No images? Click here ANOTHER WAY PT. IIIRomans 3:21-31 AUGUST 7, 2022 This week, we were blessed to be able to come together once again and finish our study of Romans chapter 3 as we look at verses 24-31. Recently, we have been discussing the ever important topic of Justification. The Apostle Paul has walked us faithfully through this exciting topic. In previous weeks we were reminded that justification is built on the righteousness of Christ. It is applied by faith in the finished work of Christ. We have also seen that justification is initiated by God and God alone, not through our will or agency. This week, we discussed the fact that justification is found in Christ alone and the way that we ought to view justification in light of the Cross.
Some theologians posit that the heart of the Bible can be found in this section of Romans 3 because justification is at the heart of the Gospel. These verses are saturated in rich theological truths that highlight the majesty and glory of Christ. This section of Scripture ought to catch our attention and remind us of the love we have (or ought to have) for Christ. Throughout Scripture we see various men reminding us of some of the reasons why we ought to love Christ. David, in the Psalms, said that Christ is the fairest of all men. Similarly, Asaph said there is none on earth we should desire more than Him and Solomon calls Christ the chiefest among 10,000. The reason these men are able to recognize the majestic goodness of Christ is not because of things He has offered them, but because of who He is. We tend to look at Christ with love or admiration because of what He has given to us when we should be loving Christ for who He is. We should worship Him because of who He is.
Justification Is Found In Christ Alone (3:24b-26)
Since we cannot bring ourselves up to the righteous standard of God, Christ had to bring Himself down to us. As He moves towards us, He justifies those who believe in Him. Christ alone is just and the justifier. Grace is found in Christ alone (24b-26). To fully understand justification, we must also understand the grace we receive from Christ. There is much misunderstanding surrounding grace, we assume we can pull in more grace at will. We feel like grace should be passively available and is awarded when we put in an effort. We tend to view grace like a teenager who works diligently all summer but comes up short for his new car, and whose parents give him the remaining money to buy his car that he worked so hard for. We see that as grace - God supplies the rest of the cash when we come up short. But in reality, the situation is more like a teenager who doesn’t work hard all summer, who goofs off, plays on his phone, and gets fired from his job, but still finds a car in his driveway waiting for him on the first day of school.
Grace is a kindness initiated by God, regardless of our behavior - it is an unmerited favor. That lazy teenager did nothing to deserve a car, in fact he deserved punishment for his bad behavior, but Grace supplied the car anyway. Grace can be seen when God gives us things we do not deserve or merit on our own or when we, in fact, deserve the opposite- eternal punishment. The parable of the prodigal son, found in Luke 15, is an excellent example of grace. Another example of what grace is can be found in the life of the Apostle Paul. He was on the road to murder Christians and God lavished His grace on Paul by stopping him from committing these actions. Justification is based on grace and that grace is found in Christ alone.
The kindness we find initiated toward us is found in 3:24 and it is redemption. Christ offers us the gift of redemption. Redemption is the idea of buying something back and returning it to usefulness. It is to pay a ransom. Scripture is clear that we are in bondage to sin. We must all be redeemed but we cannot redeem ourselves. The payment for our redemption is a fixed price that can only be fulfilled by Christ’s own shed blood. In Philippians 2, we see the progression of Christ coming down to us, living a holy life, and then offering Himself as a sacrifice for our sins. The payment had to be God’s own shed blood. 1 Corinthians 1:30 and Ephesians 1 both say that in Christ we have redemption. At the heart of the Gospel message is the fact that only through the redemption IN CHRIST can we be saved, nothing of our own doing can ever bring justification.
You cannot overlook the wrath of God in your gospel message because that renders the redemption valueless. If someone does not understand the value of Christ on the cross, salvation will mean nothing to them. If you think about what God gave so that mankind could be saved, you must also understand that God holds close to His heart the plan for salvation which means we must be accurate in sharing the entire truth of the gospel because He then gets the glory. How can we expect God to bless our sharing of the gospel when we do not hold closely to the truth of the gospel? The gospel cannot be reduced to “God has a plan for you”. So we marvel at the God we serve who would save us from His wrath by providing a way out from under it! You must believe the full truth of the gospel to understand the great value in our redemption and justification.
