Justification by Faith

(Romans 3:21-31)

Introduction:

The title of our lesson this morning is . . . . and in this message we will begin a lengthy study of the doctrine of justification. We’ve now finished a powerful section of Romans in which Paul made an unrelenting drive revealing the sinfulness of all humanity. From Rom.1:18-3:20 Paul left no stone unturned in declaring all people–Jew and Gentile, straight-ahead sinner and hypocrite–under the wrath of God for their sin. But now, beginning in 3:21 Paul begins to lay out for us God’s very own remedy for His fallen and sinful creatures. And that remedy is wrapped up in what we call justification.

The doctrine of justification is not just some dry theological word, one that is best left to seminary professors and those whom we too often accuse of trying to over-intellectualize the Faith. Justification is really at the heart of the Gospel. I believe that the lack of understanding of this doctrine is the root cause of the weakness of the church in America and throughout the Western world. It is vital, I think, for believers to understand why, and how, they are saved. It is vital for us to understand why we are allowed into God’s holy presence. It has nothing at all to do with our own goodness and everthing to do with Christ’s!

Martin Luther, whose rediscovery of the truths about justification launched the Protestant Reformation in the 16th Century, wrote, “When the article of justification has fallen, everything has fallen.” He declared, “This is the chief article from which all other doctrines have flowed.” He argued, “It alone begets, nourishes, builds, preserves, and defends the church of God; and without it the church of God cannot exist for one hour.” He said that it is “the master and prince, the lord, the ruler, and the judge over all kinds of doctrines.” Justification then is the anchor, or the hinge, of our salvation, isn’t it?

What is it, though? What does this most vital of doctrines mean? That is what we want to explore this morning, and for next few weeks.We not only want to understand the meaning, but we want to know how it applies to our everday life, don’t we? Because that is what Bible study and Bible knowledge is all about! If what we learn merely stays in our heads and never travels the road down to our hearts and never affects the direction of our feet then all the knowledge we pile up is simply useless, isn’t it?

So let’s begin. And if you still think that a study of justification is too dry and dusty, and not one that is interesting enough, let me tell you that unless you have been justified, you cannot possibly hope to stand before a holy and righteous God! One of the most important questions ever asked is this one: How can I, a completely unrighteous man, stand before God, who is perfectly righteous? The sobering answer is, I can’t, can I? I can’t unless God Himself acts! Unless God does something for, and to, me, I am lost! And the wonder of a study of justification is that we will discover what exactly it was that God did!

I. Righteousness Apart From the Law (Rom. 3:21)

(1 Donald Grey Barnhouse once wrote of this passage of Romans we just read, “I am convinced today, after these many years of Bible study, that these verses are the most important in the Bible.” They may very well be. Their importance certainly cannot be exaggerated. To begin with, what is that every man and woman must possess before they can enter into the presence of God? Hebrews 12:14 says it this way: Hebrews 12:14 (KJV)

14 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: The words of Jesus ring out with a call for righteousness too, don’t they? Matthew 5:48 (KJV)

48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Our problem as Paul has so forcefully concluded though is there are none of us righteous! We are far from perfect. And so what we must have is the one thing that we do not have, isn’t it? Habakkuk 1:13 states, Habakkuk 1:13 (KJV)

13 Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquitye : wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he? If God, who is pure, allows impurity in His presence unpunished, He will at that point cease to be pure and just and righteous. But in our first verse Paul gives us a hint at the direction God took in remedying this disastrous situation for us. He tells us that the righteousness of God without the law is manifested. Look at your Bibles, verse 21.

(2 We will see in subsequent verses how God can maintain His righteousness by allowing unrighteousness men and women into His presence. But for now, Paul is content to build up to that amazing truth. He states clearly here in verse 21 that the righteousness of God apart from works of the law is manifested, seen, revealed. And he also states that it was foretold in OT times by the Mosaic Law itself and by the OT prophets.

(3 And now what we always want to do is balance what Paul is saying here with what James writes in his epistle. And also what Jesus Himself said. We always have to be careful not to move toward a wrong interpretation of Paul’s doctrine of justification. We’ve talked about this in past lessons. Simply put, because we are saved by grace through faith, and not by any works of the law, that doesn’t mean we are free from any ethical considerations for our everyday life.

