Romans 3.21-26
Psalm 13 song
Call to worship:
Pastor Zachary Mcguire
OT: Genesis 3.15 & 21
NT: Romans 1.1-7; 16-17
song:
Christ our hope in life & death
Historical reading:
pastor michael champoux
Westminster Confession of faith 11.1-6
song:
Grace greater than our sin
Confession & Pardon:
pastor Bobby owens
song:
Christ the sure & steady anchor
Sermon:
dr. alex loginow
Romans 3.21-26
Introduction
How is everyone doing? Do you feel like you’re good? Some of you are probably sitting there thinking, “Yeah, I’m good; I’m alright.” Others of you, deep inside, are thinking, “actually, I’m not good; I may not confess it when someone casually greets me at church, but I’m not alright.” Maybe that’s because of mental health, physical pain, relationship problems, financial stress, or even more painful, you’ve lost someone you dearly love.
But if we were all honest; if we were all vulnerable; if we were all humble; we would confess the feeling, deep down inside of not feeling ok – guilt, shame, and insecurity are universal. Most of you know we have 6 kids. There is a fascinating psychological observation I make every time I correct or discipline (which is multiple times an hour) – another kid, usually one of the younger girls will say, “daddy, I’m not doing that;” or they’ll want to hug or kiss or cuddle with me. Why is she doing that? Why is the young girl, who is not receiving discipline responding this way? Because she wants to know she’s ok with me.
I love the Don Draper quote from Mad Men, “advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of the road that screams with reassurance that whatever you’re doing, it’s okay. You are okay.” We all want to feel like what we’re doing is ok; that we’re ok.
And we all look to different standards to feel like what we’re doing is ok. Social media; respected financial minds; political allies; our ever-changing feelings; our parents. Whatever it is, we measure ourselves against a standard to feel ok – to feel like our marriage is ok, our kids are ok, our money is ok, our education, our status, our power, our physical health, our mental health – is what we’re doing ok? Are we ok?
But is there a true standard, a real standard we can look to and measure ourselves against, not just to try to do the right things to feel like we’re good, but is there something or someone who can actually make us good, declare us righteous? That intrinsic human problem, that deep-down-in-your-heart yearning to be ok, to be right, is what this passage of Scripture is about. One theologian said, “[this is] the most important paragraph ever written.” In this series through Romans we have seen that Romans is all about the gospel (Rom 1.16-17), and we have spent weeks and weeks trudging through Rom. 1.18-20, which, as Pastor Kevin mentioned last week, is the longest dissertation of the theology of sin (hamartiology) in the Bible. Having endured the bad news of our guilt in sin, we now arrive at the good news. Rom 1.16-17 gave us the thesis statement for the book, but now we’ve reached the declaration and explanation of that good news we call the gospel.
Trusted Authority
We’re all looking for a trusted authority to be our source, our standard to make us feel right, to make us feel ok. That’s why football players want to train like Tom Brady now – his longevity and legacy give him an authority that’s trusted. We all do it, whether it’s a financial guru, a coach, a political commentator, a YouTube channel, a podcast, a religious leader, relationship coach – fill in the blank. It’s the thing where someone says, “have you read so-&-so, or have you heard so-&-so, or have you seen so-&-so; their ideas, philosophy, teaching, etc. changed my life.” We’re looking for purpose, meaning, value and ultimately righteousness. People want to feel like they’re ok; they’re in the right.
In Romans 1 we saw the ancient pagans tried to do this through idolatry and sexual freedom. In Romans 2 the ancient Jews looked for their righteousness in the Law and in their works, like circumcision. Verse 21 grabs our attention, though, saying, But now. Sometimes we read through our Bible too quickly; slow down and feel the gravitas of this temporal adverb. Think of the biggest change that has happened so far in your life – the thing that divides your life between how it was and how it is now – that’s the weight of what St. Paul writes here.
But now the righteousness of God has been revealed. The ancient Jews looked to the Law as their standard of righteousness, their way of being and feeling ok. But the good news of the gospel is that the righteousness of God is revealed apart from the Law, though the Law and Prophets testify to it. St. Paul says the Law, the OT (Law & Prophets) is both useless and essential. The Law is completely useless, inadequate, unable to make us righteous, but the OT is testifying, witnessing, declaring the one who can make us righteous.
