We turn to Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 3 and verse 21. We completed last Lord's Day the first main section of this letter. Dark, somber and challenging, Paul has shown human sin. But now there comes the glorious sound of the gospel of Christ. We read at this time from Romans 3, verse 21 to verse 26. Let us hear God's Word. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Amen. May God bless His Word to us. I'd like to speak to you this evening from Romans chapter 3, verse 21 and the first part of verse 22. But now, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law. Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. Hamlet says in Shakespeare's play of that name, What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! And human beings are truly amazing creatures. And yet at the same time, tragic. Because we're in the terrible predicament of being alienated from the God whom we were created and designed to know. Why is that so? Paul has explained. It's because of the righteousness of God. He is righteous and we aren't. As he said in chapter 3, verse 10, none is righteous. No, not one. And our lack of righteousness separates us from the Holy God. Worse than that, we never can make ourselves righteous. Paul has just said that in verse 20. By works of law, no flesh will be justified in His sight. It is impossible, no matter how hard we try. So we are trapped in an appalling dead end. Needing to know God, but unable to know Him. It explains the mess the world is in. It explains what happens in individual lives. So much potential. Such utter waste. And now we have these marvelous two little words at the beginning of verse 21. But now, but now, Dr. Lloyd-Jones says that there should be a sound of trumpets when we hear these words. Because this introduces a total contrast from despair to hope, from tragedy to unbelievable joy. The Christian is someone with a, but now, in his experience. That's how John Newton put it, isn't it? I once was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind, but now I see. My friend, can you say, but now? This is what I was. This is where I was. But now, all is different. Perhaps God has brought you here this evening so that you will be able to say it. But now, what is it that Paul is going to tell us? What has happened now? Well, he puts it this way, a righteousness from God has been manifested. That is to say, the righteousness which God requires, a being right with God, an acceptance with God. It's not a hopeless fantasy. It's not a dream. It's not an impossibility. We're not condemned to be separated from God forever. There is a rightness with God. There is the possibility of being joined to Him and accepted by Him. It exists. It is available. Note carefully what verb Paul uses. He says, a righteousness from God has been manifested. That means has been made plain or clear. In other words, it has always existed. He's not saying it has just happened. It has just been created. It has just come about. No, there always has been rightness with God. It has always been a reality. But now, in the early years of the first century, something has happened to make this righteousness with God Very, very plain and clear. A recent event. But now, a recent event has introduced a new situation. There is a right standing with God. And I hope you'll agree with me. There surely can be nothing more important, more thrilling than that. There is a right standing with God. There is a solution to the tragic human predicament. There is hope for alienated people. There is an answer to the heartbroken age-old cry of a suffering, struggling world. But now, a righteousness from God. has been manifested. This is the gospel. We're called to believe it. And Paul says four more things about it. And I'm not going to use my own headings. There's no alliteration this evening. We're just simply going to take the very phrases that Paul uses so that we can understand it. What does he tell us about this righteousness from God, the first thing he says is, apart from law. In fact, in the original, those words come right at the beginning, just after the words, but now. But now, apart from law. Apart from law. This is a bombshell to his Jewish hearers. They have loved the law. all their lives. And Paul is saying something radical and almost shocking. It's not just that law is not enough to secure righteousness. It's not just that law is inadequate or insufficient. Paul says it has nothing to do with it. It has nothing to do with it. It has no relevance whatever to obtaining this righteousness. It's quite apart and separate from the law. It's in a different category altogether. And it's not only to the Jews that this is a bombshell. It is for us also to our natural way of thinking. To be precise, Paul doesn't say apart from the law, as most of our translations put it, it's literally apart from law, apart from all human activity. All human activity. Good works, as they're called, are ruled out at a stroke. Everything kind, and noble and praiseworthy and commendable and sacrificial that human beings have ever done has nothing to do with obtaining this righteousness. Nothing. It's irrelevant. Religious rituals are irrelevant. Giving irrelevant. Service to others irrelevant. Mother Teresa can spend her life in the slums giving herself to the poor and the needy. All of that is irrelevant. Billy Graham can preach to millions. All of that is irrelevant. A missionary can serve his whole life as that we know of one in the Sahara Desert. And all that he has done has nothing to do with obtaining this righteousness. Nothing whatever. It is automatically excluded. It's apart from law. It's apart from human activity. It's apart from obedience. It's apart from what we deserve. This makes the gospel different from all other religions and philosophies and views of life and self-help books and all the advice and the counsel that we hear from so many sources. Paul says this righteousness from God has nothing to do with anything that we can ever achieve or do, ever. It's ruled out altogether. It's unique. It's in a category of its own. We need to get this firm and clear in our minds. There is nothing that you