One Judgement, One Rescue
Passage Romans 3:9-31
Speaker Hugh Bourne
Service Morning
Series Training for Mission
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9 What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. 10 As it is written:
‘There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.’
13 ‘Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practise deceit.’
‘The poison of vipers is on their lips.’
14 ‘Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.’
15 ‘Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 ruin and misery mark their ways,
17 and the way of peace they do not know.’
18 ‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.’
19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.
21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood – to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished 26 – he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the ‘law’ that requires faith. 28 For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30 since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 31 Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.
Holy Bible, New International Version® Anglicized, NIV® Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
This transcript has been automatically generated, and therefore may not be 100% accurate.
Roland, thank you very much. Well, please do keep your bibles open in romans chapter three. Now, over the last few weeks, if you've been with us, we've been looking at this letter from Paul to the christians in Rome. And I wonder what you're feeling so far. In chapter one, we saw particularly God's wrath coming against ungodly gentiles.
And in chapter two, we saw God's judgement against judgmental jews. And we might be thinking, well, I'm fine. This isn't really talking to me, is it? I'm not like those ungodly gentiles and I'm not like those judgmental jews. This is fine, isn't it?
Well, no. Paul is going to continue his argument into chapter three. He's going to continue to explain the message of God's judgement and it's going to be a message which affects all of us personally, whether Jew or Gentile, good or bad or anything in between. And we're going to see two things this morning. We're going to see that there is one judgement.
Everyone comes under God's judgement. But we will see too, that there is one rescue. First, let's consider that one judgement. So remember what we've seen so far. Chapter one, we've seen that the ungodly will face God's judgement.
Chapter two, we've seen that the religious, the godly will face God's judgement. And in chapter three, we see there is one judgement. Jews and gentiles alike are under sin. Look with me at verse nine.
What then? Are we jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin.
And to emphasise the point, to emphasise the point that all people are under sin, are under God's right judgement. He's going to quote from the scriptures. That's what he does in verses ten to 18. You'll see there, those slightly indented texts there, that's pointing out that he's quoting from different parts of scripture, mostly from the psalms, all from the Old Testament. And he points out different things.
He says, no one is righteous. No, not one. No one's like God. No one's good enough, no one's met God's standards. No one is righteous.
He says there's no one who seeks God. He said that in chapter one, didn't we? We suppress the truth about God. Far from seeking him, we go the other way. We say no to God and go our own way.
He reminds us here too, of the effect that sin has on humanity. Sin affects our words. At verse 13, their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. Affects the way we speak, affects the way we live.
Sin to affects our relationships. Verse 15. Their feet are swift to shed blood. In their paths are ruin and misery and the way of peace they have not known. Swift to shed blood.
Sin affects relationship between humans. And you might think, well, isn't Paul just exaggerating to make his point? I mean, look what he says in verse twelve. All have turned away together, become worthless. No one does good.
Not even one. He might. Really? Really, Paul, no one does good. There's no one who does good.
Is that what you're saying? He says yes. Really? Yes. There's no one who ultimately does good.
Because everyone is as he describes here, under sin. Everyone and everything is affected, even for the outwardly good and religious. Because Paul says in verse 19 to 20, your obedience to the law, your. Your goodness, if you like, won't make you righteous. In fact, it only highlights that you're under sin.
Look what he says. Verse 20. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight. Since through the law comes knowledge of sin, not only will the law not make you right, it actually serves to show you how wrong you are. That's what the law does.
Tim Keller described it like this. The law is not a checklist we keep, but a benchmark we fail. No one can look at the law of God and say, look at all the things I've done. Look how righteous I am.
The law looks at everyone and says, you have not made the grade. You are not righteous. You see, we all, whether godly or ungodly, stand under God's righteous judgement.
And in fact, verse 19, we're silenced. Do you see that? Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law. So that every mouth may be stopped. We're silenced.
There's no defence, no case to plead. We are bound to rights. And the verdict has already been set. We read that in chapter one, verse 32.
Those under sin deserves death. We all of us, find ourselves under one judgement, God's righteous judgement. We saw it in chapter one. We saw it in chapter two. And here Paul emphasises it again.
All of us rightly come under God's one judgement. But he goes on. He goes on to describe one rescue. Here's the logic of the argument. If Jews and Gentiles, godly and ungodly, are both under the same judgement, then they both need the same rescue.
