In Chapter One, after introducing himself Paul speaks about the need for Gentiles to know the Gospel. In chapter two he speaks about the Jews needing the gospel. So was there a difference between the Jews and Gentiles? He begins chapter 3 by thinking about at least one difference.
Romans 3:1 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? 2 Much, in every way. For in the first place the Jews1 were entrusted with the oracles of God. 3 What if some were unfaithful? Will their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? 4 By no means! Although everyone is a liar, let God be proved true, as it is written, "So that you may be justified in your words, and prevail in your judging."
Paul begins chapter three pointing out one significant advantage that the Jew had in their past over the Gentile; ‘they were entrusted with the oracles of God’. It was to those God had chosen that God revealed His Word; the Word that foretold the coming of Jesus, ‘THE WORD’ into the world. It was they who had over the centuries carefully preserved it and passed that message from generation to generation as a sacred trust.
I think we forget sometimes what a treasure our Bibles are. For most of Christian history the majority of people have not had access to God’s Word. Bibles used to be kept chained to the reading desks in churches. When efforts were first made to translate the scriptures people lost their lives. I was privileged one time to visit Trinity College in Dublin and see some of the manuscripts of the Book of Kells. The painstaking attention to detail and desire to glorify God that seems to shine from such works takes your breath away. To be ‘entrusted with the oracles of God’ is no small thing.
Yet there were many occasions in Jewish history when they neglected God’s Word. It’s no different today. It is ironic that at a time when for us bibles are so readily available that so few pay attention to what is in them.
Does the fact of lack of attention and unbelief make God’s Word any less valid? ‘No way’ says Paul, “faithlessness will not nullify the faithfulness of God”. The fact that people behaved unfaithfully didn’t make God unfaithful. His Word stands the test of time. It is still the Word that we need to take notice of.
Of course the human mind can twist anything. There were those who figured that, “Well, if God’s Word is so great and it remains great even when people don’t obey it, why don’t we just go ahead and live how we like because it doesn’t make any difference. In fact the worse we behave the more opportunities we make for God to show just how forgiving and graceful God can be! This is how Paul puts it:
5 But if our injustice serves to confirm the justice of God, what should we say? That God is unjust to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) 6 By no means! For then how could God judge the world? 7 But if through my falsehood God's truthfulness abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? 8 And why not say (as some people slander us by saying that we say), "Let us do evil so that good may come"? Their condemnation is deserved!
‘The Message’ transliteration puts this paragraph in a far more understandable fashion.
“But if our wrongdoing only underlines and confirms God's right-doing, shouldn't we be commended for helping out? Since our bad words don't even make a dent in His good words, isn't it wrong of God to back us to the wall and hold us to our word? These questions come up. The answer to such questions is no, a most emphatic No! How else would things ever get straightened out if God didn't do the straightening? It's simply perverse to say, "If my lies serve to show off God's truth all the more gloriously, why blame me? I'm doing God a favor." Some people are actually trying to put such words in our mouths, claiming that we go around saying, "The more evil we do, the more good God does, so let's just do it!" That's pure slander, as I'm sure you'll agree.”
Again Paul is pointing out the warp of human nature… if there is any way to twist things, to take something clear and make it muddy, to find something positive and make a negative out of it… then somebody will find a way. That kind of attitude infected not only Jews, but also Gentiles. So the Jewish believer had no grounds for claiming any kind of superiority because of their background. Neither had anybody else.
Paul plainly paints us all with the same sin tarnished brush, as he now strings together a series of Old Testament verses that emphasize how deeply fallen both Jews and Gentiles are.
9 What then? Are we any better off?1 No, not at all; for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin, 10 as it is written: "There is no one who is righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who has understanding, there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned aside, together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, there is not even one." 13 "Their throats are opened graves; they use their tongues to deceive." "The venom of vipers is under their lips." 14 "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." 15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 ruin and misery are in their paths, 17 and the way of peace they have not known." 18 "There is no fear of God before their eyes."
