The Gospel: The Courtroom, the Slave Market, and the Mercy Seat

Opening

- God put it on my heart to bring this word but also as a means to introduce myself.

- I am all about the Bible and all about the Gospel

- And we as a church are all about the Bible and thus we are all about the Gospel.

- So what better place to preach than Romans 3:21-26?

- Especially with today being Reformation Sunday!

- To paraphrase something Martin Luther said, Romans is a mini Bible and Romans 3:21-26 is a mini Romans.

- The very core of the Bible is the Gospel and the very core of the Gospel are two intricately linked doctrines: the doctrines of atonement and justification.

- So this morning, I want to preach an expository sermon on the Gospel by explaining how Paul uses three illustrations to teach the Gospel and these two doctrines

- The Courtroom, the Slave Market, and the Mercy Seat.

- Will you stand with me in honor of reading God’s Word

Scripture Reading: Romans 3:21-26 (ESV)

- 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.

Prayer

- Thank You Father for giving us time this morning to read Your word and be reminded of the awesome truth of the salvation You have so graciously given us through the work of Your Son. It is in His name we pray to You God and ask that You, Holy Spirit, might illuminate our minds to understand the Gospel and make our hearts passionate about faithfully living it out. Please anoint my speech and bless the preaching of Your word so it may accomplish the purpose in which you sent it. In Jesus’ Name. Amen

Sermon Introduction

- Before we get into these verses we must set the context.

- Paul spends the first 2 chapters of Romans revealing the spiritual dimensions of our reality.

- The Bible reveals a story of cosmic proportions. The main character and hero of the story is God and His enemy is Satan; a fallen angel whose chief aim is to usurp the sovereign rule of God and bring to ruin God’s crowning creation: Humanity.

- So we, all of humanity, are in the middle of this epic story.

- But we are also the main objects of God’s plan.

- Which God has revealed in His word about His plan to bring forth a people for Himself that will be His eternal possession that will worship Him forever and display His manifold wisdom to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. Paul explains in the book of Ephesians that this is the “mystery hidden for ages in God.” (Ephesians 3:9-10)

- However, humanity is in a major predicament: We are all under sin as Paul concludes earlier in Romans 3:9.

- What does it mean to be under sin?

- Imagine yourself under water, but you cannot pierce out into the surface because the surface has been totally iced and you cannot break out.

- This is the doomed picture of humanity that Paul paints in this one verse.

- What are the consequences for being under sin?

- The Bible records the anguish of heart for a number of characters who realize what the consequence for being under sin was.

- And so they seek out a remedy, a solution to their inescapable plight.

- And this quest for salvation often begins with a question.

- There are two characters in the Bible, one in the Old Testament and one in the New Testament who aptly and succinctly state what this question is.

- The first is from Job in his reply to his friend Bildad

- Job 9:2

o “…But how can a man be righteous before God?”

- The second is the Philippian jailer in Acts 16

- Acts 16:30

o “…what must I do to be saved?”

- How can a man be righteous before God? What must a man do to be saved? They are one in the same question.

- But it is this question that motivates many in the Bible to find an answer.

- The prophet Micah with soulful desperation, attempts to answer this question through a rhetorical question of his own

- Micah 6:6-7

o 6 “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

- The prophet rhetorically ask: “What does the Lord require for salvation? What amount must I possibly give to be saved?”

- Even to the point that he was willing to sacrifice his firstborn son so that he might be released from the gravity of sin. But he comes to realize that not even that would be enough to save his soul.

- Job, the Philippian jailer, and the prophet Micah truly knew what it meant to be under sin.

- It meant utter damnation.

- How can one be right before God? What must someone do to be saved? With what shall a man come with before the Lord?

- Paul triumphantly answers this question in the book of Romans with his central thesis: The Gospel

- Because the Gospel is  “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:16-17)

- But what is the Gospel?

- Paul explains the very core of the Gospel in Romans 3:21-26 which is where we will now turn to with the first two words

The Revelation of God’s Saving Righteousness Apart from the Law

21 But now

- Paul opens his explanation of the Gospel with these two words.

- By doing so he makes a great contrast to the previous section of his argument found in Romans 1 to 3

- In this section of Romans, Paul masterfully makes the case for the universality of sin across all peoples and cultures.

- Because of the all-pervasiveness of human sin, all are “under sin” and thus the entire world must be held accountable to God.

- However, Paul anticipates a possible rebuttal from a self-righteous Jew.

- A Jewish person may think that since they are the recipients of the Law, the Torah, they can be saved from God’s judgment if they keep the Law, if they perform works or deeds in accordance to God’s law.

- Paul says “not so fast!” because he explains in v.20 that by the works of the Law “No flesh will be justified in His sight” because it is through the Law that comes the knowledge of sin.

- The law cannot justify, it can only convict.

- The word “justified” is an all-important word for understanding the Gospel and it makes up the very core of our doctrine of justification. But what does this mean exactly?

- Paul explains by first setting up the contrast in v.21

the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law

- This part of the verse is key for understanding the Gospel. Because of two central subjects: the righteousness of God and the Law

- First, we must understand what is the Law?

- The Law, or the nomos, is a reference to the Torah.

