Paul’s Letter to the Romans
Part 12
This evening, we’re going to take a pretty big bite of Scripture because the context makes that not only possible, but recommended, especially since we won’t be together next Friday. In the first eight verses of chapter 3, we saw that God condemns sin wherever He finds it…in either Jews or Gentiles…He shows no partiality. In verses 5-8, we come across an argument that reappears again and again in religious thought…the argument that sin gives God a chance to show at once His justice and His mercy and is therefore a good thing. But it is a twisted argument. One might as well argue that it is good to break a person's heart because it gives us a chance to show how much we love that person.
In verse 9, where we will begin reading this evening, Paul begins by asking this rhetorical question: "What then? Are we better than they?" He supports his answer by "quoting" several Old Testament texts. Let’s read it together.
What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; as it is written,
"There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one." (Psalm 14:1-4; 53:1-3)
"Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving," (Psalm 5:9)
"The poison of asps is under their lips"; (Psalm 140:3)
"Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness"; (Psalm 10:7)
"Their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known." (Isaiah 59:7-8)
"There is no fear of God before their eyes." (Psalm 36:1)
In verses10-18, we see Paul doing what Jewish Rabbis customarily did. He has strung together a collection of Old Testament texts. He is not quoting with precise accuracy, because he is probably quoting from memory, and he includes quotations from Psalm 14:1–3; Psalm 5:9; Psalm 140:3; Psalm 10:7; Isaiah 59:7-8; and Psalm 36:1. This very common style of rabbinic teaching was called charaz, which literally means stringing pearls.
If Paul or any other New Testament writer "misquotes" the Old Testament, does that affect your understanding of "inerrancy"? Can the Bible be said to be inerrant if there are misquotes of the Old Testament included in the New Testament?
Now, let’s look at verses 19-31…I'll be reading from Barclay's translation:
We know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are within the law, and the function of the law is that every mouth should be silenced and that the whole world should be known to be liable to the judgment of God, because no one will ever get into a right relationship with God by doing the works which the law lays down. What does come through the law is a full awareness of sin. But now a way to a right relationship to God lies open before us quite apart from the law, and it is a way attested by the law and the prophets. For a right relationship to God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God, but they are put into a right relationship with God, freely, by his grace, through the deliverance which is wrought by Jesus Christ. God put him forward as one who can win for us forgiveness of our sins through faith in his blood. He did so in order to demonstrate his righteousness because, in the forbearance of God, there had been a passing over of the sins which happened in previous times; and he did so to demonstrate his righteousness in this present age, so that he himself should be just and that he should accept as just the man who believes in Jesus.
Where, then, is there any ground for boasting? It is completely shut out. Through what kind of law? Through the law of works? No, but through the law of faith. So, then, we reckon that a man enters into a right relationship with God by faith quite apart from works of the law. Or, is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles? Yes, he is the God of the Gentiles too. If, indeed, God is one, he is the God who will bring those who are of the circumcision into a right relationship with himself by faith, and those who never knew the circumcision through faith. Do we then through faith completely cancel out all law? God forbid! Rather, we confirm the law.Here again, we see one of Paul's characteristically difficult, but theologically rich declarations where he addresses the supreme question of life:
How can a man get into a right relationship with God? How can he feel at peace with God? How can he escape the feeling of estrangement and fear in the presence of God?
Under the terms of the Old Covenant, a right relationship with God hinged upon obedience...Obey and live, disobey and die. I'm really not sure why we call it the Old Covenant because there certainly were other covenants that were older like the Adamic Covenant, Noahic Covenant and Abrahamic Covenant. I think it would be more accurate to call the Old Covenant, the Covenant of Law and the New Covenant, the Covenant of Grace.
In Jewish thought, and by the way, well grounded in the teachings of Moses and the Prophets, a right relationship with God could only be attained by meticulously keeping all the commandments of God. That's why they developed over 600 very detailed definitions of how to properly obey the ten basic commands.
When Jesus came on the scene, He repeatedly demonstrated that not even the most scrupulous religious fanatics, those who had dedicated their whole lives to religious pursuit, were succeeding in keeping the law.
If it was impossible for man to keep the law, why did God give it and demand obedience to it?
God gave the law to make man aware of sin. It is only when a man knows the law and tries to satisfy it that he recognizes his utter inability to do what the law requires. The law is designed to show man his own weakness and his own sinfulness.
If God demands obedience and man cannot obey, is he then shut out from God?
