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“If you’re able, please stand.” Reading Rom. 3:21–31. “Thanks be to God.”
We start with a view of earth from space. IMAGE. This is the view that some astronauts get of our planet.
When you see the earth against the background of the vastness of space it has an effect. It’s happened to enough astronauts they have a name for it, The Overview Effect.
It’s described as a cognitive shift that affects some astronauts when they see the earth from space. Many say they no longer identify with a specific nationality or culture after seeing earth from outer space, instead they see themselves, and all citizens on earth, as one people, living on one world....[Earth is seen as] “a tiny, fragile ball of life hanging in the void, shielded and nourished by a paper-thin atmosphere.”
From space, astronauts cannot see physical borderlines or national boundaries, all evidence of division and separateness vanishes. The conflicts that divide countries, cultures and people become less important, and the need to create a peaceful united planetary society, which works together to protect this “pale blue dot,” becomes critical.[1]
One study of “the overview effect” said it’s the experience of “awe” that changes you. Suddenly you’re aware of your smallness and the vastness of the universe, and that changes you.[2]
A “cognitive shift” that changes how you see yourself and others. A sense of “awe” that causes you to think differently about yourself and others. These astronauts experienced something radical that had the effect of radically reorienting how they see everything. Their “world” didn’t change. But how they saw their world did.
Over the last weeks, we’ve been thinking about this gospel that is Better than You Think. As good as you think it is, it’s better. We spent several weeks realizing that we are WORSE THAN WE THINK. And then we hit Romans 3:21–26, the very heart of the gospel.
There we looked directly at the good news of the gospel in terms like JUSTIFICATION, REDEMPTION, PROPITIATION.
This is what we’ve experienced, and there is nothing more radical to experience.
But in our text this morning, we’ll see that just like those astronauts, this radical new experience we’ve had is to change the way we see everything.
We’ll look at the three things we should see differently now: (1) Ourselves (3:27–28); (2) Others (3:29–30); (3) The Old Testament (3:31)
Prayer
The first thing we see differently is OURSELVES. He gets to this with a question.
Read Rom. 3:27–28.
Paul has mentioned boasting several times already. In his list of sins committed by pagans who do not believe in God, he mentioned being “boastful” (Rom 1:30).
It is a universal activity of humanity to “boast.” We boast in our achievements. We only tell the stories where we’re the hero. We boast in our intellect. We boast in our physical strength. We boast in our athletic abilities—our our athletic achievements when we were young. We boast in our wealth. We boast in our influence in the workplace.
But maybe boasting feels too direct and obvious. That’s why our communication is so filled with “the humblebrag.”
Defined by the Urban Dictionary as “subtly letting others now about how fantastic your life is while undercutting it with a bit of self-effacing humor or ‘woe is me’ gloss.”
“Ugh, I can’t believe I have to buy another tie for my ‘salesman of the year’ award banquet.”
“When they make you Vice-President, they never tell you how much you’ll spend on steak dinners!”
Boasting is common.
Paul has already talked about the boasting of the Jews in particular—not all Jews, but certainly some. For Paul, he’s certainly including himself before he came to Christ. He was boasting right alongside his Jewish brothers and sisters.
Jewish boasts:
But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God (Rom 2:17)
You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. (Rom 2:23)
The Jews of all people could be tempted to “boast in God” and “boast in the Law.” Because of Father Abraham and God’s covenant with him, they had a unique covenant relationship with the living God.
And they were given the Law of Moses, a written rule of life unlike anything ever written by human hands. The Ten Commandments alone are worthy of study and reverence by every culture on earth and in all of history.
Such profound and supreme gifts become a source of boasting when you forget where you came from.
The Jews had forgotten where they came from:
More than that, they forgot what God explicitly told them in Deuteronomy 7:
“For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. (Deut 7:6-8)
Did you notice that: “The LORD set his love on you and chose you...because the LORD loves you” (Deut 7:7, 8).
God does’t choose lovable people. He loves the people he chooses. That’s what makes them lovable: They are loved by God!
God choosing Israel and giving them his law shouldn’t cause them to be self-righteous and boastful. It should cause them to be humble and grateful and filled with praises.
Israel should perpetually be in the place of King David in 2 Samuel 7. After God makes his promises to David:
Then King David went in and sat before the LORD and said, “Who am I, O Lord GOD, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far? (2 Sam 7:18)
Paul in Romans 3 has destroyed any basis for boasting in ourselves we could be tempted to have. Apart from Christ we are wicked, unrighteous, and total disasters in our words and lives.