- So when Paul says “apart from the law”, this is essentially a short-hand way of saying “apart from the works of law”

- This refers to actions done in obedience to the law of God.

- And so the theology that Paul is contrasting here is a theology known as works-righteousness.

- And the New Testament gives a great example of what this heretical theology looks like.

- The New Testament records that there were a group of Jews known as the “Judaizers”

- Once the gospel started to spread in the early church a group of interlopers infiltrated and started teaching that one had to be circumcised in order to be saved (Acts 15:1).

- Thus, the Judaizers taught a “works-righteousness” system of salvation.

- Which means there are certain things you must do in order to be saved.

- They would answer Job’s question on how can a person be right with God with the answer “obey the commandments”

- This theology was responsible for determining much of Paul’s ministry. He spent amble amount of time combating this heresy, in fact the letter he wrote to the Galatians was about this very thing.

- But it is a heresy that not only Paul and the early church had to combat with, it is also a heresy we must combat too.

- Throughout church history, Satan has attempted to contaminate the Church with false doctrine.

- The chief of these false doctrines is the doctrine of works-righteousness.

- In all of its different permutations across history, this ugly doctrine has unfortunately plagued the Church time and time again.

- For example, the Roman Catholic doctrine of the 7 sacraments is a works-righteousness doctrine.

- The gospel of the Roman Catholic church is a false gospel and thus in reality it is a false church.

- It is a false gospel because it teaches one must do certain religious acts, conform to certain religious modes, and perform certain religious rituals in order to be saved.

- Paul’s answer to such a theology is found in v.21 “apart from the Law” or a modern paraphrase could be “apart from works-righteousness”

- And from here he juxtaposes to the true source of salvation

“the righteousness of God”

- What is the righteousness of God? This phrase contains two reciprocal aspects.

- The first way to understand the righteousness of God is God’s righteousness in judgment.

- The word for righteousness is δικαιοσύνη and Paul uses the same term earlier in Romans 3:5-6 to juxtapose human sin, which in this context he defines as “our unrighteousness.”

- Romans 3:5-6

o 5 But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) 6 By no means! For then how could God judge the world?

- So the righteousness of God is intimately connected with the judgment or justice of God.

- God’s righteousness should be thought of as the standard of righteousness or justice in which He will judge.

- And this divine standard is what the Law of God reveals.

- And it is by this standard that God will judge all humanity.

- In the study of theology there is a theological term called divine simplicity.

- This term refers to the fact that God is not composed of parts. He is not 50% loving, 40% just and 10% merciful.

- No, God is infinitely equal in all of His infinite attributes.

- So when God judges according to the His standards of righteousness, it is going to be in accordance to His infinite perfections.

- As one theologian put it “God does not grade on a curve.”

- So Paul sets the stage for the Gospel with this term. The “Righteousness of God” is the standard in which God will judge humanity

- But it is also the means by which God will save humanity.

- And herein lies the second meaning to this term.

- The righteousness of God also refers to the saving righteousness from God. And this is what δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ can literally mean, a righteousness from God.

- And it is this righteousness that has now been manifested, it has now appeared in history.

- But it has already been anticipated through the Holy Scriptures

- This is what Paul means when he says

“although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it”

- The couplet “the Law and the Prophets” was a Jewish way of referring to the 39 books of the Old Testament, the Tanakh.

- So a paraphrase of this verse would be:

- ““But now, apart from works-righteousness through the Torah, the righteousness of God has been manifested, witnessed by the Old Testament.”

- From Genesis to Malachi, God’s standard of righteousness is evident and man’s failure of attaining to that righteousness is clearly proven.

- From Adam and Eve’s exile from the garden to the Babylonian captivity of the Jews and the destruction of the Temple

- We learn a very important theological point from Old Testament history:

- Human sin incurs the wrath of God or the judgment of God.

- And where there is judgment, there must be punishment.

- But at the same time, we also learn another very important point from Old Testament history:

- God is a merciful God who saves sinners through the saving righteousness from God.

- And Paul explains what the conduit for this righteousness is

22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe

- The saving righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ.

- The word for “faith” is πίστις and it means “a complete trust”

- It is first used in Romans 1:5 when Paul talks about how we have received grace and apostleship through Jesus for the “obedience of faith.”

- In Paul’s mind, faith and obedience go hand in hand. That is what it means “to believe.”

- He uses the word again in Romans 1:8 when he relates that the faith, the πίστις, of the Roman church is “being proclaimed throughout the whole world.”

- The context for this verse is explained in Acts 18:2

- This verse reports that the Roman emperor Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome, but why?

- A secular Roman historian by the name of Suetonius reported that the emperor expelled the Jews because they were getting into disputes with each other over a certain man named “Chrestus”

- The historian probably heard the name “Christ” but mispronounced it as Chrestus.

- The inference here is that the Jewish believers in Rome were evangelizing to such a degree, it caused the unbelieving Jews to get into fights with them.

- That is the kind of faith the Roman church was exercising.

- It was a faith that truly believed, and it was evident through their actions.

- This type of faith is what James explains in his epistle

- in James chapter 2, James affirms that faith cannot be genuine unless there are works attached to it.

