Well, you can turn with me in your Bibles to Romans chapter 3. Romans chapter 3. This evening we'll look at verses 21 through 28. Romans chapter 3, 21 through 28, but we will read the entire chapter.
So Romans chapter 3. What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the prophet of circumcision? Much in every way, chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God. For what if some did not believe?
Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Certainly not. Indeed, let God be true, but every man a liar, as it is written, that you may be justified in your words and may overcome when you are judged. But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, What shall we say?
Is God unjust, who inflicts wrath? I speak as a man. Certainly not. For then, how will God judge the world?
For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to his glory, why am I still judged as a sinner? And why not say, let us do evil, that good may come? As we are slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say, their condemnation is just. What then?
Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. As it is written, there is none righteous.
No, not one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside.
They have together become unprofitable. There is none who does good. No, not one. Their throat is an open tomb.
With their tongues they have practiced deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. and the way of peace they have not known.
There is no fear of God before their eyes. 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. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe.
For there is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 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. to demonstrate at the present time his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law?
Of works? No, but by the law of faith. Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. Or is he the God of the Jews only?
Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not.
On the contrary, we establish the law. Amen.
Opening Prayer
Let's pray. O Lord, we do ask again for Your blessing upon the preaching of Your Word. I pray that You would be pleased to to bless us this evening as we study this passage together, and Lord, that you would be honored and you would be glorified, and that Christ would be exalted among us here. Lord, that your saints would be edified and built up in their faith, and that sinners may see the Savior and run to Him in faith for their salvation.
So, Lord, we ask your blessing on us now, and we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.
Introduction
So, as I was wondering what to prepare for a communion, I know Pastor Butler's been working through a series on there, and I was thinking of these things, and I thought, well, what is communion about? Communion is that we come, we gather, and as the Lord Jesus said, that you do this in remembrance of me. And so when I think of that, what are we remembering when we come and gather and partake of communion together? And it's really, it's the gospel, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the truths that are contained Therein and I think of I think of the of Paul in Romans chapter chapter 1 he says I am I'm not ashamed of the gospel for is the power of God unto salvation, you know, this is something that that sometimes the gospel, we think, well, maybe that's, you know, we understand it, we've heard it, we know it, we've, you know, we believe it, and, you know, let's move on to greater things.
But the gospel is not, you know, there's nothing greater that you can move on to. The more you study the gospel and what Christ has done, the more we ought to, the more it increases our faith and our, and strengthens our faith and increases our love for the Savior. I think of, I think it's Charles Hodge, I often quote him, but, you know, the gospel is so simple that a child can understand it, but yet it's so profound that studies by the wisest theologians will never exhaust its glories. So as we come tonight, you know, we come again, we look at the gospel message of our Lord Jesus Christ, something that we are not ashamed of. not in the sense of being shamed, but in the sense of hearing it too much and becoming tired of it.
So, you know, we come here and we come to, again, remind ourselves, what did the Lord Jesus do on our behalf? You know, so we have the, in this section here, Paul's emphasis on the righteousness of God, the righteousness of God that we have here. It's important to understand here, when we look in verse 21, he says, Now the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is revealed. The same thing in Romans 1, verse 16 and 17, that this righteousness in the gospel, the righteousness of God, Revealed it's a righteousness from God.
That's the you know we're not speaking of the of the the inherent righteousness of God or his his Attribute or his perfection of righteousness where he's perfectly just and perfectly perfectly right perfectly morally morally pure but rather a righteousness that God Provides for us
Sermon Outline Overview
so in this section will we see that righteousness first we see the righteousness revealed in 21 to 23, and then we have the righteousness explained in 24 through 25a, and then righteousness vindicated, this time God's inherent righteousness vindicated, His justice vindicated in 25b and 26, and then we have the conclusion in 27 and 28.
Righteousness Revealed
So first, then, we have to ask, well, why do we need a righteousness from God? And in the context, it's very obvious, it's because of our sin. Our sin causes us to fall short of that glory of God, as we find in verse 23 there. So our sin is a lack of righteousness.