and I can ever do to achieve a right standing with God. No. Zero. A righteousness of part from law. But then, with real pastoral compassion and sensitivity, Paul tells us a second thing. It's apart from law, but note what he says next. The law and the prophets bear witness to it. The law and the prophets bear witness to it. He's thinking, I believe here, of his Jewish readers, his people whom he loves, for whom he would die, who for centuries have loved the law of God. Their ancestors died for the law of God. They memorized it. They laid it up on their hearts. It was sweeter than honey. It was more precious than gold. And he imagines them listening to him and saying, wait a minute, Paul. Are you trashing God's gift to us? Are you making nothing of His law? Are you saying that all this law throughout the centuries was worthless and valueless? No, says Paul. Not in the least. Don't think it. He's saying that the law was never meant to make people right with God. Instead, the law, the Old Testament, witnesses to this righteousness of God, testifies that there is such a righteousness, that we don't have it, that we need it. And again and again, as I mentioned, before we sang our last psalm. In the Old Testament, we find God's righteousness equated with His salvation. In the parallelism of Hebrew poetry, the two are linked together. We were singing from Psalm 98, verse 2, The Lord has made known His salvation He has revealed His righteousness to the nations. You see, they are both different aspects, different facets of the same thing. Salvation, the Old Testament says, is something to do with the righteousness of God. Or again, Isaiah 46, verse 13, I bring near my righteousness and my salvation will not delay. Something to do with God's righteousness. Or Isaiah 61.10, He has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness. You see the parallelism again. The garments of salvation The robe of righteousness. They're one and the same thing. The Old Testament again and again in the Psalms and the Prophets saying this salvation of God is something to do with a righteousness of God. That's the message of salvation. There is salvation and it's linked somehow with God's righteousness. In fact, that's what Paul says in those key verses, Romans 1, 16 and 17. The gospel is the power of God for salvation, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed. And the Old Testament, furthermore, reveals that this righteousness is apart from law. And in a few weeks, God willing, we're going to be looking at that in chapter 4. You remember what Genesis 15, 6 says of the great Abraham, the father of the people. Abraham believed the Lord. And he counted it to him as righteousness. That's the consistent witness of the law and the prophets, a righteousness from God apart from law. In other words, Paul is saying here, what I'm telling you is not novel. It is not eccentric. It is not some little idea that I have come up with. It's not an innovation of my own. He was criticized for that. No, he says. This is entirely consistent with the way God has always acted and always taught. has been backed by 2,000 years of his working in history. Do you remember how Paul began his letter to the Romans? Romans 1, 1. The gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. No, it's not news, says Paul. It's not new. It's biblical. So the righteousness of God has been manifested. It's apart from law. The law and the prophets testify to it. But now he tells us something else. It is through faith in Jesus Christ. Through faith in Jesus Christ. This is the vital point, isn't it? This is how this righteousness of God becomes ours. This is our great concern. If there is a rightness, if there's a right standing with God, how can I get it? How can I enter into it? How can I make it mine? I understand what you're saying, Paul. I understand that this righteousness has been manifest. I understand that I can never achieve it. I understand that it's witnessed to in the Old Testament, but my point is, how can I have it? Through faith in Jesus Christ. This is the first time in Romans that Paul brings those two terms together. He has spoken of faith and he has spoken of Jesus Christ. But this is the first time he tells us in so many words, specifically, that it's through faith in Jesus Christ. This is the faith that matters. Not faith in general. Not some vague, generic faith. But faith in Jesus Christ. We'll be looking at this, God willing, in the next verses in a future study. But essentially what he's saying here is that faith is believing that this perfect man died for you and in your place. Faith is saying, the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Faith is believing that Jesus takes all our unrighteousness upon himself, and that he in exchange makes over his righteousness to us so that it becomes ours. Our sin is replaced by Christ's obedience. He becomes sin for us. We become the righteousness of God. in him. What Luther called the great exchange. And this is the heart of what righteousness from God means. And friends, I wish I could explain it more powerfully to you because it is staggering. It's staggering. The Gospel tells us that God provides for human beings His own righteousness. Think about that. His own righteousness. That of His Son. What God provides is not only better than human sinfulness. Of course it is. But it's infinitely above the greatest human righteousness we could ever possibly imagine. As high above that as the heavens are high above the earth. Imagine the greatest and the best ordinary human being who ever lived and their righteousness, if we called it that, wouldn't even begin to compare with the righteousness that is ours in Christ. For our sakes, says Paul, he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him, listen to this, We might become the righteousness of God. And the law and the prophets bear witness to this. We'll be singing in a few moments from Psalm 89. The people of God, we read, exult in your name all the day. And in your righteousness they are exalted. In your righteousness. We read in Jeremiah 23.6, this is the name by which he will be called, the Lord our righteousness. Martin Luther