The answer to that question is the essence of Paul's gospel: The "good news" is that a new way lies open for a right relationship with God; not the way of law, but the way of grace; not the way of works, but the way of faith! And Paul says that this way was clearly promised by the Prophets and witnessed by the Law.
Paul supports his declaration that a right relationship with God is now available apart from the obedience of law by using three metaphors: From the law courts, he uses the term justify; from their experience as slaves, he uses the term deliverance or redemption; and from the Covenant of Law, he uses the term sacrifice or propitiation.
The Greek word for justify, as used here, means not to make someone something, but to treat, to reckon, to account him as something. If an innocent man appears before a judge then to treat him as innocent is to acquit him. But the point about a man’s relationship to God is that he is utterly guilty, and yet God, in his amazing mercy, treats him, reckons him, accounts him as if he were innocent. That is what justification means.
When Paul says that "God justifies the ungodly," he means that God treats the ungodly as if he had been a good man. That is what shocked the Jews to the core of their being. To them, to treat the bad man as if he was good was the sign of a wicked judge. Now before we jump to quick to condemn them for this, let’s look two texts from the Old Testament: He who justifies the wicked is an abomination to the Lord (Proverbs 17:15). I will not acquit the wicked (Exodus 23:7). But Paul says that is precisely what God does.
How can I know that God is like that? I know because Jesus said so. He came to tell us that God loves us, bad as we are. He came to tell us that, although we are sinners, we are still dear to God. When we discover that and believe it, it changes our whole relationship to God. We are conscious of our sin, but we are no longer in terror and no longer estranged. Penitent and brokenhearted we come to God, like a sorry child coming to his mother, and we know that the God we come to is love.
That is what justification by faith in Jesus Christ means. It means that we are in a right relationship with God because He has declared us to be "in Christ" Who is in right relationship with God. Our believing that to be true does not complete the transaction; the transaction is complete without anything from us, but our believing it changes our attitude toward God. We are no longer terrorized strangers from an angry God. We are children, erring children, trusting in their Father’s love for forgiveness. And we could never have found that right relationship with God, if Jesus had not come to live and to die to tell us how wonderfully He loves us.
Paul then uses a metaphor from slavery when he speaks of redemption or deliverance. The Greek word means to ransom, to redeem, to liberate. It means that man was in the power of sin, and that Jesus Christ alone could free him from that imprisonment.
Paul concludes the support of his gospel declaration by using a metaphor from the Covenant of Law when he describes Jesus as being displayed publicly as a "mercy seat"...the place where the sacrificial blood was sprinkled on the Day of Atonement.
Under the old system, when a man broke the law, he brought to God a sacrifice. His aim was that the sacrifice should turn aside the punishment that should fall upon him. To put it in another way—a man sinned; that sin put him at once in a wrong relationship with God; to get back into the right relationship he offered his sacrifice. But it was human experience that an animal sacrifice failed entirely to do that. Thou hast no delight in sacrifice; were I to give a burnt offering, thou wouldst not be pleased (Psalm 51:16). With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? (Micah 6:6, 7)
Instinctively men felt that, once they had sinned, the ritual of earthly sacrifice could not put matters right. So Paul says, "Jesus Christ, by his life of obedience and his death of love, made the one sacrifice to God which really and truly atones for sin." He insists that what happened on the Cross opens the door back to a right relationship with God; a door which every other sacrifice is powerless to open.
Why did God "pass(ed) over the sins previously committed" (before the Cross)? How does this demonstrate God's justice?
Paul says that God did all this because He is just, and accepts as just all who believe in Jesus. Paul never made a more startling statement! Think what it means. It means that God is just and accepts the sinner as a just man. The natural thing to say would be, "God is just, and, therefore, condemns the sinner as a criminal." But here we have the great paradox—God is just, and somehow, in that incredible, miraculous grace that Jesus came to bring to men, He accepts the sinner, not as a criminal, but as a son whom He still loves.
What is the essence of all this? Where is the difference between this gospel of Paul and the old way of the law? The basic difference is that the way of obedience to the law is concerned with what a man can do for himself; the way of grace is concerned with what God has done to win for us His forgiveness; nothing we can ever do can win for us the forgiveness of God; therefore the way to a right relationship with God lies, not in a frenzied, desperate, doomed attempt to win acquittal by our performance, God has already done everything necessary to allow us to stand boldly before Him, not on the basis of what we have done, but solely on the basis of what Jesus Christ has done for us. Our only possible response lies in the humble, penitent acceptance of the love and grace which God offers us in Jesus Christ.