Reformation Day commemorates Martin Luther nailing the 95 Theses on the church door at the Wittenburg Church. You see, Martin Luther was a brilliant law student at Erfurt, but felt that he needed to be right with God. Back then, the next logical step was to enter into the monastery --- which he did. He began a monk in the order of the Augustinians.

Luther did all his duties with the utmost diligence, but did not feel nor believe that he was one step closer to God. He did all the right things on the outside, but his heart was still sinful on the inside. Soon, though, God began to show Him how to truly be right with God. And when that truth sank in, Luther began to turn the whole world upside down with this glorious truth. And this truth is summed up in this paragraph of Romans 3:21-26.

Dr. Leon Morris believes this may be ‘possibly the most important single paragraph ever written.’ Consider all the great literature over history: Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Dante, Milton, Shakespeare, Keats, Wordsworth, and the list goes on to infinity. Consider all their great works and the paragraphs within those works. Then think that many scholars consider this paragraph the greatest ever written?!? It staggers the imagination.

This paragraph shows you how to be right with God. And as we shall see, we become right with God based upon God’s righteousness, not our own. 2 Samuel 22:31 sums up God’s righteousness concisely and precisely: “As for God, His way is perfect.” Newman Hall puts it this way:

God's wisdom cannot err. God's holiness cannot sin. God's love cannot be cruel. God's immutability cannot change. God's eternity cannot end. The perfection of God is a source of sweetest consolation to us, in our feebleness and foolishness. If He were not Omniscient, we might suffer and He not know. If He were not Omnipresent, we might cry and He not hear. If He were not Omnipotent, we might perish and He be unable to help. If He were not good, He would not care for us, or might crush us. "He is the Rock, His works are perfect, and all His ways are just." Deut. 32:4

That’s the righteousness of God. And He puts it on display in order to secure our salvation. Here is how.

God puts His righteousness on display by . . .

1. … showing us the proclaiming of His Spirit.

[21] But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— [22] the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

In starting with verse 21, we are really splashing right in the middle of Paul’s argument on being right with God. How can we tell? Because of the first two words: “but now.” This obviously denotes a transition, but this is no ordinary transition of no ordinary subject. When you consider the before-and-after of what is being discussed, you will see that this ‘but now’ is literally heaven sent --- a beacon in the darkness of dark nights.

Back in Romans 1:16-17, we see the theme of this letter:

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. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith."

Look at what two things the Gospel entails. One is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes; and (2) it reveals the righteousness of God from faith for faith, a faith by which the righteous live.

So verse 17 shows that God’s righteousness is revealed to those who believe. But to those who do not believe? Verse 18 tells us that it is God’s wrath. They have inexcusably rejected even God’s creative work and thus began worshiping not only created things, but created ideas that led them down the path of destruction.

Paul knew that the Jewish readers would read this and say, “See how pagan and wicked those Gentiles are? We have God’s Word --- therefore we under His favor.” Romans 2:13-16 makes clear that this is not correct:

[13] For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. [14] For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. [15] They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them [16] on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

But here is what caps it off. Romans 3:20 says, “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.” So to the one who was relying so heavily on keeping God’s law and doing all the proper rituals and making all the proper sacrifices thinking that these things would clear them of all charges against God were mistaken. The law was not designed to do that --- its design was to show us what sin is all about.

Pretty bleak, isn’t it? There is nothing that any of the 300 million citizens in the U.S. Nothing the 6.4 billion people on earth can do to work their way to God. Not one single person. The sinfulness of humanity is that extensive; the rebellion against God that serious.

“But now” --- in His absolute perfect timing, in His perfect way, like a beacon of hope, we see that this doesn’t not have to be the end of the story. There is hope to the hopeless, sight to the blind. We see that there is another type of righteousness. It is not the righteousness of man, but the righteousness of God!

And it is a righteousness that is apart from the law --- meaning that, one cannot be made right by only observing the law. Why? Because the Law cannot change hearts. It is God’s holy standard. The Law only shows us how unrighteous we are, not how righteous we can be.

2. … showing us the penalty of sin on His Son.

For there is no distinction: [23] for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith (Romans 3:22b-25a).

In 1515, two years before he nailed his 95 Theses on the Wittenburg church door, Martin Luther began teaching through Paul’s epistle to the Romans. Here is what he wrote upon reflection:

My situation was that, although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage him. Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement ‘the just shall live by faith.’ Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through the open doors of paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning… This passage of Paul became to me a gate to heaven.

Martin Luther was right. His conscience told him that there would be nothing he could do to earn his way to heaven. If God was just and if, as James tells us, we have broken one law we have broken them all, our condition is dire: “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Notice how Bishop Handley Moule puts it in rather stark terms: “The harlot, the liar, the murderer, are short of [God’s glory]; but so are you. Perhaps they stand at the bottom of a mine, and you on the crest of an Alp; but you are as little able to touch the stars as they.”But here again God puts His righteousness on display by justifying all those who would believe.

What does it mean to ‘justify?’ To justify means to clear one of all charges against them. It is much like someone who is brought to trial for all sorts of crimes --- little and big. He is facing not just a life sentence, but he is also facing a fate to where he knows that there is no way a jury would acquit him nor would he ever be eligible for parole.

