Justification by Faith: Paradigm-Shifting Truth

PRAY & INTRO: Have you had something happen in your life that has altered it in such a way that your manner of living has been different ever since? Such occurrences come in both positive and negative forms: Marriage, bearing children, beginning a particular job… or a terrible accident or illness, a pattern of sin with lasting consequences, or broken relationships.

Similarly, there can also come a transformational shift in our lives when learn and believe a truth of which we were previously ignorant, or misinformed, or toward which we were previously antagonistic. In his letter to the saints in Rome, there is clarifying teaching from the Apostle Paul, particularly on the subject of how any person can be in right standing with God, that is absolutely foundational and transformational—foundational to our understanding of all of the Bible and God’s saving plan, and transformational in its impact on history and on every person who has ever existed.

The next verses we have come to in our study of Romans, chapter 3:21-26, are what Martin Luther called, “the chief point, and the very central place of the Epistle, and of the whole Bible.” God’s good news that saves, which was introduced at 1:16-17, is here picked up and developed in a densely-packed passage of paradigm-shifting, life-altering truth.

The truth Paul here presents is that no one can be justified by meritorious works, but that we may be justified by faith in Jesus Christ, by whom God graciously atones for our sin and grants us righteous standing before Him.

I’ll read v. 20 for the critical context of justification which begins there, and as a backdrop to the transition that takes place at v. 21.

Romans 3:20–26 ESV

20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. 21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 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. 26 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.

We can hardly overstate how important these verses are to Paul’s presentation of the gospel, and to the biblical storyline of God’s saving plan in history (in real time). We note this from the first words of v. 21.

“But now” marks a turn in Paul’s argument and a paramount revelation in God’s saving plan. (21)

Paul’s words “But now” mark a turning point in his persuasive argument concerning the gospel, and these same words reflect the paradigm-shifting impact on God’s salvation-historical plan in the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Broadly, Paul’s argument for the better part of 3 chapters has been that we are all sinners and cannot save ourselves. We are indeed accountable to God for sin, for our rejection and disobedience, and we deserve judgment (condemnation). We are so dominated by sin that we cannot possibly get ourselves into right standing with God. We are not righteous and cannot be sufficiently righteous by our own achievement.

This universal depravity, culpability, and inability extends to not only godless pagans and cultured Greeks, but also to the Jews themselves, the people group God selected to be unique in His own redemptive plan, they who received God’s covenant promises. Paul has said that both our sin and inability is in fact most pronounced for those who have God’s law, which serves as a mirror and a test to clearly mark sin as sin and to show how incapable we are of living up to God’s righteous character. Just so, Paul had concluded at v. 20, “For by works of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”

“But now” then signals a critical turn in Paul’s argument, where he returns to the thesis he introduced at Rom 1:17, that in the gospel of Jesus the Messiah, God’s own righteousness is made available through faith—faith in Christ and in his work—not based on our own works. Thus Paul shows, beginning at 3:21, how God has revealed, in Jesus Christ, that he (God) can maintain his perfect righteousness while also making the righteous work of Christ a saving righteousness for those who trust in him alone and not in their own works. Therefore Paul can say it is “apart from the law,” because he means apart from our ability to fully keep the law (which he said in vv. 19-20, that our own works won’t justify us—grant us legal acquittal and thereby put us in right standing with God).

The temporal aspect of “But now” is also significant, as we have suggested. Paul presents God’s gospel through Jesus the Messiah as a paradigm-shifting revelation in the salvation-historical plan of God. With “But now” Paul alerts us that we have entered into a new era of God’s saving plan. Thus (also in v. 21) the law and the prophets bear witness to this new era of God’s righteousness fulfilled in Jesus. The new covenant in Christ Jesus fulfills the shadows and types that the previous covenants pointed to.

