00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
So, let's read Romans 3, verses
21 through 26, if you'll follow along in your copy of God's Word.
It says, 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."
Actually, I think verses 21 through 31 form a unit. And they are
extremely important. They're closely related to each
other. And we'll look at the last section two weeks from tonight. Since next Sunday evening, we'll
have our cell group meetings. But I want to remind you of what
we've already learned and seen from this passage of scripture. And let me just also say that
I think in a lot of ways, in our understanding of the doctrine
of salvation, this would be the single most important passage.
This would be like the primary passage that brings in the largest
number of the elements and concepts and doctrines related to salvation
and presents them rather densely. I'm not dealing with all of the
possibilities, but I want us to remember what we've already
seen. We have seen the witness of God's
righteousness. This passage is about God's righteousness
revealed. That's the main point of verses
21 through 31. And we've seen the witness of
God's righteousness, which is the whole Old Testament. The
Old Testament is a witness to God's righteousness. This is
not something new that has just developed or happened with Jesus
and the apostles. No, this has all along been the
great theme that has been running through the Old Testament. Secondly,
we have previously seen the reception of God's righteousness. And so
in the order in which Paul is giving this to us, this is in
some ways the most practical element, but it was presented
at this juncture. And so how is God's righteousness
obtained by human beings who are sinful in themselves? And
what Paul wants us to know, and of course he hasn't waited until
this moment to say that, it's been said previously in the book
of Romans, and he tells us explicitly here, it is not by the keeping
of the law, but by faith in Jesus alone. That is the way in which
we receive God's righteousness. Not by keeping the law, not by
works of righteousness, which we have done, but only by faith
in Jesus Christ. And then thirdly, we've also
seen the need of God's righteousness. And that is we need God's righteousness
because we are unrighteous. Now we didn't dwell on that because
chapters one at the end of chapter one, chapter two, and the beginning
of chapter three had dealt with that in great detail, but he
doesn't leave it out. He brings it in here. at the
end of verse 22 and verse 23, so that we don't forget this
great doctrine that is related to God's righteousness. We're
unrighteous, we need God's righteousness, and we don't bring anything to
the table, we receive God's righteousness as a gift through Jesus Christ.
Now we're gonna talk more about that So this evening we're going
to see, first of all, the person bringing us God's righteousness. The person who is bringing us
God's righteousness. Now, look with me again, as you
just look at this particular passage in your Bible, in verse
22 we have this statement. about the middle way through,
in Jesus Christ. And then in verse 24, at the
very end, we have in Christ Jesus. And then verse 25 continues,
whom God set forth as a propitiation. So he doesn't name Jesus again
with regard to propitiation, yet it's Christ that God has
set forth. unnamed there in verse 25. And
then at the end of verse 26, again, we have in Jesus. So we have in this passage, and
I think that those who miss this really miss an important element
associated with the revelation of God's righteousness. It comes
to us in and through our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, everybody
knows that. It's teaching the book of Romans
properly and correctly. But I want to emphasize it. I want us to appreciate it. I
want us to see that our salvation is not just these doctrines like
propitiation, justification, and redemption. And it's not
just the practical of receiving by faith the Lord Jesus Christ,
but I want us to see very clearly that it is Christ and Him alone
who brings God's righteousness to us. So we can say this, God's
justice and love are reconciled in the person of His Son in the
crucifixion. On the cross of Calvary, the
justice of God and the love of God are both seen. And apart
from that, we're going to have a difficulty reconciling or coming
to a full understanding in our limited capacity how we can maintain
and how God maintains and how we can understand His maintaining
both His justice and His love. But we see that perfectly in
His giving of His Son. Now, before we go on, we've noted
that the person bringing us God's righteousness is Jesus. But I
need to at least press this a little further. Who is Jesus? Who is the Jesus that we see
here? And who is the Jesus in the Scriptures?