- James 2:26

o 26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

- The Holy Spirit teaches that the proof of our faith is the fruit that the faith produces. If there is no genuine fruit, there is no genuine faith.

- But it is very important to understand, it is not the works in of themselves that save.

- But the object in which the faith is connected to that saves, Jesus Christ.

- Our works are simply the external evidence of the inward reality of a faith in Jesus.

- And faith is the vehicle, the conduit in which the saving righteousness of God can come to anyone who believes

- The one who has a living faith

“For there is no distinction”

- This word distinction is used by Paul again in

-  Romans 10:12

o 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.

- The distinction that Paul speaks of here as well as in Romans 10:12 is the ethnic distinction.

- In the Old Testament, one reason the Torah was given to the Jews was  they could be a distinct people from the Gentiles, set apart for the Lord.

- But in the Gospel, this barrier of distinction has been erased.

- Because all have sinned outside of the Law or under the Law; thus all are in need of a Savior.

- Those who believe in Jesus Christ, whether they are Jew or Gentile alike, no matter their background, are guaranteed to receive the righteousness of God.

- Even Michigan fans!

- Our church does a great job of employing this Gospel truth.

- And it should also motivate us to remember that there is no one who is outside God’s scope of salvation.

- God’s arm is not too short to save anybody

- In the book of Colossians Paul reiterates this truth

- Colossians 3:11

o 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

- This is an amazing verse because Paul includes a certain type of people in his vision of the Gospel.

- He includes the Scythians!

- The Scythians were a nomadic tribe from the northern Black Sea region and to the Greeks and Romans they were the most barbaric of all barbarians.

- The Jewish historian Josephus refers to them as “cruel savages”

- By Paul’s time, “Scythian” became a proverbial term to refer to the lowest of the low. The most uncultured of mankind.

- Being a Scythian in today’s terms would be equivalent to being a Hamas terrorist.

- Even one such as that, the Gospel is able to save because in the gospel the righteousness of God is given through faith in Jesus Christ.

- For there is no distinction for whom can be saved in Jesus.

- The Church should contain a vast spectrum of people since all people are in desperate need of a Savior, because

3 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

- In order to truly comprehend the weight of this verse, we have to unpack the Bible’s doctrine of sin.

- The Greek word used for sin in this verse is ἁμαρτάνω

- And it primarily means “to miss the mark”

- Like an archer aiming for a bullseye on a target, if he misses he would have ἡμάρτηκε. “Missed the mark.”

- This implies that sin is missing the mark, but missing the mark of what?

- In Romans 7:7 Paul explains that through the Law he came to know what means to “miss the mark” or to sin.

- So, sin according to Paul is not simply failing at human morality—it is to fall short of God’s holy character as expressed in His law.

- It is similar to how James defines sin

- James 2:9

o 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

- Like Paul, James aligns sin explicitly with lawbreaking. That is, breaking the law of God.

- The Law of God is the content of the Mosaic covenant as recorded in the books of Exodus to Deuteronomy.

- Therein contains 613 specific individual commands. The most well-known of course are the 10 Commandments.

- Scholars and theologians over the course of theological history have attempted to categorize each of these commandments into specific compartments.

- A common division is to divide the 613 laws into moral, ceremonial and civil laws

- However, the Law of Moses itself never categorizes where each law falls. These are manmade divisions.

- They are helpful for studying the different type of commandments, but it should not be assumed that these are the biblical divisions

- Instead, the prophets, the apostles and Paul treated the Law as one single unit that was not to be broken into any one particular ordering.

- This is evident with James’ understanding as recorded in

-  James 2:10

o 10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.

- So in God’s reconciling, to break just one commandment it is as if you have broken all 613 commandments.

- But this is not all that James teaches about sin.

- He expands his definition in James 4:17

- James 4:17

o 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

- Sin is not just wrongdoing, but failing to do good as well.

- Thus there are sins of commission and sins of omission.

- To be guilty of either one ,in God’s eyes, is like breaking all of His law.

- This is compounded all the more when we consider Jesus’ definition of sin.

- Sin is not simply an external act, it is inner corruption as well.

- In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus famously taught that to lust in your heart was to break the commandment “You shall not commit adultery”

- It is possible to not commit adultery externally, but commit adultery internally.

- Jesus brings out the full meaning of the Law to showcase how God does not simply look to see if a person keeps the law on the outside, but if they also keep the law on the inside.

- This is what Paul means when he writes “for all have sinned”

- Each and every one of us have broken God’s law externally and internally.

- We are guilty of sins of commission and omission.

- And its not just us, it is all of humanity past and humanity future.

- Have you ever wondered why the Bible contains such grotesque stories?

- If the Bible was a movie it would be rated R. There are some utter ghastly stories contained in the Bible

- And its not just from the villains, all the heroes are also guilty of sin.

- The Bible contains all these testaments to sin to prove that the righteous and the unrighteous have all equally missed the mark. All have sinned.

- Think about your own life

- The Bible says that God looks down from heaven upon all the sons of men to see if there is anyone who has insight, anyone who seeks after God (Psalm 14:2).

- Every nanosecond of your life, God has recorded them in His books in heaven.