(4 Human righteousness is of great importance in human relations and should not be practically minimized, but it does not produce God’s salvation. The ethical moralist and the one who observes no boundaries in their daily living both fall far short of God’s righteousness. But James said in James 2:17 (KJV)

17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alonec . You and I must always strive for right living! We are not free to sin with abandon because are saved by grace, but we are free from the chains of our sinful natures to live in a manner more pleasing to the Lord who died for us. Do we do so with perfection? No! But we will have a change of direction in our lives after we have been justified.

(5 Turn back with me to Romans 1:16-17, to what is my pick for the two most important verses in Scripture. Where is the righteousness of God revealed? From OT faith to NT faith! And that last sentence in verse 17 says it all. The just shall live by faith! This is a quote from the OT prophet, Habakkuk. Habakkuk 2:4 (KJV) 4 Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith. The word just is another word for righteous. So, righteous men and women live by faith! We are, in a phrase, justified by faith! When God justifies sinners He makes them right in His eyes! The key word there being make! What the prophets and and law only pointed toward has been actualized, or made real, in history. And I want to stress that point because sometimes we get a very mystical and puffy idea of all things spiritual. This is an actual reality here. God has done a work on us that you and I could never do for ourselves.

(5 Notice how verse 21 begins. It seems that most everytime God contrasts a bad thing with a good one, He begins the next sentence with the word but. After Paul had tod the Ephesians, in the first three verses of chapter 2, that they had been dead in their sins and as wicked as any unbeliever, God come to them and quickened them, made them alive. Paul began verse four with the words, But God. He began Rom. 3:21 with the words But now. So, what Paul is saying is even though we are all sinners and desperately wicked . . . . but now, God has intervened in our lives, hasn’t He? God has done a work that was promised to the people of God, dating back even to the Garden!

II. Righteousness by Faith (Rom. 3:22-23)

(1 So, justification can never be achieved by human works of righteousness, can it? And we have just read that the righteousness of God is demonstrated apart from works of the law. You know, I bet that you guys hear this every day from preachers and teachers who come down to preach and teach! You can’t work your way into heaven! Right? In our next two verses Paul launches off into how God has solved the dilemma of the imperative of divine justice with the equal imperative of God’s love, mercy, and grace. And again, I want us to keep this thought firmly in our minds. As I said earlier, the central problem for every man and woman is this: How can people who are unholy possibly stand before a God who is perfect in His holiness? Look at your Bibles, verses 22-23.

(2 Verse 23 is as familiar a verse as Rom. 3:10, isn’t it? Romans 3:10 (KJV)

10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: We have each one of us sinned! There are no exceptions to this reality, is there? You’re a sinner, I’m a sinner, we are all lost in our sins! That is so manifestly obvious and true of the human race that you would think you wouldn’t have any trouble convincing people of it. But most of us are pretty good at recognizing the sins of others, but not so good at acknowledging our own, are we?

(3 We even get in groups and point fingers at the sins of other groups out there, don’t we? Democrats say Republicans are sinners, Republicans say the Democrats are sinners; liberals say conservatives are sunk deep in their iniquity, conservatives say the liberals are so sinful they are the cause of everything bad in the world! Rich against poor, nation against nation, black against white! Guys, let me tell you something; there will be no finger pointing when we stand before the righteous judge, right? What does God say about the issue? Every last stinking one of us are wretched sinners! We have all come far short of the blinding purity God’s matchless holiness and glory! And guys, there is only one possible way out for us. What is it?

(4 Verse 22 seems to be kind of awkward in its construction. The text says by faith of Jesus Christ, doesn’t it? Some versions translate it faith in Jesus Christ. Both are true of what Paul is saying about justification, though. In order to saved, in order to have right standing before God, you must have faith in Jesus Christ. But in order for your faith in Christ to have any merit you must also have the greater faithfulness of Jesus Himself. Without Jesus faithfully living in obedience to the will of His Father and living a perfectly sinless life, and without His faithfully submitting to the horror of the cross and paying the ultimate price for our sin, it would do no good to have faith in Jesus, right? I believe that Paul might have had both ideas in mind when he wrote verse 22.