We are enemies of God, outside of his grace, and separated from him.
But Christ came and made a way. He made a way so sinners like us can receive God’s acceptance, his forgiveness of all of our sins, his courtroom verdict that we are “RIGHTEOUS.”
He did by faith and not our works. Or in the words of Rom. 3:27, by “a law of faith” and not “a law of works.”
And once again in Rom. 3:28, “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.”
“Then what becomes of our boasting?” Yes! That is exactly the question!
How can we boast in what WE have done or what WE are, if the supreme gifts we’ve been given are so completely undeserved by us? “Boasting...is excluded”!!! (Rom 3:27).
In 1 Corinthians 4, Paul calls out our wrongful boasting:
What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? (1 Cor 4:7)
We can’t boast in ourselves. But we can boast in Christ!
Galatians 6:
But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Gal 6:14)
“Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Cor 1:31)
John Stott and boasting:
There is, indeed, something fundamentally anomalous about Christians who boast in themselves, as there is something essentially authentic, appropriate and attractive about their boasting in Christ. All boasting is excluded except boasting in Christ. Praising, not boasting, is the characteristic activity of justified believers, and will be throughout eternity.
John Stott, The Message of Romans[3]
Maybe our problem isn’t BOASTING but the FLIPSIDE OF BOASTING: Envy, jealousy, bitterness.
Envy, jealousy, and bitterness are still obsessed with comparisons. My happiness is connected to what someone else has or doesn’t have. If I BOAST, then in the comparison I’m on top. If I’m BITTER, then in the comparison I’m on the bottom.
Either way the escape is the same. I need to think MUCH, MUCH more about what I have received from God—and not what I haven’t received from him.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (Eph 1:3)
Salvation by grace through faith brings a COGNITIVE SHIFT and sense of AWE that changes how we see OTHERS. Paul gets to this again with a question.
Read Rom. 3:29–30.
Now Paul looks at another implication of justification by faith for all those who believe. In Rom. 3:22 he talked about “the righteousess of God through faith in Jesus Christ.” He said it is “FOR ALL WHO BELIEVE. FOR THERE IS NO DISTINCTION.”
I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. (Rom 1:14)
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:28)
Our God offers to the world a “righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ.” And anyone at anytime in any place who responds in faith will receive this righteousness.
Our God is not the God of Jews only, but also the Gentiles (Rom 3:30). He will “justify” the “circumcised” and “uncircumcised” in the same way. And it is the only way—“by faith”/“through faith.” A difference only for stylistic reasons (Cranfield, Moo).
But this should be no surprise. God’s plan always included the nations:
“I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Gen 12:3)
Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! (Ps 67:3)
We’ll see these same ideas in Romans 15:
10 And again it is said, “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.” 11 And again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him.” (Rom 15:10-11)
Application: If the gospel is for everyone, if God is the God who justifies Jew and Gentile, then...
God’s teaching on this gospel being for all without distinction is what makes it so uniquely terrible when of all people it’s Christians who are racist. Who somehow buy into the superiority of one race over another. Who sinfully teach that races should be divided.
Yesterday I was listening to an interview with John Piper. He tells the story of his Baptist church in Greenville, SC. In 1963 they voted as a church to not let African-Americans join the church. It was felt that if they wanted to join it was only to make a political statement. His dad was traveling at the time so couldn’t vote. The only person who voted against this resolution was his mother.[4]
If this story was told about a group of unbelievers who were businessmen, you’d say it was terrible but their hearts weren’t regenerated. But the fact it was Christians who bought into this type of racial segregation is terrible.
Our God is the God of ALL who believe—Jew and Gentile, Greek and barbarian, wise and foolish, slave and freeman, man and woman.
Well, this is 2025 and not 1963. We might not sinfully divide people on the basis of race. But there can be other ways we divide them: rich and poor, successful and “unsuccessful,” educated and uneducated. Republican and Democrat. Vaxxers and Anti-vaxxers.
Sometimes our divisions are necessary and wise. But sometimes they are indicators we don’t get what the gospel of grace through faith has done. We aren’t seeing others properly. We aren’t seeing them through the eyes of the gospel.
The third thing we see very differently is the Old Testament. Again, Paul gets to this issue with a question.
Read Rom. 3:31.
A third question. This is one is a very different kind. Paul has just argued that there is no salvation by obedience to God’s law. It can never happen. The law can give a “knowledge of sin” (Rom 3:20), but works and obedience to the law can never save us.