Now, there's probably a number of ways that we could summarize
Jesus Christ, the doctrine of the of the Lord of glory. I think the best way in the way
that I have done through the years is to point out these two
elements. Number one, the person of Christ
and number two, the work of Christ. This is, we can, we can really
see better. and summarize more concisely
this person, our Savior, under these two headings. So let me
take just a second. All of you know this. Very well,
but I want this to be a good reminder to us for our evangelism
and for our discipleship that we, you know, can really see
these two categories. So when we talk about the person
of Christ, what I am meaning by that is that Jesus has always
been the eternal Son of God, and he entered into the world
by the incarnation, being born then of the Virgin Mary, he lived
a sinless life and obeyed completely in his life the law of God, not
failing in one point in any way, at all, perfectly. That's the summary right there.
Now we can add to that that Jesus served God faithfully by ministering
to mankind with all the works of love and kindness that we
see in His ministry. But in the final analysis, what
we can say is this reveals to us that Jesus is the righteousness
of God. He is the embodiment of the righteousness
of God. But the second way in our summary
of the Lord Jesus Christ would be the work of Christ. Now this gets the most of the
attention of most evangelicals in the world, but we want to
at least touch upon it for just a moment. The work of Christ
is that He was made an atoning sacrifice or a substitutionary
atonement for our sins. He was buried and rose again
from the grave accomplishing victory over sin and death. That's the essence of the work
of Christ captured in one brief sentence. Now, what I would like
to, I'd like to just build on that for just a second, say a
few things about it. For instance, we have a prophecy
of amongst many, we have one of the prophecies concerning
the Messiah in Daniel 9 in verse 24, and there we see Besides many passages in which
Jesus fulfills prophecies related to either one or the other of
the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, the Daniel 924 passage,
the 70-week prophecy, makes this statement about the
Lord Jesus that he would be bringing in everlasting righteousness. which fits exactly with the context
of Romans 3 where we're studying here and seeing that God's righteousness
revealed. Jesus is the one who has come
to bring in God's righteousness. There is no righteousness in
us or in the world that we live in. The only righteousness is
that which Christ has brought to us. To this, we could add
the fact that Jesus fulfilled the three offices that God gave
to Israel in the Old Testament. And by fulfilling these three
offices and taking these three offices, He accomplishes the
work of our redemption, which makes us righteous. So as prophet,
Jesus reveals God to us and speaks God's Word to us. As priest,
he both offers a sacrifice to God on our behalf and is himself
the sacrifice that is offered. And then he intercedes for us. on the saints, on our behalf. And as king, he rules over the
church and the world for our good and for the glory of God. Now, the idea that some preachers
have that you can believe in a Jesus but not the actual person,
historical person, who lived on the earth and died on a real
Roman cross. That idea is utter nonsense. You cannot just believe in whatever
Jesus you make up in your mind. You cannot change the scriptural
teaching. You're not believing in Jesus.
You've created an idol if you create a Jesus other than the
one that we've seen summarized here in the person and work of
Jesus Christ. That is who the Bible defines.
