Romans 3.25c-God Temporarily Suspended Judgment of the Sins of Old Testament Dispensations Because He's Tolerant
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Wednesday November 28, 2007
Romans: Romans 3:25c-God Temporarily Suspended Judgment of the Sins of Old Testament Dispensations Because He’s Tolerant
Lesson # 104
Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 3:19.
We are currently engaged in a study of the third major section in the book of Romans, which appears in Romans 3:21-5:21.
This section is divided into four parts: (1) Divine righteousness is imputed through faith in Christ (Romans 3:21-26). (2) Divine righteousness is available to both Jew and Gentile (Romans 3:27-31). (3) Justification by Faith: The Example of Abraham (Romans 4:1-23). (4) The Results of Faith (Romans 5:1-21).
We are currently studying the first part and on Sunday morning we studied Romans 3:25, which teaches that God the Father offered publicly at the Cross of Calvary His Son Jesus Christ to sinful mankind as a propitiatory gift and which gift of His Son is appropriated by faith in His Son.
Last evening we noted Romans 3:25b, which teaches that the spiritual death of Jesus Christ on the Cross demonstrated the righteousness of God.
This evening we will note Romans 3:25c, which teaches that God temporarily suspended judgment of the sins committed in Old Testament dispensations because He is tolerant.
Romans 3:19, “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.”
Romans 3:20, “Because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.”
Romans 3:21, “But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets.”
Romans 3:22, “Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe for there is no distinction.”
Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Romans 3:24, “being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.”
Romans 3:25, “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.”
“Because” is the preposition dia (diaV), which is a marker of cause or reason that introduces a clause that presents the reason why the Father’s offering of His Son publicly at the Cross of Calvary as a propitiatory gift to sinful mankind was a demonstration of His righteousness.
This clause is needed since it could be argued that since the sins of the Old Testament dispensations were not judged that this would be tantamount to God being unrighteous.
Therefore, God the Father imputed the sins of all human history-past, present and future to the impeccable humanity of Christ in hypostatic union who received the consequences of these sins, which was separation from God during those last three hours of darkness on the Cross.
In eternity past, God the Father planned for His Son to go to the Cross for every sin in human history, past, present and future.
Acts 2:22-23, “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know, this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.”
That which the spiritual death of Jesus Christ on the Cross accomplished was retroactive in the sense that it dealt with the sins committed in the Old Testament dispensations prior to the Cross.
Therefore, the preposition dia with the accusative form of the noun paresis, “He passed over” indicates that the spiritual death of Christ on the Cross demonstrated the righteousness of God “because” in the forbearance of God, He had passed over the sins committed in Old Testament dispensations prior to the Cross.
Romans 3:25, “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.”
“He passed over” is the noun paresis (pavresi$) (par-es-is), which means, “pretermission, the deliberate and temporary suspending judgment of” of the sins committed in Old Testament dispensations prior to the spiritual death of Jesus Christ on the Cross.
In Romans 3:25, the word means that God the Father “passed over” the sins previously committed in Old Testament dispensations prior to the First Advent of Jesus Christ and His spiritual death on the Cross in the sense that He “withheld judgment” of those sins.
God the Father deliberately overlooked the sins committed in Old Testament dispensations prior to the crucifixion of Christ in the sense that He withheld the judgment of these sins.
The reason for this is that in eternity past He planned to impute every sin in human history-past, present and future to the impeccable humanity of Christ in hypostatic union so that His Son would receive the judgment for those sins and which judgment was spiritual death during those last three hours on the Cross.
The noun paresis speaks of the mercy of God, which characterizes God’s love.
God’s love caused Him to be merciful to us in raising us up and seating us with Christ at His right hand.
This is illustrated in Ephesians 2:4-7, which teaches that because of His great love with which He loved us, God was rich in mercy when He raised us up and seated us with Christ at His right hand while we were yet children of wrath and spiritually dead in sins and trespasses.
Ephesians 2:1-7, “Although, all of you were spiritually dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
Therefore, Ephesians 2:1-7 teaches us that God’s attribute of love causes Him to be “merciful” meaning that God is compassionate towards His enemies and pardons them by withholding judgment in order that they might believe in Jesus Christ.