(5 What does the word sin mean? It has been defined as a missing of the mark of God’s holiness. Webster’s defines it as a transgressing of the law of God. And of course that is true, isn’t it? And sin goes even deeper than our outward disobedience, doesn’t it? Outward disobedience proceeds from an inward corruption. Jesus said as much in Mark 7:21-23 (KJV)

21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22 Thefts, covetousnesse , wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: 23 All these evil things come from within, and defile the man. Jeremiah had these words in Jeremiah 17:9 (KJV)

9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Human sinfulness is a far deeper and far more profound problem than the sins of commisions we commit in our daily living. And human sin contradicts the prevailing wisdom of the modern world where we have reduced wrongdoing to mere sickness, a mental health problem, nothing more.

(6 But listen, human sin and God’s gracious and loving answer for it is the main theme of the Bible. And because the redemption found in Jesus Christ is the main theme of the Bible, and because of the stark and frightening fact that without God coming to us with a solution for our hearts of darkness we will suffer His just wrath on the Day of Judgement, we must begin to understand how serious sin is, how ugly and dark and corrupt our sin is before God. Because without that understanding we will never be able to even come close to realizing how glorious and wonderful our salvation is. Until we understand in our hearts that we truly deserve God’s wrath for our sin, we will never be really grateful for God having saved us.

III. Righteousness Proceeds From Christ’s Work (Romans 3:24-26)

(1 In our next few verses we will begin to get a glimpse at God’s incredible plan of salvation. We may camp here for awhile as we study the doctrine of justification. As I said earlier, justification is at the heart of the Christian faith, at the heart of the Gospel. It is only by God justifying us that we can stand faultless before God. And as we read these next three verses keep in mind verse 23. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Look at your Bibles, verses 24-26.

(2 The word justified in verse 24 means to render righteous; it means to show, exhibit, declare, to pronounce one to be just or righteous. And if we have all sinned then none of us are just, so any righteousness we might have must be one that comes from somewhere else. Forgiveness of sin is only part of salvation. But if that was all there was to it, we still couldn’t enter in God’s presence. Because along with forgiveness we must also have righteousness. And that is where justification comes in to play. There are four key words we want to focus on from verse 24: justified, freely, grace, and redemption.

(3 Think about writing this next part down on a board. There are three basic components to what is called justification. First, we are cleared of guilt! And this is fundamental, isn’t it? Because if you have paid any attention at all for the last few weeks, you will understand that Paul has written a torrent of words to demonstrate that all of us are guilty. And remember, I asked you all to keep Rom. 3:23 in mind when we read these next few verses on justification, right? So, whether there is someone in this room who really doesn’t believe they are guilty, the Bible is pretty clear about it: We are all guilty before a holy God!

(4 And anytime you are guilty of something, of some crime, and you stand before a human judge, you can expect justice to be served, can’t you? For the most part, you are not going to get away with it, are you? So it is with God–even more so! And so to cleared of guilt before the holy tribunal of God is no small matter, is it?

(5 But justification goes further than that. We are actually declared innocent of any crime! And that is certainly no small matter either. What this means for us is our sins have been removed. Psalm 103:12 (KJV)

12 As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. We are going to go to the book of Leviticus in few minutes and look at an important passage on the Day of Atonement. This day was one in which the Hebrew high priest entered into the Most Holy Place, the Holy of Holies to make atonement for the sins of the nation of Israel. Part of that ceremony, as we will see, had to do with the choosing of two goats, one for sacrifice, and one for the priest symbolically placing the sins of the nation on the head of the goat and sending the goat and the sin off into the wilderness.