As we came to Romans 3:25, we saw Christ being set before the Father as a propitiation, or payment, for our sins. Propitiation is a word that means to cause to look favorably upon. By being united with Christ in His sacrifice for sin we are united with him in his righteousness. The Father looks favorably upon the Son and our union with Him causes God to look favorably, propitiously, on us. This is such an important concept to grasp in our Christian walk. We are incapable of appeasing the wrath of God on our own. Christ had to be offered as appeasement, or propitiation in order for us to be saved. Only God can appease His own wrath. The Jewish feast of The Day Of Atonement is a prime example of propitiation. Each year, lots would be cast to choose one animal that would be the propitiation for the peoples’ sin that had accrued. The blood of the animal chosen as a sacrifice would be sprinkled on the mercy seat in the temple and satisfy the wrath of God for a time. A second animal would be chosen, have hands laid on it as Aaron confessed the sins of the people and it would be driven into the wilderness, carrying away the sins of the people. These two acts symbolically proclaim the coming Messiah who would be the substitutionary atonement for the world. Unlike the goats whose atonement last for only a year, Jesus' payment would be valid for eternity. We must ask ourselves, have we ever laid a hand of faith on Christ trusting that his death on the cross carried away our sins? Do we believe that Jesus’ sacrifice was propitiation for our sin? Justification is only found in Christ’s appeasement and shed blood.
Justification is also found in Christ alone and through His forbearance, for a time, of our sins (Rom 3:25). The forbearance of God is the way that He patiently bears our sin, knowing that He will soon provide a way to forgive that sin. 2 Peter 3:9 demonstrates that God has divine patience with us before He bears down fully with His wrath. He endures our lies, vanity, adultery and a multitude of other sin because He saw the justification that was coming through Christ, in the life of a believer. He can see the redemption of His children through the atonement of Christ. He can endure because of Christ and Christ alone. If you take Christ out of the divine equation, there is no forbearance. If you take away Christ, there is no forgiveness and no justification. Likewise, in Colossians 3, we are also reminded to bear with one another and forgive one another in the same way God has done for us.
Christ Jesus alone, always has been and always will be, our proof of salvation. Christ was Paul’s proof as he showed in Acts 17:30-31. Paul declared to the philosophers on Mars hill that the risen Christ is the proof and fulfillment of the gospel. Faith, grace, and justification can only be found through Christ and he is the ultimate and final proof of salvation.
Justification In View Of The Cross vs 27-31
In this section, Paul discussed justification with the cross as the backdrop. What Paul set out to defend is that Christ’s work on the cross is what justified us and that we ought to boast in nothing but Christ. When we look at the cross, we see the perfect balance of God’s mercy and God’s justice on display. It is a beautiful picture of God’s love. God created the world in perfect harmony and we tend to forget that the fall had a devastating affect on creation, from the cellular to the celestial level. We see this devastation in our inability to keep the moral law. God’s response to our depravity is to step down into His creation to redeem His people; to buy them back from their slave master, sin. Christ was crucified for our sins and on a tree that He created. It is here, before the cross, in view of our justification bought with the blood of Christ that Paul asks who could boast in that? Why would we think we could do something to earn that depth of love? All that Christ demands from us is that we throw ourselves humbly before Him and repent. Conceptually, we understand justification through Christ and yet, we still fall into the trap of boasting in our goodness or worthiness. It is often a product of our sin and our western mindset. Luke 18:9-14 demonstrates the way we tend to boast in our own perceived goodness. This parable also lays out for us the way we ought to respond to justification in light of the cross. With our eyes looking towards heaven praising God for His mercy towards us. It was the humble, penitent man who was justified, not the one who tried to self-justify. Only the cross can justify! This makes the most sense when we understand the magnitude of God’s love for us, when He sacrificed Himself to save us from our sin. This was God’s plan from before the dawn of time. As we live our Christian lives, we can lose sight of justification. We begin to slowly reach back to our so-called good works. What God wants from us, is to confess our sin and throw ourselves humbly at his feet. The cross is our justification and it is our motivation. The cross is what makes upholding the law a possibility for us. This is a glorious truth, worth celebrating daily! Let your prayer, this week, be that you would throw yourself humbly before God and thank Him for the most wonderful gift of justification through Christ! Selah
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