Book of Romans
2-8-2012 Vol. 6 Part 13
Psalms 58:1-11 NKJV To the Chief Musician. Set to "Do Not Destroy." a Michtam of David. Do you indeed speak righteousness, you silent ones? Do you judge uprightly, you sons of men? No, in heart you work wickedness; You weigh out the violence of your hands in the earth. The wicked are estranged from the womb; They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies. Their poison is like the poison of a serpent; They are like the deaf cobra that stops its ear, Which will not heed the voice of charmers, Charming ever so skillfully. Break their teeth in their mouth, O God! Break out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD! Let them flow away as waters which run continually; When he bends his bow, Let his arrows be as if cut in pieces. Let them be like a snail which melts away as it goes, Like a stillborn child of a woman, that they may not see the sun. Before your pots can feel the burning thorns, He shall take them away as with a whirlwind, As in His living and burning wrath. The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance; He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked, So that men will say, "Surely there is a reward for the righteous; Surely He is God who judges in the earth." Father we praise you, we give you all the glory. We ask that you reveal yourself to our loved ones, and to those around us, that they be drawn to your son Jesus our saviour. In the name of Jesus we pray! Amen!
Romans 3:21-31
Romans 3:21-31 NKJV But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. 29 Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, 30 since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.
What’s revealed in this lesson is everything a person needs to know to receive and experience the righteousness of God. God has done a work that man can never do, and given it as a gift. God has freely provided His righteousness for man. Verses 21-26 is not only the heart of Romans, but the heart of the New Testament and the heart of the whole Bible. This section is the most important section ever written.
Verse 21; “But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets”: Paul reminds us that God's righteousness is independent of the law as a condition for becoming righteous. The problem with the law is that, while it revealed sin, it could not provide the power needed to prevent sin. The law is like a mirror. In it you discover your face is dirty. You can stand before the mirror and stare into it all day long, but the mirror will not wash your face clean. Laws whether God’s laws or mans religious laws acts the same way. Laws are to act as a mirror to our heart and convict us of our sins. To clean your face you have to go to the sink and use soap and water! To clean your heart you have to go to Jesus and put your faith in what he did on the cross! The New Testament is filled with reminders that God's righteousness is apart from the law. Galatians 3:11 NKJV But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for "THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH." Titus 3:5 NKJV not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, (Additional verses in verse list.)
Paul himself said that his former righteousness was from the law until he attained true righteousness in Christ. In the very first verse of this letter to the Romans, Paul had reminded the Romans that he was separated to the gospel of God, meaning he found Jesus and true righteousness which had always been promised through the OT prophets and the Holy Scriptures (Romans 1:1-2). The key verse of Romans, 1:17, which says that the righteous shall live by faith, is a quote from Habakkuk 2:4. The Gospel was no afterthought, but a foreshadowed and foretold by the prophets. Jesus himself said that the Old Testament Scriptures testified of Him. John 5:39-40 NKJV You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. 40 But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life. (Additional verses in verse list.)
Verse 22 & 23; “even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference;” “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”:
Faith is believing in who Jesus is, believing in what He said He would do for us, believing in what He did for us, and believing in the spiritual realm and not in the tangible things of the world. The concept of faith is very prominent in this lesson:
| · "through faith in Jesus Christ"-verse 22 | · "justify the circumcised by faith " -verse 30 |
| · "God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith " -verse 25 | · "and the uncircumcised through faith " -verse 30 |
| · "the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus"-verse 26 | · "Do we then make void the law through faith?"-verse 31 |
| · "a man is justified by faith "-verse 28 | |
God intends His righteousness for all who are willing to believe. No one is outside the scope of His righteousness! There is no distinction among those who are lost, even though there may be degrees of severity in their sin. Picture it this way, you have a mountain and starting at the bottom you have all the people with criminal records/in prison. At the top you have people that have less serious sin. In between everyone else fits in someplace. It doesn’t matter where you are on the mountain, sin is sin in God’s eyes, and all need God’s grace. God’s grace is available to all that seek it through faith in what Jesus Christ did on the cross for us.
Verse 24; “being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,”: Divine righteousness is acquired by justification, is awarded freely, is accessible because of grace, and is acquired through redemption.
Divine righteousness is acquired by justification. What does justified mean? To render just or innocent, that is, show or regard as being pardon/acquitted, but it is much more in God’s eyes. For instance, take a state governor that pardons someone that is in prison. The governor can pardon a person for their crime, but he can’t do anything for that person’s future. If that person goes and commits a crime in the future, he will be tried and if found guilty, he will end up back in prison again. The justification we are talking about, that God renders onto us is different. God deals with both, our past sins, and also our future sins, providing we walk in a relationship with Jesus, we are justified now and forever.
Divine righteousness is a free gift from God. The word "freely" is translated in the Latin versions by gratis, meaning "without charge." God’s free gift of salvation is available to all, but we have to seek Him with sincere hearts and turn our backs on worldly lifestyles. As you all know I have horses, and I can lead a horse to the water tank, but I can’t make him drink. It is the same way with salvation. You can read these lessons and the Bible daily, but if you don’t seek God in a sincere manner, it does you no good. God knows what is in your heart. In this next verse the key word here is, “desires”. Revelation 22:17 ……."Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely". Matthew 10:8 …….Freely you have received, freely give. The following story illustrates freely.