(6 But before we do that, we want to finish our look at the three elements of justification, and also look at the remaining three words from verse 24. Now, the very last ingredient to justification is that we are given by God the very righteosness of Jesus Christ Himself! And this is where the rubber meets the road in any discussion of justification. Always remember, without righteousness you will not enter heaven. I want us to keep our place here and turn with to 2 Cor. 5:21. Sometimes when I am reading and studying I will say to myself, this must be the most important verse in the Bible. And then I will be studying something else and declare that passage to be the most important one. The fact is there are many passages that could compete for that honor. And certainly 2 Cor. 5:21 is one such verse. Look at your Bibles with me, verse 21.

(7 It is here in this verse that we find the final connecting piece to justification. It is where we discover how it is that you and I, unholy though we may be in actual fact, can enter into God’s presence in righteousness.

(8 Guys listen, you and I can disagree on a lot things regarding the Christian faith; we can have many things wrong in our doctrine, and still be on our way to heaven. But how a man or woman is saved, how we are justified before God, is not one of them. I hope that all of us have at least heard of the great Protestant Reformation of the 16th Century. The primary reason for the great split in the church at this time was not because of the widespread corruption; it was not because of the Roman church’s perceived errors on Mother Mary, praying to the saints, the primacy of the Pope, or any other of the myriad errors that the church had fallen into. No, the cardinal reason for the Great Reformation was a rediscovery of the Biblical doctrine of justification. The difference between the Roman Catholic view of justification with what I believe is the Biblical view of justification can be seen in the word forensic. Justification is a forensic (legal) act of God whereby He declares the believing sinner righteous on the basis of the blood of Christ. You are declared righteous not on your own merit, but on Christ’s, right? The Roman Catholic view, back then and now is that righteousness is infused. In other words, due to observance of the sacraments of the church, baptism, mass and all the rest, obedience, and priestly intercession, you are infused with righteousness, you are made righteous, you become righteous! That grace and righteousness travel the path of the sacraments and your obedience. And that is a major difference! Because we still sin all the time, don’t we? We never become righteous! That is why the doctrine of purgatory is so important to Roman Catholic theology. It is there the church teaches that believers are purified. How are we justified? How are we saved? Solely on the basis of what? Faith! For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of the God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

(9 And as I said, it is here in this single verse in 2 Cor. that we find the most explicit explanation of how God can allow unrighteous sinners into His righteous presence. How? Listen, if you are in Christ, when the righteous Judge looks at you, what does He see? He sees the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, doesn’t He? The One who knew no sin became sin for us! What does that mean?

(10 This is really an extraordinary statement Paul makes. He is saying something deeper than Jesus is our sin-offering, although that is certainly part of it, a major part of it. But in some manner that eludes our full human understanding Jesus was not made a sinner, but became sin’s representative for us. Christ became sin while remaining inwardly and outwardly impeccable. He became sin as our substitute and sacrifice.

(11 R. Kent Hughes describes it this way: Think of Christ’s heart as a sea hemmed in by the mountains of our festering sin. Then imagine our sins coursing down the mountains into his heart until all the mountains of evil slide into the sea. Or think back to the magnifying glass you played with as a child. If held under the sun’s rays, it could start a fire. Remember how if you focused the white spot of its concentrated light on a leaf or a bug (only boys did this!), it would begin to burn. Our sins were focused on Christ on the cross, and he suffered the fiery wrath of God. On the cross Christ was robed in all that is heinous and hateful as the mass of our corruption poured over him. Wave after wave of our sin was poured over Christ’s sinless soul. Again and again during those three hours his soul recoiled and convulsed as all our lies, hatreds, jealousies, and pride were poured upon his purity. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’ ” (Galatians 3:13). Jesus was cursed as he became sin for us! Jesus in full, lucid consciousness took on your sins and mine and bore them with a unity of understanding and pain that none can fathom. And he did it willingly, on purpose, in love! He became sin for us!

(12 And then what? God clothed us, the believer, in the very righteousness of Jesus Himself! Listen to me now: If that doesn’t thrill your heart, if that doesn’t bring you to your knees in humble gratitude to God for all that He did for you, then I think you might need to check your heart; there is something not quite right there, is there?

