Righteousness of God

Romans 3:25-31

Righteousness of God

Romans 3:25-31, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. 29 Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, 30 since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law. Whenever the church fully understands the doctrine of the justification by faith, it understands the reality of its gospel.

When it does not, it misses the gospel message.

From Romans 1:18 to 3:20, there is a terrifying picture of sin and its inevitable judgment. The sinner is indicted, then, in the first part of the book, and now beginning in verse 21, the sinner is offered redemption. We have the statement of redemption in verses 21 to 31, and then you have the illustration of it in chapter 4 and further expansion in chapter 5. But we are in the section now that deals with our justification by faith, our being made right with God through faith.

The cross of Christ is central to us. The death of Jesus Christ is at the very heart of our faith. The death of Jesus Christ saves us from sin, and consequently from death and eternal hell. The death of Christ is the source of our salvation.

The cross has a tremendous impact on Satan and his dominion because it is at the cross where the serpent's head was bruised. When Jesus died on the cross, He destroyed Satan. Because Satan's great weapon is death, and when Jesus died, He rose again, thus conquering Satan's only weapon.

Paul is saying in Romans chapter 3 that the death of Christ has great impact on God, not only men and angels and Christ, but God Himself. Everything ultimately resolves itself in God's majestic glory, and the death of Christ is no different. While it has a saving impact on men, a damning impact on demons and the ungodly as well, and while it has a fulfilling effect on Christ, it has a glorifying impact on God Himself.

The cross of Christ reveals God's righteousness. V 24, says that we have redemption in Christ. V 25, tells us why: "God set Him forth to be a satisfaction for the purpose of declaring God's righteousness." How could a righteous God forgive sinners, pass by their sin, and eliminate the penalty?

God Himself claims to be unable to pass by sin. He says Himself in the Old Testament, "I will not pass by their iniquity." "I am of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on iniquity.""I will by no means pardon the guilty."

Sin must be punished.

It is impossible for sin to be excused. It cannot just fade away. It just can't be put aside. Sin hangs in there, it hangs on wreaking its deadly havoc in judgment. It must be paid. No amount of optimism, no amount of love, no amount of grace, no amount of mercy can put sin aside.

Sin demands death and a holy God could never eliminate that penalty. So, what happens at the cross is God vindicates His righteousness by putting to death His Son as a substitute. A divine miracle, He gathers up all the sin of all the ages in terms of its guilt and its deserved penalty, He puts it on Christ.

Christ becomes the sacrifice paying the price for all that sin so that God is a just God. He will not pass by sin without its penalty being met. If God was just a just and holy God and that's what He wanted to do, why didn't He just slaughter everybody and send them all to hell?

Because He is also a merciful God! God had to find that absolute balance between His love and His justice. The balance was found in the full execution of the penalty, but on a substitute so that those who believe in Him can go free, but the penalty was paid.

Every sin I have ever committed, every sin I ever will commit has been paid for by Christ because I believe in Him. When I believe in Him, His sacrifice is applied on my behalf and God writes across the list of my transgressions, "Paid for in full!''.

That maintains God as a just, righteous God. That is the heart of what God is teaching here.

Romans 1:18, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, You may be wondering that you have witnessed some ungodliness over here and there, yet you didn't see God's wrath.

Then you better look at the cross because it was all there. What about as a Christian when they are punished and chastened by the Lord? That is not atonement for your sin. That is remedial instruction, so you won't do it again.

Your sins have been paid for in full if you know and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. So, God at the cross declares His righteous nature, God is righteous.

One of the great truths of the Old Testament is this truth.

Deuteronomy 32:4, He is the Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice, A God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright is He.

God will always do what is just. God will always do what is right. That is why sin had to be paid for.

Psalm 89:14, Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; Mercy and truth go before Your face.

Exodus 23:7, Keep yourself far from a false matter; do not kill the innocent and righteous. For I will not justify the wicked.

God won't, not without an adequate penalty. The adequate penalty was death.

2 Corinthians 5:21, For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. That is the heart and soul of the Christian message.

The Son of Man must suffer! We find this in the gospels.

Why? To preserve the integrity of God's character as a righteous God.

What about the Old Testament sacrifices? Not at all. They were simply symbols.

Hebrews 10:4, For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. A bull can't die for you. A goat can't die for you. A man couldn't even die for you. Only the God-Man who could go into the grave, conquer death and come out the other side. V 25, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed,

When Jesus died on the cross God was satisfied.

Psalm 49:7-8, None of them can by any means redeem his brother, Nor give to God a ransom for him 8 For the redemption of their souls is costly, And it shall cease forever—

The psalmist is saying no man could do that, the price is too high. Only Christ, the sinless, spotless lamb of God incarnate, God in human flesh. Jesus was a special, holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners, higher than the heavens sacrifice. He took our place.