Now we could elaborate on all of that much more, but that gives
us a good summary. Now, in some ways, I would admit
that this is probably the deepest and most difficult doctrine in
all of the Word of God. But I would also say that our
eternal salvation is inseparably connected to believing this doctrine
concerning Jesus Christ. And what we've summarized here
has to do with Jesus being eternal God. And as I like to say, Jesus,
breathed into Adam's nostrils, the breath of life in the Garden
of Eden. Jesus Christ is the angel of
the Lord who appears and who does all of these works in and
among the Israelites through the Old Testament. That's the
Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, the second person
of the Trinity. And then, of course, he comes
and takes on human flesh permanently there in the incarnation and
he comes into the world in order to lay his life down upon the
cross of Calvary. And Jesus stated that this was
his very purpose when he said, the Son of Man did not come to
be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom. So if you, if you try to jettison
any of that, if you tried to whitewash any of that, or you
want to make Jesus a different person, maybe a highly exalted
creature or some other, uh, designation philosophically or theologically,
you're not worshiping the Jesus of the Bible. So what we see
at this point then about the person bringing us God's righteousness
is that Jesus removes our unrighteousness by His death and He puts His
righteousness to our account. So that brings us then to the
second truth that we want to consider this evening about God's
righteousness, which has been revealed. And that is, I'm going
to call it the transfer of God's righteousness. And I just introduced
it to you with that phrase that Jesus removes our unrighteousness
by his death on the cross. And he puts to our account, or
he clothes us in these robes of righteousness, which he's
given to us. His righteousness. But we need
to look in verse 24, we can see in detail the transfer of God's
righteousness. So the question basically that
verse 24 is answering is, how does God save or make righteous
sinners who deserve judgment because of their sins? How does
God do that? And basically what we see in
verse 24 is that Paul presents us with two doctrines which enable
us to very clearly understand that God actually transfers Christ's
righteousness to us, that is to our account. He puts it to
our account. Now the two doctrines, if you
look at verse 24, are justification and redemption. But notice how
the verse reads, being justified freely by His grace. And how
did that justification freely by God's grace come about? Through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. So I'm going to switch
the order and I'm going to take redemption first. and present
it because our justification is going to be based upon the
redemption that Christ accomplishes. So we'll take redemption first.
And so the first doctrine is redemption revealed in this passage. And redemption basically means
deliverance by the payment of a price. If you want just a concise
definition of to redeem the verb or redemption the noun, it is
deliverance by the payment of a price. But there's some background
that is necessary and there's some real benefits to understanding
how some of these words that were very well known to the Greco-Roman
world were taken by the Holy Spirit of God and sanctified
that revealed to us profound theological truth. So this term
redemption was a term that was taken literally from the slave
market. And it was used in that context
to describe the purchasing of someone by the payment of basically
what was a ransom price, bringing that person out of that slavery
and giving them deliverance. So when you, when you see this,
you get, and this is, this is not new to us. I mean, this would
not be new to Bible readers. This would not be new to Jewish
people who were versed in the old Testament because they were
once in slavery in Egypt and God came and redeemed them. The language that's used by Moses
in, in the penitent redeemed Israel out of slavery in Egypt
and brought them to himself. So, the concept of redemption
is actually a thoroughly developed doctrine throughout the Bible.
And some of you that were in the Old Testament Introductional
Survey that we did on Wednesday evening some time ago, may remember
some of this, but let me just take a second to point out how
the, the doctrine of redemption, this is not everything, but the
essence of it is brought through the old Testament. First of all,
it was developed progressively as part of the teaching of the
Old Testament. First of all, we were redeemed
by power as illustrated in the Exodus of Israel from Egypt. Secondly, we were redeemed by
the shedding of blood as illustrated in the sacrificial system. Thirdly,
redemption comes by love as illustrated by Boaz, the kinsman redeeming
Ruth And one last one is that redemption is by the warrior
redeemer as prophesied by Jeremiah in chapter 50 verses 33 and 34. So this is a great doctrine that's
very important to the Old Testament and to the teaching of the Word
of God. In Colossians 1, Paul says in writing to the church
at Colossae, verses 13 and 14, he describes Jesus this way.