When the jury reaches its verdict, it is as he expected: GUILTY! Multiple life sentences --- the equivalent of an eternity in earthly terms. Then the judge looks over the case and says, “All of these charges have been dropped. You are free to go!”

To a degree, that is what God has done. We have a long, long list of offenses not against the law of the state, but against the law of a holy God! We often believe that God only sees the things that are really wicked done by really wicked people are what God considers sin.

So that sin is on our account --- but we can be cleared of those charges. How? “By His grace as a gift.” How is this gift received? “By faith.”

Now here is where the story of the judge letting off that man breaks down when we put it up against what the Bible teaches. You see, the judge just let the man go free and wiped the penalty off the books.

But in the Scriptures, when someone sins, then someone needs to pay that debt. And that is the way it works in our courtrooms today. If you are found guilty, you must serve your time and pay your debt to society.

And this is the way it works before the bar of God. When we break one of His holy statutes, someone must pay that debt. The problem is, that debt cannot be paid. Because it is a God-law, not a man-law. A man can keep and repay a man-law, but a man cannot pay a God-law, because God-laws are holy and pure and true. And you know in your heart of hearts that you are not.

So we see that we are justified by His grace as a gift. What is the gift? Actually, it is not a what but a Who. We are justified “through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”

It was Jesus Christ who paid for our sins when we could not. It was Jesus Christ who perfectly displayed perfect righteousness because He is Holy God. It is Jesus Christ who as God kept God’s Law, but as perfect Man He was worthy to stand in our place as our substitute to pay a debt we could never pay even if we had a million years to work on it. How?

Paul says, first, that it was “through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” What in the world is redemption? To be redeemed means to be bought back. Originally, we were in perfect communion with God before sin entered into the world through Adam and Eve’s rebellion. Due to that sin, humanity is under a curse. But in Galatians 3:13, we read that, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’” We owe so very much to Christ for making us “twice alive.”

A gathering of friends at an English estate nearly turned to tragedy when one of the children strayed into deep water. The gardener heard the cries for help, plunged in, and rescued the drowning child. That youngster’s name was Winston Churchill. His grateful parents asked the gardener what they could do to reward him. He hesitated, then said, “I wish my son could go to college someday and become a doctor.” “We’ll see to it,” Churchill’s parents promised.

Years later, while Sir Winston was prime minister of England, he was stricken with pneumonia. The country’s best physician was summoned. His name was Dr. Alexander Fleming, the man who discovered penicillin. He was also the son of the gardener who had saved young Winston from drowning. Later Churchill remarked, “Rarely has one man owed his life twice to the same person.”

Rarely, indeed! But that is exactly where we are. We are born again --- thanks to Jesus redeeming us through His death on the cross! Peter was so correct when he said, “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:18-19).

The next word is propitiation. What is that? Basically, it is the placating of God’s wrath. Now, some believe this should be a term known as expiation which is God simply wiping away sins. They say that it sounds too much like the pagan gods that surrounded these nations who needed to be appeased by their subjects in order to have favor with them.

But propitiation is correct. Because God has been showing how His wrath has been revealed about all ungodliness and wickedness --- against all who suppress the truth by their unrighteousness, whether Jew or Gentile. Remember, God is a holy God. It is a righteous anger and wrath that He has against sin. He is indignant that we as His creation would offend His laws. And His wrath does need to be appeased.

But notice something. Whereas those pagan gods needed to be appeased by their subjects, God does something so radical that no human mind could have ever devised this part of the plan: God would appease His own wrath and indignation for us. How? Through Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

3. … showing us His staggering patience.

This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

John Stott explains that “God left unpunished the sins of former generations, letting the nations go their own way and overlooking their ignorance, not because of any injustice on his part, or with any those of condoning evil, but in his [patience], and only because it was his fixed intention in the fullness of time to punish these sins in the death of His Son.”

God let the nations go for a time, but when that time was up He sent His Son to be brought forward as a sacrifice for sins. Many of the nations thought that God was powerless and a façade because they could sin and sin and sin without any immediate and direct consequences. That was God’s patience.

In fact, Romans 2:4-5 says,

Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness leads you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

And that is what is happened somewhat in our day. Some live in their own will and ways, rejecting God, and think that since lightning hasn’t struck them then they will be able to get away with it. And some who are faithful and struggling in their Christian life see this as God not being just or fair.

Oh, but He is. And there will come a day when everyone will stand before Him and have to answer. This is where the phrase that Paul uses, that God is the one who is “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” He is just for paying for our sins and not letting them go, and He is the justifier in making us right with Him through faith in Jesus.

But for those of you who have rejected this free gift, you are not justified (i.e., made right) before God, so God will show that He is just when He calls you into account for your sin.

Conclusion

Isaac Watts wrote what is considered the greatest hymn ever written. With it we will close.

When I survey the wondrous cross,
On which the Prince of Glory died;
My richest gain, I count but loss;
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing and divine
Demands my soul my life my all.

---

Copyright © 2004 by Matthew Perry, Matt Perry Dot Com. All rights reserved. You are permitted to make up to 1000 copies of this sermon. All we ask is that you give proper credit to the author and the ministry/church in which he represents so we may engage in further ministery to all who read. Matthew Perry, Boone’s Creek Baptist Church, 185 N. Cleveland Rd., Lexington, KY 40509. (859) 263-5466.

To return to Matt Perry Dot Com, click here.