One judgement and one rescue but what kind of rescue will it be? What kind of rescue is needed? It can't simply be one of improving us, cleaning us up a little bit on the outside, because verse 20 was clear. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified. Rather, it needs to be a rescue which deals with our fundamental problem, the problem of being under sin and by consequence, being under God's righteous judgement.
You see, the law was not able to make humans righteous. So God steps in verse 21. But now something's about to change. God is about to step in and change the situation. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.
Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, something new is about to happen. We cannot be made righteous. We cannot be made like God through obeying the law. So God is going to reveal something new, a righteousness apart from the law. It's not completely new, though the law and the prophets have already borne witness about it.
But God is going to bring his righteousness to us. Okay, how do I get this righteousness? How do I get this right? Standing before God or followed along? Verse 22, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.
Okay, here's how I get the righteousness, not through works of the law, but through faith, through trust, through belief in Jesus Christ. Righteousness comes through faith alone. This was one of the core pillars of the Reformation, the 16th century rediscovery of the gospel of grace across Europe. Martin Luther and others grasped this truth afresh, that my righteousness, my good standing before God, didn't come from the good things I do, but only came through faith, trust in Jesus Christ. And people died for the importance of this message because, as chapter one put it, they were not ashamed of the gospel.
They were not ashamed to say that the only way of salvation, the only way to be right before God, was through faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the only way to gain righteousness. Because if he hasn't said it enough already, he says it again in verse 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There's no one righteous. Everyone's under sin.
Everyone has fallen short. They've missed the mark. They've not hit the standard. We need another way. We need God to step in, as he does in verse 21, and reveal a new righteousness, one received through faith in Jesus Christ.
What follows, then, is a brief but technical explanation of the gospel, of the kind of rescue that we need, the explanation of how righteousness can be received by faith and it involves three key words, justification, redemption, and propitiation. And the first two are things which happen to us. How do we become righteous through faith? Well, it's there in verse 24.
And are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Justified. Justification, it's a legal word. It's like the judge in the courtroom bringing down a new verdict, not death, but rather not guilty. And more than that, it's a declaration of righteousness, not only to say, you are not guilty, but you are righteous.
You have a right standing before me. God says. And Paul adds in here, two qualifiers.
How is this justification, this new legal verdict, received freely and grace? Translated here, but by his grace as a gift. He's saying, it's free, which means you didn't earn it. There's nothing you did to earn God's approval, to earn God's new verdict, to earn that justification. It's free, and it's a gift of grace, which means you didn't deserve it.
It's not something you earned or deserved. It's something he gave you as a gift. Justification, God's declaration that you're not guilty, that before him, you're righteous. Second word, redemption. It's a slave trading word.
It's talking about money, a payment being exchanged, a ransom to set someone free. You see, what he's saying here is that the Christian is no longer under sin, no longer under judgement, so there's no more condemnation, as he will say in chapter eight. But in Christ Jesus, a payment has been made to set you free. You are. You have been redeemed in Christ, declared righteous, and set free.
But how we see here, that's what God does. That's what he declares. He declares you righteous. He sets you free. But how?
We'll come to our third word, propitiation, sometimes translated, sacrifice of atonement, is there in verse 25, talking of Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.
The word here translated is a greek word which I won't pronounce correctly, but I'll say it anyway. It's a greek word, helasterios, and it's not a common word. It's not used very often in the New Testament. But where it is used is to translate something we see in the Old Testament. On top of the ark of the covenant sat the mercy seat.
And this word, helasterios, propitiation, is the word used to translate the mercy seat, the top of the ark of the covenant, where blood would be sprinkled and atonement would be made for sins. An animal would be sacrificed, symbolically carrying the sins of the people. Blood would be offered and God would accept this sacrifice. A payment, a restitution, a just punishment for sins. Blood was spilled so that the people may live.
So when Paul describes Jesus as a propitiation, as a mercy seat, he's describing the cross, Jesus' blood shed, paying the death penalty for sins that his people may live. We sometimes describe what Jesus is doing here as absorbing, satisfying or turning aside God's wrath. That of course is our biggest problem, that we need rescuing from his righteous judgement. You see, it's not that God suspends justice. He doesn't decide that sins don't matter.