So for man to come come near and to abide with a holy God, he has to be as morally pure and as morally upright as God himself. God cannot tolerate sin in his presence. Habakkuk 1.13, you have purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on wickedness. So we need to understand that.
When we look, when we go back to the garden, we understand what Adam was supposed to do in the garden was Adam was supposed to to keep the law perfectly, to have this perfect righteousness that made him worthy of eternal life and worthy of entrance into heaven to be with God there. But that sin, of course, broke that, and he fell short of attaining that righteousness. So now we all have this same problem, this same problem that has separated us from God. And if we go back through the previous several chapters, Paul has really labored to show that that the sin problem is universal.
So he begins with the Gentiles in chapter 1 verse 18 and all the way into chapter 2 verse 17, speaking of the sin of the Gentiles and the pagans and all the sins that they did. And then in chapter 2, verse 18, he goes to the Jews and he says, you too as well, Jews, you are just as guilty. And you even have the law of God. The Gentiles, they didn't have the law written.
They had it on their hearts, he says, which makes them just as guilty. But he says, you Jews, you have no excuse because you have the law there, but you still broke that. You still have fallen short of that. In case you think that you know, perhaps you don't fit into those two categories You're not as horrible as those pagans, but you're also not a Jew Well, then he then he gets you in in verse 9 and and verse 9 to 20 and he goes through and just very clearly Shows that you know, there is none righteous.
No, not one. There's no fear of God before our eyes Everyone everyone has has sinned, you know, we so verse verse 20 then those or sorry then Yeah, in verse 20, we see then that by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight. So we have all broken that law, and we cannot make ourselves right by keeping that law there. So therefore, then, if there is to be a righteousness by which we can enter into heaven, it's not going to be attained by us.
It must come from another, and that's where he says the gospel reveals to us where this righteousness comes from, and who it comes from, and how, and how do we have it. So there we have, then, the righteousness revealed in verse 21a.
The Righteousness Revealed in Christ
So he begins here by saying, but now,
Scripture Reading: Romans 3
but now the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is revealed. And so basically, and this but now is referring to the first advent, the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and his life, his death, his resurrection and ascension. So it's marked a major shift in redemptive history from the old covenant to types and shadows to now the reality being here. So now it's revealed.
We understand where this righteousness comes from. And again, this righteousness has been clearly revealed to us now. So the Old Testament, like I said, it was types, and it was shadows, it was things that were pointing forward to God providing a righteousness that would avail with Him. And that's what he says here.
He says that this is... It was witnessed by the Law and the Prophets. So in the Old Testament, then it was the Law and the Prophets. They pointed forward to these things.
That, in fact, was the whole point of the Old Testament. When we see in the first three chapters, we see the fall into sin and that falling short of the glory of God. And then the rest of the Old Testament starts to reveal in small steps in Genesis 3 with the promise to Adam and to Eve. And then as our confession says, by further steps it's revealed the righteousness that God is going to supply.
A righteousness that is not going to come from us, because when we understand that we've all sinned, we've all fallen short of that, we no longer have this righteousness. But God is going to provide it. The Old Testament The prophets and the law revealed how that was going to come about. The whole sacrificial system of the Old Testament was there to show where this righteousness was...
Where did it come from? How was God going to provide a way by which man could approach by which a sinful man could approach a holy God. The Old Testament sacrificial system emphasized the failure of man to have that righteousness of himself, but yet that it showed that provision was made, provision was going to be made by God for the people to draw near to them, something that would make them acceptable to God, a provision of righteousness from God. Psalm 51, David refers to this.
He says, So he understands there was a righteousness that was going to deliver him from this guilt of bloodshed. So now, so again, so it's clear, Paul's saying in the Old Testament, they understood, they understood that there was a righteousness that was going to come from another. You know, that there somehow, they would have a righteousness that would avail with God, a righteousness that would make them acceptable before God, even though they had sinned. And that's, and that now, we see a problem there with that last statement, even though they had sinned.