Salvation is by faith and not works. It is by grace and not works. It is a gift to be received and not an achievement to earn.
Paul anticipates our question, “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?” Doesn’t faith make the law irrelevant? Should we throw out the law since we’re saved by faith?
It’s a fair question. But Paul screams out his answer: “By no means!” A famous Pauline Greek phrase, μὴ γένοιτο, Mē genoito. “May it never be!” It means, “Absolutely not!”
And then he adds, “On the contrary, we uphold the law.”
Salvation by grace UPHOLDS the Law in two ways.
FIRST, salvation by grace UPHOLDS the gospel in the Old Testament.
Remember Rom. 3:21. “The Law and the Prophets bear witness to” the “righteousness of God through faith.”
Romans 4 has a lot to say about this idea, so I won’t say too much on this.
The Old and New Testament present the same way of salvation. It’s by faith and not works. The Old Testament quotations in Romans make this clear—Habakkuk 2:4; Genesis 15:6; Psalm 32:1–2; Joel 2:32 (cited in Rom. 1:17; 4:3; 4:7–8; 10:13).
The New Testament is not a different gospel, but it is a clearer gospel.
RC Sproul said (paraphrasing Augustine),
“The new is in the old concealed; the old is in the new revealed.”
R.C. Sproul
SECOND, faith “UPHOLDS THE LAW” by “UPHOLDING” its place in our lives as a “rule of life.” the Christian has in the Law a “rule of life.” (Rom 12:19–21; 13:8–10).
The Trinity Confession of Faith speaks to this. Here we simply updated the language of the Westminster Confession of Faith very slightly (WCF 19.6; 1689 19.6):
Although true believers are not under the law as a covenant of works to be justified or condemned, yet it is of great use to believers as well as to others as a rule of life, informing them of the will of God and their duty. It directs and binds them to walk accordingly. (TCOF 21.6)
We’ll see this later in Romans in places like chapter 12 and 13. Chapter 12 quotes Deut 32:35 and Prov 25:21–22:
19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” (Rom 12:19-20)
And then chapter 13 quotes four of the Ten Commandments (Exod 20:13–15, 17) and Leviticus 19:18:
Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. (Rom 13:8-10)
Paul looks at these 7 commandments from the Old Testament and says we are to obey them. We obey them “not as a covenant of works” for salvation but as a “rule of life.” They communicate God’s will to us for our behavior.
These are from what we call “the moral law” of the Old Testament, which are commandments we are to obey that have to do with loving God and loving our neighbor.
The glory and majesty of the Ten Commandments. There’s a reason that it still seems appropriate to hang the Ten Commandments in courtrooms and school buildings. It’s only 18 verses in Exodus 20:1–17, but it is profound in its completeness.
Ilustration: Once you get out of high school, you look back. Things look different.
For astronauts “the overview effect” is because you see your own smallness in light of the vastness of the universe. That creates a sense of “awe.”
For us, the gospel should create that same “overview effect,” that same “awe.” We should see the vastness of God’s mercy, the vastness of his love, and the smallness of how much we deserve it.
We come with sins, he gives us grace. We come with failures, he gives us grace. We come with weaknesses, he gives us grace.
His love is not just a little bit greater than our sins. His love swallows up our sins like the way the universe swallows up the earth in size.
You can get in on this grace and this love simply by believing in Christ. Place all of your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ—his perfection, his perfect sacrifice.
So let us be a people who live with a sense of “Awe.”
“Awe” at that a God of such holiness and majesty would send his Son to die on a Roman cross to pay the price for our redemption.
“Awe” that such a God whose wrath is totally righteous because of our sin would send his Son to die as a sacrifice and receive all the wrath we deserve—so that we could receive the reward and approval he deserves.
Such grace, such love, such mercy is to change how we see ourselves, how we see others.
How can we boast in ourselves?
But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Gal 6:14)
Prayer and Song (“Christ Our Wisdom”)
[1] Taken from Heather McElhatton’s “A Beautiful World” project at https://abeautiful.world/stories/the-overview-effect/.
[2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10055-024-01035-7
[3] John R.W. Stott, The Message of Romans, BST (IVP Academic, 1977), 119–120.
[4] He tells the story in his interview with Kevin DeYoung (“Life, Books, and Everything,” Feb 20, 2025). Available at https://clearlyreformed.org/podcast/preaching-and-pastoral-ministry-with-john-piper/.
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