Romans 3:24

...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.

We are justified freely by grace through the redemption of Christ. Justification is absolutely free. Justification means the pronouncing or declaring of a person to be righteous. It’s a judicial term. And we contribute nothing to this declaration of God that we are justified. Now justification is an act, not an ongoing process. It’s a judicial act, and it’s not our act. God justifies. We don’t justify ourselves. In justification, God declares us righteous, and once done, it's done! He forgives us of our sin and spares us the penalty of that sin.

Remember the analogy of the pardon that we discussed awhile back. The pardon is freely offered and must be accepted by the guilty party. That’s true. But regarding the righteousness of the state, in this case, God, the punishment for the sin was already carried out in the Person of Jesus Christ; thus God will not and cannot righteously demand that punishment from the guilty party. Do you understand the critical implications of this, especially considering the substitionary atonement of Christ? If Christ paid the punishment price of someone’s sins, then God would be unrighteous, unjust, to also punish the sinner for those sins that were punished in Christ. Do you see? Justification is about what God does, not you.

Finally notice that justification, though free, is in fact, very costly. Justification is free for us, but it’s costly to God. Paul says that it is a gift by grace, but it is purchased for us through the redemption in Jesus. Christ has paid a purchase price for us. He bought us from God for God—from God’s wrath for God’s mercy. He paid by His life with His blood, bearing the penalty of sin, a purchase price. Will this price not buy what it was intended to purchase? As Paul would say, “God forbid!” Jesus has effectively accomplished exactly what He intended. So what was His purpose? Was it to merely offer salvation to all of mankind, and thereby require mankind to be the ultimate determiner of salvation? Was it actually save the elect? I, and Scripture I believe, suggest that Christ has fulfilled His purpose, to redeem those the Father gave Him. And it wasn’t everybody. How does what I’ve said make you feel? Did Christ fail in His efforts to purchase all of mankind? Or did He succeed in redeeming all those the Father gave Him? Do you see where this understanding, in order for us to be consistent in our doctrinal theology, is so critical? This is why the Calvinism / Arminianism debate is so important. It doesn’t determine whether or not you’re saved. Rather, it forces us to examine our theological consistency. We'll continue with this train of thought tomorrow.

Romans 3:22-23

This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

V.22—We obtain God’s righteousness by grace through faith in Christ. It’s for all who believe, as there is no difference, no distinction, among the people of the world. Paul makes this clear over and over. Everyone is guilty; everyone needs to be justified before God. And everyone who believes, everyone who receives the righteousness of God by grace through faith, is justified before God. That’s it. Memorize it; never forget it; love it and cherish it. We need to always be reminded of this glorious truth and rejoice with praise and thanksgiving. We obtain God’s required righteousness through faith in Christ.

V.23—All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Paul says that we’ve missed the mark; we have broken God’s law. We fail to obey its positive commands, and we absolutely transgress its prohibitions: both omission and commission. Sin is falling short of God’s glory. It’s failing to exalt all of His character all of the time. Sin is idolatry and immorality, exchanging His glory for an image. And we’re all guilty. Now “missing the mark” might not sound too bad. It’s like, “Oh, I almost made it.” But as we know, “almost” only counts in horseshoes, darts, and hand-grenades. And when Paul says we’ve missed the mark, he’s not at all saying that we were almost there, so close. He’s really saying that we’ve missed the whole dartboard. We threw the horseshoe, and it landed in the ocean. The hand-grenade went off in our own hand. We have missed the whole point for which God made us. He made us to experience companionship with Him, to share His glory. And we failed to receive that glory, failed to glorify Him, and failed to reflect His glory. We missed the whole point of life. That’s what Paul is saying. Apart from Christ the verdict of God against every individual is going to be: “You missed the point.” It’s not that we got 43 percent of it, or 93 percent of it, or even 99.9 percent of it. We missed the whole point. And as frightening as that verdict is, Paul has such good news in the midst of it.

Romans 3:21

But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.

We change subjects within Paul’s letter now, as we look at verses 21-31 of chapter 3 and forward. Remember, Paul spent the past 63 verses, from Romans 1:18-3:20, talking about the bad news, the sinfulness of mankind. Now, for the first time since verse 17 of chapter 1, Paul returns to the topic he introduced in his thesis: a righteousness from God revealed in the gospel.

