But Now - Romans 3:21-26
I love weddings. All morning long people hustle around. There is hair to be done, clothes to gather, people to call, reception details to finalize and things can seem pretty frenzied. Once the bridal party and family are here there are the many pictures that need to be taken. Then the guests start to arrive. Music plays in the background. Finally, the mothers enter and soon the Groom and Groomsman enter in their formalwear. The bridesmaids saunter down the aisle looking resplendent in their attire. And then the organ swells, and the bride all dressed in white, appears at the back door. It is always a moving moment. It is as if the entire day has built up to this point. What comes after this is certainly significant and there are other key moments but I think if a wedding was a symphony the moment when the bride appears at the door would be a crescendo with the crashing of cymbals.
I see Romans 3:21-26 as this kind of moment in Paul’s letter to the Romans. Paul has been preparing us for the announcement of the way of salvation. He has underscored our sinful nature and painted a very bleak picture. Then we hear the words, “But now . . . “ It is a moment for a change in direction. What comes next changes our gloom into hope. Paul uses this kind of construction (but now . . .) many times in his writing and each time he introduces truth that is transforming. This morning we look at this one instance and try to hear the good news of the gospel.
A CHANCE FOR A NEW BEGINNING
But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.
This is what we desperately need Paul has labored to show that we are NOT righteous. We deserve God’s judgment and wrath. We are addicted and bound in sin. We are running from God, not searching for Him. We are like the drowning person who is fighting off the one trying to rescue them. On our own we are hopeless and lost. Paul announces a reason for hope. Though we know we deserve God’s wrath, Paul points to a way to be right with God.
This Righteousness is from God. Righteousness is like an organ transplant . . you can’t just head to Wal-Mart and grab a new liver, heart, kidney or eye off the shelf. If you need a transplant you must wait for an organ to become available (for someone else to have a tragic circumstance) and that organ needs to match a number of different criteria. Likewise, righteousness is not something you can just save up for or purchase in a store. To be righteous before God requires that someone else provide that righteousness for us. That someone is Jesus.
Paul tells us this righteousness is something the Law and Prophets testify to. In other words, this is not a new plan of God, this is the eternal plan of God. God knew our nature and from the very beginning had designed to provide a way of salvation. This plan reveals God’s love, patience, mercy, grace, and personal righteousness.
It is a Redemption that Comes Through Christ. We are told that this righteousness from God is made possible because of what Jesus did for us. Jesus “redeemed” us. The word redemption carries with it the idea of a ransom.
When a person is kidnapped there will often be a ransom demand. When the ransom is paid the kidnapped person is redeemed. They are set free because of the purchase price. Jesus paid the price for our salvation. His death paid off the ransom demand of God. The Bible is clear, “the wages of sin is death but (there is another of those glorious “buts” in Scripture) the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)
The story is told that Abraham Lincoln went to a slave auction. He was troubled by the way these people were handled as property. One particular slave was offered for sale and Lincoln purchased him. When the slave came to his new “owner” he asked, what would you like me to do. Lincoln gave him the bill of sale and said, “I have purchased you so that you may go free.”
This is what Jesus did for us. He paid the price for our sin with His life. He did this so that we might be set free from sin.
It is not something we can ever earn. Paul tells us that this righteousness that comes through the redemption price paid by Christ is something that is “apart from the law”. In other words, it is something that we cannot earn or gain through the law. Paul reaffirmed this point in others places in 2 Timothy 1:9 Paul wrote, ”who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace.” In Titus 3:5 Paul wrote, “he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,”
The point of these passages is that salvation (a new beginning; a different ending) is not something we can obtain through our own effort. We can’t earn salvation by obeying the law, by doing good things, or trying to reform our lives. The goodness we need must come from God.
HOW TO OBTAIN THE FRESH START WE NEED
Having heard about this redemption and righteousness from God we are right to ask, how do I obtain this new beginning? Paul writes,
22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
We are justified by grace and through faith. The classic one sentence description of how we come to have this righteousness from God is that we are justified by grace and through faith.