- The Bible says that on the great and awesome day of God’s judgment the dead will be judged from” things written in the books, according to their deeds.” (Revelation 20:12).

- And its not just the things you have done on the outside, but on the inside as well.

- The Bible also says “He who planted the ear, does He not ear? He who formed the eye, does He not see? The LORD knows the thoughts of man.” (Psalm 94:9-11).

- Every sin you have committed with her hands and with your heart, God was there and He has it written down.

- (Illustration) If you could write out all the sins you’ve committed, it would contain more pages than this Bible.

- This is the picture that Paul paints in Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned

- There is another way that Jesus defines sin.

- In John 8:34 Jesus teaches that

o  …everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

- Sin is an enslaver.

- The word for slave in this verse is doulos (δοῦλός).

- One Greek lexicon[1]defines this word in the following: “A person owned by someone else and completely subject to that person’s authority.”

- So according to Jesus, sin is not simply a bad habit—it is a master that owns you.

- In our unregenerate condition, none of us can free ourselves from the master of sin.

- We are totally enslaved to the whims of sin. We cannot not sin.

- This is Paul’s universal indictment of humanity. “For all have sinned.”

- What does God think about sin?

- That is to really say, what does God think about sinners?

- The Bible contains a plethora of passages that detail God’s intense hatred towards sin, but not only sin but also against sinners.

- Just one verse from the Psalms will suffice in answering the question about what God thinks of sinners.

- Psalm 5:4-5

4 For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you. 5 The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers.

- God hates evildoers, He hates the wicked. He hates sinners.

- And what is God going to do with sinners? Those who are guilty of breaking His law?

- Again, the Bible is replete with many passages that pronounce God’s final ultimatum against sinners.

- One passage from Isaiah should suffice for us.

- Isaiah 13:11-13

o 11 I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant, and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless. 12 I will make people more rare than fine gold, and mankind than the gold of Ophir. 13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place, at the wrath of the Lord of hosts in the day of his fierce anger.

- This is the attitude that God has towards sinners. An attitude of unparalleled hatred.

- America’s greatest theologian, Jonathan Edwards, understood this.

- And this was the basis for his famous sermon, “Sinners in the hands of an angry God.”

- In this sermon, Edwards uses a number of vivid imageries to explain the absolute horrors of God’s wrath toward sinners.

- Just consider this quote:

o “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked.”

- As verbose and graphic as Edwards was when he famously preached on the wrath of God, none of these human articulations will ever prepare us for what it is like to stand before the holy and awesomely righteous God when we are soaked with sin.

- The author of the book of Hebrews captures the same sort of intensity in

- Hebrews 10:31

o 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

- To “fall into the hands of the living God” as a sinner is like the tiniest snowflake standing in front of the Sun.

- This is the backdrop of what Paul means when he writes “for all have sinned.”

- But the next part of the verse destroys any hope for sinners to save themselves.

“and fall short of the glory of God.”

- The second clause of this verse essentially communicates the same thing as the first but with an added caveat.

- Humanity falls short of the “glory of God.”

- Paul teaches elsewhere in 2nd Corinthians 4:6 that God’s glory is “in the face of Jesus Christ”

- This was a Hebraic way of saying in the person of Christ.

- Paul also teaches in that same passage that Christ is the image of God

- And the Bible teaches that we are humans were made in the image of God, meaning in the image of Christ.

- As the image of God we are designed to mirror God’s royal majesty and majestic character in His creation.

- So when Paul says that humanity “falls short of the glory of God” he means that humanity has lost its capacity to reflect God’s image because of sin.

- We fail to mirror God’s holiness and perfect ethical character which has been perfectly exemplified in the life of Jesus.

- “To fall short of the glory of God” is not simply to forego sinning, it also means being and acting perfect in all aspects of character and action to the level of Jesus.

- A paraphrase of this verse would be “for all humanity has sinned and fails to live to the level of Jesus.”

- What does that translate to?

- All humanity is damned.

- So how can humanity be saved?

- Paul reinserts the good news of the Gospel in the next three verses and explains it using three words that connect to three illustrations:  the Courtroom, the Slave market, and the Mercy Seat.

- Starting in v.24 with the words

The Courtroom

24 “and are justified”

- After establishing the bad news, Paul pronounces the good news

- Sinners can be justified!

- This is the greatest news in the universe! It is the answer to the question that Job, the Philippian jailer, Micah and so many people throughout human history have longed to know.

- But what does this mean?

- The Greek word for “justified” is δικαιόω and it is a cognate for the Greek word δικαιοσύνη “righteousness.”

- So δικαιόω, literally means “to declare righteous.”

- And so, this is a legal term. A term used in the court of law.

- The scene that Paul illustrates when he uses this word is one of a courtroom.

- God’s courtroom.

- He uses this same verb earlier in Romans 2:13 explaining that according to God’s standard of righteousness, only those who can perfectly keep His Law will be “justified” before Him.

- To “be justified” in the context of God’s courtroom means to be “righteous” before God.

- It means that one is able to perfectly measure up to God’s standard of justice in relation to His law.

- So to be “righteous” means to be totally blameless, totally sinless in front of God’s bar of judgment. Never failing at any of the 613 commandments.

