“21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 He did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”
I want you to imagine that someone is angry with you—maybe it is your mother; maybe it is your spouse; maybe it is your boss—choose whomever one makes you most anxious. You have harmed this person—maybe you betrayed their confidence; maybe you embarrassed them; maybe you slandered them—choose whatever one makes you most anxious. There is nothing you can do to make it right. Your choices have introduced a new reality into this relationship, and you cannot return your relationship to the way it was. I want you to sit with that for a moment. Notice the thoughts that are going through your head. Maybe you can notice the anxiety in your body—a tight neck, a clenched jaw.
This important person is understandably angry with you and there is nothing you can do to make it right. Now I want you to imagine that this person is God. You have betrayed His trust by your sin. You have slandered Him by your sin. There is no way for you to put it right, and you can’t change your behavior.
You are now in a position to understand Luther before the Reformation. He rightly understood that God was and is rightly angry with sinners. Luther came to understand that God justifies sinners and that He justifies them through faith in Jesus Christ. That is our focus this Reformation Sunday and that is the claim of this sermon: God justifies sinners through faith in Jesus Christ.
We will study this in four points. First: righteous by faith. Second: falling short and being justified. Third: the sacrifice for sinners. Fourth: the justice of God. The relevant verses are on your outline.
First: righteous by faith. Martin Luther was haunted by the phrase “the righteousness of God.” He thought it was something that he needed to achieve. He needed to change himself to become righteous. He was not only haunted by “the righteousness of God”, he was haunted by the idea of a righteous God. He wrote, “Not only did I not love, but I actually hated the righteous God who punishes sinners…Thus a furious battle raged within my perplexed conscience.”
Luther rightly saw that he needed to be righteousness—righteous not primarily in his own sight but righteous in God’s sight; that truly is humanity’s most fundamental need. Luther recognized that God was rightly angry with his sin. Luther recognized that he would not and could not achieve this righteousness God desired by way of God’s commands; that’s why he saw verse 23 as such good news, “now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.”
Luther came to see that he could be righteous apart from the law of God because its commandments weren’t intended to make him righteous. The law was given to reveal unrighteousness. If you think you are loving, the love commands will show you how very poorly you love. If you think you are merciful, the mercy commands will show you how very unmerciful you are. Now, the law doesn’t make you unloving or unmerciful any more than an MRI gives someone cancer; it, like an MRI, simply reveals what is already there, and what is already there in you and me is unrighteousness.
We must become righteous; that is our most fundamental need, and it isn’t the law that makes us righteous; it is faith that makes us righteous—specifically faith in Jesus Christ; as Paul put it, “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” This set Luther free. Jesus set Luther free by doing for Luther what Luther couldn’t do for himself. Struggle as he might, Luther couldn’t become righteous in his own sight let alone in God’s sight. Jesus was willing to give that righteousness to Luther; the cross demonstrated that; the cross transferred that; all Luther had to do was receive it. Faith is the hand that takes the gift of righteousness from God. This is how the unrighteous become righteous.
This has always been the only way to righteousness. That’s why, in verse 21, Paul referred to this as the righteousness, “to which the Law and the Prophets testify.” It isn’t as if God tried to justify people by way of the law in the Old Testament, saw that was a failure, gave up on that, and sent His Son. He always planned to justify people by way of faith in Christ. That’s what we’ve been seeing for nineteen weeks now with Abraham. How was Abraham made righteous? “He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.” What was it about God that Abraham believed? The promises. The promises about whom? The promises about Jesus Christ; “this righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” This was, is, and will be the only way to become righteous.
This is the only way for anybody and everybody to become righteous. That’s our second point: falling short and being justified. There is only one way to be made righteous. It isn’t as if there is one way to be saved for those who grew up knowing God’s commands and another way to be saved for those who have never heard God’s commands; that’s verse 22, “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
To this point in book of Romans, Paul has been comparing those who don’t have the law with those who do have the law. He has been comparing Gentiles with Jews. He didn’t find any difference when it came to righteousness. The law did not make the Jews righteous. That’s why parents can give command after command without generating obedience. The problem isn’t the commands; the problem is, as verse 23 puts it, that, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
This glory of God of which we’ve all fallen short is most likely the glory humanity enjoyed before the fall into sin. We shared in some aspects of the divine glory. We were like God. Now we are not. Every newscast and every diary entry reveals that we are not like God. That is true for me. That is true for you. That is true for whoever you respect the most. That is true for whoever you respect the least. Here’s what’s true, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
The person you respect the most can only be justified by God’s grace which comes through faith in Jesus. The person who you respect the least can be justified freely by God’s grace which comes through faith in Jesus. It is equally available to both of them, and to you, because it is a gift; it is grace. God was under no compulsion to offer it to the person you respect most; He sees no reason not to offer it to the person you respect least. It can’t be earned. It can’t be deserved. It is grace.
Since it is grace, the only way it can be received is by faith. The only way to obtain a gift is to receive it; the only way to obtain this gift of God is to receive it. Faith is your act of reception. When Jackson professes his faith, what he’s saying is that he has opened this gift. Faith knows that it is not cashing a check but is rather opening a gift. You earn a paycheck; it makes no sense to talk about earning a gift.