But now, a righteousness from God has been made known in the gospel, apart from the law, as attested in the Old Testament. Paul jumps back to what he said in his thesis statement: chapter 1 v.17. He had to diverge for a moment to explain why the gospel matters at all, and remember that his conclusion was that God will justly and righteously unleash his wrath on sinners; since everyone is a sinner, we need the gospel. Understanding our need for the gospel, for salvation, Paul assures us that we can have faith in the gospel, not only because it is the power of God for salvation, but also because in it, a righteousness from God is made known. And remember, it is God’s righteousness that has us in trouble. God cannot simply overlook sin. He can’t just say, “It’s okay, I forgive you.” Sin is not okay. God must punish it. In His original covenant with Adam and Eve, He promised that the sinner will die. And what amazed Paul about the gospel is that God has made a way to save people without compromising His justice. He punished His Son to ensure His justice. And Paul is assured that he is saved, because God would be unrighteous to punish him for his sins, if He has laid those sins on Christ. God cannot demand that Paul be given the death penalty if Christ has already received the death penalty in Paul’s name. This is a righteousness from God displayed in the gospel. And Paul is amazed that God can righteously acquit the guilty. It’s called grace. And it’s amazing.

What is grace? It’s more than “unmerited favor.” It’s not only that we didn’t deserve favor. It’s that we deserved eternal damnation. So God’s grace is more than, “God forgives us.” God’s grace is His favor freely bestowed on those who deserve His condemnation at the cost of His Son. G.R.A.C.E. = God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense

The words “But now” declare the change that took place when we went from “under wrath” to “under grace.” We were not “in Christ,” but now we are. We were lost but now are found. The words “But now” also are used by Paul, I think, to remind us of the work of God in history.
Before Christ, everything was B.C., and now, after Christ, everything is A.D., the Year of Our Lord… Paul makes a temporal distinction between what God had been doing in preparation for the fullness of time in the days of the old covenant, and the fulfillment of those old covenant promises and prophesies and types as represented by Christ and the new covenant. The old covenant was then…But now we have the new covenant. It is finished.

Second, Paul says that God’s righteousness has been revealed “apart from the law,” apart from our works of the law, apart from our doing anything, apart from our obedience. Paul is saying that God’s righteousness is displayed in us in such a way that nothing we do contributes to it. There is absolutely nothing we bring to this display of God’s righteousness. It is an alien righteousness, provided by God, and received by the channel of faith. It is not something in us or from us.

Third and finally in this verse, Paul is telling us that he is not giving us a new teaching, but that this truth of the gospel and justification by faith is demonstrated in the Old Testament itself. The Old Testament clearly witnesses to it and testifies of the truth of the gospel and justification by faith. In fact, in Romans 4, the place that Paul will go to show the proof of the gospel from Scripture is from Genesis and the story of Abraham. You know, often times we ask this question, “Salvation is by grace through faith in the New Testament, but was it the same way in the Old Testament?” Paul would have never asked that question. He might have asked, “Salvation is by grace through faith in the Scriptures (the Old Testament), but is it still that way since the Messiah has completed His work (in the New Testament)?” Paul knew that the gospel of salvation by grace through faith alone was both old covenant and new covenant reality. In the old covenant, people had to look forward to the coming promised Messiah; in the new covenant, people have the completed glory of Jesus Christ.

Romans 3:19-20

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

The Law silences mankind before God. V.19-20 are Paul’s final words in this great assault on mankind, and remember, Paul is saying all of this not to be mean, but out of love. He desires that everyone would come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, but until guilt is admitted and need of a Savior is acknowledged, none are in a position to partake of the benefits that the gospel offers. So Paul relentlessly and without remorse pounds home this truth that all are guilty and stand in need of grace. These 2 verses can be hard to understand, because Paul uses the word “law” in many different ways. From the context of v.10-18, we know that he is not just talking about the Ten Commandments and the Leviticus stuff, but the whole of the Old Testament Scriptures. Furthermore, he is talking specifically to the Jews here, those “under the law.” Paul asserts that because the law silences the Jews’ mouth to defend themselves, that means that every mouth is silenced. The implication from this and from what we saw in chapter two is this: The Jews felt justified before God because they had the law—not that they followed the law, but that the fact that God had given them the law gave them reason in their minds to be able to stand before God. The irony is that this law that the Jews had boasted in because it was given to them was indeed the very thing God uses to shut their mouths in his presence.

If the Jews were held silent, having possessed the law, Paul says then “every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.” After the Jews’ mouths are closed before God, there is utter silence in His presence. No one says a word before God’s Judge’s bench. There will be no plea bargaining, no excuses, no reasons. The Gentiles have nothing to say, because in spite of overwhelming evidence, they persistently suppress the truth in their unrighteousness. The Jews, who were as a nation brought into covenant with Him were given the law, but that law condemns their sinfulness at every turn.

Paul is explaining one purpose of the law. He has already said that the Jews misunderstood its purpose (it was not intended to justify), so now he’s telling them what one purpose of the law actually is: To silence mankind before God, to show mankind the heinousness of sin and its debilitating effects on the totality of man’s being. More than that—the Jews were guilty of applying the law to the Gentile converts to Judaism without applying it to themselves, so Paul corrected them and made sure that they remembered to apply to themselves as well. We must do the same. We can’t use the law just to condemn the sin in others. It condemns us as well. It silences others before God, and it silences us as well.