- However, this is impossible

- David in Psalm 143:2 explicitly states

o 2 Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you.

- But David also says in Psalm 130:4

o 4 But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.

- God’s justification is the forgiveness of sins.

- Therefore, this is a forensic, or judicial meaning of justification.

- God acquits the guilty and declares them righteous before His judgment seat.

- The Bible says that it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment (Hebrews 9:27).

- When we die and appear before God in His courtroom, God will spread out all of the sins we have ever committed.

- And remember, just 1 sin is enough for us to be condemned by God to an eternity in Hell!

- We are required to possess a perfect righteousness to stand innocent before Him.

- But on our own, we cannot.

- But God will reckon us righteous, He declares that we are “justified”

- The question becomes, how is this the case?

- Paul says that sinners are justified

“by his grace as a gift”

- The manner in which sinners who believe in Jesus Christ can be justified is “as a gift.” The Greek word is δωρεὰν and it is an adverb that means “freely” or “without payment.”

- Paul uses this same word to explain the expectation he had when he preached the Gospel

- In 1stCorinthians 9:18 Paul says that he preached the gospel “free of charge” δωρεὰν

- Thus, this adverb emphasizes the unmerited and gracious nature of justification.

- It is without cause or without a price.

- This links with how justified sinners have not contributed to their justification.

- They have been justified completely by means outside of their own.

- And that means is

 “by His grace.”

- That is, God’s grace.

- What is grace?

- The word for grace is χάρις

- Paul defines χάρις in the book of Romans one way by explaining what it is not.

- Romans 11:6

o 6 But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

- Grace is not something earned. It is not a work. It is not a religious act or deed.

- It is not a human action performed to establish righteousness or merit before God.

- So what is χάρις, what is grace?

- The Hebrew translation for the word χάρις is חֵן meaning “favor.”

- And this word is closely associated with the Hebrew term חֶסֶד,

o which can be translated to mean “lovingkindness.”

- There is a beautiful story in the Old Testament that relates what חֶסֶדis all about.

- The story of David and Mephibosheth in 2nd Samuel 9

- 2ndSamuel 1-8 relates David’s ascendency to the throne of Israel and how he arose to become the undisputed king of all the Middle East.

- After David’s meteoric rise, he asks one his servants if there was anyone from the family of Jonathan that he could show חֶסֶד, lovingkindness to.

- An earlier episode in the life of David featured the time when David made a covenant with Jonathan.

- David promised to always to show covenant loyalty and lovingkindness to Jonathan and his descendants forever.

- So, David has in it his heart to fulfill that covenant promise, even though Jonathan had already died at this point in the narrative.

- But, there was still one son of Jonathan alive. Mephibosheth

- The text relates that Mephibosheth was lame in both feet because at an early age he broke them and was unable to recover.

- The author includes this information to essentially say Mephibosheth could easily be taken out.

- In the Ancient Near East, it was customary for a usurper king to totally eradicate all the males of the previous dynasty to eliminate any possible rivals.

- So when Mephibosheth comes before David the text says “he bowed down to the ground.”

- This posture indicated he was expecting to be killed. To have his head cut off. Because he knew he belonged to the house of Saul and thus could be a potential target for David. So that David could eliminate any rival claimants to his throne.

- But what David does next is amazing.

- 2ndSamuel 9:7

o And David said to him, “Do not fear, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan, and I will restore to you all the land of Saul your father, and you shall eat at my table always.”

- David shows him extraordinary kindness, he shows him grace. He shows him mercy. Because of his father.

- And that is what Paul has in mind when he talks about the grace of God in Romans 3:24.

- God shows grace to us, those who have faith in Jesus Christ, and this grace is His mercy.

- Mercy is not receiving something that we deserve to receive.

- And in this case, we all deserve the wrath of God.

- We can receive the grace of God. His merciful relinquishing of judgment because of Jesus.

- And this mercy is not something we contribute to.

- Just like Mephibosheth, there is nothing we have done to acquire it. It is purely the grace of God.

- And Paul doubles down on the reality of grace by explaining that it is

(The Slave Market)

“through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus”

- Here, Paul sets up another picture. The scene of the slave market

- The word for redemption is ἀπολυτρώσεως

-  And this word literally means “the payment for a ransom.”

- The Old Testament background for this word is the Hebrew גָּאַל

- And this word often appears in the OT in the legal context of a kinsman-redeemer

- If any Israelite was sold into a slavery, it was the duty of a close relative, a kinsman redeemer, to buy his relative out from slavery.

- This is the type of redemption that Paul has in mind in Romans 3:24

- And thatis the grace of God.

- God has graciously provided the payment to redeem sinners, and it came through Jesus Christ.

- The key template of redemption in the Old Testament was the Exodus.

- God redeemed Israel from the captivity of slavery in Egypt by His own divine initiative and grace.

- God has also redeemed sinful humanity from the captivity of slavery in sin.

- And just like the Exodus, it was done by His own divine initiative. By His own grace.

- Jesus said that all those who sin are slaves to sin

- He followed that up by saying “but if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.”

- God has set us free from the bondage of sin in Jesus Christ!