The story is told of a widow whose only daughter was very sick and in need of fresh fruit. But it was winter; grapes and oranges were expensive, and the widow was poor. Walking the streets of the city, the woman found herself outside the royal palace. She looked through the gate and saw in the royal greenhouse great clusters of the most appetizing and tempting grapes. As she gazed at them wistfully, the princess came by and, taking in the situation at a glance, with her own hands cut for the widow a magnificent basket full of fruit. With trembling hands the widow offered the royal lady, in payment, the few coppers she had in her purse, but she received instead this noble reply, "Madam, these grapes are not for sale. My father is a king and he's much too rich to sell, and besides, you are much too poor to buy. You can have these grapes free or not at all." That's it! Our Father is a King. He does not sell. He offers salvation free or not at all! It is our choice to accept Jesus or reject Him!
Divine righteousness is accessible because of grace. Grace is mere mercy. Grace is God’s love for us, unmerited divine favor. There is nothing in us to deserve such favors. It comes freely unto us, but Jesus Christ bought it, and paid the price. There is no other expression of love in any language, than a Father sacrificing His son for sin, the blood of Jesus Christ, that washes us clean. God, in all this, declares his righteousness. It is plain that he hates sin, when nothing less than the blood of Jesus Christ would satisfy the justification of our sinfulness.
Divine righteousness is acquired through redemption. Redemption is the purchasing back of something that had been lost, by the payment of a ransom. What was it that we lost? It was that holy righteousness that Adam and Eve had before they ate of the forbidden fruit. The word here denotes that deliverance from sin, liberation from bondage, and from the evil consequences of sin. Here in Romans, it refers to us who were slaves and captives to sin and guilt, without any hope of redeeming ourselves. Jesus Christ bought us out of our slavery with the price of His own life giving blood. We are completely delivered by this ransom from the penalty, the power, and the presence of sin.
Verse 25 & 26; “whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus”: Propitiation, that by which God is rendered beneficial, i.e., by which it becomes consistent with his character and government to pardon and bless the sinner. The propitiation does not procure his love or make him loving; it only renders it consistent for him to exercise his love towards sinners. The Greek word for propitiation translated the Hebrew word which described the Mercy Seat, the cover of the Ark of the Covenant which sat in the Holy of Holies. God was believed to dwell above the Ark, between the outstretched wings of the two cherubim at either end of the Mercy Seat. The Ark contained the stone tablets on which were written the Ten Commandments, the Mosaic Law which man continually broke. But once a year, the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies and sprinkle the blood of a sacrifice over the Mercy Seat to cover the broken Law. In this act, he made propitiation for the sins of Israel. As a result of covering the Mercy Seat with blood, God, looking down no longer saw the broken Law, but saw instead the blood of the sacrifice. Propitiation was made. In the same way, Jesus did the same for us. When God looks at a believer, he sees Jesus. 1 John 2:1-2 NKJV My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.
Because many years passed during which God continued to atone "temporarily" for and forgive man's sin, it might have appeared that God did not take sin seriously Acts 17:30. The cross of Christ removed all doubt. The entire sacrificial system of the Old Testament declared that God is holy, and Calvary reveals how God has righteously dealt with sin. God has found a way of being just while in the very act of justifying the believer. So just as the blood of the sacrificial animal covered the Mercy Seat, Jesus blood covers a Born Again believer, and when God looks at us, He doesn’t see our sinfulness, but the blood of his Son Jesus Christ, thus by faith in what Jesus did on the Cross for us we are saved.
Verses 27-31; “Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law: There is no boasting by the Jews or any religion of being favored by God. There is no salvation by law or religious rites. There is no salvation by deeds of the law or good works. There is only one God for all mankind and there is only one way for salvation. That being, faith in what Jesus did on the Cross for us.
As we conclude this lesson on receiving God's righteousness by faith, it is important to remember that justification by faith does not destroy the importance of the law. Faith upholds the law. Faith writes God’s laws in our hearts that exposes and condemns us of sin and keeps us holy in God’s eyes. The Gospel and the Law are interwoven with each other and in this way we are justified by faith until our Lord Jesus comes again.
William Cowper, an eighteenth century British poet, wrote these words:
There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel's veins;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,
for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes,
Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Unless you are Born Again, you cannot enter into Heaven, the Kingdom of God."
Bill
Last Week’s Trivia: What are frontlets?
Answer: Easton Bible Dictionary: Frontlets: Occurs only in Exo_13:16; Deu_6:8; Deu_11:18. The meaning of the injunction to the Israelites, with regard to the statues and precepts given them, that they should “bind them for a sign upon their hand, and have them as frontlets between their eyes,” was that they should keep them distinctly in view and carefully attend to them. But soon after their return from Babylon they began to interpret this injunction literally, and had accordingly portions of the law written out and worn about their person. These they called tephillin, i.e., “prayers.” The passages so written out on strips of parchment were these, Exo_12:2-10; Exo_13:11-21; Deu_6:4-9; Deu_11:18-21. They were then “rolled up in a case of black calfskin, which was attached to a stiffer piece of leather, having a thong one finger broad and one cubit and a half long. Those worn on the forehead were written on four strips of parchment, and put into four little cells within a square case, which had on it the Hebrew letter called shin, the three points of which were regarded as an emblem of God.” This case tied around the forehead in a particular way was called “the tephillah on the head.” The New Testament referred to them as phylacteries. Matthew 23:5
This week’s Trivia: Why were there temples in OT times?
| Verse List: | Ephesians 2:8-9 2 | 1 Peter 1:10-11 | |
| Romans 4:5 | Timothy 1:9 | | |
| Philippians 3:9 | John 5:46 | | |
