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“If you’re able, please stand.” Reading Rom. 3:21–26. “Thanks be to God.”
The first few years of our marriage we lived in Ohio. When we moved to North Carolina, I needed a way to provide for my family. I did what anyone with a music degree and a seminary degree would do—started a business fixing car interiors and windshield chips. Triangle Vinyl. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. I only did it for a year. After the year I went to a pastoral training program in Maryland.
Well, as many of you know who are self-employed, taxes for the self-employed aren’t fun. And with Triangle Vinyl, my expenses were pretty low. I ended exactly where John described last week in his sermon—“falling short.” I owed $2500, which felt like a fortune. The business had depleted our savings. This was a blow.
“Falling short” when it’s just you is one thing. “Falling short” when you’re providing for a wife and child is another. At the time, only Caroline, just over a year old. But Will was to be born in a couple months. I shared my situation with some friends in Maryland and we prayed about it. I prayed a lot about it! And then a week or two later, the dean pulled me aside. Someone had given $500 to me. It was pure gift. All grace. No strings attached. No short-term loan. Just pure gift. In this case, I had fallen short. But a gift, someone’s grace, changed my situation.
At the center of our passage this morning is also a gift. A gift that radically changes our situation with God. A gift that takes us from “falling short” to “spilling over.” But the consequences are so much greater than a tax bill!
The heart of the argument in Rom. 3:21–26 has to do with “the righteousness of God.” Throughout Rom. 1:18–3:20 we heard passage after passage that had the same message: We know what God’s righteous standard is, and we don’t live by it. We don’t have the righteousness he demands, and his judgment is coming!
All this led to the final conclusion:
“None is righteous, no, not one.” (Rom 3:10)
By works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. (Rom 3:20)
Obedience to God’s law will never get us there. We aren’t righteous. All the law can do for us is give us more “knowledge of sin.”
What we need is righteousness that will satisfy the demand of God!
That’s what Rom. 3:21–26 is all about. “Righteousness” and “Justification/Justify” and “Just” are words that look very different in English. They come from the same root in Greek. 7 times in these verses Paul uses words in this word-group.
Righteousness has to do with being declared RIGHTEOUS in the sight of God. It is God saying that we meet his standard. We get his stamp of APPROVAL.
On our own we don’t have it. This paragraph shows us how God solved this problem. 3rd sermon in this paragraph.
What have we learned about this “RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD” so far?
That brings us to Rom. 3:24. Today’s sermon: What God Did to Make us Righteous: (1) Justification; (2) Redemption. Two of the most important words in the New Testament. Next week a third, Propitiation (Brad Hodges).
In our sermons, we’re working through the New Testament letter of Paul to the church in Rome. One of the most studied books ever written. Series: Better than you think. We want to see again that the gospel is “Better than you think”!
Today we want to see Justification and Redemption are better than you think.
Prayer: Husbands “falling short.”
Read Rom. 3:24.
“Justification”: What is it?
Justification is the language of the courtroom. You’re on trial and the judge is in his judgment seat. He’s going to deliver a verdict. “Justification” means his verdict is that you are “righteous.” The judge has declared you righteous. Based on the evidence and based on the law, he says you are “righteous.” You have met the standard for righteousnesness, and his verdict is consistent with that.
In the Old Testament, the judges in Israel were commanded by God to justify the righteous and condemn the wicked:
Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked. (Exod 23:7)
“If there is a dispute between men and they come into court and the judges decide between them, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty...” (Deut 25:1)
He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the LORD. (Prov 17:15)
But in our verse, it’s no human judge who’s declaring us righteous. It’s God himself, the righteous judge. And as Abraham asked,
“Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Gen 18:25)
Of course “the Judge of all the earth” will “do what is just”!
With all this background, we read something unexpected in our verse.
God looks at us in all of our hopeless unrighteousness, and he speaks his verdict: “RIGHTEOUS!”
He declares us, “RIGHTEOUS!” You and me, “Righteous!”
We don’t want to miss the power of this verdict. This verdict is something ETERNAL and ESCHATOLOGICAL. To be declared “RIGHTEOUS” now means you will be declared “RIGHTEOUS” at the FINAL JUDGMENT.[1]
We have no obedience to present as evidence. Nothing in us that’s righteous.
