Romans 1 chapter 17 Romans Romans 1 verse 17. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, but the righteous man shall live by faith. Amen. Well, as I mentioned in the announcements this morning, we are beginning a new series this month on the Protestant Reformation in anticipation of the anniversary on October 31st of our 500th anniversary of the Reformation, beginning with Martin Luther nailing the 95 theses at the door in Wittenberg and We are going to study a number of passages this coming month that speak to the issues that surrounded the Protestant Reformation. And I think it's something that is worth doing as this comes around only half a millennia at a time. So this is a big deal, 500 years for the church. And I think there are really many applications that are still needed in our day to day. A lot of the problems that face the church are problems that were problems millennia ago. And we need to realize that though times do change, often the very heart of the issues do not. And so we want to talk about the gospel. We want to talk about why the Reformation is important. I think one of the things that we're going to see today is that the Reformation Boys and girls was not discovering anything new. It was a rediscovery of things that were old, things that the church once did know, but the church had gotten away from over time. So when we study this, this is not a study just simply to be provincial, just simply to raise our own little ecclesiastical banner. But it is really about things that are much more important, things about the gospel itself and how really today what we're going to see is how does one become righteous when we are sinners ourselves? You know, how does one stand before God? You know, boys and girls, that's maybe one of the most important questions you could ask yourself right now in your young life as a as a young person, as a boy or a girl, to ask yourself, If I have fallen short of the glory of God, which I have done, how can I be made right with a God who is just, a God who is holy, a God who cannot wink at sin? This is one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves. So we're going to begin with Romans 117, because this was such a pivotal verse in the life of Martin Luther. Luther, you know, was an Augustinian monk. He entered into the monastery after making a vow that if he would be saved from this terrible lightning storm and that he was caught in and out in the field, that he would enter into the monastery. And he did so. And as he did so, his conscience became more and more troubled. He, I think, had the idea that by becoming a monk, his conscience would be eased, that he would be doing more acts of piety and devotion to the Lord, he would be spending his time in the things that would be pleasing to God. And as such, he would find that righteousness and peace that he needed before God. But the trouble was that the more he went into the depths of studies and devotions to the Lord, more troubled he became. His conscience was not eased. The burden got heavier. And it was only when Luther eventually, through the teaching of Romans and the study of passages such as the one that is before us, that he said, once I understood verse 17, then he said it was as though the gates of heaven had finally opened up unto him and that salvation was clear. And I want to talk about what is the significance of verse 17? Why did it play such an important part in the life and ministry of Martin Luther? The late James Montgomery Boyce, who is pastor at 10th Presbyterian Church, PCA in Philadelphia, wrote in his own commentary on this, he says, we come to sentences that are the most important in the letter and perhaps in all literature. They are the theme of this epistle and the essence, he says, of Christianity is pretty big statement right there that that verse 17 is the essence of Christianity. He says, they are the heart of biblical religion. The reason for this is so that they tell how a man or a woman, and we might add a boy or a girl, may become right with God. Luther, commenting on the doctrine of justification by faith, which verse 17 refers to, says this. He says, Luther himself said, the chief article from which all our other doctrines flow. If the article of justification is lost, all Christian doctrine is lost at the same time, unquote. And then elsewhere, he said this it meaning the doctrine of justification by faith alone. It alone begets nourishes, builds, preserves and defends the Church of God. And without it, the Church of God cannot exist for an hour. Now, what I want to do this morning is break this verse down into two essential parts. Number one, we see in verse 17, the righteousness of God revealed, the righteousness of God revealed. And then secondly, and similarly, the righteousness of God received the righteousness of God received. And those are going to be our two points, the righteousness of God revealed and then secondly received. So let's look at our verse again here as we study. In verse 17, and let me just back up for the sake of a little bit of context, the verse 16, Paul says in 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel. Now, that is the heart of what the book of Romans is about. It's about the gospel. I am not ashamed of the gospel. Why? Well, Paul says, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Then we get to our text today, for in it that is in the gospel of Christ, for in it the righteousness of God is, number one, revealed from faith to faith as it is written. And then secondly, but the righteous man shall live by faith. So it is revealed and It also is received now in verse 16. Paul is saying he's not ashamed of the gospel for this is the very power of God. You remember the apostles would go about preaching, saying there is no other name, boys and girls under heaven, except the name of Jesus Christ, by which a person can be saved. And that is what Paul essentially is saying as well. There is only one gospel, one Christ, one savior of the world, one son of God. one act of propitiation, namely the cross, and it is in the cross of Christ and in the cross alone that we see God's righteousness revealed to us. It cannot be found in our acts of piety, in our church attendance, in our giving, in our trying to be a good neighbor. The righteousness of God cannot be fully revealed in the things we do or the prayers we pray. or our tears of repentance. None of that will attain to the righteousness that God requires. Remember, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount himself said that unless your righteousness surpasses the righteousness of the Pharisees, you cannot enter into the kingdom. Now, the Pharisees, of course, were very religious people and devoted people to the law. Well, how can our righteousness surpass that of people who devote themselves scrupulously to the law of God? Well, it is through faith in the gospel, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's in his life and his death and his resurrection that we find the righteousness that is fully revealed to sinners. Notice here in verse 17 that Paul begins the sentence in verse 17 with a little prepositional word there, which in English is translated for F.O.R. Not the number for boys and girls, but the preposition for for in it the righteousness of God is revealed. The Greek word behind that English word is Gar. If you want to transliterate it into English, G.A.R. And it means he is linking here the thought of one. Bless you. He is linking the gospel and those who believe in the gospel to what? To the righteousness of God. Note that he is linking verse 16 to verse 17. He is linking the gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes And he is linking that to the righteousness of God, the righteousness of God is to be found only in the gospel. And that is why Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, this is the very power of God, if you want to see the power of God more powerfully than think of all the works God has done, more powerful than creation, more powerful than God, shaking Mount Sinai with thunder and Earthquake and lightning more powerful than the flood, more powerful than his judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah, more powerful than splitting of the Red Sea. It is the power of God unto salvation to take a person who is innately and inherently unrighteous. and declare them and make them righteous in his sight for the sake of his son. So we we see here that all concerns himself with this chief article. He must preach Christ. He must preach the cross. He must preach. The that this is the only way of salvation, because in the message of the gospel, we find the power of God. If you look back up in verse 3 and 4 of this chapter, Romans 1, verse 3 and 4, Paul tells us that the gospel is about what? It is about Jesus Christ. It is about God's Son who, quote, was born of a descendant of David, according to the flesh. We saw that last Sunday night when we read Ruth, chapter 4. David, his lineage, leads us to Jesus Christ, who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the spirit of holiness, even Jesus Christ, our Lord. And then in verse nine, Paul says, for God, whom I serve in my spirit, in the preaching of the gospel. So I think there's several applications for us this morning. First of all, is this one of the things that the Reformation rediscovered was the centrality of preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Moving away from a system whereby somebody loses their righteousness and tries to gain it back through a sacramental and penitential system. to declaring that righteousness revealed is to be found in the gospel, not in the sacraments of the church as a means to gaining that righteousness. No, righteousness comes by faith in the person in the work of Jesus Christ. I think the implication for us should be clear. that the main responsibility of the church, even today, 500 years later, 2000 years later from this letter, is that we primarily teach about the life, the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is why even when we do study a book such as the book of Exodus, and I think we should study the Old Testament because all scripture is God breathed and is profitable. But we always have to bring it to Christ. This is why we must always look to see what does the old covenant tell us about Christ, because it is there that we find the power of God unto salvation. It is not the church's responsibility to chiefly speak about the issues of our day. We are not a commentary on everything that is happening in our culture. Now, that is not to