Justified By Faith Apart from Works

Transcript

GRM 518
3/16/1997
Justified By Faith Apart from Works
Romans 3:2131
Gil Rugh

We are ready to look into a portion of the book of Romans again tonight in the third chapter. It ties to what we've been studying in the book of Colossians. Romans chapter 3. I guess we could say that about any portion of the New Testament. It ties in some way to the book of Romans. Romans is so complete in its theology. It touches upon just about every facet of God's work in dealing with fallen humanity and providing His salvation.

I was interested in a quote by a man who wrote commentaries on Scripture. He said the supreme problem of life is how can a man get into a right relationship with God. The supreme problem of life is how can a man get into a right relationship with God. And I believe I've read all this man's commentaries and his autobiography and to the best of my knowledge he never did come into a right relationship with God. So writing about it is not enough. Knowing that that is the supreme problem of life is not enough. We must understand God's solution, God's answer, and respond according.

The book of Romans most of the first three chapters are taken up with unfolding the problem that man has. Beginning with chapter 1 verse 18 and through chapter 3 verse 20 Paul unfolds under the direction of the Spirit of God the fact that all are sinners and under condemnation. We are the objects of God's wrath. Not a pleasant subject. Not a popular subject. But the section begins in chapter 1 verse 18, "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven." So that wrath is a reality. And it's something that has to be faced and dealt with biblically.

In chapter 3 Paul has demonstrated that all, everyone, Jew and non-Jew alike, are under condemnation. Chapter 3 verse 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." There is no exception. No one is excluded. Verse 10 goes on with this series of quotes from the Old Testament. "There is none righteous, not even one." Verse 12, "All have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good; there is not even one." Down to verse 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." Everyone has been demonstrated to be guilty. Everyone has been shown to be accountable to God as their judge and under His just condemnation. "Because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight." By our best efforts, even the Jews in striving to keep the Law and its commandments which would be the best of human efforts, the result is failure. "No flesh will be justified in His sight by keeping the Law."


The tragedy is as we wonder how can a man write a statement "the supreme problem of life is how can a man get into right relationship with God," write commentaries on the New Testament and books on theological subjects and die without having come into that right relationship? It's very simple. It's the same way as people read verses like this, claim to believe the Bible and yet you ask them "How you are going to get to heaven?" and they say, "Oh, I try to keep the ten commandments." The Bible has already told us "by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified." You understand the 10 commandments are part of the Law. They summarize the Law of God in a concise and clear way, and no one will ever be saved by keeping the 10 commandments. No one will ever be saved by their works. "No flesh will be justified."

And that's the subject of the next major section of the book of Romans. Beginning with chapter 3 verse 21 and through chapter 5 verse 21 the subject is justification. How can a sinful person be justified before a holy God? And this section at the end of chapter 3 is really at the heart of what he says about justification and then chapters 4 and 5 will further develop and explain what he says in these versesthe last part of chapter 3.

Verse 21, "But now apart from the Law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the prophets." You see, the righteousness that man needs from God has been made available apart from the Law. Not by keeping the Law, not by our efforts in trying to be pleasing to God and doing the best we can. But the Law and the Prophets of the Old Testament they testify to the righteousness that God provides. But righteousness is not provided by trying to obey the Law and the Prophets. But the Law and the Prophets will point us to the righteousness that can be found in the provision that God makes.

Verse 22, "Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe." That's the provision. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

Back in chapter 1 verse 5 Paul talked about the fact "we have received grace and apostleship to bring to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name's sake." To call the Gentiles to obedience, believing in the salvation that God has provided.

In verse 16 of chapter 1, "For I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." And he's going to pick up that theme in chapter 3. This salvation by faith is for Jew and Gentile alike. So first he had to establish the Jew and Gentile alike were both under condemnation. And both needed the salvation, the righteousness, that God and God alone could provide. For in the Gospel verse 17, "The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, but the righteous man shall live by faith."

