The Cross and Justification, Part 1 | Christ, His Cross, His Church

Romans 3 :21-31

I invite you to turn as we begin. I’d just like to begin by reading the text that we’re going to look at in the session in Romans chapter 3, in verse 21, we read this, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it – the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 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.

“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. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.

“For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one – who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.”

 This text answers the question: How can a man be right with God? How can a sinful man, a sinful woman, be right with God? And what is the outcome of that when it comes to our view of ourselves in relationship to Christ? The gospel leaves us with no human boasting whatsoever. If you want to have a manner of self-righteousness, pride in who you are, the gospel’s not for you. You’re in the wrong place, because the gospel leaves no room for human boasting whatsoever.

 Indeed, what we’re going to see is kind of a twofold respect, in which Paul undermines and takes away all grounds of human glory, of human boasting. He takes it all away and leaves nothing for us except to glory in Christ, to glory in the cross alone. Now before we get to our text in Romans chapter three, if you’re taking notes, you can take this down as your first point; to see that the law forbids boasting.

 The law forbids boasting, and then we’ll see later that the Gospel forbids boasting. Coming and going, the biblical message forbids any boasting by man. Paul starts with the wrath of God and says, the first thing you need to know about the gospel is the existence of the wrath of God. Paul says, I’m here to preach the gospel to you.

 Let’s start with the wrath of God. That’s pretty sobering. That instills a sense of fear in our heart. And what he does in the ensuing chapters, all the way through chapter 1, chapter 2 down to chapter 3, verse 20, is that he is showing, and he’s making an explanation to show that both Jews and Gentiles alike need a gospel to save them from their sin. They need good news. They need deliverance. They need salvation, Jew and Gentile alike.

 Now, to us that, you know, that’s we’re so familiar with that, that, that, kind of makes sense to us. We’re used to hearing that. But to a Jew, this would just be utterly revolutionary, to think that they were on the same plane as a Gentile in the need of the gospel. After all, they were the chosen race. They had received the oracles of God. They were the ones who were the instructors of the law.

 And so, to come to them, to level their pride, to take away their glory and say a Jew needs salvation as much as a Gentile does, was a radical thought for Paul to be making. And that’s the argument that he unpacks in Romans chapter 1, Romans chapter 2, and he works that argument out in meticulous detail until you come to Romans chapter 3 and verse 10, and you read this in verse, actually, let’s start in verse 9. You see the point that I was just making? He says, 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.

 “As it is written: None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” And so, in this explanation of the implications and the judgement of God, the judgement that the law brings, the guilt that men have before God, we see that it is impossible for men to boast in any way whatsoever. The law condemns us all. The law pronounces us guilty before a holy God, and therefore we obviously have no means, no grounds, no basis for boasting before him, in and of ourselves. Now let’s go from there to the point of the gospel.

 And the second point is that the gospel likewise forbids boasting. And as you work through these things, and as I was preparing this message specifically for this conference, it just overwhelmed me with the just, the multiplied ways in which the gospel of Christ, and specifically the doctrine of justification, completely, repeatedly, conclusively, finally silences all manner of human pride. If we are Christians at all, we must realize that it is not for our glory, or to our glory, to our praise, or to our congratulation. It’s all to the glory of God, and our boasting is put away.

 Now, if Paul had ended with verse 20 and verse 19 and said if he had ended on this point, “Where every mouth may be stopped, the whole world may be held accountable to God.” “Through the law comes the knowledge of sin.” If he had ended there, the picture would have been immensely bleak indeed. No hope in man, no boasting for man, nothing but an expectation of the fury and condemnation of God, as a just repayment for our rebellion against him. Now with that context, with hope having been extinguished in man, look at verse 21 where we read this. But now, “but now, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the Law.” Apart from human obedience. In other words, in contrast to this dark, bleak picture of the wrath of God upon the sin of men, having silenced man, Paul says now that we’ve silenced man, but now let’s see what God has done.

 Now we see that there is something beyond the law that he wants us to consider. It is here where the gospel in which he boasts, he begins to expand and to unfold for us. And the gospel declares for us that by grace, by the undeserved favor and kindness of God, God has provided, at his own initiative, and at his own cost, a remedy for our problem with sin, a remedy for our guilt. And because the law has utterly condemned us, condemned all of our sin, all of our disobedience shown us how utterly hopeless it is, then it’s obvious, beloved, that the remedy that God provides is a remedy that we could not achieve on our own.