And yet, he declares us righteous. HOW CAN THIS BE and God still be righteous?
Well, the first thing to say is that God declares us righteous “BY HIS GRACE AS A GIFT”! The source (Stott) of this declaration is GRACE, not “works of the law.”
When I received that gift of $500, it totally changed my faith and my situation that year. But God declaring us “righteous”? That changes everything...forever!
But how can this be? If God is the Righteous Judge of all humanity, “will not the Judge of all the earth do what is just,” as Abraham asked?
For us to be righteous in God’s sight, his GRACE needed to do two things: (1) take our sins away; and (2) give us a positive righteousness.
God’s grace-gift of righteousness does both through Christ. First, (1) it deals with sins:
Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. (Rom 5:9)
“His blood” was shed for us. His blood dealt with our sins.
Our sins are taken away by the blood of Christ: We’re clean; Our unrighteousness has been punished.
Then God’s gift of righteousness gives us (2) a positive righteousness:
And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. (1 Cor 1:30)
Christ is our “righteousness.” His righteousness was achieved through his obedience. GRACE counts that righteousness toward us. What he achieved by his perfect obedience to the law gets counted as ours.
Here we’re dealing with what theologians call “IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS.” Our sins are imputed to Christ—counted as his. His righteousness is imputed to us—counted as ours.
That’s the great exchange: My sins become his, his righteousness becomes mine.
A lot of people reject this idea.
The Roman Catholic Church hears us talk about justification in this way and calls it a “LEGAL FICTION.”[2] Like all fiction, to them it’s simply not true.
The Brittish scholar N.T. Wright says something similar. In his book, What St Paul Really Said, he says this understanding of justification “makes no sense at all.”[3] God can’t give you his righteousness.
But what these voices are rejecting is the New Testament gospel. As we’ll see in Romans 4:
And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. (Rom 4:5)
John Frame:
Someone might object that a mere declaration is not enough....But this is to forget the work of Christ. Because Christ died in our place, God’s declaration is true. It is not a legal fiction or a false judgment. Jesus really did pay the complete penalty for sin....Because of Christ, God takes our sins away from us, so that they may never again rise to condemn us....He also imputes Christ’s righteousness....So our legal status is not just not-guilty, not neutral, but righteous....God imputes our sins to Christ and imputes his righteousness to us.
John Frame, Systematic Theology[4]
John Bunyan’s Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. In this book he describes his conversion. Bunyan was a 17th century Reformed Baptist. Burdened by his sin, much like Pilgrim in his book, The Pilgrim’s Progress. But eventually as he was wrestling with how to deal with it, he had this epiphany:
But one day, as I was passing in the field, and that too with some dashes on my conscience, fearing lest yet all was not right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, Thy righteousness is in heaven; and methought withal, I saw with the eyes of my soul, Jesus Christ at God’s right hand: there, I say, was my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, He wants My righteousness; for that was just before Him. I also saw moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ Himself, The same yesterday, to-day, and for ever (Heb 13:8).
Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed; I was loosed from my afflictions and irons; my temptations also fled away....Now went I also home rejoicing, for the grace and love of God; so when I came home,...that was brought to my remembrance, 1 Corinthians 1:30, Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption....
By this scripture I saw that the Man Christ Jesus, as He is distinct from us, as touching His bodily presence, so He is our righteousness and sanctification before God....Now Christ was all; all my wisdom, all my righteousness, all my sanctification, and all my redemption.
John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners[5]
We are justified BY HIS GRACE AS A GIFT. To us this righteousness is absolutely free. The greatest gift we could receive, and it’s ours forever.
But there was a price paid for this gift. It was free to us. But it was not free to Christ. He paid an immense price for it. Our next point...
Read Rom. 3:24.
“Redemption”: What is it?
“Redemption”: “Redemption” (Rom 3:24) is marketplace terminology, the language of buying and selling. But what is bought and solid is more than a sack of grain for a couple small coins. It’s also the language of captives and slavery. You redeem someone enslaved or captive. You pay the ransom, and they are redeemed.