Jesus is indeed the Messiah promised to Israel and through Israel, and this Messiah offers a better rescue from oppression than merely escaping the political power of Rome (or any other external oppressors, before this time or after it). What Jesus provides is a redemption from our greatest enemy and our most severe captivity… our slavery under the dominion of sin. (That was the culminating point Paul sought to prove at Rom 3:9-18, that not even the Jews have a saving advantage over Greeks, because we are equally under the dominion of sin, v. 9.)

It’s important to understand that Paul isn’t saying that righteousness used to be by works and now it is not, but rather that we have now received the revelation (by Jesus the Messiah’s advent & accomplishment) of how God intended to fulfill his promises and make eternal salvation possible, which is through the work of Christ, to be received by faith. So Paul can say, “but now” in Christ Jesus God has revealed the fullness of his righteous character and his righteous provision apart from the law, which is the fulfillment of the testimony of the Hebrew Scriptures—the law and the prophets.

Before we continue, I want to hit “pause” briefly to give opportunity for this to sink in. Do you grasp the significance of what is coming at this point in Paul’s letter. With this “But now,” Paul is expressing the gospel of God, the righteousness of God revealed: how God remains righteous and provides righteousness for us to be in right standing with him. It is not by our works, but it is through the Lord Jesus Christ, and is therefore by faith alone.

What is this righteousness of God revealed apart from works of the law but that fulfills what was promised in the OT Scriptures?

God’s saving righteousness is available through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. (22a)

Paul’s point is that the righteousness we need to be right with God is provided to us by God himself, an offer made possible by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and which we receive by faith alone. [repeat: the righteousness we need…] (Not by some kind of merit that we can achieve, for we cannot do it, not even the most devout Jew seeking to keep the law of God.)

It’s helpful to begin understanding here at the outset that this works (for anyone to be right before God) because the righteousness of Jesus is imputed to the sinner (credited to the account of the sinner), even as our sin is charged to his account. By faith in Jesus, we appropriate his atoning sacrifice as payment for our sins, and we also receive his righteous life credited to our account. That’s how we can be “justified” (v. 24), legally declared righteous. We are pardoned because of Christ’s payment and further receive his positive righteousness to be accepted by God.

In v. 22b-23, before Paul explains how it is through Jesus that God makes this saving righteousness available, he goes on briefly to expand the statement that it is for “for all who believe,” tying this universal offer of salvation by faith back to our universal sin and just condemnation before God. “For there is no distinction:”

- Just as all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory, so any who put their faith in Jesus are justified by God’s grace as a gift. (22b-24a)

The first part of Paul’s emphasis is that there is no distinction between Gentile and Jew in terms of how anyone can experience salvation (understood as being made right with God). He reinforces the negative side of our common standing in sin before God (because sin dominates us), summarizing what he has already shown in the better part of the last 3 chapters. All have sinned… every single person… and as such, every person falls short of living in a way that gives God the glory he deserves. That’s what it means to fall short of God’s glory: In sin we don’t not live lives that give glory to God.

Arnold Fruchtenbaum summarizes it this way, “The pagan has failed to live up to the demands of general revelation, the cultured Greek has failed to live up to the demands of his conscience, and the Jew has failed to live up to the demands of the Mosaic Law. They have all failed to measure up to God’s standard. They may not have all sinned in the same degree, but sinned they have. Consequently, they have all fallen short of the glory of God.” (Ariel’s Bible Commentary, Romans, 90).

Paul gives the other side of this as well: just as no one can measure up, so anyone who would be saved and placed in right relationship to God must by faith receive it as a gift of God’s grace, achieved only by Christ and not by us. Not only is Christ’s work (and not ours) the whole point of what Paul is saying, but it is also reinforced by the very meaning of “grace” and “gift.” Grace is unmerited favor. It literally means that you did not earn this or deserve it, as though God should owe you something. A gift is something given freely and generously; otherwise it would be payment and not a gift.