V 26, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. All this was to declare at this time in history, the time when Christ came, the righteousness of God, that God had not just passed over sin. Also allowed God to be just, on the one hand and on the other hand, to be the justifier of sinners.

The wonder of the cross. He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. If you don't believe in Jesus, appropriate, true faith then it means nothing. The cross of Christ not only reveals God's righteousness, but it exalts God's grace.

V 27, Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith.

What did you do in this? Nothing. God, to vindicate His own righteousness, revealed His Son, put Him on a cross to bear your sins and my sins, offers us the free gift and says just believe.

Where is the boasting? There is no place for self-congratulation. There is no place for self-satisfaction. There is no place for saying, “Look at me."

1 Corinthians 1:26-29, For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. 27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; 28 and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, 29 that no flesh should glory in His presence. If you are going to glory, glory in the Lord. You didn't deserve anything.

You didn't earn anything.

Romans 4:2, For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

Was Abraham justified by works? No. Nobody in this wide world has ever been saved by anything they did as a work, as an effort, as a religious activity.

Ephesians 2:8-9, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. If salvation was by works, we would all be going around telling how we did it. Then the glory is ours, not God's!

God designed a salvation that would reveal His righteous character and exalt His great grace. Salvation is all of Him. V 27, Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. If we were saved by works, that would invite boasting!

If salvation is an act of simply believing, and redemption comes by your believing, believing what God has done, not

holding up what you have done, then what have you got to boast about nothing. That is why we have Luke 18. Two men in the temple, went into the temple to pray and one man goes in and says, "I thank You that I am not as other men, even as this wretched sinner, publican over here in the corner, but I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I possess."

He was patting himself on the back and he was telling God how marvellous he was. He was a Pharisee that had done all the works. The other person in the corner lying down on the ground. He won't lift his eyes up to look at heaven. He pounds on his chest and says, "God, be merciful to me a sinner."Jesus said, "That man went home justified, not the other one."You could retitle that, "The good man that went to hell, and the bad man that went to heaven."

Exactly what salvation's all about! It is all about believing, not about trying to earn your way in.

Romans 4:5, But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness,

The Roman Catholic system missed this through the centuries and bound its people in the horrific and eternally consequential deceitfulness of a system of works.

Romans 5:1, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

Romans 8:3, For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,

The law couldn't do it. We couldn't live up to the standards. We couldn't be saved by works.

Galatians 2:16, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.

Do you know what's wrong with teaching saved by works? It takes the glory from God.

Galatians 3:8-11, And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be

blessed.” 9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. 10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.” 11 But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.”

The Bible says the just shall live by Faith!

Romans 10:9-10, that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. V 28, Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. You cannot earn your way in. Salvation by works system is a blast at the glory of God. Man becomes a supplanter who stands to boast because he has earned his way to God. That violates the whole intent of salvation.

Romans 3 teaches that salvation is for God's sake. Jesus died for the sake of God, that God's righteousness might be revealed, God's grace might be exalted.

1 Corinthians 15:10, But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

When you understand the doctrine of how horrible then hell then you will thank God for the saving faith and the redemption! V 28, We are saved by believing in Jesus. V 25, We are saved by believing in Jesus. V 22, We are saved by believing in Jesus.

Important to understand what this faith is! In the parable of the soils in Matthew 13, there were many who initially started well but they eventually died out. Whatever it was it wasn't saving faith because there was no fruit.

God also made it possible for man to avoid that judgment and make men right with Him, make them acceptable in His presence.

The way God did it was to pour out His fury and to pour out His wrath on Christ, and Christ became the substitute for men. He bore the wrath of God. He suffered our pain. He died our death. His death satisfied God's just requirement and it freed God's love and mercy and grace to be enacted toward man because the penalty was paid.

So, the bad news was from Romans 1:18-3:20, but the news is very good! Paul has said Christ became a satisfaction in Jesus’ death. Jesus satisfied the just requirement of God's divine and holy nature. Jesus satisfied what God required against sin and now God has been able to give to us His grace and mercy when we accept the work of Jesus Christ.

Romans 3:21-31, is tells us about the meaning of the death of Christ, how that Christ died as a satisfaction and we, by faith in Christ and in the work He did, receive the grace and mercy and forgiveness of God.

The death of Christ enables a man to be made right with God! Basically, this is what justification by faith means, or righteousness by faith means, that we are made right with God

by faith, not by works, not by something we have done but by believing in what Jesus has done. V 21-25 laid out a description of how a person is made right with God. V 21 that it is apart from legalism V 22 says, by faith in Jesus Christ.

V 24 says, we are made right with God freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. V25 it is paid for by His sacrifice, His blood. We are made right with God, not according to works or law, but by God's own gift, which is received by faith, provided for all who will respond in faith, given freely and paid for by the sacrifice of Christ.