- But just like redeeming a slave on the slave market, a payment had to be made.

- Paul explains what that payment was in the final two verses of 25 & 26

(The Mercy Seat)

“25 whom God put forward”

- “whom God put forward” means God put forward Jesus publicly onto the cross.

- The word for “put forward” προτίθημι and it literally means “to plan, or to purpose.”

- The Cross was always God’s purpose or plan.

- But what does the cross of Christ actually mean? What was God’s intention for putting Jesus on the cross?

- Paul explains in the next word.

“as a propitiation”

- The word for “propitiation” is the Greek word ἱλαστήριον, hilastērion

- Which means: to appease, reconcile, make propitious.

- To make propitious means to change attitude.

- So instead of being against, you are now for. You are “pro” something or someone else.

- In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the word hilastērion was used to translate the Hebrew word kappōret (כַּפֹּרֶת)

- The kappōret(כַּפֹּרֶת) was the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant.

- In the book of Leviticus, God gives very important instructions to the high priest about how he was supposed to offer atonement upon the mercy seat. Particularly in Leviticus 16.

- But what is an atonement?

- Atonement comes from the Hebrew kipper, כִּפֵּר and there are 4 definitions that fit inside of this word.

- One meaning is “to avert God’s wrath”

- There is a graphics story in the Old Testament that captures this definition.

- The book Numbers records a story of when an Israelite man openly committed sexual immorality with a Moabite woman at the Tent of meeting in front of the entire community.

- As a result, God released a plague on the people of Israel.

- Aaron’s grandson, Phineas saw the sexual immorality and pierced them both with a spear which killed them.

- The Bible then says “the plague on Israel was stopped.”

- God interprets the events in Numbers 25:13 saying Phineas “was jealous for his God and made atonement for the people of Israel.”

- The shedding of blood in this episode caused the Lord God to cease from releasing His wrath of judgment by means of plague on the Israelites.

- Atonement had been made.

- This is exactly the type of atonement that Jesus made on the cross when Paul uses the word ἱλαστήριον, a propitiation, a mercy seat.

- What is the mercy seat?

-  In the Old Testament, God created a way in which He, the holy God, could dwell amongst His people, sinful Israelites.

-  Through a structure known as the Tabernacle.

- The Tabernacle contained 3 zones and the third zone was known as the Holy of Holies.

- Inside the Holy of Holies was the Mercy Seat.

- The Mercy Seat itself was the golden cover of the Ark of the Covenant and it symbolized the throne of God because God’s presence would sit on top of the Mercy Seat.

- Once a year, on a special day in the Hebrew calendar, known as Yom Kippur or “The Day of Atonement” the High Priest had to go into the Holy of Holies and appear before the presence of God. He then had to perform a certain ritual.

- And Leviticus 16 records what that ritual was

- The high priest had to take the blood of a bull and sprinkle it on the east side of the mercy seat and then sprinkle it on top of the mercy seat seven times.

- After this, he was then supposed to kill a goat and sprinkle its blood on the mercy seat as well.

- And this is what God says is a result of his priestly work

- Leviticus 16:30

o 30 For on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the Lord from all your sins.

- By performing this act of atonement, the high priest was able to provide a cleansing of his and all of the sins of assembled Israel.

- Why was this important? Because Leviticus presupposes that entering into God’s presence without being cleansed of sin results in death.

- In Leviticus 16:2 God commands Moses to tell Aaron that if he were to enter into the Holy of Holies without being cleansed, he would die.

- The priestly work of the High Priest on the Day of Atonement was a means in which the entire community could avert God’s deadly judgment because of their sin.

- The high priest was able to make a propitiation.

- They were able to avert God’s wrath through the blood of a sacrifice.

- And this is exactly what Paul teaches of Jesus’ sacrifice in Romans 3:25

- Through the death of Jesus, God’s wrath towards us has been averted.

- Jesus has become our propitiation. The sacrifice needed to bring us atonement.

- The penalty for our sins. All of the wrath, all the hatred that God held over us, He decided to pour out on His own Son!

- The very Son of God, whom all His delight and love was in. The One whom He had an eternal love relationship with that is so beyond human comprehension.

- God put the punishment that was rightly reserved for us, on Him.

- In theological terms, we call this the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement.

- There are multiple dimensions to the atonement of Christ, but the royal diadem is the penal substitutionary aspect of it.

- This propitiation Paul says was

“By His blood”

- This is a reference to taking of Christ’s life on the Cross

- Blood symbolizes the life in biblical thought

- Leviticus 17:11

o 11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.

- In Leviticus, blood is explicitly identified as the bearer or representation of life

- The word for life in Leviticus 17:11 is נֶפֶשׁ

- This word is the same that is used in Genesis 2:7

- When the Lord God breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life “and the man became a living [נֶפֶש] creature.”

- It does not simply mean being alive or having vitality[2], נֶפֶשׁ constitutes the total person—biologically and spiritually.

- So in God’s eyes, the blood of creatures functions as the symbol and vehicle of life.

- It is this way that atonement can be made. Blood for blood. Life for life.

- And that is exactly what Paul teaches in Romans 3:25

- “By His blood” can be paraphrased as “By His life.”