The first word we need to understand is the word “justified”. When working on a computer you will often justify the margins. This means they are all brought in line with each other. When we are justified before God, we are brought in line with His standards. The term “justified” is a legal term which means to be declared innocent. When a judge pronounces you innocent you no longer need to fear the law. All the charges against a person are removed from our record. The matter will not be raised again. When we are justified in our relationship with God it means we are declared innocent, or not guilty. Our sin is erased. We have a standing before God “just as if we never sinned”.
The word “grace” is used around Christians all the time but may not be fully understood. Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes, “there is no more wonderful word than ‘grace.’ It means unmerited favor or kindness shown to one who is utterly undeserving . . . .It is not merely a free gift, but a free gift to those who deserve the exact opposite.
The last word is “faith”. We are not saved because of our faith, we are saved through our faith. In other words, faith is not a work we do. We are not saved because we have mustered more faith than the other guy. Paul says, the faith itself is a gift from God (Eph. 2:8,9).
Let me draw a picture for you again. Suppose you owed a whole bunch of money because of your own foolishness and there was no way you could pay it back. Now suppose someone with the resources came to you and offered to pay your debt off with no strings attached. That would be an act of grace. If you accepted the gift, that would be an act of faith. In exercising this faith, you added nothing to the payment of the debt. Your acceptance of the gift did not mean that you now deserved the gift. What you did, was believe what the person told you. You took him at His word. Faith is the same thing; it is taking God at His word.
It is available to anyone who will believe. Belief is a tricky concept. There are three different kinds of belief. The first level of belief is agreement with facts. At this level we believe that Jesus lived, died and rose again. The second level of belief is a conviction that the facts are able to accomplish what they claim to accomplish. In other words, you become convinced that the death of Jesus is able to pay for sin and make people new. The third level of belief, what we might call “saving faith” is to commitment yourself to these facts and to rely on them for your salvation. In other words, at this level of belief you are willing to “bet your life” on what Jesus has done for you. This is the kind of belief the Bible requires. Anyone who believes in this way will be justified and made righteous.
It is same way of salvation for everyone. It seems a little odd that Paul says, “there is no difference for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Hasn’t Paul already established this fact? Yes, he has but he is here reminding us that there are not different ways of salvation for different people. There is only one way of salvation because every one of us is in the same boat. We are all sinners who cannot be saved apart from an act of mercy and grace.
HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?
The logical question by some is, “How is this possible?” How is that one man could pay the ransom price for millions? Paul explains in verses 25, 26.
25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
The Sacrifice of Atonement is a phrase that is unfamiliar to us. In the King James Version the word “propitiation” is used. The term means a substitutionary sacrifice that satisfies the wrath or justice of God and enables us to be righteous before God.
In the Old Testament we read about the Day of Atonement. On that one day a year the Jewish priest would enter into the Most Holy Place where God was said to dwell. In this Holy of Holies there was the Ark of the Covenant which was a gold-covered wooden box about a yard long. In this box were the stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments had been written. On top of this box was cover called the “mercy seat” Above the ark at the ends of the Mercy Seat were two angels. One wing was extended out the other wing was extended upward. In a symbolic way God was thought to dwell above the Ark, between the wings of the angels.
Once a year the High Priest would enter the Most Holy Place to make an atonement for sin. He entered to make “propitiation” for sin. Symbolically this reminds us that God looks down from His place above the mercy seat and sees His law and the fact that each of us has broken that law. God “sees” that He must act toward us in judgment for He is just.
On the Day of Atonement the priest sprinkled the blood of an animal on the mercy seat. The symbol was that God now looks down from His position and sees not only the law, but the blood of the innocent animal which shows that sin had been atoned for. Consequently, God’s wrath is satisfied. God’s justice has been satisfied and He can relate to us in love rather than wrath.
God’s work is a perfect act of justice and mercy at the same time. This bloody system was designed to make us aware of the seriousness of our sin. Sin is a big deal! The blood of animals could never fully deal with the sin of men and women. The book of Hebrews reminds us that the sacrificial system was designed to point us to a future perfect substitutionary sacrifice. That sacrifice was Jesus. In the death of Christ, God reveals that He is just, (in the fact that He did not overlook sin), and the justifier, (the one who makes justification possible by sending a substitute for our sin). The sacrifice of Jesus is able to take away the sin of all who believe because, as the Son of God, His life is sufficient ransom for all of those He created.
CONCLUSIONS
Let’s draw some lessons and applications from this important and wonderful text.
