JUSTIFIED BY HIS GRACE
Romans 3:20-24 NET.
20 For no one is declared righteous before him by the works of the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. 21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God (which is attested by the law and the prophets) has been disclosed — 22 namely, the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 24 But they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Today’s message is about the basics of the gospel message. Every Christian should know what the gospel message is so that she or he can share the gospel with others. A believer should also have confidence that she or he has a relationship with God that cannot change and know the reason for that confidence. So, I have decided to investigate the gospel message as it is presented in various places in the Bible and examine these texts one by one.
The book of Romans is a good place to start because the Apostle Paul laid out the gospel message and its implications throughout that book. Today’s text has five verses, and what I plan to do is summarize the message of each verse.
The Bible cannot save you (20).
Paul told the Romans that no one is declared righteous before God by the works of the law. Paul had been making a point in his letter that no one can come to God by means of their own righteousness. But he knows that some of his readers are Jewish by birth, so he answers an objection that they might bring. Some Jews might think that they already have a relationship with God because of being born Jewish. Others might think that God has already adopted them by reason of their having the Jewish law and obeying some of it.
That kind of argument can go through our minds as well. Some might think that because they own a Bible, and sometimes go to church, and sometimes pray – maybe they will be accepted on judgment day. But when Paul says that no one is declared righteous before God by the works of the law, he is speaking to us as well. Anything we try to do to become a Christian without putting our faith in Christ is just a work of the law. That includes reading and studying our Bible, or listening to a teacher who has done it. The Bible itself cannot save you. Church attendance cannot save you. Church membership or baptism or communion or any of the other trappings of Christianity – all these things are lumped together in that phrase “works of the law.” They are all good things, but they are not good enough to erase the stain of sin from our lives. They are all healthy activities, but they cannot arrest the corruption of sin from our inner beings.
Then what is the Bible for? Paul says that through the law comes the knowledge of sin. The word he uses for knowledge here indicates more than a simple understanding that there is such a thing as sin. It indicates an awareness of how sinful sin is and how much it has permeated our whole being – like yeast permeates the whole loaf of bread. Even the good things we do are imperfect, so even they cannot reverse the corruption that we are presently experiencing. Sin is not something that we have the power to stop.
Paul would later write to Timothy these words: “We know that the law is good if someone uses it legitimately, realizing that law is not intended for a righteous person, but for lawless and rebellious people, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, sexually immoral people, practicing homosexuals, kidnappers, liars, perjurers — in fact, for any who live contrary to sound teaching” (1 Timothy 1:8-10).
The Bible cannot change sinners into righteous people. It is not intended for that purpose. It can only make a lawbreaker realize how many laws she or he is breaking. It can only make it clear how rebellious a rebel is. Even so, having a Bible is a good thing because …
The Bible has revealed how you can be saved (21).
Paul says that the Bible has disclosed a means of righteousness from God. God has provided a means of salvation for us and has revealed that message in his word. So, even though we cannot get saved by obeying the commands in the Bible, we can get saved by accessing the means of salvation that the Bible reveals. What is this means of salvation? It is not a prayer that we can pray. It is not a gift that we can give. It is not a promise that we can make. In fact, the means of salvation is not anything that we can do. We are condemned sinners, and we deserve to be permanently destroyed for our sins.
Nevertheless, the Bible assures us that salvation is possible, not by means of something we can do, but by means of someone. Jesus himself is the means of salvation that the Bible has revealed.
Believing in what Jesus Christ did can save you (22).
God’s righteousness through Christ is available to us as revealed in the Bible. Jesus has done what needed to be done. All we are told to do is believe it. That is the essence of the gospel of grace. That is why Paul says that this righteousness is available through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. It is not our faithfulness to Christ that makes salvation possible. It is his faithfulness.
In what ways was Christ faithful? He faithfully lived a sinless life. He faithfully taught God’s perfect will. He faithfully sacrificed himself on the cross to pay the price for our unfaithfulness. Christ is the means of salvation because he obeyed perfectly. He did not deserve to die, but he took our place on the cross. His death purchased for us something that we could not afford to purchase for ourselves – an eternal future.