say that the gospel doesn't have ramifications for what is going on in our day. Really, what our culture needs more than anything is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's the preaching of Christ that the power of God is revealed to us. And that, I would argue, is one of the greatest questions we can grapple with as human beings. How can I be rightly assured that I am in a right condition with God? How can I know it is well with my soul? How can I know I am right with God? How can I know that the demands of God's justice have been completely satisfied? How can I know that my sins have been fully pardoned? How can I know that should I die today? This afternoon, I would be with the Lord. in heaven and not suffering in hell or in some way station of purgatory between heaven and hell. Not to say, boys and girls, that there is such a place, but some people do teach and believe that. This is our greatest need today in the church. And I think this is what we need to focus on, even as evangelicals. It's my concern, ongoing concern, that even as evangelical Christians, evangelicals have lost confidence in the power of the gospel and that we have begun to think that the way to build the church is by not emphasizing the gospel, but other things that will bring people in. You know, Martin Luther confessed that prior to his conversion, when he was an Augustinian monk, he looked at verse 17 And he said that his hatred toward God actually would increase because the righteousness of God revealed was misunderstood by Luther. And it might be misunderstood by some here today. And I don't want to presume that we all understand exactly what this verse is saying. And so I want to be clear on this point. especially to anybody who might be visiting, who might be trying to investigate what Christianity is about. I want you to understand Martin Luther made the mistake that when he read this text, he said, for in it, the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. He said that what he thought it was saying was that God has revealed the bar over which he had to hurdle himself by his own works and his own piety and his own doing of good things. He viewed it much like a pole vaulter looks at the bar that he is supposed to cross over. You know, boys and girls, the Olympic sport pole vaulting, where the man has this extraordinary long pole and he runs down the track and then he sticks the pole in the ground and the pole really bends. and causes him to go over the bar. Luther looked at the righteousness of God revealed in those terms. He said, you know, this is God's standard and and God is demanding of me to hurdle that bar if I am to have everlasting life with God. And so he would spend hours in his confessional. He would try to confess every sin that he could think of hours at a time. And because Luther wasn't an honest man by common grace, he realized that he just couldn't do it. Because everywhere, no matter how hard he tried, it seemed like the harder he tried, the more sin he found in his life. And so he said he got a bad attitude about God. Because he viewed God as demanding something and requiring of something of sinners that they couldn't possibly do. It was through the study of this verse, though, that helped him because he realized this righteousness is not something that he is to, by his works, attain unto, but it is something that is revealed in Jesus Christ and he, by faith, needs to look to Jesus Christ. So there is a sense, yes, the righteousness of God revealed is this high standard and we are to despair as sinners of ever crossing that bar ourself. But the good news is this, that that which we could not do, weak as the flesh was under the law, God did for us in Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ has satisfied and has hurtled that bar for us. So Luther said here that rather than seeing the righteousness of God simply in terms of God as a future judge over poor sinners who can't attain to the standard, He realized that the righteousness of God here was something that was revealed in Jesus and was to be received by faith. Now, maybe you're sitting here this morning and maybe you in your own heart kind of agree with that old Luther sentiment that he had prior to his conversion. You see God primarily as a judge. who is demanding something of you that you cannot do, that you cannot perform. And you think to yourself, what more does God want of me? Doesn't God know that no one is perfect? What kind of God would demand this absolute 100 percent perfect righteousness? Well, the living God demands that, but he is realizing that you cannot attain it as a child of Adam. You have fallen with Adam and sin in the in you. You share in the guilt of Adam's sin and you cannot attain to the righteousness that God does demand. Does God lower that standard of righteousness so that the sinner can cross over? No, he does not. But this he does do. He sends Christ to meet the requirements of righteousness for you. Jesus is active and passive obedience. will attain for the sinner the righteousness that God requires for us to go to heaven. So I want you to realize here the righteousness of God is revealed first in the sending of Jesus Christ in his incarnation. It was therefore necessary that God become a man. Because no man who is by nature a