge of
this hole and
that wrath that
should be yours,
that's billowing
towards you, gets
swallowed up into
a hole.
You remember
that Jesus, before
He was crucified,
prayed, Father, if
there's any way for
this cup to pass
from me, if there's
any way we can do
this some other
way, can we
please?
It wasn't the
Father's will.
So what did He do?
He drank that cup.
And what was that
cup?
It was the wrath
of God.
He drank every
last bit of it,
He turned it over,
He slammed it
down, and He
said, it is
finished.
What a great
Savior we have.
Just condemnation.
We deserve it.
I deserve to be
smashed by that
wall of water,
because my offense
is vertical.
Right?
I've sinned
against you guys,
certainly.
Should I make
reparations there?
Absolutely.
But more than
that, I've sinned
against the Holy
God.
I've begotted
God.
I've made myself
Him.
That is a great
offense, and I
deserve death.
But thankfully,
there's a way.
There is a hole
that can open
if I place my
faith in Christ.
There's a
responsibility on
my part to do
so.
If I ever want
to see the
gates of glory,
if I don't want
to be destroyed
because of my
sinfulness, I
must place my
faith in Christ.
I must believe
that He is the
only way to
salvation.
But I want you
to remember in
the text,
verse 24,
that this grace
is a gift to
us.
We'll deserve
it.
We'll get into
this next week.
I don't deserve
the grace of God
because I believe,
but it's given
to me as a gift,
my faith.
So we see both
the sovereignty of
God and the
responsibility of
man working
together.
I worked a
homeschool conference
for Truett McConnell,
and I've built
some new displays
and one display
says from the
very first verse
and the other
display says to
the very last
tribe.
It's a wonderful
slogan that our
school is using
now.
And I had a
homeschool mom
walk by me and
she said,
to the very last
tribe, don't you
think that's a
little offensive?
And I said,
how so?
She said,
because it
presumes that
everybody needs
Jesus.
And I said,
yes, that's very
offensive because
it's the gospel.
And she went.
I walked away.
But that is the
gospel.
What she wants me
to do is to say
there are many
ways to heaven.
There's all kinds
of things we can
do to deal with
our guilt.
We all know
we're guilty.
There's all kinds
of stuff you can
do.
There's varying
forms of religion
and activity.
For a lot of
years, my religion
was spending time
outside.
not a chance
I'm going to
stand at the
feet of the
white throne
with a bunch
of climbing gear
and go,
but look what
I've been doing.
Right?
Only
will it be
justified
through the
redemption of
Jesus Christ
because he is
our propitiation.
Let's pray
together.
Amen.