You know, so if you turn to Exodus 34 for a minute, we can see, we can see the problem, that our sin presents to us. Exodus 34, Moses has asked the Lord for a special revelation of the glory of God. And the Lord, so in verse 33, verse 18, he says, please show me your glory. And then the Lord says to him, I will make all my goodness pass before you and I'll proclaim the name of the Lord before you.
So then now in verse 34, we see that Moses goes back up on the mountain and then the Lord descends in a cloud here and reveals something of himself. Now he did prior in the end of chapter 33, he did say that he was going to pass by, he was going to hide him in the cleft of the rock and then pass by and reveal something of his glory. So now as the Lord comes and the Lord the Lord reveals something to himself in chapter 34, verse 5. Now, the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with them there and proclaimed the name of the Lord.
And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious and long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands and forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. So if we stop there, then we think, oh, that's great, the Lord loves to forgive I understand it now. We can sin, but God can just forgive our sin. I get it.
But listen to the next line. By no means clearing the guilty. So now that presents us with a problem. If God has revealed Himself as perfectly just in that way, that yes, He loves to forgive.
He's gracious. He loves to forgive all sin and iniquity and transgression. But yet, he's also perfectly just. He will by no means let the guilty go unpunished, by no means clear the guilty.
So then we have this problem that it presents to us. God had told Adam, on the day that you eat, you will surely die. So death was the curse for sinning against God. But we know Adam sinned, but he didn't die.
And instead, rather than dying, yes we know he died spiritually, but he did not die physically and eternally at that moment. But rather, God gave a promise, and he promised that in the future, someone would come who would provide the reason why Adam was not cast into eternal death on that day. Again, so we understand, yes, he spiritually died in the sense that his moral faculties became corrupted, but that immediate physical and eternal death, that was also part of this curse for breaking the law. But yet, it didn't happen, and God passed over that sin.
So now, on that day in the garden, when Adam sinned, and God had said, you will surely die, but then God passed over that sin of Adam, Now, humanly speaking, I say this then, the gospel became absolutely necessary if God was to remain a just judge. For God's justice to be upheld, that gospel, it became necessary that someone would come. And again, when I say humanly speaking, I'm not saying this is not a plan, this is not plan B in the sense of, you know, God passed over and then said, oh, now I need to do something. This was always God's plan from eternity.
But humanly speaking, the gospel, became necessary for God to maintain His justice when He passed over that sin. So, Paul's going to continue to explain that to us here. So, we go back to Romans chapter 3. Back to Romans chapter 3.
So, we're in verse 22 now. And he says, even the righteousness of God, now think righteousness from God there, through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe. So this righteousness that God is going to provide is, for one, it says it's received by faith. And again, we see that in the Old Testament as well, Habakkuk 2.4, the just shall live by faith.
And here he tells us very specifically, it's faith in Jesus Christ. that Christ. Christ is the answer to this problem. This problem that we have of God delighting in forgiveness, but God also having to uphold his justice at all costs. He will not sacrifice his justice.
He will by no means clear the guilty and let sin go unpunished. So Jesus is the answer to that. Jesus is the one that provides this righteousness here. So let's move on here.
So then first he says, He says that it's to all, that this righteousness is offered to all here. So the righteousness that is revealed in Jesus Christ, it's received by faith in Christ, it's offered to all. And why then? Why is he saying that it's offered to all, to everybody?
Why not just some? And the answer comes at the end of the verse there, Difference for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God We are all on the same the same level the same playing field when it comes to ours to our standard And our righteousness with God we have everyone has fallen short of that and that's that that really is the is the is the is the best news for for anyone if who's here tonight who may not be saved that that we are all on, there's no difference. There's nothing that set those of us here who are saved, who are believers in Christ, there's no difference. We had nothing different going for us than you did.
In fact, we had nothing going for us. So if you're here and you're wondering, could this be for me? Could it be that Christ would offer this righteousness to me. Well, I could tell you on the authority of God's word that we find here that yes, indeed it is.