 Paul has already excluded our efforts, our abilities, as doing anything to contribute to our salvation. And so from the very beginning, from the very start, the fact that God has provided a remedy in Christian salvation, immediately forbids any boasting by man. This was not man’s idea. This was not man’s accomplishment. This is not man’s achievement. This is something that God has done.

And go back to Romans chapter 1 and just, and just, see this, that Paul had this in mind from the very beginning of the epistle, when he says in the opening verse of this letter, he says, “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle set apart for the gospel of God.” This is God’s gospel. This is God’s good news. This is a declaration of what God has done in the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing that, nothing that, is set out for man to do for himself.

 Nothing that man conjured up in his own mind. This is something that God has done. The gospel is not about your moral attainment of reaching a standard that God will accept based on what you have done. The gospel is about an accomplishment which Christ has done to take away your sin, to provide a righteousness for you that you do not deserve, could not attain on your own, could never achieve. The gospel is not about your moral attainment at all and therefore, it is not something, they, that provokes in you a pride in self, a boasting in self about what you have done.

 So look again at verse 21, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.” And this “righteousness of God,” that phrase in this context, it refers to the righteousness to the right standing that God bestows upon men in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not a righteousness that God requires us to achieve. If that, if that, was the nature of the righteousness that Paul was describing, it would not be good news.

It could not possibly be a description of the righteousness that God requires from man to satisfy God’s holiness, because Paul has just said that there is no righteousness in man at all. “There’s none righteous, no, not one.” So he’s not turning around and contradicting himself. What he’s doing here is saying that what man cannot accomplish on his own, God has provided in the gospel that he has given.

 It’s a righteousness which God bestows on men in Christ. And think about, think about what this means, again, in the simplest of, in the simplest of terms, the gospel of God is something that God determined in his counsel before time began. We won’t take the time to justify that statement biblically, but God, God planned the gospel. God provided the gospel in the Lord Jesus Christ. God prepared the way for the gospel. God offers it freely to sinners. Christ, God in human flesh, achieved it on the cross.

 The gospel is God’s and God’s alone, and so God gets all of the glory for it. There’s no left, there’s nothing left for us to boast in ourselves. We can never produce a righteousness to meet God’s standard, and therefore we’re silenced before him and we come as broken bankrupt sinners before him, pleading for a mercy that he alone can give and that he alone has provided.

And so, the phrase there in verse 21, but now contrasts the law, which condemns everyone, that he’s just been talking about in the prior three chapters. But now contrast the law which condemns everyone. Watch this, with a saving gospel that is available to everyone. The Law condemns Jew and Gentile alike. As you read on in Romans, you find that the gospel is available to Jew and Gentile alike on equal terms.

 Now notice in our text the frequent terms, righteousness and justify, that we find in this text. In verse 21 we read, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law,” verse 22, “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. For all who believe,” verse 24, “were justified by his grace as a gift.” In verse 25, “It was to show God’s righteousness.” Verse 26, “This was to show his righteousness.” Verse 28, “We hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” Verse 30, “God is one – who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.” Righteousness, justify our standing before God. That’s what this whole text is about, is our standing before God and the means by which it was achieved.

 Now, by way of overview, in the fullness of this text, Paul is explaining in this passage how God provides a way for us to receive a righteousness that he accepts. By the fact that we have his, the condemnation seen in the law, in the first three chapters, it’s obvious that we cannot bring a righteousness of our own to God, that he will accept, because, “there is none righteous, no, not one, there’s none who does good.” And so we’re left.

 The law leaves us utterly bankrupt. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.” We have nothing to offer to God, and, therefore, boasting is obviously, automatically, and completely excluded. But the glory of the gospel is that God, despite our lack of merit, despite our indeed our positive demerit, despite our deserving of judgment, God has graciously provided a way for us to have a righteousness that he accepts. And Paul’s going to explain that in these verses and, in this way, we can be reconciled to God despite our sin.

 Now what is this term justification that we’ve been using and referring to already, so often here this evening? I think that it’s valuable, for it would be valuable for everyone of you to be familiar with the definition of justification found in the Westminster Shorter Catechism at question 33. I’m going to read the answer to you; Question is what is justification? And this is the answer. “Justification is an act of God’s free grace wherein He pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in His sight only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone.”