Romans 3:25 teaches that God was being merciful by passing over the sins committed in Old Testament dispensations prior to the coming of Christ in the sense of withholding judgment.
Mercy is God acting upon His policy of grace and withholding judgment.
The mercy of God is a manifestation of Who God is and is thus helps to compose His glory (Ex. 34:7).
Psalm 119:156, “Great are Your mercies, O LORD; Revive me according to Your ordinances.”
David acknowledged and expressed in his song that God had been merciful to him (Ps. 30:1-3; Ps. 86:15; 103:1-14).
The Lord Jesus Christ perfectly manifested the mercy and compassion of God since He is the love of God incarnate who manifested perfectly the character and nature of God, and thus has explained the love of God (cf. Jn. 1:18).
The love of God was manifested perfectly to the entire human race through the Father’s sacrifice of His Son at the cross of Calvary and the Son’s willingness to be that sacrifice.
The Lord Jesus Christ revealed the love of God through His mercy and compassion towards members of the human race during His 1st Advent (Mt. 9:27, 36; 14:14; 15:22, 32; 17:15; 20:30-31, 34; 23:37; Mk. 1:41; 5:19; 6:34; 8:2; 10:47-48; Lk. 7:13; 10:33; 15:20; 17:13; 18:38-39; Lk. 7:13; Jn. 11:35).
The mercy of God is related to the believer’s salvation since God saved us on the basis of His mercy and not on the basis of human merit or actions (Tit. 3:5).
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.”
God has been merciful to all believers in that He sent His Son to the cross while we were yet sinners.
Romans 5:6-8, “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
The Lord taught His disciples to imitate the Father in being compassionate towards their enemies.
Luke 6:35-36, “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”
Mercy and compassion are chief tenants of the royal family honor code (Matthew 5:7; Jn. 15:9-13; Rm. 12:8; 12:1; 12:9-16; 15:1-2; Ga. 6:2; Eph. 4:30-32; Col. 3:12-14; Jam. 2:8; 1 Jn. 4:16-18; Jude 22).
In Romans 3:25, the noun paresis means that God the Father “deliberately and temporarily suspended judgment” of the sins committed in Old Testament dispensations “until” His Son suffered a spiritual death on the Cross of Calvary.
Romans 3:25, “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.”
“The sins” is the noun hamartema (a(mavrthma) (ham-ar-tay-mah), which refers to the personal sins committed by the human race in Old Testament dispensations prior to the spiritual death of Jesus Christ on the Cross.
“Previously committed” is the verb proginomai (progivnomai) (prog-in-om-i), which is a compound word, composed of the preposition pro, “before” and the verb ginomai, “to happen, to come into existence.”
Thus, the word literally means, “that which happened before, that which before has come into existence.”
This word identifies for the reader what sins God the Father temporarily and deliberately suspended judgment of.
“Forbearance” is the noun anoche (a)noxhv) (an-okh-ay), which is from the verb anechomai, “to tolerate, to be patient with regard to errors or weaknesses, to put up with someone” and describes “self-restraint, a holding back, a temporary cessation of hostilities, a refraining from the enforcement of something.”
The noun anoche appeared in Romans 2:4 where it meant “tolerance.”
Romans 2:4, “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?”
In Romans 2:4, the noun anoche means, “tolerance” and describes God imposing a temporary cessation or delay in executing the sentence of eternal condemnation upon sinful mankind in order that they might believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be delivered from the eternal lake of fire.
In Romans 3:25, the New American Standard translates the word “forbearance” and is used by Paul to describe the “temporary arrangement” that God imposed on the human race “until” the Cross, at which time, God “established a peace agreement” with Himself and sinful humanity.
The peace agreement was established at the Cross with Jesus Christ’s substitutionary spiritual death.
God the Father’s plan in eternity past was to impute the sins of human history-past, present and future to the impeccable humanity of Christ in hypostatic union in order that He might judge His Son for those sins and which judgment His Son experienced when He suffered spiritual death during the last three hours on the Cross.