Christ offers this righteousness to you as well. So not one of us here who are in Christ by God's grace have anything to, there's nothing different in us. It was all of grace. There is no difference.
So it says, to all, and then it says, and on all who believe. Again has has the the the on all there's a textual variant there But but I believe it's it's it's accurate that on on all meaning or overall is a better Maybe a better way we could we could translate it. So so not not only is it offered to all but for those who have it It's it's over all them. It's it's all encompassing You know, it covers them.
It's not it's not partly It's not partly a righteousness that God gives partly and then plus something that we have to offer, we have to bring to the table in some way or another. It's not that we were morally upright somehow and then God gave us this righteousness, but rather it is all covering, it is a complete righteousness that we need. It supplies everything that we lack. So, and again, as I say this to any unbelievers that may be listening, is that, you know, this is important to understand.
There's no prerequisites to being... This righteousness completes, it meets every standard that we must meet for eternal life. It is supplied by God there. There's nothing that we need to bring to the table.
There's no certain expectation that we need to live up to before we can be worthy of this righteousness. But it's a gift that's offered to all of us. There's no standard you have to meet. We're all on the same level.
We've all sinned. We are all unworthy. But, you know, because there is a standard for eternal life, and that's perfect obedience to the law of God. What Paul describes here as the glory of God, that perfect obedience.
All of us have fallen short of that standard. So, then we find ourselves, each one of us, wallowing in that sinfulness, and then God offers a righteousness that meets everything that we lack, and He offers it to all, a righteousness that is received by faith in the Lord Jesus. And it's to all who believe, Paul says here. And then, of course, it's a righteousness that's apart from the deeds of the law.
It's apart from from any merit at all on our part. There's nothing that we can do. This righteousness is supplied by God.
Righteousness Explained
So what is this righteousness then? Righteousness explained. So we've seen in verse 23 then that we've all sinned, we've all fallen short of the glory of God. That standard that we had to meet for eternal life, we've all fallen short of that.
So what is this righteousness then here? So Paul starts then explaining this in verse 24.
Justification Defined
So he says, being justified. Now, justification, this is an important word, important concept to understand. speak about it. Justification means to be declared right with God. It is a legal declaration, a forensic declaration.
Sometimes we use that word. Think in terms of God being a judge, and the judge is saying, you are now right with me. God is lawgiver and he's judge, and he's saying, you are right with me. So it doesn't change the fact that we've sinned.
We still have sinned, so it's not changing something about us and our nature, but rather it's a change of our status before God. That our status changes. That God, the just judge, says, I declare this person to be right with me and to be worthy of eternal life. So, again, we're going to see how that works.
We still have this problem. How can that be? If God is going to be perfectly just, how then can he declare me, who's unjust, to be right with him? So, as our confession says in its definition of justification, it says that God pardons their sins and accounts or accepts them as righteous, not for anything wrought in them or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone.
So it's accepting them, accounting them, or declaring them to be right with Him. So we're being justified, but it's freely by His grace, as we move on here. Freely by His grace. Again, Paul emphasizing this.
There's no cost to this from us. We did not need to supply something in order for God to return this righteousness or to exchange in exchange for righteousness. It's free. It's a gift that God offers completely of grace.
So, and again, look at what Paul is doing here. He still hasn't given us the explanation for this, how God can be just and yet justify unrighteous and ungodly people. He hasn't given us that explanation, but what he's done is he's stripped man down of all ability to earn this righteousness, for one. So we cannot earn this righteousness because, let's understand that, righteousness here is a full, fully satisfying all the demands of the law.
Not only the positive demands, but the negative ones as well. So the curses, and we'll see that in a minute here. But we needed to have a righteousness whereby there's a perfect obedience to all those laws of God, but also fulfilling the negative aspect, the cursing of the law as well. So it's not that we can just undo the sin that we've done by doing some more good works or more obedience, but rather we have a righteousness that we cannot Accomplish on our own we we cannot we cannot do that.