Justification is a declaration. It is a statement. It is an affirmation. It is God saying,

• based upon the merit of Jesus Christ,
• based upon the death of Christ,
• based upon the righteousness of Christ and
• your faith in Christ,
• God declare you to be right with Me,
• God declare you to be just, to be righteous.

Romans 4:11, And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also, In a very real sense, we are not righteous. We are unrighteous.

But God declares that we are righteous and He imputes that righteousness to us in that declaration because Jesus Christ has paid the penalty for our sin.

2 Corinthians 5:21, For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Galatians 3:24, Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

We are made right by faith. We are just before God by faith. We have a great Saviour who has given us a great salvation. Cross exalts God's grace. God reaches out in grace to save so that the cross exalts His righteousness because it shows us how He demanded a penalty even if He had to pay it Himself and His grace. Because

He extends salvation to those who could never earn it and never deserve it. The cross also reveals God's consistency. V 29, Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, Now justification by faith, Paul preached.

The Jews believed you were justified by works, or law. Now this verse attacks that in a very interesting way. The fundamental truth of all Judaism. Do you know what every Jew knows as the definition of his religion?

Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! "The Lord our God is one God."That is the essence of all Jewish faith. That is the first article of the manifesto of Judaism. "The Lord our God is one God"is repeated throughout the Old Testament Scripture.

God is one God. There are no other gods. God will tolerate no other worship. All the other idols are wood and stone and so forth that cannot answer. There are no other gods, only the one God, the true God.

Isaiah 45:5-6, I am the Lord, and there is no other; There is no

God besides Me. I will gird you, though you have not known Me, 6 That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting That there is none besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other; If people are to look to Him and be saved, He is the only God, then He is the only way to be saved!

Paul asks them, is God the God of the Jews only? They are going to have to say no. Because there is only one God, and He is the only God, and they know it from the articles of their faith. He is the God of everybody. Basic.

Is He not the God of the Gentiles? Paul answers as if he were answering for the Jews. "Yes, He is the God of the Gentiles, seeing He is one God." He is everybody's God. You have only got one God and He's everybody's God. There are no other gods. Now that was basic to their understanding.

1 Corinthians 8:5-6, For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords), 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live. If there is only one God and all Israel would have to affirm this, if there is only one God then He must be the God of the Jew and the Gentile. Now this is very hard for the Jews to handle because they didn't like to think that the Gentiles got in on their God. That was Jonah's problem. When God said go to Nineveh and preach, it wasn't that Jonah was afraid to preach, he didn't mind that. It wasn't that Jonah was lazy. It wasn't that Jonah wanted to stay home with his wife and kids. It wasn't that Jonah didn't think he would get a big enough love offering.

The reason Jonah did not want to go to preach in Nineveh was he did not want Gentiles getting converted and making claims on his God. That's how narrow their perspective had become. He ran because he really didn't want to see Gentile salvation.

Jonah 4:2, So he prayed to the Lord, and said, “Ah, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore

I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm. I knew if I went there, You would save those Gentiles. I really couldn't handle it.

But they knew God was the God of the Gentiles. He was the God of everybody. Ruth said the same.

Ruth 1:16, But Ruth said: “Entreat me not to leave you, Or to turn back from following after you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, And your God, my God. She was a Moabite woman, Gentile. God had always been the

God of the Gentiles. He was the God of everybody. Naaman the Syrian was the Hitler of his era, and Syrian, who received leprosy, came to worship the true God. He is the God of everybody.

2 Kings 5:15, And he returned to the man of God, he and all his aides, and came and stood before him; and he said, “Indeed, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel; now therefore, please take a gift from your servant.”

If God is the God of the Jew and the Gentile, then God has a mode of salvation that is the same for both. One cannot be saved by keeping the law because the Gentiles did not have the law! So, if God is going to justify the circumcision, it's going to be by faith and the uncircumcision. It's going to be by faith because one God has one mode of salvation.

If there were many gods, there could be many religions. But there's only one God, there can only be one way to approach Him.

Mark 16:15, And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

John 14:6, Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

Acts 4:12, Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

There is one God and that is basic to your faith, and justification by faith comes to those who come to that one God, whether they be Jew or Gentile. So, salvation must be apart from keeping the law, it must be apart from works for God to be consistent. Everyone is saved by faith in Christ, very basic!

Same principle throughout the New Testament. There is no other way to be saved than by faith in Jesus Christ.

1 Timothy 2:5, For there is one God and one Mediator between

God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, V 30, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. He will justify The future tense means a permanent purpose. From now on, He will continue to justify, make right with Him. those who are the circumcision (That's the Jews.) and those who are the uncircumcision the same way through faith.

The whole human race is reduced to the same level.

Romans 3:19, Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

V29-30, Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, 30 since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. The Jews are reduced to the same level in the doctrine of salvation.