In the Old and New Testament, when “redemption” is talked about the stakes are high:
New Testament scholar Leon Morris defined “redemption” as “the paying of a ransom price to secure a liberation.” This holds true in both biblical and extra-biblical writings.[6] We don’t want to weaken it simply to “deliver.” “Redemption” is freedom bought with a price.
In the New Testament we learn the price paid for our freedom was Christ’s death:
“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
Christ is telling us here that he himself will become the price paid—the “ransom” (lutron)—for the deliverance of “many.” Just as money was given in the Old Testament so that a firstborn animal or son could be freed and kept by the family, so Christ is saying that his own life will be the price paid so “many” can be freed.
Jesus gives himself “in the place of” or “instead of” (anti, ἀντί) “the many.” Because Christ is given, “the many” are delivered.
The apostle Peter echoes the same idea:
“You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Pet 1:18–19).
No amount of “silver or gold” could pay the price for our redemption. “The precious blood of Christ” had to be shed!
It was shed in a literal manner—that crown of thorns, being beaten, being scourged (whipped with bones/metal in straps), nailed to a cross, his side pierced with a sword.
But ultimately, the price was his death. Mentioning his blood is not just about his skin being cut. It’s a way of speaking of his death. His death was the price paid.
Peter also reminds us of another aspect of “redemption,” which is that we are redeemed out of something, out of a desperate state. Peter points to our redemption out of “the futile ways inherited from your forefathers.”
In Titus 2:14, Christ is given “to redeem us” out of “all lawlessness,” so that we might live a life of “good works.”
Ephesians 1:7 says that “redemption through his blood” means that we now have “the forgiveness of our trespasses.” Paul is saying we were redeemed out of sin’s guilt and sin’s judgment.
Christ’s redemption bought us out of these desperate states. But redemption also means being bought for something:
“By your blood you ransomed people for God” (Rev 5:9).
And even more vividly,
“You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Cor 6:19–20).
We were bought out of sins for good works, and we were bought out of the place of God’s wrath and for God himself to be his forever. This gives us a new purpose: “So glorify God in your body.”
Our redemption means we have an eternal purpose. We are redeemed OUT OF the “futile ways” we “inherited.” We are redeemed FOR God and glorifying God with our bodies!
Back to our verse. This redemption is why we can be justified, righteous: We are “justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom 3:24).
How to respond: Remember what we talked about last week. This righteousness is available through faith (Rom 3:22). Trusting in Christ. Placing all your confidence in him.
Ah, but what if you are a Christian. You’ve been justified but you continue to go back to the sins Christ bore on the cross. You’ve been redeemed from sins, but you constantly go back to those sins.
There’s a word for someone who is following Christ but still goes back to familiar sins: a Christian.
Hear the apostle John’s word to Christians:
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)
If the sin patterns aren’t changing at all or are getting worse, talk to someone. Pray with someone. Let someone know.
But also, remember the words of John Bunyan. When you feel the weight of your sin, point to heaven and say, “There is my righteousness! My righteousness is in heaven! My righteousness is at the right hand of God, and he is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
Friends, in Christ we have a gift that takes us from “falling short” to “spilling over.”
And his gift is MORE THAN ENOUGH. If you took all the sins committed by everyone in this room—and a number of our sins are profoundly terrible and series—and made it so that one person committed all of them, Christ’s righteousness would be more than enough. His cross would be more than enough to take all your sins; his righteousness would be more than enough to make you righteous in the sight of God. The price he paid would be more than enough for you.
His righteousness is enough!
Let us be happy Christians as we live in the good of Christ’s gift!
Prayer
Song: “Before the Throne of God Above.”
[1] See Douglas Moo, Romans, NICNT, 248.
[2] For example, see https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/justification-in-catholic-teaching-1063.
[3] N.T. Wright, What St Paul Really Said (Eerdmans, 1997), 114.
[4] John Frame, Systematic Theology (P&R, 2013), 967, 968.
[5] From https://www.gutenberg.org/files/654/654-h/654-h.htm, paragraphs 229–232.
[6] Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 29.
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