He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed
us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have
redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins." We
have redemption how? Through His blood. And what do
we see here? That we have redemption in Christ
Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood. When Paul writes to Titus, an
apostle, I mean an emissary of the apostle, an associate of
Paul, in Titus 2 verses 13 and 14, Paul says, Our great God
and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he
might redeem us from every lawless deed. and purify for himself
his own special people, zealous for good works." And so we can
see that the first doctrine that Paul presents to us here, showing
how God transfers the righteousness of Christ to us, includes the
doctrine of redemption revealed. Christ is righteous, he lays
his life down, he sheds his blood and dies for us, he's raised
again, and it's that work which Christ accomplished in time,
in space and time, on the cross of Calvary that becomes the basis
for us receiving that righteousness. Both the active and the passive
obedience of Christ being associated in a part of that. The second
doctrine that Paul presents to us here in verse 24 is justification
declared. So first is redemption revealed,
and then we have justification declared. And again, verse 24
says, being justified freely by his grace. through or by the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus. So what does it mean when
it says justified? Well, the basic definition is
declared not guilty by the divine judge in this case. Declared
not guilty. Now notice I didn't say made
righteous. I said declared. Righteous or
declared not guilty. And it's important for us to
understand that when God declares someone not guilty, he at the
very same time is declaring them righteous. Because if they're
not declared righteous, then something's missing. So he declares
us not guilty and he declares us righteous in the same act
judicially. So. You cannot have one of these
without the other. He declares us not guilty, declares
us righteous. And we've looked at a number
of the scriptures, different points related to this. And we're
going to see many more in greater detail about this because justification
is being introduced to us here at this point, but the rest of
chapter four and part of chapter five is going to be devoted to
this very doctrine. So we're going to see a lot more
about it. We're not going to discuss all of the possibilities,
but we do need to, because Paul here gives us not just the word
justification, but he tells us how people are justified. How is it that God declares people
righteous? And he answers that for us with
two words. God justifies us freely. He justifies us freely. In other
words, freely means that it is a gift. It's that which we receive
without the payment of any price. We're not paying a price. It's
not that he declares us righteous because Jesus does 90% and then
we do the other 10%. No, Christ's redemption pays
100% and we are given that righteousness. And at the same time, we're declared
righteous. Isaiah 55 in verse 1 says, Ho,
everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and you who have
no money, come, buy wine and milk without money and without
price. So what the prophet is emphasizing
there as he begins to give that gospel presentation of Isaiah
55 is he's saying, God is offering salvation freely. He is saying,
come and receive without paying any price, without giving anything
of your own for it. God doesn't save anyone because
there is something in him that requires it. He declares us righteous
freely. God is perfectly and completely
free. and He is declaring us righteous
freely, not under any compulsion or constraints. Secondly, people
are justified not just freely by God, but also by His grace. Now, this is usually, I mean,
we sing wonderful grace of our loving, of our wonderful Savior.
We have many hymns and songs and much talk about God's grace. And some people talk about God's
grace and at the very same time talk about our works and our
need for works. And if you understand freely,
you can't understand grace any other way than in perfect freedom. God's unmerited favor, kindness,
or goodness in saving undeserved sinners from their sin is what
grace is. in terms of its definition or
meaning. Now, this might be a bit cliche-ish,
and this cliche you've heard many times before, but it's so
powerful, I think, that it bears our consideration. Grace is God's riches at Christ's
expense. G-R-A-C-E. God's riches at Christ's
expense. That definition connects God's
grace and the declaration of justification with the work of
Christ in redemption. Grace does not mean that man
is saved against his will, but rather his will is renewed by
the Holy Spirit, which thereby enables him to put faith in Christ
which is his own act. We would never believe on Christ.
We would never trust Christ in our own strength or ability.
Just as we saw this morning, we are blind to the gospel. We are spiritually dead. We need
to be given life. We need to have the scales removed
from our eyes. We need the enlightening work
of the spirit of God so that we might see and believe the
gospel. And God is the one who enlightens
us. and who causes us to see and
to believe. And that is all a part of his
grace to us. So having said all that, let
me give you, as I gave you a more formal definition of the doctrine
of redemption, let me give you kind of a formal definition of
the doctrine of justification, taking all of this into account.