We've fallen short of that So so not only has he stripped man of all the ability to earn righteous to to earn this righteousness But he's also taken away. Oh the the the need for man to meet any any sort of criteria, there's there's no there's no standard that must be met it is completely It is all of grace. We cannot and we need not contribute in any way to this righteousness that God gives. I think it was Jonathan Edwards that says, you know, you contribute nothing to your salvation except for the sin that made it necessary.
So, again, if you're here tonight and you have, you know, nothing to contribute but sin, then this message is for you. And of course, it's for us as believers as well, that we never forget this, that this should be the driving factor of the Christian life, the grace of God. David says that, I will sing of the mercy of the Lord forever. So that should be the driving force of the Christian.
As we come to passages like this, and we see how how man is being stripped of every ability, but also of every requirement necessary for this righteousness. We praise God for His great grace. We sing of the mercy of the Lord forever.
Redemption and Propitiation
So, and then, and then we, and then now, now Paul gets in, into this, into the explanation here in a bit more, more explaining. Now, how is, how does this work? So he says, now this, this, this righteousness comes through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. So again, we have another, another word here we need to understand.
Redemption. John Owen gives the definition that redemption is the, is the delivery of anyone from captivity and misery by the intervention of a price or ransom. That's very important to understand that price or ransom there. So to be redeemed was not just to be rescued.
It's more than just a rescuing. There's a price to pay to be rescued, to be redeemed. If we go back to the Old Testament, we've been reading through Leviticus. We saw often the concept of the Redeemer. in Leviticus, someone who had got themselves into debt with somebody and could not pay that debt, so then they had to go and work for that.
Well, a Redeemer could come along and they could pay that debt to rescue that person from that bondage and from that captivity and serving of that to that other person, so to be redeemed. So Christ, so the redemption is in Christ Jesus. So Christ has become our Redeemer. He's the one who has given that payment to free us from the bondage that we are in.
Now, first we need to understand, then, who are we in bondage to? This is important because sometimes we can have, you know, the Bible often speaks of us as being in bondage to the devil, that the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. You know that we're under his power. We're in bondage to him, but that is that is not what is what's happening in this redemption Transaction you know Christ is not Christ is not coming and paying a price to the devil to to release us from From this bondage.
You know if that was the case if the devil had us held us captive and demanded a Ransom you know that then the devil would be the winner in this scenario here, but rather you know we have to understand we are indebted to God in the so So the payment that Christ had to make was to God, it was not to the devils, because our sin has incurred massive Massive infinite debt with God and that debt must be discharged It must be paid in full if we are if we are to be freed. So that is that is how that is how Christ Conquers people from the kingdom of darkness and from the from the power of Satan in in that way But it is through redemption but through paying that price to the father whereby then he can he can he can take them out of the kingdom of Darkness and conquer them out of the kingdom of darkness So we always need to we I think we understand that but just to want to point that out again. He's not He's not paying a ransom to the devil. We are indebted to God.
So, and then when we understand, what does the Bible teach? What is that debt then? We talk about, you know, that we've incurred debt. God is the, you know, God is the creditor.
We've incurred this debt. What is this in concrete terms then? Well, the Bible is very clear. The wages of sin is death, Romans 6, 23.
We see that elsewhere. We saw it in Genesis. You know, the day that you eat, the day that you sin against me, you will surely die. So that's the punishment, the curse, then, of sin is death.
The payment, the wages of sin, or the payment for sin is death. So that's what we see then in verse 25. So being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood. Again, we have another word we need to define and we need to understand what it means here to understand the gospel.
A propitiation is payment to satisfy justice, to satisfy the divine justice in this situation here. The perfect justice of God demands a full payment for sin. It demands that sin must be paid. We saw that in Exodus.
I will by no means let the guilty go unpunished or clear the guilty. God will not say, I forgive that debt. I will not clear that debt. That sin, that payment must be made to satisfy that justice.