So we have the introduction to the book and really the theme of the book in verses 16 and 17. Then he began the first major division. First you have to understand sin. And he clearly and logically moves through a consideration of the Gospel that God has given.

We come back to chapter 3. The righteousness of God, that's what we need now, not man's righteousness, not the best that I do, not my accomplishment. Remember Isaiah said all our righteousnesses are like polluted rages in God's sight. The best that we have is polluted and filthy and defiled before Him. We need God's righteousness. It's the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. That's the means. God's righteousness is applied to us through faith in Jesus Christ, believing in Jesus Christ and what He has done, which will be elaborated for us. The object of faith becomes of utmost importance. It must be in the Person and work of Jesus Christ, not in a church, not in a religious activity whether baptism or communion or other things sometimes identified as sacraments which are another form of Law. Man becoming righteous by his deeds, his actions. That's been shown to be an impossibility. It's the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe. Righteousness comes through faith in Christ, and it comes through faith in Christ for everyone who will believe. And as we've been seeing in Colossians, it's a universal Gospel. And I think it is a universal provision and is available to all, but it is applied only to those who believe.

For there is no distinction and he's going to elaborate on this fact "there is no distinction." But he's already proved in the first three chapters that everyone needs this righteousness because all are sinners and justly condemned. When you say “there is none righteous, no not even one,” as he did in verse 10 of chapter 3, then it is clear that everyone needs the righteousness that God provides. Because no one has righteousness of his own that is acceptable before God there is no distinction.

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." That summarizes chapter 1 verse 18 through chapter 3 verse 20. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That would summarize that first major division of the book of Romans. Whatever distinctions there are among us, however we see ourselves different from others, one thing unites all of us as human beings. We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The glory of God is the perfection of His Person, that standard which must be met to be acceptable to Him. His glorythat's the standard. We fall short of His glory. Well of course we do. Well, that's the beginning point. You must acknowledge that. You fall short of the standard of God's glory because you've sinned, I've sinned. So all need this righteousness.

"Being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus which God displayed as a propitiation in His blood through faith." Many people today are saying that we ought to move away from theological terminology to reach people. I don't think Paul bought into that if you followed this statement "being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus being displayed publicly as a propitiation." Sounds like pretty heavy terminology and it is. And it carries a very serious and important message. The connection really goes to verse 22, "even the righteousness of God through faith in Christ Jesus for all those who believe." Verse 24, "Being justified as a gift by His grace." So the last part of verse 22 and all of verse 23 were sort of a parentheses in the thought that moves along. It's for all those who believe this righteousness.

"Being justified as a gift by His grace." Justified means to be declared righteous. We talked about that. The word "justification," the word "righteousness," the same basic word in the Greek language. To justify is to declare righteous. It's a judicial concept of the judge declaring something to be true of us by His grace. He declares us righteous because of what He has done on our behalf.

We are justified as a gift by His grace. And there's a redundancy here. Justified as a gift by His grace. Well, if it's a gift, it is what? To be free. It's not earned. It's not merited. It's something that's given to you. That's what makes it a gift. You get a paycheck but it's not a gift. You worked for it, at least part of it. Now he says we've been justified as a gift, something God bestows upon us, by His grace. Well, there's a redundancy here because grace means something unmerited or undeserved. Now the concept is the same as the gift. You say somebody gave me a gift. Wasn't that so kind of them. Why? Well, you know, I didn't do anything to earn it. I didn't work for it. They just gave me a gift. Well, grace means the same thing. We didn't earn it. We didn't work for it. We didn't merit it. It simply God has bestowed it upon us. Grace as unmerited, undeserved favor or blessing from God.

Now a reminder here. Man is contributing nothing to God's provision of righteousness. So, it's the righteousness of God through faith in Christ Jesus. We are given this righteousness, declared righteous, as a gift by His grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. Another theological word. We have justification. We have redemption. Redemption is the idea of setting free by paying a price, paying a ransom. So that's what has taken place. And this happens in Christ Jesus. We can only be set free in Christ Jesus by what He has accomplished for us. So tremendous theology compacted down to very concise form. And much of this truth will be drawn out in chapters 4 and 5 in explanation and elaboration.