We access the promise of eternal life by believing in Christ – who he was and what he did for us. Note the words “all who believe” in verse 22. It is important that we pay attention to those words because they indicate that the subject has changed. In verse 20, we read that no one is declared righteous before God. Another way of saying that is that everyone is declared unrighteous before God. So, the subject in verse 20 is everyone. But in verse 22, the scope is narrowed. The subject is now “all who believe.” So, when we get to verse 23, we read “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Most people read that verse as if it is talking about all human beings. It is true that all human beings are sinners. But remember that Paul had changed the subject.
Every believer has sinned and falls short of God’s glory (23)).
What Paul is doing here is saying that every saved believer begins his life as an unsaved sinner. He talks about sin in our past by saying that we have sinned. Then he talks about sin in our present by saying that we presently continue to fall short of God’s glory. He did not say that believers used to fall short before they were saved. He said we have sinned, and we do fall short – even now. Salvation is not based on our getting ourselves right with God. It is not picking ourselves up by our own bootstraps, straightening up, and flying right. We have sinned and we keep falling short of God’s glory. According to Romans 2:7, the glory of God is something believers are seeking, but presently fall short of.
That means that no matter how sincere we are, no matter how hard we try, we are not going to be able to save ourselves. We don’t have what it takes. If salvation is going to happen, it will have to come from outside us. The good news of the gospel is that it did.
Every believer is justified freely by God’s grace through Christ’s redemption (24).
When Paul says “They are justified” he has not changed the subject. The “they” in verse 24 is the “all who believe” in verse 22. So, the subject is every believer. The message is that every believer is justified. The promise is not that we might be saved. The promise is not that we are potentially saved. God does not put believers on a waiting list to see if they measure up. Every believer stands justified.
But what does it mean to be justified? It is important that we ask that question because the English word justified can mean different things. We sometimes use the word justified to mean that someone has committed a crime, but they are excused from paying the penalty for that crime because of the circumstances. For example, we say a person has committed justifiable homicide because the deed happened in such a way as to make the person not criminally guilty. That is not what Paul meant when he said that all believers are justified.
If you look back up in the text to verse 20, you will see the words “declared righteous.” That phrase translates the same Greek verb as the word “justified” in verse 24. A person who is justified is not excused for a crime that she or he has committed. We are not justified in the sense that God simply refuses to punish the crimes we have committed. We are justified because God has taken the punishment for those sins and placed that punishment upon Jesus as he hung on the cross.
Think about every sin you have ever committed. Now, look at Jesus as he hangs upon the cross at Calvary. When he hung upon that cross, all your sin hung there with him. When he died on that cross, all your guilt died there with him. He did not excuse your sins, he paid for them.
Paul says we are justified freely. We have problems understanding that concept today as well because we are used to all kinds of “free” things that come with strings attached. I got a text the other day saying that I qualified to get a free iPad, and all I had to do was fill in a survey. I filled in the survey, and they said I got the free iPad, and all I had to do was send some money for shipping. That’s not getting something freely. We are justified as a gift. Nothing we could do would ever pay the price for that gift.
Paul says we are justified by God’s grace. Grace is unmerited favor. Grace has no qualifications. Grace is “God’s riches at Christ’s expense.” We are justified by grace. If you are in Christ today, it is because God made a choice to draw you to him, and he didn’t make that choice based on what you deserve.
Paul says we are justified through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. He would later write to the Galatians that the only thing he can boast about is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Galatians 6:14). Christ’s death on the cross is the only means of redemption. It is the only answer to our universal condemnation. It is the only reason anyone anywhere can ever say “I am saved.”
In what way did Christ’s death on the cross redeem us? The term “redemption” comes from the world of bondage and slavery. You redeem someone by paying a ransom to release them from their bondage. Our redemption is in Christ Jesus. Christ’s death on the cross paid in full the debt that had kept us in bondage to sin. We are redeemed because of what he did for us. We will still struggle with sin in this life. Paul did. That is what Romans 7 is all about. But thanks be to God, we have God’s assurance that he will not condemn us. That is what Romans 8 is all about. That chapter begins with these words: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Why? Because of what Jesus did for us, we are redeemed from the permanent consequences of our sins. We have been set free from the law of sin and death and can now walk in the law of the Spirit of life.
Are you justified by his grace? Do you believe? If you cannot positively answer those questions, then don’t wait another minute. Come to Christ today.
jeffersonvann 