And that's what the propitiation what it means here. The propitiation is that payment that Christ offered here. The propitiation that he says, by his blood. So the curse of the law demanded the shedding of blood, demanded which is death.
So on the day that you sin, the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. The soul that sins will die, says the Bible. Not just physical death, but eternal death. Separation from any any grace any any mercy any favor from God and and receiving nothing But his but his infinite and his eternal wrath against our sin That's that is the that is the curse of the law no favor from God, but rather it only wrath against against that sin That is the definition of eternal death.
And the Bible says, without the shedding of blood, or without the death, there can be no remission. And that is the gospel message here, is this propitiation by Christ Jesus. That on the cross, God imputed, or he credited, our sins onto Christ. That Christ was declared guilty by the Father, for the sins that we had committed, and He was declared guilty for those sins, and He was punished as guilty for those sins.
That the Father declared Him guilty, punished Him as such. So where you and I should have been hanging on that cross, suffering the eternal wrath of God for our sin, there stood Christ hanging in our place, facing the divine, infinite, wrath of the Father on that cross. We're going to sing at the end of worship, in my place condemned he stood. That is the crux of the gospel, that Christ there, he was condemned in our place, condemned.
He was bearing the curse of the law. We often think of substitution and we think, yeah, Christ was there, he did that for me, but Condemned, cursed, bearing the curse of the law. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. How?
By becoming a curse for us. Galatians 3, 13. So Isaiah 53, it says, Yahweh laid on him the iniquity of us all. That's that imputation, crediting to Christ. laying on Christ our sin.
And then it says, then it pleased Yahweh to crush Him, to put Him to grief and to make His very soul an offering for sin. It says that on that cross, Christ was cursed for the sins of His people. If we think of the blessings in the Bible, specifically the Aaronic blessing, we call that, that the Lord The Lord bless you and keep you. Let me find it here.
And the Lord lift up his countenance upon you. Sorry, let me just find it so I can get it. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Well, on the cross, Christ received the opposite of that, and where we should have received the opposite of that. So instead of the Lord bless you and keep you, it's the Lord curses you and the Lord And the Lord keeps, it means protects, but rather the Lord curses you and the Lord crushes you, to use the word of Isaiah, on that cross. The Lord crushes you.
The Lord, He doesn't make His face shine upon you, but instead He removes all of that favor and all of that grace that He shows, and there's nothing but divine wrath being upon you. And the Lord be gracious to you. Instead, the opposite, the Lord is cursing you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.
It's it's it there was nothing but wrath but but curse the the lord jesus bearing the curse that we deserve cursed for the sins of His people, cursed for my sin, cursed for your sin, in my place condemned He stood, sealed my pardon with His blood." Hallelujah, what a Savior. And that is the gospel, that Christ was there, cursed in our place, condemned, until that last mite was paid. And then He cried out, it is finished, or paid in full is a better translation. Paid in full, that curse had been paid in full.
On the cross, Christ wasn't there as an example for us. He wasn't there as an example of love or whatever it may be. He wasn't there just to physically die for us, but rather he was there to face that eternal death, that eternal separation of any grace and any mercy, any favor at all from the Lord, but rather nothing but cursing. And Christ fulfilled that in all of our sins upon upon that cross.
How an infinite punishment can be carried out on the cross in space and time? Well, that's only things that the Lord can understand. But yet the Bible tells us that's what he was. That's what happened.
He bore that curse. for us. And that's the gospel, that's the good news, that's why we're here this evening and celebrating the supper tonight. When he says, do this in remembrance of me, this is my body, this is my blood, this is what we are remembering, that Christ became a curse for us, that we should have been cursed by the sin that we incurred, but Christ bore that curse in our place. And that's the righteousness that God provides.
That's the explanation for it. God demanded full obedience to the law of God. Paul's focus here so much is the act of obedience of Christ, whereby he perfectly kept all of God's laws and earned the positive side of the law and earned eternal life that way. His emphasis here is on the fulfillment of the law and on the curse side of it, that thereby that law is fully fulfilled.