But the work of justification is a gift; it comes by God's grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus who paid the price to set us free from sin. We've been talking about reconciliation in our study of Colossians chapter 1 where we are brought into right relationship with God. Justification is basic to that right relationship because the Judge declares us righteous in the context of the redemption that He has accomplished for us through Jesus Christ. What? The penalty for sin is death. That's been established. We are worthy. Christ Jesus died. He redeemed us. He paid the price necessary to set us free from bondage and slavery to sin which is death. The penalty's been paid. Like a person who has been set free. They commit a crime. They are sentenced to three years in prison. After three years they are set free. Why? The penalty's been paid. They paid it. Someone gets a speeding ticket. They go to court. They pay the ticket. All right, they are absolved in a sense. Why? The price has been paid. Now the penalty for our sin was deathphysical, spiritual, eternal death. Christ paid it. We are set free.

These two words become key wordsjustification, redemptionthat go with the word "reconciliation" that we are talking about. JustificationGod's action in declaring us righteous. Redemption like reconciliation implies that what? We are out of alignment with God. We are alienated from God. So redemption, the very definition indicates that what? We are enslaved to sin. We are in bondage and so must be set free by the paying of the price.

He goes on to elaborate the paying of the price of our redemption in Christ. You note the connection. "The redemption which is in Christ Jesus whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith." Jesus Christ through His blood. Do we see these same concepts in Colossians? They just permeate the Word of God because God's message of salvation is at the heart of all that He is unfolding in His Word, and we are talking about the salvation that centers in the death of His Son. He was displayed publicly as a propitiation. He was crucified. Capital punishment. A public humiliation. A public death. And He was publicly displayed as a propitiation. Propitiation. We sometimes say the word simply means "satisfaction." The concept of the word is "to turn away anger," to turn away anger, to turn away wrath. Something has been done which turns wrath away from you. What happened is that we satisfied the demands of God's holiness and righteousness. So remember we start in the first major section of Romans, chapter 1 verse 18, the wrath of God is being displayed. And so sinful man and women are under God's wrath. Now God's wrath has been turned away from us. That's the work of propitiation. Another great theological word. So now we've studied reconciliation in Colossians but in Romans we have justification, we have redemption, we have propitiation. God's wrath is turned away. His justice, His holiness, is satisfied because the penalty for sin has been paid. We are set free. We are declared righteous. His wrath is no longer manifested toward us.

Now we ought to have a more serious consideration of the subject than we often do. We get to a passage like Revelation chapter 14. There we are told that those who are in hell will bear the full brunt of the wrath of God. The picture there is it is unmixed with mercy. It's an awesome concept. A God of infinite love is also a God of infinite wrath. And those in hell for eternity will bear the brunt of the infinite wrath of an infinite God. That's why it's so important that we experience that work of Christ in justification and redemption and propitiation so that the wrath of God is turned away from us because the demands of justice have been satisfied.

"Whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith." Now the wrath of God was removed by the death of Christ potentially for everyone but in application only to those who believe. It's through faith. So the death of Christ in reality saves no one. There's a debate that goes on about this whole area and the work of the atonement, the extent of the atonement, and so on. But the fact of the matter is the death of Christ saved no one because it is through faith that that death is applied to us and so the wrath of God is turned away from us. It is through faith.

The simplicity of it is amazing, isn't it? We talk about the wrath of God and our concept of that is so limited. And we talk a lot more about the love of God than we do the wrath of God. To understand the magnitude of the wrath of God and the awfulness of that wrath causes us to appreciate the greatness and magnitude of His love that has rescued us from a deserved wrath and condemnation by His grace.