No, he punishes them. That's what he does at the cross. That's why he speaks in terms of propitiation. As we saw in chapter one, his wrath is being revealed against all sin.
But Jesus comes as the sin bearer, the one who carries the weight of our sins on his shoulder, the one who stands in our place, the one who takes on himself God's judgement that we might live. He explains this a little further in verses 25 to 26.
Says he doesn't forget about sins. Says there in verse 26, he's the one who's just and the one who justifies. He's just. He doesn't leave sins unpunished. Sin must be punished because he's just.
But he's also the justifier. He's the one who's able to forgive and declare his people righteous. And we read he did it because he's patient, he's so wonderfully kind.
Rescue is possible. I can be declared righteous. My life can be redeemed. Because Jesus' blood pays for my sin. He covers my guilt and through faith I may receive his righteousness.
I may take hold of his perfect life.
You see what Paul is really saying? He's saying say no to anything for righteousness except faith in Jesus Christ.
Say no, especially to thinking that your good life, all the good things you do, say no to thinking that that will make you righteous before God. And actually say no to this vague idea that because God is so loving and kind, somehow he'll just magic sins away, that he'll be able to forgive everyone. No, that's not how he deals with sin, because he's just. He deals with sins. At the cross, Jesus takes the just punishment for sins that we might live.
Only faith in Christ and his death for me and his life given for me is the way to receive his righteousness. So if we're all under the same judgement and all need the same rescue, and it's only possible through Jesus Christ, then as verse 27 says, there's no place for boasting, then what becomes of our boasting? Answer, there's no place for boasting. It's gone. It would be ridiculous.
You didn't do anything to contribute to your salvation. There's no righteousness that you can earn. It's a gift freely given of his grace. You can't boast about that. You can't boast about what Jesus has done for you except to share it with joy, with others.
But if there's no place for boasting, there's also no place for feeling ashamed. There's no place for feeling like I don't belong.
No sense in feeling that I've made too many mistakes, that God wouldn't possibly love me, that this church family wouldn't welcome me. Well, no, because we all came here the same way. Not through what we did, but through what Jesus has done for us. And if you are feeling ashamed, that's why Jesus died. He died for that shame that you might not face it.
If there's no place for boasting, there's no place for feeling ashamed. There's no reason to exclude, is there? All are welcome here. Because salvation is not something that we give, it's something that Jesus gives. We all need his grace.
We all need his welcome. So why do we keep coming back to this? Isn't this just christian basics? The cross? We talk about it a lot, don't we?
We keep coming back to it because we need to keep reminding ourselves that this is the way to rescue through Jesus Christ alone. Because if I stop reminding myself of that, I'll veer towards thinking it's about me. I'll veer towards thinking it's about the good things I've done, or I'll feel crushed and broken when I mess up. No, it's only ever been about faith in Jesus Christ.
There's a scottish pastor who works in the United States called Alistair Begg. And he tells a story where he imagines the thief on the cross, you know, the thief next to Jesus, to whom jesus turns and says, today you will be with me in paradise. And he imagines the scene where this thief arrives in paradise, comes to the gates of heaven. And those working the doors, I'm not sure how the vision works, but those working the doors ask him, how did you get here?
And the thing is, he's got very little to say.
He hasn't got any good works to point to. He was a terrorist. He was a criminal. He was, as he said, rightly hung on a cross. He's got very little religious knowledge.
He didn't really even know who Jesus was. And he's certainly not really done anything to serve his local church. There's nothing that he can say. There's nothing he can point to in himself to say, here's a reason why I'm here today. No, the only thing he's able to say is this.
The man on the middle cross said I could come.
That's it. That's all he's got to offer? That's all he needs. It's all he needs. The man on the middle cross said I could come.
And today, the man on the middle cross, Jesus Christ, invites you to come, perhaps to come afresh, perhaps because we've come before and need to be reminded, Jesus Christ is the only way to come. And whatever we've done, in all the ways we've messed up, he invites us to come afresh today. Or perhaps he's inviting you for the first time to come. Friends, we're not here. We don't come because we're perfect.
We only come because of Jesus Christ. And so if that's you today, perhaps you're completely new to church. Perhaps this is the first sermon you've heard, the first news of Jesus Christ. Friends, this is all you need to know. Jesus Christ invites you to come.
Trust in him and find life in him. Amen.