All the curse has been paid in full as well. So Christ, that's the righteousness. Christ has done it all, and that righteousness that is received by faith, it tells us here. Whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood through faith.
Again, it is received through faith. It's not on account of our faith. It's not something that we get because... because of our faith as a reward for our faith. It's very clear.
The wording is very clear that this is received by faith. Our faith does not meet any standards of righteousness. So it wouldn't make sense then for our faith to have merit. The righteous requirements of the law were perfect obedience and also fulfillment of the curse if those laws had been broken.
And that's what Christ supplies there. Again, it's it's it is of faith that as Paul says in in chapter 4 verse 16 He says therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace So it is all of grace and and and faith we receive that that that that faith We receive this righteousness through faith and it's interesting here. Actually the original The original language says that a more literal translation, I guess, would be that whom God set forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood. That's actually a literal translation.
Our English translations attach the in his blood to the propitiation as a modifier of propitiation, an explanation of what is this propitiation, but a straightforward reading. The text says that it's faith in his blood. It's faith in the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf this morning in our Confession study we looked at what is saving faith and and it comes down to it Are we trusting in our own our own? Righteousness for our eternal life or are we trusting in in Christ's righteousness? and it's that the righteousness which came from the sacrifice of of Christ.
Again, so it's faith in the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf, that righteousness that comes from Him. So Machen, J. Gresham Machen quoted him a bunch this morning, but again here he says, But the Lord Jesus, because He loved us, took upon Himself the guilt of our sins, and died instead of us on Calvary. And faith consists simply in our acceptance of that wondrous gift.
When we accept the gift, we are clothed entirely, without merit of our own, by the righteousness of Christ." So then, moving on here, he says that whom... Well, just I want to look at one thing, actually, first, is that in the beginning of verse 25, whom God set forth. the NASB says, publicly displayed. So remember what I said earlier. I said that the day that Adam sinned in the garden and God did not instantly kill him with physical and eternal death, then the gospel became necessary for God's justice to be upheld and to be vindicated.
And here we have that public display of the justice of God publicly displayed here. The wrath of God being satisfied for sin, the sin that he had passed by as God punishes Christ on the cross in this public display here. And again, this is not just Adam's sin that was passed by, or Old Testament saints' sins that were passed by, but your sin and my sin as well. The instant that we sinned, God's justice could have very righteously immediately destroyed us, killed us, cast us into hell for eternity.
That's what we deserve. But rather God in His grace, He passed by that. And then He publicly displays that His justice being vindicated as that sin is not just swept under the rug and forgot about, but rather it's paid in full on the cross there. And again, that is this propitiatory sacrifice by the Lord Jesus, whereby God's righteousness can be vindicated.
And that's what Paul then moves on here to explain.
Righteousness Vindicated
God's righteousness, God's justice vindicated here. So he says here, so in his forbearance, God had passed over the sins that were previously committed to demonstrate Sorry, in the middle of verse 25 here. So God set forth Christ as a propitiation by His blood through faith to demonstrate His righteousness because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins which were previously committed. So this righteousness now here, commentators are divided over, are we talking about the righteousness that God supplies in Christ, this righteousness that's worthy of eternal life, that God will credit to our account through faith?
Or is it God's inherent righteousness whereby God is just and cannot just let sin go unpunished? Either explanation is legitimate in this context here. Either one fits the context. So either the atoning death of Christ on the cross, that's demonstrating or showing or proving God's, or explaining, I guess we could say, God's righteousness that God gives, the righteousness that is supplied.
Because it's fulfilling, Christ fulfilled the precepts and the curses of the law. So it could be that, which fits. It also could be that it's demonstrating or vindicating God's inherent righteousness, whereby He shows that, yes, He loves to pardon sin and iniquity and transgression, but by no means will He leave sin unpunished. So I would lean in the direction that this is a better explanation, because that is where Paul takes us now in these next verses here, that this is how God can be both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus Christ.