So God displayed Him publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. Why did He do it this way? This was demonstrate His righteousness. You see the character of God is at stake in this whole issue. Some would have us believe God is a God of love and He understands. And when it's all said and done He's going to look over our sin and forget it. The man that I read, the commentator at the beginning, who I said died without ever coming into that right relationship with God, he was a declared universalist. He believed when all said and done He would save and forgive everyone. Even today we have people backing off from the concept of an eternal hell. I mean people within the evangelical church. It's a concept to awful and to horrible to consider, but really it is the balance to the love of God in that perspective. His love is too overwhelming, too wonderful to consider. And yet it's true. And His wrath in one sense is more easily understood because it is deserved because we are sinful beings. His love is not deserved. It's just given as a gift. There's no explanation. For His wrath, explanation. I deserve it. I'm a sinner deserving of an eternal hell. And His love? What's the explanation? Grace. He just decided to do it, to show His love to us.

"This was to demonstrate His righteousness." First of all, we have to come to grips with He is a righteous God and that has to be worked out. Because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed. God previously did not pour out His wrath against sin on the fullness of that wrath. Oh, of course we study the Old Testament. We see God's wrath manifested toward Israel, toward other nations of the earth. But there was forgiveness down through history. And yet how does this fit with the righteousness of God. God forgave the sins of David. God forgave the sins. How did He do this? I mean, what's the explanation. If He's a righteous God, is that fair? I mean, you have a judge sitting on the throne and he's just saying, "Fine. It's forgiven. We'll pass over it. It's forgiven. We'll pass over it." Pretty soon we say he ought to be impeached. That's not just. That's not consistent with righteousness. So, you understand God sits on the throne of His creation. His righteousness has to be displayed in His forgiveness.

"And in the forbearance of God he passed over the sins previously committed." That cause some to think He wouldn't deal with them. It's like His delay in dealing with sin. But the fullness of wrath causes people to think, "Well, then He's just going to overlook it. It's not so serious." But God did this so that He might deal with sin one time for all mankind in the Person of His Son Jesus Christ.

"For the demonstration," verse 26, "at the present time of His righteousness." So, He passed over them so that He could demonstrate His righteousness at the present time. God never intended to compromise His righteous character by ignoring or forgetting about sin or the just requirement that the penalty for sin is death.

"But when the fullness of time was come God sent forth His Son." That was God's plan. "The fullness of time as Paul," as Paul writes. "At the present time," the time period in which he lived He demonstrated His righteousness. "So that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. We've one of the most important verses in all the New Testament. The balance if you will that God must be both just and the justifier. He cannot sacrifice His justice, His righteous character to declare me the sinner righteous but He must be the justifier of sinner in the context of being a just and righteous God. And so He must be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Christ.

"This is the demonstration of His righteousness that He might be just and the justifier." Here is the solution. It is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin. So these animals were sacrificed in the Old Testament and those who came with a heart of faith believing in God as the Savior were cleansed by God's grace. But how so? He declared them forgiven. How so? An animal could not take their place. God in His plan had provided a sacrifice. "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."

"That He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Christ Jesus." Now you note again. "The one who has faith in Christ Jesus." The provision of Christ is made. It is only applied to those who believe. We are not going down that route. But those who believe are those who experience the sovereign work of God. They would be the elect who have this applied to them. He'll talk about that in chapter 9 in particular and the doctrine of God's sovereignty in salvation. But here the point is made it's through faith in Jesus.

"Where then is boasting?" It is excluded. Why? It's the work of God. Man has been justified, declared righteous by God, because of the redemption that was provided through the blood of Christ. The payment was paid to satisfy the demands of righteousness, to set us free from sin. "So that the wrath of God could be propitiated," would be turned from us. So God is both the just and the justifier of all who have faith in Christ Jesus.

So verse 27, "Where then is boasting? It is excluded." When it comes to our redemption, our salvation, all boasting is included. All man can brag about it is being a sinner. And that's my accomplishment. I sinned. I am unable to help myself. There is no room for boasting. It is excluded. By what kind of Law? Of works? No! Because if you're saved by your works, you have something to boast about before God.

