Righteousness by Faith

⁜ Prayer ⁜

Intro

My friends, we are in the season of Easter - which lasts until May 28th! This is the longest of the Christian holiday seasons, and rightfully so! As I said during last Sunday's sermon, "Easter is the central holiday of the Church, because during this season we remember that Jesus not only died on the Cross to save us, but he also rose from the grave, and so has defeated sin and its power over us.

And while I was praying over what to preach on during this Easter season, I thought: What a better book to preach through than Paul's Letter to the Romans! In Roman's the Holy Spirit shows us the depth of God's love for us and lays it out in rich theological language.

So over the next six weeks we will work our way through Romans and how it points us to the major themes of God's saving work. Which is why I have titled this series: “The Whole Sphere of Redemption.”

And this week, we have set before us in Scripture the passage that has sparked both personal and church-wide renewals. It was Romans that that sparked first Martin Luther's own re-discovery of the Gospel in all its hope and glory, which in turn sparked the great renewal movement we have come to know as the Reformation.

And I would suggest that we are in need of just such a renewal today as well! We live in a culture where we can see signs of despair everywhere… and even while we are told that there are all sorts of things we need to do to make this world right, it seems that we just cannot do so.

If anything things often seem like they are just getting worse. And that can be true not only of the world around us, but even ourselves. Right? There is an immense amount of pressure in our culture for people to make themselves into the best version they could possibly be… or at least to have the appearance of being amazing. But then failure pops up. And with that failure comes despair at ever being able to become really good - much less right with God!

And then we encounter today's passage, from Rom. 3:21-31, which touches on that central mystery that struck Luther - it shows us that we are actually made righteous not by anything we can do, but entirely by God's grace! What a perfect mystery for us to ponder this second Sunday of Easter! This is what Jesus has made possible!

So let us dive in and see what Scripture gives us to consider today.

We should begin by attend to the first two words we find in this passage: "But now..." (Rom. 3:21). We begin here, because these words reveal that we are at a transition point in the letter.

And what is that? Well we see that the Gospel begins with bad news... that as Paul says earlier in this chapter: "There is no one righteous, not even one.... All have turned away... there is no one who does good, not even one" (3:11, 12). In short Paul convicts all of humanity with the charge that we have all fallen under sin's power and so no one can really do what is right or good.

Yet, that is not the end. Yes, Paul begins his letter by exploring for almost three chapters that no one - absolutely no one - can claim to be righteous. Everyone is guilty.

But then he comes to this new section of his letter and he says "But now..." And what does this "but now" mean? It means that we can now turn to hope... that while all that went before... the law, the Temple sacrifices, and all of humanity's attempts to get right with God by our own efforts... while all of that was futile for attaining righteousness... now God has done something new and marvelous!

We now turn to a new phase in God's plan of salvation... or as Paul put it in Gal. 4:4-5: "But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so as to set free those who were under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship."

That is what Paul means when he writes: "BUT NOW." And he follows that with the affirmation that it is "apart from the law" that "the righteousness of God has been made known" (Rom. 3:21).

And how has it been made known? Well, Paul points us to Jesus! He is the revelation of God's righteousness. And it is "to all who believe" (Rom. 3:22) - that is, to all who have faith in Jesus as their Lord and Savior - that God's righteousness is not only made known, but is actually given to everyone who believes!

Isn't that an amazing thing to hear and to take in?! Yes, God gives us his righteousness. And the way we receive it is so simple! It is, as Paul tells us: "given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe" (Rom. 3:22).

This is the great mystery that God had revealed from the beginning! Yes, even in the Old Testament, righteousness was gained by no other means than faith! Which is why Paul points out in Rom. 4:3 that in Gen. 15:6 that: "Abraham believed the Lord, and the Lord credited it to him as righteousness."

If we look through the whole Bible, this is the only way... righteousness by faith. And even the Law served no other purpose than to point God's people to faith. This is why Paul writes in Rom. 4:11 that circumcision, which was commanded in the law, was not what brought righteousness, but rather was a sign of the righteousness that Abraham had received by faith.

And my friends let us take note of this. While this righteousness is received by faith, faith is in no way a new type of work that now takes the place of the law!

No! In fact, Paul states quite the opposite in v. 22 and v. 24. What does he say there? "This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe ...all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."

First, notice that there are two "all's" there:

1st - "all who believe" and

2nd - "all are justified"

We should note that, that second "all" is not saying that everyone is justified or saved. It is a reference back to the first "all"... which is all those who believe. So we should read this as: "all [who believe] are justified."

But it is what follows on that that is even more important. How does v. 24 continue? It tells us that: all [who believe] "are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."

The phrase that should jump out as us here is: "justified freely by his grace." This is at the heart of our passage! This is should make our hearts sing with joy.

And why? Because of that one simple word: "freely."

My friends, this is the good news of the Gospel! That word "freely" is a precious promise!

And why? Well... here is a place where the Greek text helps us understand more deeply what God is trying to tell us. And what we find in the Greek is a deceptively simple word, which translates literally as "gift."

So when v. 24 is translated literally, it tells us that we "are justified as a gift by his grace, through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ."

That my friends, is the best news we could ever hear. It tells us that there is absolutely nothing we can contribute to earn salvation. Not even our faith is a contribution. Faith itself is a gift of God's grace.