Who needs the Gospel? We all do. We are all messed up. Whilst each of us is made in the image of God in each of us that image has become distorted and defaced. Only One ever came into the world who didn’t allow the deceptive ways of the world to deface Him and that was Jesus Christ. Everybody else, without exception, has lost their innocence, fallen far from paradise and wanders through life wallowing around in the wrath of God.
This is not a message that resonates strongly in today’s world, in which often we perceive that people are generally good and kind and most folk just want to live a quiet life and live as hassle free as possible. It goes against the grain for us to consider the average person in the street as ‘having the venom of vipers under their lips’ and bringing ‘ruin and misery’ wherever they go.
We may be prepared to admit that even the best of us have faults, but what Paul is trying to do is take us a step further. He is suggesting that there is a ‘fault-line’ that runs through all humanity. He is not suggesting that all sins are manifested in all people, but that even in those we think of the most highly there is that which is out of shape with God’s requirements. And he has a special word to say to the religious folk, his own people the Jews.
19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For "no human being will be justified in his sight" by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
You may recall that when Paul uses the phrase ‘those who are under the law’ it means he is speaking about the Jewish believers. Backing up to the start of the chapter he has been talking about them in a positive way as those ‘entrusted with the oracles of God.’
But that position of privilege bought with it a condition of responsibility. A responsibility to live in a way that was shaped by the laws of God in such a way as others could get a picture of what being a person of God was all about. Simply having the law wasn’t enough if they didn’t live by it!
It’s kind of like a person today may say, “I go to church. I’m a good person. I try and live a decent life. Isn’t that enough?” Claiming to be religious isn’t going to help us unless we live out every demand of our religious calling perfectly and totally. Claiming to be good is no help because we fool nobody but our self if we think we are ‘good enough’.
In Matthew 19:17 Jesus challenged a man who was trying to use the ‘good enough’ argument for their justification: "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments." He then tells him to sell all he has and give it to the poor. At that point the man’s notion of ‘good’ is severely challenged! And trying without succeeding is usually described as failing. If you take your driving test, receive a really low mark and then complain to the examiner, “But I tried real hard!” it is not going to get you your license!
So who is the gospel for? For every one who realizes that they are lost without God’s help, everyone who is ready to stop justifying themselves, everyone who is ready to see that their sins put them in just as much need of God’s forgiveness as the next person.
But now to the important bit; How do people get the gospel?
(A theologically correct answer might be to say ‘Through the Righteousness of God, In Christ’ but let us unpack that!)
The gospel comes through Faith
21 But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ1 for all who believe. 23 since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;
Let’s work our way backwards through this verse! Verse 23 reminds us of what the previous passage has been telling us, “that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. In that sense we are all in the same boat. We’ve all messed up. We all need help!
Now jump up to verse 21. “But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets.” ‘Apart from law’ means that God has revealed a new way of doing things that is different to the way of the Old Testament. The old way was “Do this, get blessed; don’t do it… you’re in a mess”
This new way is ‘attested by the law and the prophets’, meaning that, whilst different to the way of the Old Testament, it is still very much the way that Moses and all the prophets following him had said would eventually come around
What is that way? Verse 22 tells us. It is the way of the “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ1 for all who believe”.
You may recall from our first chapter that we spoke about ‘the wrath’ of God, how our lives are all alike impacted by the fact that living in a way that isn’t right with God’s design drags us down and makes life a wearisome experience. The technical term for not living right is “un-right” or rather ‘unrighteousness’.
Rather like an inoculation, the only solution for ‘unrighteousness’ is an injection of ‘righteousness’. The only solution for the ‘unrighteousness’ of our lives is that they become infused with the ‘righteousness’ of God. But how can that happen? In the Old Testament it came about through going along to the temple, making the necessary sacrifices for sins, and pledging once more to try and live by the laws God had made.
