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. ~ Romans 3:22-24
The book of Romans is divided up into five parts: Chapters 1-3 are about the sinful condition of man. Chapters 4-5 are about salvation. Chapters 6-8 are about sanctification. Chapters 9-11 are about the sovereignty of God, and chapters 12-16 are about service. The last section of this epistle reveals the ultimate point to the book: a life of service to God and for others.
After evaluating man’s failed efforts to get life right for himself and to achieve some kind of standing before God, God chose to reveal His righteousness to man through the gospel of His Son. Through the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, God has made it possible for man to be made right with Him without lowering His standards. The requirement for us to be made right before Him is an act of our will to choose to trust that His Son's finished work on the cross procured His forgiveness of our sin.
In v.22 of today's passage we read, "This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile."
This word "righteousness" is a highly misunderstood word in today's world. Most associate it with good behavior. Man largely believes if his good behavior outweighs his bad behavior, God will have no other choice but to accept him into His heaven. But, this is not so according to the Bible. As pointed out in Romans 1:18 we were all sinful before we sinned. More than an action, sin is a condition. This is a key to understand because we see sin as less than it is. In fact, this is why we think some are more sinful than others. This is not the case. It is that some act on their sinfulness more wickedly than others. But, we are all equally wicked.
"Righteousness" is God's standard. That means if we are not totally perfect and without sin, we can not enter into God's presence. The Lord Jesus came to deliver to wicked man the gift of salvation and it is for the taking for anyone willing to place our faith in His finished work on the cross for the removal of our sinful condition. Righteousness, in this case, is positional perfection. The believer in Christ will not know practical perfection until he is in heaven. It is the perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ applied to us that makes us positionally righteous before the holy and just God of the Bible.
We will never know this positional rightness before God until we decide to own up to our wickedness and our inability to get life right. And then, we choose to believe in the fact that the Lord Jesus died in our place. It is not until we receive the free gift of forgiveness of our sin that we will out of our accepted status in Christ enjoy a personal relationship with God. When we have come to this place, God will view us through the lens of His Son and His perfection. This, as a result, sets us on a journey whereby God will define us as we learn His culture through His word, the Bible. But, make no mistake about: No good behavior on our behalf will ever earn God's favor. The good behavior that follows salvation is the topic of Romans 6-8 which we will consider at a later time.
In v.23 of today's passage we read, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
All of mankind is in the same tragic situation. No mere man has ever escaped the taint of evil and sin. We lack a biblical understanding of sin because we see sin as an action. Long before sin was an action it was a condition. It was due to the fact that we were conceived into sin that we were separated from God. Not all have sinned to the same degree, but all have the same inability to measuring up to the standard that is required by God to remove that which separates us from Him. Our sinfulness has caused us to come up short of the glory of God so that we can not remotely be safe in His presence.
In v.24 of today's passage we read, "and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."
Through Christ, God has made it possible for us to be declared righteous "as a gift by His grace." The only way we can be made right before God is that we are granted the gift of salvation by Him through His Son. Grace is free only because the Giver Himself has borne the cost. This gift of forgiveness is not a wage; it is not something that we earn. In fact, it is a gift of His grace given to establish us as righteous before God. We do not deserve it and we never will. This is grace in its purest form.
Throughout his writings, the Apostle Paul uses the word "grace" which is the undeserved and unmerited favor of God. Once we have placed our faith in the Lord Jesus and the work He accomplished on the cross, our redemption frees us from our condition of bondage, captivity, enslavement and debt to God. In fact, there was no way out of that dark dungeon for us. Grace informs us that there is no cost to us for our redemption, but, it came at an incredible cost for the Lord Jesus. This is what redemption is, it is freedom achieved by the payment of a price. The price paid was the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. He gave His life which was the only payment that could secure our freedom. I find it most interesting that in His teachings, the Lord Jesus never used the word "grace" itself. He did far more than that though. He taught and He lived grace, and, He has not stopped.
The word "redemption" appears ten times in the New Testament. It always delivers the idea of deliverance by payment of a ransom. In this case, we have been delivered from the wrath of God so that we can enjoy all of the good things about God. This underscores what God's wrath is. God's wrath is the absence of all that is good. And, to be "redeemed" delivers the idea that our sin has been removed from us because the justice and wrath of God has been satisfied.
In 2 Corinthians 5:21 we read, "Christ had no sin, but God made him become sin so that in Christ we could become right with God."
God treated the Lord Jesus as if He had committed our sins. As a result, He punished Him fully with all His wrath. While hanging on the cross, in just a matter of hours, this One who is an infinite being, took an infinite amount of punishment upon Himself for you and me. He bore all the wrath of God for all who have ever sinned and all who will yet sin. Through His death on the cross, all of the righteous demands of God were satisfied. It is the grace of God that enables us to choose Him with no strings attached. In that context love can grow. And, it will grow, because it is His grace that enables us to see His heart.