wrestled for a long time with Psalm 31, verse 1. He was lecturing in the Psalms at the university. And he couldn't understand that verse. Deliver me in your righteousness. That just didn't make sense to Luther. Because he thought God's righteousness was a terrifying thing, an intimidating, threatening thing. He could have understood, he says, punish me in your righteousness. Destroy me in your righteousness. Condemn me in your righteousness. But what does deliver me in your righteousness mean? In November 1515, Martin Luther began to lecture on Romans. Listen to what he says. I greatly longed to understand Paul's epistle to the Romans. And nothing stood in my way but that one expression, the righteousness of God. Because I took it to mean that righteousness whereby God is righteous and deals righteously in punishing the unrighteous. Night and day I pondered until I grasped the truth that the righteousness of God is that righteousness whereby, through grace and sheer mercy, He justifies us by faith. In other words, Luther is saying, it's not the righteousness He demands of us, it's the righteousness He gives us. It's the righteousness He gives us. Luther says, Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into Paradise, the whole of Scripture took on a new meaning. And whereas before the righteousness of God had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet. You see this open door to Paradise. God possesses righteousness. God requires righteousness. from us. And God provides righteousness for us. And He provides what He requires from what He possesses. I hope that doesn't sound too complicated. He provides what He requires from what He possesses. He gives to us in Christ's His own righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ. And then Paul tells us one more thing. For all who believe. For all who believe. And at first sight, that phrase might strike us as redundant or unnecessary. We might say, well, Paul, you've just said, through faith, Why do you need to add, for all who believe? Well, Paul would say, I do think it's important. This does come through faith. But perhaps someone might think that faith is only acceptable from certain categories of people. Faith of good people. Faith of Jewish people. Faith of obedient people. No, says Paul. It's faith. Righteousness for all. for all who believe, no matter who you are, no matter what you've done, no matter where you may be now, no matter how little you have to offer, no matter how unworthy you are, no matter how weak you feel. He's going to say in verse 22, there is no distinction. God opens His arms wide and He makes a promise of righteousness to every single one of you, says Paul, if you will believe. on Jesus Christ. It's for all who believe. This righteousness is yours at once. It's through faith, only through faith. It's for all who believe. It's for everyone. What more encouragement do we need? what evidence there is here of the generosity of God. Being a Christian isn't a matter of scraping into heaven, being grudgingly accepted, of some angel finding us a robe that is reasonably clean, as long as we stay at the back and don't draw attention to ourselves. The Father in the parable says, Bring forth the best robe. Put it on. When we come to Jesus in all our need, bring forth the best robe. The robe of His Son. That's put on you. Can you see how safe How secure are those who trust in Christ? Can you see how utterly impossible it is that we should ever achieve our own righteousness? What a pitiful idea! How can what you or I ever do begin to compare with what Jesus Christ has done. Sometimes we feel insecure. Our conscience troubles us. Satan whispers into our ear. Our very understanding of God's holiness intimidates us. But when you think of the righteousness of God, that's our righteousness. That's our righteousness. Nicholas von Zinzendorf, the leader of the Moravians, put it this way, Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness my beauty are, my glorious dress. Thy righteousness, my glorious dress. How could God condemn you? How could God turn you away if you're clothed in the righteousness of His Son? Perhaps some of you sitting here haven't yet trusted Christ. Tonight before God, you're sitting there in all your sin and all your unworthiness. And God could drop you into hell, but he doesn't yet. Instead, he offers now to take away all your sin and to replace it with the righteousness of his only Son. And all you have to do is believe in the Son of God who died for sinners. how appropriate this way of salvation is in bringing all the glory to God. Paul is going to say later in verse 27, boasting is expletive. The Christians should be the most humble, the most meek, the most lowly of people. All that we have we owe to Jesus Christ. We're nothing in ourselves. It's all Him. It's all His. God forbid us. God forgive us. For the times when we sound, and we do sometimes, sound self-righteous and superior, and it is a denial of the gospel, Christ is our righteousness. that glorious, perfect righteousness. And if you haven't yet received this, my friend, I urge you to come to Him in faith and cast yourself on Him and call on Him to be your Savior. And for those of us who are Christians, our hearts should be filled with joy tonight. When God looks on you, He sees His Son. And for that, we give Him the glory and the praise, a righteousness from God through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. Amen. Let us bow in prayer. Help us, O God, by Your Spirit to see the profound simplicity of the Gospel. The Son of God the man Christ Jesus, punished at Calvary in place of sinners, taking upon himself all the sins of all his people, and having imputed to them in return his spotless perfect righteousness. Help each one of us, we pray, to come to him laying aside ourselves, our efforts, our striving, kneeling before Him in faith, receiving Him as Savior, rejoicing in all that He is to us and that in Him we are made the righteousness of God. And help us, we pray, to speak of Him with warmth, with enthusiasm to men and women around us, that they too may be brought in faith to the Savior. We pray for the glory of His name. Amen.