The Law holds the whole world accountable to God. That word “accountable” is powerful. It literally means, “under penalty.” The word of God, the Old Testament, having silenced the Jews therefore compels the entire world to be silent, having nothing to say in their defense before a holy God who sits on His throne of Judgment. He pronounces all guilty of sin and liable to the horrible temporal consequences of sin in this life and the fires of eternal torment in the life to come.

Paul wanted to show that the Holy Scriptures actually accomplish their purpose. Isaiah 55:11 “My Word that goes out from My mouth will not return to Me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” One purpose of the Word of God is to show that all of mankind is accountable to God for their sin, to silence mankind before the judgment of God. The purpose of the Word was never to make man righteous, never to justify him. Jeremiah 23:29 “Is not My Word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?” Do we believe that? Hebrews 4:12 “The Word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” The Word is powerful unto judgment. Do we consider the Word like that? Paul knows that as we read the Scriptures, we must understand our own sin.

Romans 1:20 showed us that we know God through creation. Romans 2:15 showed us that we know the law as it is written on our consciences, our hearts. And now in Romans 3:19, we are shown that we know these things also because of the nation of Israel. If the Jews, who had the blessings of God to succeed, failed, then we certainly have too. So Paul says that the proper understanding for someone in the sphere of the law, who has heard the law and been presented the law, who knows the judgments of the law, is to recognize his or her sinfulness and need of grace, because all are accountable.

We are not made righteous by the Law; rather, the Law shows us our sin. Paul in Romans 2:13 said that the doers of the law will be justified. So is he contradicting himself here? No. He is saying that there are no doers of the law. If there were, that would be one thing, but there are none. So no one is justified by the law. Paul doesn’t have a problem with obedience. He has a problem with people who think they are obedient, but they’re not. Why does the Law only bring out our sinfulness and make it more obvious? Why does it have no power to bring out, or give, righteousness? We find the answer in Romans 8:3: “What the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh.” The Law is not defective in itself, but it is weak because of the flesh, because of our unregenerate condition. That’s why nobody is going to get right with God by works of the Law. The Law without the Spirit is called “letter,” and it kills (2 Corinthians 3:6). By itself the Law brings out sin, not faith, and when it does, it is death-giving, not life-giving (Romans 7:9-10). So it can’t justify us. It can only condemn us, unless Christ bears our condemnation and releases the Spirit into our lives (Romans 8:3-9).

Paul concludes with something that would have been very shocking to his Jewish friends. At the very end of verse 20 he says, “For through the law comes the knowledge of sin.” Now that would have greatly irritated a pious Jew. A pious Jew would have said, “What do you mean that through the Scripture comes knowledge of sin? Through the Scripture comes the knowledge of the great and holy and awesome God.” Well, Paul is saying this provocatively. Paul isn’t trying to tell everything that the law is and does in this passage. But he is telling this. Think about it. The law itself in our fallen condition, as we are already sinners, shows us our need of grace. Far from putting us right with God, the law shows that we are wrong with God; we need to be put right with God, but that we can’t put ourselves right. Therefore the law itself functions to reveal to us our sin, to convince us of our sin, and to show us that we need an escape from sin which we can’t provide.

We can see from Romans 7:7-8 what Paul is saying: “What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be!
On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law [Here is what Romans 3:20b means—the Law brings about the knowledge of sin]; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead.” That is, sin lies unrecognized. When the Law meets an unregenerate heart, a person without the Holy Spirit and without faith, the effect is that it reveals the rebellion in our hearts; it makes our rebellion against God and his Law known; it brings it out. Sin rises up in the presence of the Law and shows itself with vivid colors. John Piper offers this analogy: It’s like a teenager who goes to the mailbox to get the mail. He brings it in and puts it on the table. He flips through it and sees nothing for him, and so he starts to walk away. No bad desires at all here, right? But then he notices at the top of one of the postcards the words, “For parents only!” And suddenly there is a desire to read the card. Are those words on the card sin? No. But through those words come the knowledge of sin. Suddenly what was lying dormant in the heart is shown to really be there—the desire to read what one ought not to read.

Paul’s question to us is this: “What stands you before God? What makes you secure before the God of the universe?” And his answer is, “The righteousness of God. That’s what stands.” But, you see, that brings another crisis. The response is: “Well, I’m not the righteousness of God. My life condemns me if that’s the standard. Where do I get this?” And Paul says, “Well, that’s where I wanted you to be in the first place.
Because until you understand that you need the righteousness of God, before you stand before the awesome and Holy God, you’re not ready to hear the good news that I’ve wanted to tell you.” But we have to wait until next time to see the great turning point, which comes in v.21-22. And for the rest of this book, Paul is going to tell us just how glorious that good news is. But it will make no sense to us, until we first acknowledge our need of that good news. Until we’re honest with ourselves, and we run from our deeds, good and bad, to the one place where we can find the righteousness of God, and that’s in Jesus Christ as is offered in the gospel.