(13 Justification is the first of the four words we want to discuss; the second is freely. And obviously, this word flows from the Biblical definition of how we are justified. The entirety of salvation flows from God as a free gift, there for all who will come. So, the third word then is grace. God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense! We will come back to grace many times in our study of Romans. But for now, I want to close our lesson with the word redemption. And especially as the word connects to another big word in verse 25, propitiation.

(14 First, what does the the word redeem mean? The root meaning of the word is to purchase, to buy back. It was often used in relation to the purchase of slaves on the slave block. But it also came to mean the purchase of a slave from the slave block with added idea of setting that slave free. It was through the payment of a ransom that freedom was acquired for the slave or a prisoner of war even, one who was in bondage, in chains.

(15 The word is used to describe the believer being purchased out of the slavemarket of sin and set free from sin’s bondage. The purchase price for the believer’s freedom and release from sin was the death of Jesus Christ. Look at your Bibles, verse 25.

(16 We have had a lot of big words to digest this morning, haven’t we? But they are so key for our gaining a proper understanding of salvation. We have reduced salvation in America to merely a decision made for Christ. And further we have reduced that decision to a common level on a par with choosing a brand of coffee at the grocery store. It is as if we see all these brand name religions on a shelf and we say, “Well hey! I think I’ll take Jesus!” There is a sense in which we do invite Jesus into our hearts, in which we do make a decision for Christ. But the language of the Bible goes far, far beyond that, doesn’t it? Propitiation is a word that is not often used in sermons anymore. We don’t seem to like deep theological words anymore, we don’t seem to care for deep thinking in the church today. And truthfully we don’t really much like what the word propitiation even means. I want us to look at the OT book of Leviticus. Turn with me to Lev. 16, and let’s begin reading in verse one.

(17 What we’re going to read from Leviticus is one of the central events on the calendar of the Jewish people. We are going to read about the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur, in the Hebrew language. We talked about this in a past lesson, but we didn’t actually go to the passage of Scripture that describes for us what the high priest was to do and what the whole event was to mean for the children of Israel. And from our vantage point in redemptive history we can clearly see how this important event in Israel’s year vividly pointed forward in time to the sacrifice, atonement and propitiation that Jesus made on Calvary. Look at your Bibles, verses 1-22, 34.

(18 None of the other Levitical priests could perform this sacrifice, only the high priest, and him only once a year. And we read this entire passage so that we could see first that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross had a historical basis. And second so we could come to an understanding of the word, propitiation. What does the word mean? It means to appease, to turn away wrath, to satisfy. Look again at Lev. 16:14-15. That word, mercy seat, literally means the seat of expiation, which is similar in meaning to propitiation. It is place where atonement for sin is made. Sin, and God’s wrath for sin, falls on a substitute, God is propititated, and sin is expiated, or taken away. And in the Greek OT, the Scripture that Jesus and the Apostles would have used by the way, the word translated propitiation in Romans is elsewhere translated mercy seat. In the book of Hebrews, the writer used the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement has a figure or a shadow of which Jesus’s sacrifice was the fullness. Let’s close in the book Hebrews 9:27-10:1-4, 12. Turn there with me.

(19 Let’s see if we can tie all this information together with the once for all sacrifice that Jesus made. He finally and fully expiated sin, propitiated the Father, and now makes intercession for all believers. Look at your Bibles, Heb. 9:27-10:1-4.

(20 Remember our last verse from Romans. Listen: Romans 3:25 (KJV)

25 Whom God hath set forthc to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; All of these somewhat complicated things we have been discussing this morning are wrapped up in our main topic of justification. We stand before a holy God right now, His wrath has been propititated, satisfied, only because the Lord Jesus Christ stood in our place. Sin has been eternally punished on the eternal Person of Jesus! And when Christ walked out of that tomb on the third day, victory was assured.

(21 It is in Jesus that we find our mercy seat, right? The mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant then is an imperfect symbol of the perfection that is to be found in Christ Jesus.

(22 Do you know Him! Do you know Jesus? Have you trusted in the only One who can stand between you and the wrath of a holy God. The work has already been done, hasn’t it? The glory of salvation has already been accomplished. But you must first trust in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know Him? John 14:6 (KJV)

6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.