sinner as we are in Adam and Eve could ever attain to this righteousness. Therefore, it was necessary that the Holy Spirit conceive in the womb of the Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, so that Jesus being both God and a man as a man would be able to attain to the righteousness that the law demanded. So the incarnation became necessary. Secondly, we see that it was necessary for Jesus to live a holy life. And that is what Jesus did. The Bible, the book of Hebrews says that he was holy. He was blameless. He was undefiled. Jesus knew no sin is another way that the scriptures put it, meaning not intellectually. He didn't know about the reality of sin, but that he personally never transgressed the law of God. The third thing that we have to see is that the righteousness of God was revealed in the incarnation, the obedience of Christ, and then thirdly, in the crucifixion, in the death of Christ. Now, this is what Paul takes up in the third chapter of Romans as well. He reveals that this is the righteousness of God in putting Jesus, the innocent one, to death. We must understand that sinners are not pardoned by God. Merely looking the other way from our sin, God deals honestly with our sin and he punishes it to the full extent in the person of Jesus Christ as Jesus is hanging on the cross so that all the sins of all of the elect of all of God's people from all time from Adam to the last person who's going to be saved before Jesus comes again. All of those sins are placed on Jesus Christ and Jesus is punished to the full extent of God's law. He pays the equivalent equivalent of eternal punishment. while he is on that cross. And it shows that God is revealing his own righteousness in this. Placing his son on the cross, God shows himself to be holy, righteous. He's just. Nobody can say to God, you are unjust. Because God says, no, I did punish all the faults and all the sins and all the guilt of all my people. I crushed my innocent son with the sins of my people and I condemned my dear son on the cross, judging him body and soul on that cross for all the sins of all of God's people. God is absolutely just in the gospel. God is righteous. There is no unrighteousness in God, in the cross. Now, we also see That God, as Paul says, is not only just, but he is the justifier. He is just in punishing Jesus for our sins, but God then fourthly demonstrates his righteousness in the gospel by raising Jesus from the dead, by raising Jesus from the dead. Paul tells us in Romans four that we are justified by the resurrection of Christ. God vindicates. the righteousness of Jesus in his own being, that is, he inherently was sinless, and he vindicates Jesus by raising him bodily from the dead on the third day and causing him to ascend into heaven and to the right hand of the Father, where he is given all power and authority. And thereby, Jesus Christ Or I should say, maybe God, through Jesus Christ and with Jesus Christ, is able to forgive us of our transgressions. So God is just in punishing the guilt of sinners in Jesus Christ, but he also demonstrates his righteousness by justifying guilty sinners in the cross and in the resurrection. Now, this is Getting back to Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, this, I think, was the point. It was the it was the doctrinal occasion for the beginning of the Reformation. Now, I do think the Reformation involved more than this point. But this, I think, was the occasion. And that was that the Protestant Reformation was going back to the early church fathers. They were going back to the text of Paul in the scriptures. And chiefly, they were looking at verses such as this one here. And they were saying this, that they that a sinner. Is righteous by faith. in that God has punished that sinner's sin in Jesus Christ and God has acquitted the sinner of their guilt by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And so God is righteous in that he is the source of righteousness and also God is righteousness in that he imputes that righteousness to sinners who receive it by faith. Now, this is what the late medieval church saw as legal fiction. Because what had happened by the late mid Middle Ages was that the church had moved away from the central teaching of Paul and the gospel and had begun to promote a system of theology that included faith. We do an injustice to the Roman church when we say they don't believe in faith. They do. But the problem is, is that they always said that sinners are justified by a combination of faith plus works. And here in our text, we see that it is by faith it is revealed from faith to faith. To put it another way, it is by faith alone. Look at Romans chapter three. Where it then is boasting, Paul says it is excluded by what kind of law of works, no, but by a law of faith. Verse 28, for we maintain that a man is justified by faith. Apart from works of the law, faith, as I was describing to the boys in the high school Sunday school class, faith is the instrument by which we lay hold of the person of Jesus Christ. It is the work of Christ. It is the grace of God in Christ that saves me. But it is applied to me as I exercise faith in Jesus. So faith became the instrument. Now, as I said earlier, prior to being saved, Luther did not understand why the gospel could be in any