Just look over to chapter 4 verse 2, "If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about; but not before God." I mean, if Abraham was justified by works, he could boast about what he did, what he accomplish. But he couldn't boast about what God accomplished. But boasting is excluding. By law of works? No, but a law of faith. If you were saved by works, you'd have something to boast about. But the fact that salvation is by grace through faith means you have nothing to boast about, nothing to brag about, nothing to take credit for.

You know we don't understand this. I mean, we the church today and even the evangelical church. We hear ridiculous things like you know, you are so valuable. Christ had His Son die for you. So much for the concept of grace and gift. He got a worthwhile product. He purchased something of great value. Not in that sense. No.

All boasting is excluded. You understand according to verse 12 of chapter 3, "All have turned aside, together they have become . . . " very valuable. That's not what my Bible says. My Bible says useless. The idea that God has redeemed us ought to cause us to have a healthy sense of selfesteem. Where's boasting? It's excluded. What about my selfesteem? It's excluded too. Why? Because we're saved by faith. I mean it's God's doing. I was given a gift by His grace. I believed what He did in Christ.

Verse 28, "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the Law." Now, so that's consistent. A man is justified by faith apart from the works of the Law. And those would be again the greatest works. I mean, we talk about works, but the greatest works you could do would be the works of the Law because those would be the works that God had commanded. But we are justified by faith.

Now, we are pulling this together is what he's doing as we come to the end . . . through the end of the chapter. "Is He God of the Jews only. Is He is not God of the Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also." So you keep going around on this cause you understand the Jews thought they were an exceptional cause and God was there God and nobody else's God. But the work that God did in Christ was for Gentiles as well as Jews. So is He not the God of Gentiles also. "Yes, of Gentiles also since indeed God is one." And our Bibles have . . . different editions have done different things with this verse but in my . . . the Bible I'm using . . . the edition I'm using, the New American Standard Bible, it says, "Since indeed God," and the last two words of the verse are "is one." That's the connection. So, somewhere in your verse you should have that. You may have the words arranged differently. But the emphasis, since indeed God is one. That's the point. God is one. There is only one God. That means He must be the same God for Jews and Gentiles alike. There is only one God. Now the point on this is very, very important. Since there is only one God, there is only one way of salvation. Since God who will "justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith" is one." The God who will justify Jew and Gentile alike by faith is one. He's the God of Jew and Gentile. There is only one God. It's the God who will judge . . . who will justify all who are justified by faith. There are not two ways of salvation because there are not two gods. It should not be so difficult. And we ought to be anchored in this as God's people.

"Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law." Establish the Law how? Well, the Law was never intended as a means of salvation. The Law was simply to show us how sinful we were. The Law was a schoolmaster to oversee Israel until Christ came. But the Law was never a method of salvation. Because we've just established. There's only one God. If there's only God, there can only be one way of salvation. That leads into chapter 4. What is chapter 4 about? The salvation of Abraham. What he's going to do is take an illustration now from history pre-Law because Abraham, the life of Abraham begins in Genesis chapter 12. The Law is not given until Exodus chapter 19. There's 500 years between Abraham and the Law. And yet the Jews respected and recognized the greatness of Abraham. And what Paul is saying is now if we can find how God had saved one person down through history, we would know how God is going to save every person who's ever saved because there's only one God, there's only one way of salvation. Let's look at Abraham. How was Abraham saved? Well, chapter 4 verse 3 Abraham believed God, and God credited to Him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6).

