God's Remedy for Man's Unrightousness

Lesson 14 - Romans 3_20-31

Tuesday, April 02, 2019

3:27 PM

Romans begins with a brief introduction 1:1-17. Paul then introduces the doctrine of sin at Romans 1:18 and develops this doctrine of sin through Romans 3:20.

He proves that apart from the grace and help of God, everyone is a sinner and their mouths will be shut when they stand guilty before Almighty God.

Paul has been giving us the sickness - someone has to know they are sick before they will seek help.

And he covers the symptoms and problems of this sickness from Romans 1:18-3:20

Now he begins to give us the first aspect of God's cure Romans 3:21-5:12

Paul begins this great journey into the Gospel of Christ by introducing the marvelous doctrine of Justification by faith.

… unless the biblical doctrine of justification is balanced with the inseparable companion doctrine of sanctification, the doctrine of justification will lead people astray. This is because justification deals only with God’s forgiveness of sin, the removal of the penalty, and a judicial declaration of “not guilty.” Justification does not actually change the sinner; it only changes his status in the eyes of God’s law. It takes the companion doctrine of sanctification to actually change you from being a “forgiven sinner” to being a born‐again, holy, changed person experientially.

A Definition of grace

Please learn that we are not saved by grace alone.

I’m sorry the biblical teaching on grace has been miscommunicated. We now have people talking of being saved by grace and kept by grace apart from holy living. Such teaching is not biblical. You are not saved by grace alone.

You will not find anywhere in the Bible where it says you are saved by grace alone. Turn to the classic text in Ephesians 2:8‐9. There we read, we are “saved by grace through faith.” If you leave off the phrase, “through faith,” you end up speaking and teaching error. The surest way to discredit truth is to either neglect a balancing truth or to exaggerate the truth.

Some people, who are reacting against legalism, and what seems to them to be a “works” salvation say, “Let me tell you the gospel news: we’re saved by grace; it’s grace the whole way.” As if, no matter what you do, grace will catch you and lift you up and bear you on. That is error.

We are saved only by grace through faith. John Wesley’s favorite passage for defining faith, Galatians 5:6, teaches us that faith works by love. And if you wish to know what “love” is, listen to Jesus. He says, “If you love Me, you will obey Me.” That means if you are not obeying, you don’t love Him, and you don’t have faith, and that means you’re not saved.

So, don’t talk about “grace” alone saving you. What do I understand is the biblical definition of grace? Using Ephesians 2:4‐5, we establish the first part of the definition. It says, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).” From this statement we can derive the first half of the definition of grace. “Grace is the outreaching of God’s love and mercy to undeserving people.”

Using 1 Corinthians 15:10, we establish the second part of the definition. 1 Corinthians 15:10 says, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” This verse is teaching us that “grace creates the desireand the power to do His will.” Paul was changed from a Pharisee and a despiser of Gentiles to a Christian and a lover of Gentiles because of God’s grace at work in his life.

To sum up, grace is “the outreaching of God’s love and mercy to undeserving people, creating in them the desire and power to do His will.” [Learn this definition of grace with the 2 references]

Grace by itself doesn’t save you; grace creates within you a hunger for salvation and it draws you to Christ. God requires you to use the instrumental means of faith in order to be saved. You are “saved by grace through faith, not works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph. 2:8).

Lets look at this - 3:20 The Negative

Romans 3:20 (KJV)

20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Then we find 3:21-22 - The Positive

Romans 3:21-22 (KJV)

21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;

22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

But now—at a critical moment in human history around a.d. 30—two “poles” in the nature of God—holiness and love—met in Jesus of Nazareth, through whose death, resurrection, and exaltation the Triune God accomplished the world’s redemption.

Greathouse, W. M., & Lyons, G. (2008). Romans 1-8: A commentary in the Wesleyan tradition (119). Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City.

Martin Luther claimed that this section was “the chief point, and the very central place of the Epistle, and of the whole Bible.”1 Quite a claim!

1 Margin of the Luther Bible, on 3:23ff.

Moo, D. J. (2000). The NIV Application Commentary: Romans(125). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

For all of the unrighteousness we have seen so far in Romans - we now see a RIGHTEOUSNESS

This righteousness- ties in with the though of Justification -

To be in right standing with God.

Look at these two key phrases:

1. Without the law (21) NIV says "Apart from the law"

2. Being witnessed by the law and the prophets (21) NIV says, "to which the Law and the Prophets testify."

Int these few short words Paul has beautifully given us the continuity and discontinuity in God's plan of salvation.

The discontinuity? God reveals his righteousness in Christ "without the law" or "apart form the law."

The Continuity? The entire Old Testament (Law and Prophets) The cross was not an afterthought, was not a Plan B it has been God's intention from the beginning to reveal his salivation by sending His Son as a sacrifice for us.

Paul also reiterates something he said in 1:17, but makes it stronger here in verse 22

That this righteousness or justification is by faith

It is a Revealed Righteousness - not invented

I want us to notice a few aspects of this justification:

1. It is justification by faith (Faith in Jesus Christ (22)

2. And a faith in His Blood (25)

Paul uses the word "Propitiation"

This can mean Mercy Seat (many times it does, it’s the same Greek word)

But in this instance it probably refers to the idea of appeasing God

But in the New Testament propitiation always refers to the work of God, not of man. Man is utterly incapable of satisfying God's justice except by spending eternity in hell.

MacArthur New Testament Commentary, The - MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Romans 1-8.

The best way I know how to explain it is to illustrate it - With the story of Abraham and Isaac & But probably the best is C.S. Lewis' The Lion Witch and the Wardrobe Aslan becomes the propitiation for Edmund.

C. S. Lewis explores the same idea more imaginatively in the first of his children’s novels, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Because of selfishness and greed, a little boy has fallen into the hands of a wicked witch. Aslan, the God character, cannot, for all his immense power, rescue the boy; for he must acknowledge the “magic,” the law of nature, that has given the witch power over the boy. But there is a “deeper magic from the dawn of time” that enables one who dies willingly for someone else to take on that person’s punishment and let them go free. Thus, Aslan allows the wicked witch to execute him.

…[This] is rooted solidly in this text of Romans and provides a more satisfying understanding of the cross than any other. Only such a conception does real justice to the biblical picture of sinful humanity and a holy God. Pascal has put it very well: “Grace is indeed needed to turn a man into a saint; and he who doubts it does not know what a saint or a man is.”11

11 Pascal, Pensées, 508.

Moo, D. J. (2000). The NIV Application Commentary: Romans (136). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

If men have never been saved on any other basis than faith in God," they would argue, "then the law not only is useless now but was always useless."

Again Paul responds with the powerful repudiation, May it never be! (see 3:4, 6). "A thousand times no," is the idea. The cross of Jesus Christ, through which justification by faith was made possible, not only does not nullify the Law but confirms it. On the contrary, Paul says, we establish the Law

As far as salvation is concerned, the gospel does not replace the law because the law was never a means of salvation. The law was given to show men the perfect standards of God's righteousness and to show that those standards are impossible to meet in man's own power. The purpose of the law was to drive men to faith in God.

MacArthur New Testament Commentary, The - MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Romans 1-8.