Romans 3:24-God Declares The Sinner Righteous Through Faith In His Son Jesus Christ

Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 3:9.

One of the foundational doctrines of the Christian faith is that of the doctrine of justification.

This doctrine has given assurance to believers throughout the centuries and has changed the course of human history.

By way of definition, justification is a judicial act of God whereby He declares a person to be righteous as a result of crediting or imputing to that person His righteousness the moment they exercised faith in His Son Jesus Christ.

Consequently, God accepts that person and enters that person into a relationship with Himself since they now possess His righteousness.

Romans 3:9 What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; 10 as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one; 11 There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; 12 All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, there is not even one. 13 Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of asps is under their lips; 14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; 15 Their feet are swift to shed blood, 16 destruction and misery are in their paths, 17 and the path of peace they have not known. 18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.” 19 Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; 20 because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin. 21 But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; 26 for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. 28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one. (NASB95)

The righteousness of God is all that God is, all that He commands, all that He demands, all that He approves, and all that He provides through Christ.

The word for “righteousness” is the noun dikaiosune, “righteousness,” which was used in classical Greek and the LXX (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) as a general term for “virtue” and “integrity” of character.

The righteousness of God refers to the character of God having perfect integrity in the sense that His character is perfectly sound, perfectly adhering to His own perfect standards and what He promises to men.

It means that God’s character is upright, honest, perfectly whole, undiminished, sound, unimpaired and in perfect condition.

God’s character has perfect virtue in the sense that His character is perfect moral excellence, goodness, and His conduct is conformed perfectly to His own perfect standards and what He has promised to men.

Therefore, the term “righteous” in relation to God describes the permanent state or condition of God’s character, in which inherently He is perfect integrity in the sense that His character is perfectly sound, perfectly adhering to His own perfect standards and to what He has promised to men.

It describes Him as upright, honest, perfectly whole, undiminished, sound, unimpaired and in perfect condition.

The Word of God teaches that “righteousness” is an attribute of God or is inherently His.

No one in the human race is righteous before God since only the Lord Jesus Christ was sinless as manifested in that He was perfectly obedient to every aspect of the Mosaic Law.

Since, the Lord Jesus Christ was impeccable, He was the only member of the human race who was truly righteous in the eyes of God and who truly loved God and His neighbor as Himself.

Therefore, when Paul says in Romans 3:21-26 that a person is declared righteous by God through faith in Jesus Christ, he means that this person is declared by God as righteous as He is and is thus in right relation to both God and man.

The Lord Jesus Christ manifested the righteousness of God during His First Advent, which was witnessed by the Law and the Prophets in the Old Testament Scriptures (Romans 3:21-26).

The Lord was made our Substitute in order that we might receive the imputation of God’s righteousness and live in that righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24).

The Bible teaches that there are two categories of righteousness: (1) Absolute righteousness originating in the essence of God revealed by the Spirit in the Word of God and in the Person of Christ (2) Relative righteousness, which is rooted in man’s comparison of himself with other men.

The Bible teaches that the entire human race both Jew and Gentile do not measure up to the righteousness of God and are therefore condemned before God but qualified for grace (Romans 1:18-3:20).

God does not accept relative human righteousness but rather demands His own absolute perfect righteousness.

The only way that man can acquire this absolute perfect righteousness required by God to have a relationship with Him is by means of faith alone in Christ alone.

Man’s relative righteousness falls infinitely short of God’s absolute righteousness in the Person of Christ (Isaiah 64:6).

The righteousness of God can never be attained by anyone through human power and dynamics or by keeping the Mosaic Law but rather it is received as a gift through faith in Jesus Christ who is the righteousness of God incarnate.

The works of the Law can never attain the righteousness of God (Titus 3:5).

The nation of Israel sought to establish their own righteousness rather than accept by faith the righteousness of God in the Person of Jesus Christ (Romans 9:31-33; 10:1-10).

The righteousness of God is received as a gift and is imputed to the person who exercises faith alone in Christ alone (Romans 4).

By “imputed” I mean that God credits to the believer the perfect integrity and virtue of Christ.

The mechanics of justification are as follows: (1) God condemns the sinner, which qualifies them to receive His grace. (2) The sinner believes in Jesus Christ as His Savior. (3) God imputes or credits Christ’s righteousness to the believer. (4) God declares that person as righteous as a result of acknowledging His Son’s righteousness in that person.