sense good news, because he saw the righteousness of God as something that he needed to overcome. And Luther read this verse previously. And could see the righteousness God of God only as a magnification of God's perfect and terrifying holiness. in stark contrast to his own sinfulness. So the righteousness of God only brought terror to him as an Augustinian monk. And what Luther eventually needed to see, as well as all of us as sinners, is that the gospel is primarily good news. It is a declaration. It is not a command to achieve a level of righteousness. It is good news that Jesus Christ is the son of God, has undergone the works that are necessary to declare us righteous, even though we are sinners. This is the righteousness that is revealed to us in Jesus Christ. This is good news. It is to be comforting news. It is to speak peace to troubled consciences. You know, if you are here this morning and maybe you find yourself in a backslidden condition. Maybe from self-inflicted wounds due to sin. And you grieve over that. Do not try to win back the favor of God with special works or with greater legalistic severity on yourself. Go to Jesus Christ, look at what Jesus says in the Gospels when he cries, my God, my God, why is thou forsaken me? He's been forsaken because he is being condemned in your place. Consider the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel. It's freely imputed righteousness, not just any righteousness, but the righteousness of God. Think about that, if you're struggling to pray or to read your Bible. Maybe one of the things that could help you is spending a little bit of time meditating on the amount of debt that has been canceled. on your behalf by Jesus Christ. Or maybe you're here this morning and you struggle with doubts. You're you are a believer as best you judge, but maybe a weak believer, you have insecurities about your standing with the Lord, you lack assurance that you're really a child of God, though the evidence seems to suggest that you are a child of God and you acknowledge the evidence seems to suggest you're a child of God. And yet you still feel insecure here again. I think Romans 117 is the answer that you visit Calvary again and again. You consider the righteousness of God revealed for poor peoples, weak sinners. The righteousness secured by Christ for sinners is not a righteousness that waxes in your obedience and wanes in your backsliding. The righteousness of God for sinners is constant because it is not our righteousness. It is Jesus's righteousness that is given to us. The righteousness that we stand by is not something that grows and diminishes. That is sanctification. Here again, we get back to the late medieval Church of Rome, which conflated and confused the doctrine of justification with the doctrine of sanctification. Yes, sanctification waxes and wanes. Yes, it's like the stock market goes up and down and up and down and up and down. And you hope over time that it's going up. But that is not the case with justification, our justification is the same, whether you are a newborn baby in Christ this morning or whether you are an aged saint like Billy Graham. You are as justified as Billy Graham if you are trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, you and Billy Graham have the exact same righteousness because it is the righteousness of Christ, even though you don't share the same level of sanctification with Billy Graham. And that is what the late medieval church got confused, they departed from the gospel. And they began to teach people that you are justified as you were sanctified. That is wrong. And that is why so few people had any assurance of salvation, because they never knew. Nobody ever knew if they were sanctified enough to go to heaven. Well, going to heaven is not a matter of how much sanctification you have achieved. This is a matter of the righteousness of God revealed by faith to faith in Jesus Christ. The righteousness of God is strong, it's stable, it's a fortress to which we run into and we hide. And for those who may be here that maybe you're not yet a Christian, this is the righteousness that you need. Maybe you've been trying to, like Luther, be a good Presbyterian and trying to do all the things that you're supposed to do and hoping that that will gain you the righteousness that you need. But that will never do our righteousness that we seek in our own works will always fall short of God's glory because we are sinners. Maybe you've been careless in your life, maybe you've been giving yourself too much to the world. Look at the cross. Look at the gospel. Look at what life costs Jesus. The gospel is free, absolutely free, but it is not cheap. Jesus was mocked, he was scourged, he was spit upon, slapped, he was crucified, he was dying. And then added to all of that came the guilt and the curse. Upon him for the sins you and I have committed. Well, That is the righteousness revealed. I didn't even get to my second point and we need to stop because we need to come to the Lord's table. But the second thing I do want at least to point out here is then it is a righteousness that is received, not just revealed, but it is to be received by faith. And when we come back together, we'll we will talk about that. So let's stop here and let us pray together. Oh, Lord.