Justification is a legal act of God's free grace whereby He
declares one righteous based on the imputed righteousness
and substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ and pardons all
their sins and is received by grace through faith in Christ
alone. So that brings in all the elements
and we're going to see that definition basically unpacked for us as
we move into the fourth chapter of our study. But I want to conclude,
without even really giving a review this evening of what we have
seen thus far, I want to conclude by pointing to an evangelistic
event in which the Lord Jesus Christ has been preaching the
gospel, recorded for us in Matthew chapter 11, And Jesus says at
the end of that chapter, verses 28 through 30, he says, Come
to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
from me, for I'm gentle and lowly in heart. and you will find rest
for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden
is light." So what I want you to see with me from this gospel
appeal, this invitation that the Lord Jesus Christ gives,
is that he's speaking to people, he's speaking indiscriminately
to the people that have gathered there, and he calls upon them
to come to him. to come to him and he calls specifically
to those who labor and are heavy laden and he promises to give
them rest. Now what does he mean when he
says you who labor and are heavy laden? He's referring to the
pain and the sorrow and the hurt and the consequences of sin. He's not talking about working
in the field. He's not talking about the mental
labor of some position of importance and how stressful and difficult
that is. No, he's talking about the weight
of sin, pictured by Bunyan in Pilgrim's Progress of a burden
on the back that creates for pilgrims sorrow and hardship
and difficulty because of his sin. Men are by nature laboring
and heavy laden because of their sin. And they need deliverance. The
deliverance is found only, absolutely only in Jesus Christ. There is the necessity of coming
to Christ, of trusting in Christ and believing on him and receiving
the work which he alone has accomplished. As we talked about faith, faith,
just like hope, is trusting, relying upon, having confidence
in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ and trusting it
and it alone for our salvation. Jesus offers himself as a master. as a king, as a ruler here, take
my yoke upon you. He doesn't say, come to me, have
your burden released and go and live like the devil. No, he says,
come to me and take my yoke. It's easy and learn from me.
And I'm gentle and lowly in heart. And in taking me, you will find
rest for your souls. and deliverance. Now, part of
the reason that I wanted to touch on that in our conclusion today
is there's a sense in which this passage that we're studying,
Romans 3, verses 21 through 26, is the technical presentation
of salvation, while Matthew 11, 28 through 30, is the practical
presentation of that same truth Jesus is appealing, come to me
and you can find rest and salvation. And so we're not choosing between
the two. We're not going to vote as to
what we like one or the other. That would be utter foolishness.
No, what we're going to see is the technical truths are vitally
important for our understanding, for our living for and serving
God, and the practicalist also cannot be jettisoned or left
behind. We must constantly realize as
we proclaim the redemption of Christ and the doctrine of justification
by faith in Christ alone, that we also call men to repent of
their sinfulness and come to Christ and trust him as Lord
and Savior. Paul, as he comes to a conclusion
in 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9, in chapter 9, verse 15, he
concludes that passage with these words, thanks be to God for his
indescribable gift. And indeed, could there be any
greater conclusion to a message about the person who brings God's
righteousness to us and the transfer of that righteousness to us through
the redemption of Christ and God declaring us righteous. No,
indeed, thanks be to God for his indescribable gift. Let us
pray. Dear Father in heaven, we come
to you with thanksgiving for the work of Christ Jesus our
Lord and for his atoning death upon the cross of Calvary and
his glorious resurrection from the grave and we we are Very
happy to know of this great salvation and to have a personal saving
relationship with you, the infinite and almighty Lord of heaven and
earth. Help us, dear Father, as we go
out into the Mission field this week that you would make us instruments
of use for your kingdom, for it's in Christ's name we pray,
amen. Let us take our Trinity hymnal
and we'll turn to hymn number 403. Hymn number 403. We wanna stand together and sing,
not what my hands have done, It sheds more. And He's a strength for us all. here with me. By grace alone, O God, to Thee
did part and speak. But now, O Son of God, can this
sore bondage break? Though other hurts take flight,
I bless the price. His cross bestows its power. I'm buried in his womb. Each thought of unbelief and
fear, each gleaming shade of gloom. I praise the Lord. Joyful, joyful, joyful night. And may the grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the communion
and fellowship of the Holy Spirit abide and continue with us until
we see the blessed face of our resurrected Savior, in whose
name we pray, amen.
"God's Righteousness Revealed" Part 2
Series Romans
"God's Righteousness Revealed"
Part 2
Romans 3:24-26
| Sermon ID | 42242333445712 |
| Duration | 38:51 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | Romans 3:24-26 |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.