Romans 1:16, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile." It's the same. God is utterly consistent. He is glorified by the revelation of His absolute, unwavering consistency. So, God is on display at the cross.

When you see the mass of religions all over the world and you see the complexities of all those religions, and then you look at Christianity — one God, one Mediator!

Ephesians 4:4-6, There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. One way to Him! That way to God is so direct and so clear and how it glorifies God, utterly consistent, one way through faith. God never changes.

Were people saved by faith in the Old Testament? You better believe it. That's the only way anybody's ever been saved. God has never altered His method one wit. No, one could ever be saved by works. They were responsible to live a life of righteousness just as we are, but they were brought into the capacity to do that by believing God.

Noah.

Genesis 6:8, But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. If Noah hadn't found grace there, he would have been drowned like everybody else. Moses.

Exodus 33:13, Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your people.” Moses found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

Romans 4:3, For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Abraham was saved by faith.

Romans 4 will also teach us that David was saved by faith. That is before Israel, pre-Israel. That's way back! Noah, Moses, Abraham. When we come to Israel, the period of the national theocracy, and the same thing is true.

The prophet Habakkuk says the just shall live by faith.

Habakkuk 2:4, “Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith. Read Hebrews ¹¹ it starts all the way back with Enoch, “by faith Enoch.” By faith all these heroes, all the way to the eleventh chapter.

Then come to chapter 12 and it says, "Seeing we are compassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses,"and that is not talking about people sitting in an arena somewhere. Those people are witnessing to the beauty of faith, to the reality of faith, to the life of faith. We have this many people testifying to the reality of faith as the only way to God, then that's the way we ought to live, by faith. Never been any different.

Men are redeemed always, past, present, future, by believing God. They had to believe all that God had revealed and now we believe all that God had revealed which is all that He would

reveal then and all that He has revealed in His Son. But we still believe all that He revealed. In this present age, just as before Israel, during Israel's time, and now as Israel's been set aside, we are redeemed by faith, by believing.

V 31, Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law. We don't make it void. The cross of Jesus Christ confirms God's law. If you can't get saved by keeping the law, then what good is the law?

The Jew at this point may have been reaching back to some of his Old Testament roots.

Psalm 119:126, It is time for You to act, O Lord, For they have regarded Your law as void.

Jeremiah 8:8, “How can you say, ‘We are wise, And the law of the Lord is with us’? Look, the false pen of the scribe certainly works falsehood. If the law can't save us, then it's useless. All its efforts are zero. No, no!

It is established.

How can that be so? Because the law was never given to save you. It was given to show you that you needed to be saved. Big difference. It was given to demonstrate your sinfulness, not to save you from it. It was given to drive you to God in faith, to drive you to the point where you said, "I can't live up to Your standards, God, I can't live up to Your standard. What will I do?"

At that point, God intervenes in His mercy and grace and says, "I think you see your sin. I think you are broken over your sin and repentant for your sin and I offer you through faith grace and forgiveness and healing." So, the death of Christ on the cross doesn't make void the law, it establishes it.

It establishes the law by the penalty. The Law had to be exacted. Jesus had to die. The law was established in the cross of Christ. The law said, you sin, you die, and somebody had to die. That affirmed the law. The law said sin brings death and it had to be. The law is not useless, the law is not void.

When Jesus died, He was saying, this law is in effect, it must have its demands met.

Matthew 5:17, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfil. So, in the death of Jesus Christ for salvation, the penalty of the law was paid, and it established the validity of the law.

The law only had one purpose, and that was to bring us to Christ.

Romans 3:20, Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Romans 7:8-9, But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead. 9 I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.

Galatians 3:24, Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

Conclusion

Penalty, purpose, and potential.

When you have put your faith in Jesus Christ, then you can fulfil the law.

Romans 8:3-4, For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

The law in your flesh couldn't do anything. Justification by faith does not make void the law. It makes the keeping of the law a possibility. The law is not useless. It had to have its just dessert and Christ die. It was there to drive us to Christ, and it is there now to be fulfilled in the energy and power of the blessed Holy Spirit.

So, the law is confirmed. When you look at the cross and you see Christ dying, see there the exaltation of God's law, His righteous wrath is coming down on Christ because His law demands it. Se there the penalty for sin, so that you understand that the law will drive you to see your sinfulness.

See the sufficiency of Jesus Christ, in the granting of His Holy Spirit a new ability to keep the law.

You have probably heard it said that if you work in a barnyard, you smell like a pig. You want to know something? God worked His salvation in the muck of this barnyard called earth and He came in human flesh and rubbed shoulders with pigs and went away without a stench, only spotless glory for Himself.

Look what salvation does for us. Look what it did to glorify our blessed God. "Salvation is sola gratia, by grace alone; sola fide, by faith alone; sola Deo gloria, for the glory of God alone."