This is what is so radical about the message of Christianity. It says we contribute absolutely nothing to our salvation. It is a gift. That is why Martin Luther was filled with such joy when he rediscovered this truth in the Bible. He had been trying to get right with God by doing all sorts of things to appease God. But then he found out that all of that was worthless and unable to save him.

And he discovered that God had already provided for him... God gave him a gift!

And my friends, I would suggest that our world needs this good news today just as much as it ever has! In a recent article in Christianity Today, Adam Carrington notes that we live in a society which "is suffering from an epidemic of self-harm, culminating in the most final form of suffering on this earth—in “deaths of despair.”" …in other words suicide or assisted suicide ("People Perish for Lack of Religion," in CT Online, 2/6/23)

And what is the cause of this? He points to a recent study, published by a secular group, which discovered that the recent trend of people leaving behind religion and church attendance is directly connected with the growth of despair in our culture! (Tyler Giles, Daniel M. Hungerman & Tamar Oostrom, "Opiates of the Masses? Deaths of Despair and the Decline of American Religion," January 2023, https://www.nber.org/papers/w30840)

Carrington points out that one of the reasons this is leading to despair is the fact that as people no longer attend church they are not hearing and being encouraged to take to heart the truth we find in today's Scripture reading. They are not hearing the good news that we are freed from the weight of attaining righteousness by our own efforts... and that there is a God who has supplied all we need to attain holiness. That Jesus Christ was, as Paul writes: "presented... as a sacrifice of atonement" on our behalf (3:25) and that all who believe "are justified as a gift by [God's] grace" (3:24).

When those biblical truths are forgotten or are cast to the side, what rises in their place is our own vain attempts to be good by our own power, and to be seen as such by those around us. And along with this comes the rise of shame and despair when we cannot do so... and when others see that we are not who we claim to be.

But I would suggest that there is hidden within this situation a lot of hope! The shame and despair that is on the rise in our culture, has a cure! And that cure is the Gospel!

What we hear in today's reading, is joyful news that we have the privilege of sharing with those who cannot find a way out of the vicious cycle that our culture can get us caught up in.

Yes, we have a God who calls us to be holy... but he does not simply demand that we do that by our own power. He provides the very means to become holy.

And as we see in this section of Romans - from the very beginning of our life in Christ, God sets us on a new footing by a sovereign act of his grace, and in that act of grace he gives us faith, and by that faith he accepts us and receives us in Christ as just and righteous.

All of that is an absolute gift from God. That is why Paul says in v. 27-28 that there is no room for boasting and that we are justified by faith alone.

Brother's and sisters... this is how God deals with his children. And it is good news for everyone... especially for those who struggle with the guilt and shame of never being able to be good enough.

None of this means we have a license to sin. We see Paul cut that line of argument off when he writes in v. 31 that faith actually upholds the law and its demands. And how is that? Because those who walk in the power of the Holy Spirit are made capable of living in accordance with the law - as we see him write later on in Rom. 8:4 and in Gal. 5-6. But let us not jump too far ahead of ourselves... we will get to that in just a few weeks!

To tie all of this together, let me offer a brief illustration of how what we read in Romans can set a person on a new course of life.

As many of you know, I love music and listen to pretty much everything. Well, among the genre's of music I love to listen to is rap... in it we can hear quite clearly the pain, the hopes, and the stories that shape our American landscape.

One of the rappers I grew up listen to is DMX, who died two years ago. His is an unlikely story. You see he was a rapper who bore his soul before his audiences. He rapped about his struggles with violence, drug addiction, and to stay out of prison. He was honest about his struggle with sin.

But he also came to be a deeply devoted Christian! And it was his faith and trust in God's grace that kept him afloat. That was the rock he knew he could always turn to. When he fell, it was knowing that God's grace was there and that Jesus had died for him that brought him back to his feet.

In one of his early songs titled "The Convo," DMX recites his struggles with despair and his inability to overcome a whole list of sins... he sings: "with all the blood here, I'm dealin' with Satan." (It’s Dark and Hell is Hot, Def Jam Records, 1998)

But he then lays out that the Gospel tells him: "You'll do fine, just have faith 'cause you mine... see that light down the road? It's gon' guide you... I carried you my son... and the curse turned to grace when the hurt turned to faith." (Ibid.)

Yes, DMX is what many would consider an unlikely saint... but his life is actually a testimony to how God's grace can set a person free and on a new path.

About five years before his death he gave a sermon at his church where he acknowledged his struggles... and he shared how he ultimately found freedom, joy, and hope - even while he continued to struggle with his demons. His hope wasn't set on anything he could do, he knew all too well the trouble he could get himself into… so his hope was instead set entirely upon God's grace and the fact that Jesus had died for his sins.

My brothers and sisters, I pray that all of us here can have that same type of faith and hope that our brother DMX had. I pray that if any of us fall into sin that we not despair, or listen to our accusing hearts, but instead turn again to God, trusting that as we read in Romans "righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe" (3:22). May knowing that truth deep in our hearts revive us!

And I also pray that we have the same boldness that our brother DMX had… a Gospel driven boldness which led him to publicly share his faith and his testimony with those who needed to hear how God's goodness can break into our lives, set us on a new path, and lead us from despair to hope. That is certainly a truth that needs to be heard today… and that is a truth that can revive our society as well!

⁜ Let us Pray ⁜