This gift is made possible by way of sacrifice; that’s our third point: the sacrifice for sinners. Being sorry is not enough to be forgiven. If human sorrow for sin was enough to produce forgiveness, God never would have sent His Son. In order for sinners to become righteous, a sacrifice must be made; verse 25, “God presented him [meaning Jesus] as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”
Sinners like us can become righteous because a righteous sacrifice was made. Now the word in verse 25 which is translated as “sacrifice of atonement,” is translated in Hebrews 9 as “the mercy seat” and in almost all 28 occurrences in the Old Testament as “the mercy seat.” This is the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant. A somewhat recent dissertation out of Cambridge makes a very persuasive argument that it should also translated as “mercy seat” here in Romans 3; “God publicly displayed [Jesus] at his death as the mercy seat accessible through faith,” as the NET Bible does translate it.
Please pull up our picture of the ark of the covenant. Here you see what it means for, “God [to] publicly display [Jesus] at his death as the mercy seat accessible through faith.” Inside the ark are the two copies of the covenant summary, which we call the Ten Commandments. Above them is the mercy seat. On that mercy seat is blood and above that blood, between the cherubim, is a manifestation of the presence of God.
This is an illustration of the ark of the covenant on the Day of Atonement. Once a year, the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies to make atonement for the sins of the people. He made atonement by way of blood. Blood of bulls and goats was placed on the mercy seat as a substitute for the death of sinners. That blood was a substitute for the blood of the people. The Day of the Atonement was the day on which God and the people, in the form of the high priest, were symbolically reconciled by the blood of a substitute. They could stand before the presence of God between the cherubim. The crucifixion of Christ was the day of which God and the people were actually reconciled by the blood of a substitute which allows us to stand before the presence of the Father.
The blood of Christ’s sacrifice is what makes it possible for sinners like us to stand unafraid in the presence of a holy God just as the high priest could stand unafraid before God in the Holy of Holies. We can do so because someone has died for what we have done. What was hidden in the Holy of Holies was made public at Golgotha. As Peter Stuhlmacher puts it, “The Christian’s [mercy seat] no longer exists hidden in the Holy of Holies of the temple but is revealed to all in the form of Christ hanging on the cross.”
This means that we don’t draw near God today because He has somehow lightened up on sin. We draw near because sin has been dealt with for us who have faith in Christ. That is the cross. That is the justice of God. That’s our final point: the justice of God.
We’ve been thinking about how it is that sinners like us can be made right with God. Now we will consider how a righteous God can justify unrighteous and still be considered righteous. How can a just Judge justify sinners and still be just?
Imagine a father walking into a middle of a fight between his children—not an uncommon situation. There is yelling and tears. When he finally gets to the bottom of the situation, it is clear that Bobby maliciously hurt Suzie. Now this father loves Suzie, but he also loves Bobby. He decides to justify Bobby, which is to say that he decides to declare that Bobby is right in his eyes. Now, what will Suzie, was sinned against, think of that? That’s the same question you need to ask when you think about God justifying sinners, including a sinner like you.
The Day of Atonement begged that question. Let’s take David for example. The Day of Atonement was a sign that God justified repentant David. God declared David in the right after David took advantage of Bathsheba and killed her husband Uriah. He declared David in the right because some bulls and goats were killed, and their blood was sprinkled on this mercy seat. Does that seem just? Those are the sorts of unpunished sins that Paul was talking about in verse 25, “in His forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished” as in before the crucifixion.
The blood of Christ reveals the only way in which that can be considered just. The adultery, murder, and lies perpetrated by David were more than sufficiently punished at the cross. Think about it from the perspective of Uriah’s mother. David killed her son to steal his wife, her daughter-in-law. Do you think that Uriah’s mother would have preferred the death of bulls and goats or the death of David? She would have preferred the death of David. There you see that the Day of Atonement had to point to something beyond itself. Now imagine God Himself taking on flesh and telling Uriah’s mother that He Himself would die in David’s place. What could she say to that? She would have to say that if God were to do that, she would have to acknowledge that David was justified and she would have to acknowledge that God was just to say that David was justified; the sin had been atoned for and God could declare David righteous; that’s verse 26, “He did it to demonstrate His justice at the present time, so as to be just and the One who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”
Martin Luther found that justification. He came to see God as just and himself as justified. He didn’t do so by way of the commands. He didn’t do so by lightening up and imagining that his sin somehow no longer deserved death. He did so by way of faith in Christ, the sacrifice for sinners. He did so by submitting to the justice of God seen at the cross.
If you have found that justification, you know that it has nothing to do with what you have done and everything to do with what Christ has done. You have simply received and that has changed and is changing your life.
If you have not received justification by way of faith in Christ crucified, consider your situation before God. You have and are offending God by your sin. The cross shows you that sin deserves death. There is nothing you can do to un-sin yourself. Your attempts will only make matters worse because you are a sinner.
Stop trying to justify yourself. If you could justify yourself, God never would have sent His Son as a justification for sinners. Stop putting faith in yourself. You cannot help you. Put faith in Christ crucified. That’s what Jackson is declaring that he has done. That is what GOd is inviting you to do. That is the only way to be righteous in God’s sight, and that is your most fumdamental need. Amen.