So how was Abraham declared righteous? Abraham believed God and God credited to him as righteousness. So there's a demonstration. Abraham was saved by faith. Alright, let's sort out some of the problems as where he's going in chapter 4 and we're not going to go through the whole chapter. But verse 9 the Jews had problem. And the Judaizers had a problem. They thought circumcision was necessary to salvation. Well, you have to ask yourself. "Is this blessing," verse 9, then on the circumcised or ton the uncircumcised." We say faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it credited? When he was circumcised or uncircumcised? You realize Abraham was declared righteous by God in Genesis 15. Abraham was not circumcised till Genesis 17. Therefore circumcision cannot be necessary for salvation. Only faith. The argument is rather simple. It blew right by the Jews. It blows right by people today. People want to come and tell you; you need to be baptized to be saved. Oh, really. Let's go to Romans 4. Tie it to the end of Romans 3. Now I ask you when was Abraham baptized? Well, I don't know that he ever was but that's a different case. Uh, uh, uh, uh. No. That's the argument, isn't it? As far as we know, Abraham was never baptized. Is baptism necessary for salvation of course unless there's two gods. We've already established that. There's only one God. That's foundational to everything. If there's only one God, there's only one way to salvation. How did He save Abraham? Abraham believed God. God credited to him as righteousness. So then everything else ought to be cleared out, all the haze. What about these verses? Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins. Well, one thing we know they're not teaching that you have to baptized to be saved. Cause that's clearly established. You don't have to be circumcised to be saved. You don't have to take the communion service or any of the other sacraments to be saved.

I mean, you know, it's not so difficult. God's Word is clear and simple. Man likes to blow all kinds of smoke. Cause what? We want to get it back to where we can take charge. And our works become important. Our works have a place. They are an evidence of the salvation that occurs. Abraham demonstrated the genuineness of his faith with his actions such as being willing to sacrifice his son Isaac. James uses that argument in James chapter 2. But Abraham wasn't saved when he was willing to offer Isaac because Abraham was already saved (Genesis 15:6). It's a beautiful, clear simple picture.

Do you have to join a church to get saved? No. When did Abraham join church? Well, you know he was 2000 years early. He never did. He was dead, buried and turned to dust before the church ever was started yet he was saved. And the one God is going to save everyone the same wayby faith. Aren't you glad God made it so simple? I just take at what He said. The beauty of our salvation. Key concepts like reconciliation, justification, redemption, propitiation and it all centers in Jesus Christ. And all the blessings of that provision in Christ are applied and brought to me personally when by God's grace I believe. I place my faith in Christ. That's God's plan of salvation. Simple, clear and we must be anchored in it. It's God's response to the sinfulness of man. So the order in Romans is clearcondemnation, the sinfulness of man; justification, God's provision in Christ brought to man through faith. What a great plan. All done as a gift by God's grace.

Now we're ready. Send on Jehovah Witnesses. Send on the Mormons. Let the Church of Christ knock on my door. We'll go to Romans together chapter 3 and chapter 4 and resolve it. By God's grace they'll either believe and be saved or continue in their own efforts and try to accomplish their own salvation by their own doing. That's the only thing we have. We have either God's plan of salvation by grace through faith and all the restsalvation by man's best efforts. But by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight. So do people even try this track. The judge has already given the verdict. It won't work. So we give up and submit to Him, believing what He has provided. What a wonderful God. Let's pray together.

Thank you, Lord, for who you are. Lord, the beauty of Your plan of salvation and its simplicity has been brought to our heart by Your grace through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Lord, we cannot even take credit for the faith that we placed in the Gospel when we heard it. But by Your grace you opened our blinded eyes and caused us to see. You caused us to turn from our sin and trust in the One who loved us and died for us. Lord, we give you all the honor and all the glory. Indeed You are the God who is just. And You are the God who is the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus Christ. May the clarity and simplicity of this truth take hold of our hearts. Lord, may we have a confidence and a boldness to present this glorious truth in love to friends and loved ones, to those we come in contact with. Lord, may the confusion of false teaching not unsettle us, not confuse us. Lord, may we anchored in the simplicity, the beautiful simplicity of your truth that salvation is found in Christ and in Christ alone. That salvation becomes the personal experience of the individual when that one believes in the truth of the message concerning Christ. May the that be the message of this church until Christ comes. We pray in His name, amen.