 Justification is the legal act of God by which He declares our sins to be pardoned. He no longer holds our sins against us. We come to him as guilty, condemned sinners awaiting the verdict that by law should send us to hell. And God declares all of the sins that deserve all of that condemnation, he declares them pardoned, forgiven, never to be held against us ever again. But not only that. Justification does more than take away our sin.

In justification God gives us, God credits us with a righteousness, a positive righteousness, which he accepts as the basis upon which he can welcome us into his eternal Kingdom; the basis upon which he can welcome us without compromising his own holiness. It’s the very righteousness of Christ, the perfect life that Christ lead, God accepts that as though we had lived it, and gives us that gift of a righteousness that is perfectly holy, perfectly acceptable to God. God credits us with that righteousness of Christ in place of the condemnation that our sins deserved.

 Now, if you have any spiritual sensibilities at all, that should be an overwhelming thought to you. You come to God clothed in rags of sin, and filth, and all of your dirty thoughts, all of your dirty words, all of your dirty acts, all of your secret sins, all of the things that have been exposed, the sins that you’re aware of, and the 50,000 times more that you’re too spiritually dull to recognize for yourself.

All of that sin you’ve come before God, and he pardons it all, declares you not guilty of those things, because Christ paid for him on the cross, as we’ll see. And in place of that, he doesn’t just leave you in there, a neutral condition. He doesn’t simply raise you to an innocence like Adam had and then leave you to pursue that. He positively credits to your account, he imputes to you the righteousness of Christ and says, I will receive you on the same basis upon which I receive my own beloved Son. It’s incredible.

 It is incredible to contemplate that we who are guilty are not only pardoned, but credited with a righteousness that is nothing less than the perfect righteousness of Christ and all the full obedience of his obedience to the law during his earthly life. That’s what justification is. It’s not an attainment by man, it’s a gift of God. It’s something that we receive by faith alone.

 And what I want to do tonight, I think, at the number seven there’s a reason why I’m uncertain about the numbers and it’s not worth, it’s the way I prepared my notes. But in justification, I want, we see at least seven aspects from this text of justification, that exclude boasting, and we’ll start with this.

 Number one is, this is: That justification comes apart from the law. In other words, it comes, it comes, separate and distinct from any obedience that we give to the law, and as a result of that, we have nothing in which to boast. Paul starts with this point, when he says in verses 21 and 22 he says, “Now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.” In other words, apart from the principle of man’s obedience to the law.

 justification is given to us apart from the principle of obedience, and moral achievement, and attainment. It’s been manifested apart from the law; although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. Beloved, God’s way of righteousness, gospel righteousness, this is such blessed truth. I mean, this is refreshing to my heart, even as I stand here.

Just like getting a fresh breath of air to rehearse these things before you, God’s way of righteousness does not leave it to you to meet the standard. He doesn’t leave it to you to satisfy what he requires. The righteousness that God requires was achieved by the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ achieved the righteousness. Christ rendered the obedience to the law that God requires, and we who could not give it are met in the gospel with one who did it on our behalf.

 This is glorious, and it is completely humbling at the same time. Beloved, the obedience that God requires from each one of us to enter into heaven, to be right before him, someone else did the obeying, someone else rendered the obedience, and did it on our behalf. It’s not our obedience that God accepts. It’s the obedience that Christ accepts. In other words, it’s not through your compliance with the law that you are saved. It is through the obedience and the compliance with the law that Christ rendered.

 And So, what we trust in, what the ground, what the basis of God’s acceptance of us, the basis of our justification, we trust not in ourselves and what we have done. We trust not in ourselves. We put our faith in Christ. We look outside of ourselves. We look to what someone else did for us on our behalf and we rest all of our confidence, all of our hope, all of our plea before God, is the blood and righteousness of Christ and nothing of our self. That’s justification received by faith alone.

 And for the purpose of what Paul’s argument, as we’ll see later, and in the context of our conference tonight, the fact that it’s someone else’s obedience that God accepts, the fact that it’s the obedience of Christ that we trust in, not our own. You know what the spiritual consequence of that is? There’s only one conclusion. It necessarily excludes all boasting by you and me.

We don’t boast before men that I’m a Christian because it wasn’t anything to our credit. We don’t, we don’t add anything to, that’s, to our credit, to the work of Christ. We trust in him and in him alone, in his obedience, in his shed blood, and none of our own obedience. And that, by definition, excludes any boasting, because justification comes apart from your obedience to the law.