You stand before the judge in a courtroom, where you were told that you had to appear this time for a speeding ticket. When asked if you are guilty or not guilty of driving over the speed limit, you plead guilty (because, well, you were speeding). He then informs you that the penalty is to pay $20 for every mile per hour you were caught driving over the speed limit, which was ten. So you owe $200. But then the judge, who recognizes you, as allegedly happened with the renowned evangelist Billy Graham, decides to pay himself the fine that you owe. Not only that, but he subsequently takes you out to a steak dinner!

This example of grace connects also to what it is that God does by his grace as a gift, for the one who believes instead of trusting in himself to achieve. In Christ Jesus God justifies the sinner. Again, justified is a term that Paul uses in a legal, declarative sense. This justification includes both the notion of acquittal (no longer counting the sin against us in his judgment) as well as giving us righteous standing before him.

Similar to illustration of Billy Graham’s speeding ticket is Christ’s parable of the Prodigal Son (as we Bible students have commonly come to refer to it). In this short story one son demands his inheritance and leaves to completely squander it in licentious living. But when he reaches rock bottom, he determines to return to his father and seek his kindness to let him be a servant in his household (knowing that he doesn’t even deserve this much because of what he has done). But the father’s response to the sinful son’s repentant return illustrates both grace and justification. Although it is far from what this wicked son deserves, but the father receives him back as a son, not a servant, not holding his sin against him. Furthermore, he honors this son with a robe and a celebration!

Part of what makes the father’s love and grace, yes even justification, of this son so pronounced in the parable is the negative reaction of the other brother about this response from the father not being “fair.” But that’s precisely the point, isn’t it? Justice would have meant something different for this son, but the father himself absorbed the cost of granting grace, and he thereby justified this child to be in right standing with him.

And speaking of someone else absorbing the cost, what does Paul begin to explain that God does, also in v. 24, to make this gracious gift of righteousness to a sinner possible? God justifies the sinner by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

- In Christ, God pays the price to redeem his people, securing their deliverance from slavery to sin. (24b)

When Paul uses the term redemption, he has two important images represented by redemption in mind. One is the payment of a price, and the other is the exodus of Israel by which God delivered them from slavery and made them a special people in his plan. First, like our illustrations we just discussed, clearly Paul is indicating that God himself paid the price, that Christ’s willing sacrifice was the payment that is owed due to our sin against God’s holiness and glory. And our slavery to sin is so complete and comprehensive that we cannot possibly buy ourselves out of this and secure our deliverance. Instead, God provides payment for our sin through Jesus.

So too this redemption in Christ pictures a better exodus, one in which God frees us spiritually from the dominion of sin and makes us into a people who will glorify him, something that he himself will continue to ensure! Paul is saying that yes we all stand justly condemned for our lives of sin, “but now” Jesus fulfills the promise of redemption to bring us to God, in full forgiveness of sin and its consequences, and placing us completely in right standing with God.

For today we will have to end at v. 24, and come back to this again (next week, Lord willing). As we shall see in careful inspection of v. 25, Christ’s sacrifice (pictured in his life blood) is better than that of the passover lambs and better than the temporary atoning sacrifices of the levitical cult. So in vv. 25-26 Paul will explain further how God makes this justification possible while still being God, who is holy and just.

Concluding Application:

Do you grasp that Jesus is promise-fulfilling, history-changing, worldview-shaping, and life-altering?

Do you realize that in Jesus God fulfills his saving promises… his promises through Israel for the whole world, for all people, for all mankind… including you. “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (As Peter boldly declared before the Sanhedrin in Acts 4:12, who were trying to threaten and intimidate Peter and John.)

Do you grasp the significance of Paul saying that this is God’s answer to our sin problem? A righteous God provides his own righteousness and for his justice through the atonement that is in Christ Jesus.

And do you grasp that this is therefore no achievement of your own works but only something that can be received by faith, a justification then granted to you as a gift of God’s grace?

The point Paul makes is this: Justification is by faith instead of works, by which God provides the righteousness we need in Christ Jesus, whose sacrifice fully pays for our sin and whose righteousness completely covers us.

The good news of justification by faith in Jesus is a paradigm-shifting, worldview shaping, life-altering truth.

PRAY

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