- But why was it specifically Christ who had to die?

- The author of Hebrews gives us the answer

- Hebrews 7:26

o 26 For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.

- The author of Hebrews explains that Jesus is our High Priest that continues forever, He always lives, He is holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens

- These are all attributes of God!

- Since atonement is a form of substitution. The atonement given was life for life.

- What would be the necessary life to provide atonement for all humanity?

- It could not be another human, because that human (theoretically) could only exchange his life for 1 other human. His life individually is not worth more than all humanity combined.

- And it could not be an angel, because humans are ranked higher than the angels since humans are made in the image of God and angels are not.

- It had to be God Himself.

- His life has infinite worth, so His life would be able to make atonement for all those He was substituting Himself for.

- Herein lies one of the strongest theological proofs for the deity of Christ!

- It could have only been the Lord Jesus Christ because He was equal with God and could provide the infinite atonement and pay the infinite price the infinite God requires for sin.

- And Paul once again explains that this payment for sin is to

“to be received by faith”

- The righteousness of God now manifested in Jesus Christ can only be transmitted to guilty sinners through the vehicle of faith.

- And this is faith: to fully trust in Jesus.

-  It does not trust in good works. It does not trust in a specific church membership. It simply trusts in Jesus and Jesus Christ alone.

- We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

- It is only through Jesus can we receive the righteousness of God necessary to be saved from the wrath of God.

- The first step of faith is to repent of sin and then turn to trust in Christ.

- And God promises “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

- And why does God save sinners?

- Paul gives two reasons. The first is when he writes that

“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,”

- For the demonstration of God’s righteousness.

- The propitiation of Christ is directly related to God’s justice, but why?

- I love the way the NASB translation renders this part of the verse

- “because in God’s merciful restraint He let the sins previously committed go unpunished;”

- The words “former sins” is in a verb tense in Greek known as the perfect tense.

- This grammatical conjugation emphasizes a completed action done in the past but still has ongoing results.

- That is to communicate that there were past sins that were still “existing” or “continuing” in some sense.

- And these sins had to be dealt with in accordance with the justice of God.

- Over and over again in the Old Testament, God proclaims something very important about His deity.

- In Exodus 34 when Moses goes up mount Sinai to revisit God to get a new set of stone tablets the Lord proclaims a new revelation to Moses.

- He tells Moses that He is a God of mercy and grace, Who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness to a thousand generations.

- He is a God who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin

- However the text also says “but He will not leave the guilty unpunished” (Exodus 34:7).

- God promises to deal with sin, and He does so by pouring out His wrath onto sinners.

- And Paul defines the penalty of God’s wrath onto sinners in the book of Romans as θάνατος or death.

- Death is not just the cessation of life in Paul’s definition. It is a multilayered reality

- In Romans 8:13, Paul explains that those who live in sin are “destined to die.”

- And the word for die in Greek is what is called a present active infinitive.

- This grammatically translates to a definition meaning: an infinitely ongoing death or eternal separation from God.

- This is why sin is an infinite offense to God.

- Sin is not something that simply goes away, it still exists once its committed. It is ongoing.

- This is why according to Paul God set forth Christ as a propitiation.

- Because the only way an infinite offense can be atoned for is with an infinite life, a Divine Life.

- By doing so, God can conclusively prove that His justice has not been compromised.

- This means that God was dutifully and justly dealing with the sins of those who came before Christ.

- All the previous sins committed were never actually erased, they were just covered for a time as the author of Hebrews once again explains

- Hebrews 10:4

o 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

- The atonement sacrifices made in the Old Testament were only symbolic. They prefigured the future sacrifice of Christ.

- So God put those sins onto Christ as well, to prove that He was righteous, to prove that He was just.

- God has rightly expiated or erased the sins of all those who looked forward in faith to the future Messiah who would come and save them.

- So God can rightly allow Noah, and Abraham, and Moses and David and Solomon and other Old Testament saints into His heaven because they too sought salvation by looking forward in faith to the Messiah, Jesus the Redeemer of Israel.

- Since God is a holy God, He cannot allow His justice to be compromised. Otherwise He would not be God. His attribute of holiness would be utterly destroyed

- So the Cross of Christ was truly a “demonstration of His righteousness”

- But the Cross of Christ was a demonstration of something else in God as well

- And Paul explains later in one of the most famous verses in Romans

- Romans 5:8

o 8 But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!

- The cross was also a demonstration of His love!

- The very ones whom God’s hatred was over, He also loved! God loved sinners so much, His own enemies, He was willing to die for them!

- The ones who deserve His wrath, He placed their punishment upon His Son instead.

- The message of John 3:16

- That is why Paul can finish this awesome presentation of the Gospel in Romans 3:26 by saying

“so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

- Not only does the Cross prove God’s justice, but it also proves His ability to justify sinners.

- Christ’s atonement had two functions. It paid the infinite penalty for sin, but it also made the infinite righteousness of God available to the “one who has faith in Jesus.”

- God is the Justifier by imputing the righteousness of Christ onto the account for the sinner who believes in Christ.

- Thus, they will be stand before Him righteous since they have the type of righteousness required to be in God’s presence. The righteousness of God in Christ.