Justification is God declaring a person to be righteous as a result of acknowledging or recognizing His righteousness in that person, and which righteousness He imputed to that person as a result of their faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.

Justification causes no one to be righteous but rather is the recognition and declaration by God that one is righteous as He is.

It is a once and for all declaration, which never changes and never can be rescinded since God is a perfect Judge who because He is immutable, always makes perfect decisions.

To be justified by God through faith alone in Christ alone means that God can never condemn us for our sins.

It means that a believer can never lose his salvation because of any sin since God, who is a perfect judge, rendered a perfect decision when he declared righteous the person, who exercised faith in His Son Jesus Christ!

Thus, Paul declares the following: Romans 8:1, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

In Romans 3:20 and 24, “justified” and “justifier” in Romans 3:26 is the verb dikaioo, which refers to God declaring a person as righteous as He is as a result of God imputing or crediting to that person His Son’s righteousness, the moment they exercised faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.

Romans 3:24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. (NASB95)

“Being justified” is the nominative masculine plural present passive participle form of the verb dikaioo, which means, “to declare or pronounce righteous.”

No one in the human race is righteous before God and therefore justified before Him since no human being except Jesus Christ was ever perfectly obedient to the Law.

The function of the volition in obeying the sin nature prevents any human being from keeping the Law perfectly.

Also, in Romans 3:9-20, Paul teaches that there is absolutely no one in the human race who can ever be accepted by a holy God and enjoy a relationship with Him by obeying the Law, i.e. the Old Testament Scriptures since they can never be perfectly obedient because the entire human race is under the power of the old Adamic sin nature.

Therefore, in order for man to be justified before God, God must treat him in grace and provide a way for him to be justified.

Thus, justification is based upon God’s grace as we will note.

Titus 3:5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (NASB95)

The voluntary substitutionary spiritual and physical deaths of Jesus Christ on the Cross are the basis for justification since His unique spiritual and physical deaths propitiated or satisfied the demands of God’s holiness, which required that sin be judged.

These unique deaths also redeemed mankind out of the slave market of sin, fulfilled the righteous requirements of the Law and reconciled the human race to God.

Redemption and deliverance from the Law and reconciliation are appropriated through faith alone in Christ alone.

The imputation of divine righteousness at the moment of faith in Christ and the believer’s resultant justification was made possible because the Lord Jesus Christ’s death on the Cross dealt with the issue of the sins of the world and also fulfilled the righteous requirements of the Law that demanded that human sin be judged.

The perfection of Christ’s Person and Work are the foundation of the imputation of divine righteousness and resultant justification.

The Scriptures teach that the only way that a member of the human race can ever be declared righteous by God is through receiving the gift of divine righteousness by grace through faith alone in Christ alone (Romans 3:21-30; Romans 5:12-21).

Galatians 2:16 nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified. (NASB95)

Therefore, in Romans 3:24, the verb dikaioo refers to God declaring a person as righteous as He is as a result of God imputing or crediting to that person His Son’s righteousness, the moment they exercised faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.

The participle form of the verb dikaioo is a “result” participle, which is used to indicate the actual outcome or result of the action of the main verb.

So as a participle of result, the verb dikaioo indicates the actual outcome or result of the action of the main verb, which appears in Romans 3:23 and is the verb hamartano, “have sinned.”

Therefore, the participle of result, dikaioo indicates that the human race can be justified by a gift of God’s grace through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ “as a result” of sinning and failing to measure up to the perfection of the glory of God, Jesus Christ.

A comparison of Romans 3:22 with the passive voice of the verb dikaioo in Romans 3:24 indicates that the sinner who believes in Jesus Christ as his or her Savior is being acted upon by God.

God declares that sinner righteous as a gift of His grace through intermediate agency of Christ’s spiritual and physical deaths on the Cross.

This death redeemed the entire human race out of the slave market of sin in which they were born into physically alive but spiritually dead, yet qualified for God’s grace.

The Father uses His Son’s work of redemption as the basis for declaring a person righteous who exercises faith in His Son.

The present tense is “gnomic” and denotes that the sinner can as “an eternal spiritual truth” be justified by a gift of God’s grace through the work of redemption accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ’s death on the Cross.

Justification is based upon God’s grace, which is all that God is free to do in imparting unmerited blessings to those who trust in Jesus Christ as Savior based upon the merits of Christ and His death on the Cross.

It is God treating us in a manner that we don’t deserve and excludes any human works in order to acquire eternal salvation or blessing from God.