This is something that should bring us hope and joy. The very fact that there is hope for a new beginning should lift our spirits. When we look in the mirror, we see a person who on the best of days cannot live a righteous life. It is easy to get discouraged and to want to give up. The message of justification by grace through faith is a message that should fill us with new hope.
The late Mike Yaconelli tells a true story about grace. A young woman named Margaret had spent decades battling depression and anxiety that were traced back to a horrible day in school when a Teacher, frustrated with her tardiness, made her stand in front of the room and invited all the students to come up to the board and write something bad about her on the chalkboard. The kids were ruthless. They wrote things like, “Margaret is ugly!”, “Margaret smells”, “Margaret is stupid”. All twenty-five students went up to the board and wrote these hurtful things. This event inflicted wounds that Margaret found difficult to heal. She battled depression, discouragement, and was angry all the time. Finally she went to a psychologist for help. She spent two years meeting weekly but finally they had reached the end of their sessions. Yaconelli tells the story,
The counselor said, “Margaret, I know this will be difficult, but just to make sure you’re ready to move on, I am going to ask you to do something. I want to go back to your schoolroom and detail the events of that day. Take your time. Describe each of the children as they approach the blackboard, remember what they wrote and how you felt – do this for all twenty five students.
In a way, this would be easy for Margaret. For forty years she had remembered every detail. And yet, to go through the nightmare one more time would take every bit of strength she had. After a long silence, she began the painful description. One by one, she described each of the students vividly, as though she had just seen them, stopping periodically to regain her composure, forcing herself to face each of those students one more time.
Finally she was done, and the tears would not stop, could not stop. Margaret cried a long time before she realized someone was whispering her name. “Margaret, Margaret, Margaret.” She looked up to see her counselor staring into her eyes, saying her name over and over again. Margaret stopped crying for moment.
“Margaret. You . . .you left out one person.:
“I certainly did not! I have lived with this story for forty years. I know every student by heart.”
“No, Margaret, you did forget someone. See, he’s sitting in the back of the classroom. He’s standing up, walking toward your teacher, Ms. Garner. She is handing him a piece of chalk and he’s taking it. Margaret, he’s taking it! Now he’s walking over to the blackboard and picking up and eraser. He is erasing every one of the sentences the students wrote. They are gone! Margaret, they are gone! Do you recognize him yet? Yes, his name is Jesus. Look, he’s writing new sentences on the board. ‘Margaret is loved. Margaret is beautiful. Margaret is gentle and kind. Margaret is strong. Margaret has great courage.’”
And Margaret began to weep. But very quickly, the weeping turned into a smile, and then into laughter, and then into tears of joy.” [Messy Spirituality p. 55-56]
You may never have faced such a horrible experience from your classmates. I hope not. But you may have heard these words of condemnation from a spouse, a parent, another family member, an employer or someone else you respected. But it is just as possible that the words of condemnation on the blackboard of your heart were written by your own hand. You are convinced that you are “no good” and have no hope.
In Romans 3:21-26 the apostle Paul tells us about the Savior who has come in His mercy and grace to erase every word of condemnation and set us free by His grace. Free to smile, laugh, rejoice, and live forever.
This is something we should act upon. The offer of salvation is extended to anyone who will take God at His Word and rely on the work of Christ for forgiveness and new life. There is no greater sin than to know of God’s offer of salvation and to spurn it by doing nothing.
What kind of belief do you have? Do you believe the facts about Jesus? Do you believe that the sacrifice of Christ is sufficient to pay for sin and set those who believe on a path of new life? Are you willing to take that final step? Are you willing to bet your future on Jesus? Are you willing to let Him justify you and make you righteous before a Holy God? Are you willing to allow Him to begin the process of changing your heart and setting a new direction for your life? If so, come to Him with open arms and say, “Lord, I believe! Help me to trust you. Today I give up trying to save myself and I rest in the work of Christ. Today I stop running away from You and instead sprint to your nail scarred hands that have been extended to me. Fill me with your Spirit and help me to walk with you from this day forward.”
If you will turn to Christ fully, you will face a crescendo moment in your life. No matter what others write on the blackboard of your soul, no matter how difficult the circumstances become, you will always be able to remind yourself that the Creator of the Universe loves you and has set you free.