- This is exactly what Paul teaches in 2nd Corinthians 5:21

- 2nd Corinthians 5:21

o 21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin in our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

- (Illustration) The two wings of the Cross. He takes all our sin, we take all of His righteousness.

- What Paul teaches in 2nd Corinthians 5:21 is also what Isaiah taught in

- Isaiah 53:5-6

o 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

- (Illustration) The Bible sized record of sins that each and every one of us has, the Lord has laid on Him. On Christ.

- And that is the heart of the Gospel!

- Being pardoned in God’s Court Room

- Being liberated from the chains of sin’s Slave Market

- And receiving atonement from God’s Mercy Seat in Jesus Christ.  

Summary

- And the heart of this Gospel message constitutes the story of the Bible

- The Gospel is the good news of the Holy Triune God creating and saving a people for Himself through the salvific work of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God who has conquered sin, death and Satan through His life, death resurrection, ascension and return.

- For all have sinned against the one true God and as a consequence for our sin we must all be judged and thus condemned to God’s just punishment: eternal separation from God in hell.

- Since we have sinned against the righteous God, none of us can do any good deed to save us from God’s wrath. All of the Scriptures and human history testify to the fact that we are all under God’s sentence of judgment.

- But because of God’s rich mercy and love towards us, He came into our world to pay our sin debt.

- God incarnated as Jesus Christ so that He might be able to pay the penalty for our sins by dying on the cross for our sins.

- But He rose again 3 days later which indicated that God was satisfied with the payment for sin.

- He then ascended to heaven and now sits next to the Father to intercede on behalf of those who have put their faith in Him.

- If we repent of our sins and put our trust in Jesus as our Savior, as our Lord, as our God; then God will also save us and cause His wrath to pass over us on the day of judgment.

- The moment we believe God sends forth His Holy Spirit to seal us for the day of redemption (which is no longer a day of judgment) to sanctify us to live holy and pleasing lives for God.

- And one day Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead but all of us who put our faith in Jesus will reign with Him and enjoy Him forever.

- But this is a gift only for those who have faith alone in Jesus Christ.

Application

- There are four points of application I want us to consider in response to this sermon

- 1) First and foremost: Repent and put your trust in Jesus.

-  If you have not repented of yours sins and turned to Christ, I encourage you to do so today, even right now.

- Remember God’s ultimatum in

- John 3:36

o 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

- If you are here and listening to these words and you deny God’s gift of salvation you will have no excuse on that great and awesome day of the Lord.

- (Illustration) There are two hands of God.

- One hand of God is restraining the wrath of God while the other is extending out and beckoning the sinner to come to receive His mercy and find salvation.

- But there will be a day when God will pull back His hand of mercy and release His hand of restraint and let the full wrath of God fall upon every sinner that chose not to grab God’s hand.

- “Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”

- As the tragic death of Charlie Kirk should remind us, man’s life is only a vapor.

- So I implore you, come and accept God’s hand of salvation.

- Repent and put your faith in Jesus.

- 2) Enter into God’s rest.

- The author of Hebrews explains the spiritual reality of our salvation in Jesus using a typological argument using the Sabbath day

- Hebrews 4:9-10

o 9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

- We enter into the rest of Christ and cease from trying to work our way into salvation. This is a core element of what it means to be a disciple of Christ.

- We take His yoke which is easy and light.

- We rest in the victory over sin and death that Christ has won for us.

- If you are here and you think that God is going to be more pleased with you by doing a bunch of church activities, release yourself from that burden and simply rest in the Gospel.

- Christ has done all the work, so we simply rest from trying to do religious acts to please God.

- Instead, we are pleased with what God has done for us in Jesus.

- 3) We must reject and despise all false gospels.

- The Psalmist of Psalm 119 says that because he loves God’s word he hates “every false way”

- Any gospel that preaches faith + works (or no faith at all) must be automatically rejected and despised.

- This includes Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Liberal Protestantism, and any other so called “Christian” faith system that feature a false gospel.

- These and all heretical religions that must be rejected and despised.

- BUT, we love the people.

- How can we do that?

- 4) We proclaim the Gospel!

- At the very beginning of this epistle, Paul mentions one of the motivations he has for writing to the Romans.

- He explains that through Jesus “we have received grace and apostleship, for the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of His name” (Romans 1:5)

- We too have been called to go and bring about obedience of faith among all the Gentiles. We are called to go and participate in the Great Commission with the glorious Gospel of Grace

- We must spread this Gospel message, first for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ but also for those who are lost amongst us. In our families, our city, our nation.

- God has gifted you specifically and burdened you particularly for certain people. So that we might be God’s instruments to save them from the fire

- What America needs, what this world needs is the Gospel. The world does need not some political machination or social reform, it needs the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

- Which changes us on the inside, outside and forever and is the key to our lives and our eternity.

- Let’s pray.

Prayer

- Heavenly Father God, thank You so much for the awesome grace You have so richly bestowed upon us by saving us! Though we do not deserve it, You sent Your Son to be our propitiation so we could stand before You righteous. Lord, help us to carry this awesome Gospel to our city and even to the ends of the earth for the sake of Your name. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.