So God is just, their sin is atoned for, their sin is paid in full, not by them, but by another. because of God's grace. And then, so therefore, God can freely pardon that sin without violating His justice in any way. So this is the answer to the question that we found in Exodus 34. How can God do this?
Well, here we have the answer, the cross of Jesus Christ. So justice and mercy meet at the cross the psalmist says mercy and truth have met together righteousness and peace have kissed and that's what happens at the cross mercy and truth meeting together righteousness meaning god's justice and peace meaning is meaning that that that mercy they have kissed at the cross The cross provides that solution to the problem that the Old Testament presents to us in the first three chapters of Genesis and then slowly reveals that solution. How can God be just, and yet justify a sinful man? Here we have the answer, the cross of Christ.
As the hymn writer says, So we find that in Colossians as well, very clearly. Colossians chapter 2, in verse 14. Let's go 13, and you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has made alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us. So that record of debt that we had, all of our sins that have stacked up against us incurred this massive debt.
He wipes this out, takes it away, and how does he do that? He does it by, and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it, to the cross. So on that cross, the wrath of God was satisfied, which we sung earlier there. So that is the gospel.
That is why we are here tonight. That is what we come together to remember, is the death of Christ on our behalf, where we deserve to be there suffering. Instead, it was Christ and that righteousness that he has earned, he offers to us freely and by God's grace, through faith, we accept that righteousness.
Conclusion: Boasting Excluded
So then look at the conclusion then in verse 27. Where is boasting then? I think the answer is very obvious as he gives there. It is excluded.
There's nothing that we can do. There's nothing that we needed to do. There's nowhere anywhere in this transaction for man to take any credit. It is all Christ doing the work, and it's God being gracious in offering that to us.
So he says, by what law? Of works? No, no, not at all. We can't earn that.
Our works, even if we could do good works, they cannot atone for sin. Death is the only way to pay for sin, to atone for sin. So it is by the law of works? No, but by the law of faith.
And he's using law here as a play on words, meaning a standard or a way in which one becomes righteous before God. He's not attaching any merit to faith here. We need to be clear there. So it is faith by which we become righteous before God. apart from the deeds of the law.
And that's the best news that we could ever hear. That's why we call it the gospel. It's good news. It's the best news.
There's nothing that we need to offer to Christ in exchange for this righteousness, but it's a righteousness that avails with God freely given and received by faith.
Application
So then in conclusion then, as I said, that is why we come here each Lord's Day. That's why we gather every Lord's Day to remember this, and especially once a month as we come here tonight to partake of the supper. The Lord Jesus, when he instituted that, he says, do this in remembrance of me. So we come here to proclaim the Lord's death to ourselves, to remind ourselves of these things, to proclaim the Lord's death until he comes again to remind that Christ redeemed me from the curse of the law that I had incurred, and he did that by becoming a curse for me. on that cross instead.
And again, as I've said several times here, if you're not a believer here, this is the greatest news that you could hear is that this is free. God is offering you something that is worthy of eternal life. He's offering it freely to all and to whoever Believes that Jesus says come unto me. I will give you rest You know all that the father gives will come but the one who comes out with no wise cast out so believe come to Christ believe on him accept his his work as your Your your entrance into heaven that yet he has earned that believe on the Lord Jesus and you you will be saved
Closing Prayer
Well, let us close in in a word of prayer Lord, how we thank you for the gospel message. Lord, our words of thanks cannot even come close to doing justice to what you have given to us in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, that he came to that cross, Lord, and suffered an eternity of wrath for us. Lord, how how we rejoice in Your goodness, how we praise You for Your grace and for Your mercy, and that You, in Your grace, have provided that way of salvation through Your Son, the Lord Jesus. O Lord, I pray that as we partake of the supper, now that our hearts would be filled with a love for the Savior, that as we remember what the Lord did, as we remember His death on our behalf on Calvary, Lord, that our hearts would be encouraged, our faith would be strengthened, and that we would be edified by this, and that you'd be glorified.
And I pray this all in the name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus. Amen.