But the New Testament way in verse 22 is that it happens “through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe”
“FAITH” in Paul’s writing in Romans is a BIG word. We will be returning to it again and again. At this stage in the argument, faith means believing that in the person of Jesus Christ… through what He did as He walked amongst people, through what happened when He was crucified and was raised from death… believing that God was at work to bring people back into the sort of relationship with God that God had always intended.
Romans 3:21-22 in ‘The Message’ transliteration puts it like this:
“In our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in Him.”
The Gospel comes to peoples lives through faith. Part of that faith is believing that when Jesus died, He was acting against human sin… in a similar way that the sacrificial animals of the Old Testament were an offering to ensure a persons forgiveness. Which brings us to a second thing.
The Gospel comes through the blood Jesus Christ shed on the Cross
24 they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement1 by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed;
Two significant words in this passage are ‘justification’ (in v24) and ‘atonement’ (in v25). We’ll look at each in turn.
a) Justification. William Barclay comments “If an innocent man appears before a judge then to treat him as innocent is to aquit him. But the point about a man’s relationship to God is that he is utterly guilty, and yet God, in God’s amazing mercy, treats him, reckons him, accounts him as if he were innocent. That is what justification means.” (Barclay; Letter to the Romans. P57).
b) Atonement. This word has to do with making a blood sacrifice. Different translations use the word ‘expiation’, ‘reconciliation’, sacrifice of atonement’'propitiation’ and ‘mercy seat’. The complication is that the Greek word can refer to both the place where a sacrifice is made and the sacrifice itself. Paul is telling us that Jesus is both. He is ‘the sacrifice’ and ‘the place where mercy is found’. The ‘Mercy Seat’ was the altar in the most holy place (the holy of holies) of the Temple. Paul is saying that God made Jesus the "mercy seat," the place where propitiation, atonement and reconciliation to God were accomplished through the shedding of blood.
Romans 3:25 “The Message”
“God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in Him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public—to set the world in the clear with Himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins He had so patiently endured.”
And all of this is, as we are reminded in v24 “his grace as a gift,”. How do we experience that grace?
The Gospel comes through the Forgiveness of God
26 it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus.1 27 Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.
These few verses contrast the system of ‘law and works’ with that of ‘grace and faith’. It is God who sets things right and at the same time enables us to live in God’s righteousness. God does not respond to what we do… does not seek to punish us and condemn us… but calls us to make a response to what Christ has done. The Message transliterates verse 28 “We've finally figured it out. Our lives get in step with God and all others by letting God set the pace, not by proudly or anxiously trying to run the parade.”
‘Letting God set the pace instead of trying to run the parade’ is a great way of saying that our lives need to be shaped not by trying to live up to God’s law, (a futile task because we never quite make the grade), but shaped by reaching out in faith to God to renew us forgive us, empower us and re-direct our lives.
We are saved by grace through faith, saved ‘through the Righteousness of God, In Christ’, righteousness revealed in the life of Jesus Christ who died upon the cross that we may be forgiven and was raised from death that we may live in the light of God’s love.
That’s a whole lot of theological language in there… and as I said at the start, this is not the easiest book of the New Testament. It’s deep, but by mining it’s depth we can discover great truths. Reminds me of the great theologian Karl Barth, a giant of a theologian who was asked to put in a few words the Christian message. His reply… and I think this reply lies behind this whole 3rd chapter, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so!” But now back to Paul…
As the Jewish believers were hearing this Paul anticipates that some would be thinking, “So what’s the deal with the laws that God gave us?” Chapter 3 concludes with a reflection in that very question.
29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.
By focusing on the message of grace… far from canceling out the need for the laws of God, it puts the laws in the right place. They were not designed to be a way of justifying our lives before God… only Jesus can do that… but meant as a source of guidance as to how we should live as children of God.
So we conclude Chapter 3! A difficult yet essential chapter for Christian faith that not only points out our need for salvation but also answers the question “How do we get the gospel?” and is ultimately the great news that we express every time we focus on the Apostles Creed and say “I believe in… the forgiveness of sins”.