That which was hidden in the types and shadows of the OT has now been revealed by God. The good news originates from the most trusted authority in existence – God. We’re all looking for a trusted authority to be our source, our standard to make us feel right, to make us feel ok. But the only true trusted authority, the trusted authority that our souls deeply yearn for is God Himself. We can have full assurance that this message is legit because God is the source; God’s checks don’t bounce. Question 4 of the WSC says:
Q. 4. What is God?
A. God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.
God is the source of this revelation. I don’t care who your trusted authority is – Tom Brady, Dave Ramsey, Tucker Carlson, your favorite YouTube channel, social media influencer, life or relationship coach, your parents, or even religious teacher – they can’t hold a candle to the weight of the authority of God Himself. And we can be even further assured in the trustworthiness of God because ultimately the gospel isn’t for us; it’s for God – it is from God, for God. Verses 25-26 say that the gospel is ultimately to show God’s righteousness. God is saving sinners to glorify himself as he displays his righteousness to all creation. So, the gospel isn’t even ultimately a transaction between a perfect being and imperfect beings – between Creator and creatures – it is a transaction within God Himself; He is doing this ultimately for himself and he will not let himself down.
Trusted Message
What is it that this trusted authority, God, is revealing to show His righteousness? What is His message, in which He will not fail? Verse 22: the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. Here St. Paul begins to expand on his thesis from Rom 1.16-17 – that the gospel is the power of God for salvation for all who believe for in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed beginning and ending with faith. Church, let’s be still for a moment and humbly sit in this good news – we can be ok; we are made righteous through faith in Jesus Christ.
This is the universal solution to humanity’s universal problem. St. Paul summarizes his legal argument from Rom 1.18-3.20 here in verse 23 – for there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. This is the reason we don’t feel ok; this is the reason we feel guilt and shame; this is the reason we’re groping, yearning, anxiously endlessly searching for anything in the world to tell us what we’re doing is right; that we’re ok. We have inherited sin from our father Adam, and we practice sin in thought, word, and deed – We saw that last week in Pastor Kevin’s sermon; we confess that every week in our prayer of confession from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. We are not righteous.
That’s why the gospel is good news! The righteousness of God is applied not through observing the Law, but through faith in Jesus Christ for all who are believing. The gospel is the good news that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Jesus is the Son of God, the eternal 2nd person of the Holy Trinity who became man – conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary. Jesus lived without sin in our place as the last Adam. Jesus kept the Law in thought, word, and deed; Jesus is righteous.
Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the elect, he was buried, and on the 3rd day he resurrected from the dead for our justification, so that we can be declared righteous. This is the good news! This is the announcement of the reversal of the curse. This is the message the Holy Spirit uses to raise hearts from the dead.
And when the Holy Spirit changes your heart with the gospel, your response is faith. You know this good news of Jesus, you assent to the validity of these truth claims, and you trust in Jesus alone; He is your righteousness before God. You trust that the righteous, Law-keeping obedience of Jesus is imputed to you, credited to your account – Jesus took your guilty verdict, and you receive his declaration of innocence.
And you know that God has given you the gift of faith because you repent. You know that you actually trust Jesus because you’re able to humble yourself, confess your sin, and turn from your sin to Christ. Not just once, but every week at the confession and pardon, every day when the Word and Spirit convict you of your sin. If we lack humility, if we lack vulnerability, if we lack the ability to say, “I was wrong, I’m sorry,” if we won’t turn, do we trust him?
Trusted Result
This trusted authority (God) gives us this trusted message (the gospel) and the trusted result is that we are ok – we are justified, we are declared righteous. Let that idea permeate your heart and mind, body and soul for a moment – you can genuinely know that you are ok in the eyes of God. Whether you have a history of lawlessness like the pagans or a background in legalism like the Jews, this is different. This isn’t some standard of righteousness that is ever-changing in the world; this isn’t the Law rebaptized in fundamentalism and legalism; this is true freedom; this is true happiness.
You might ask, “How do I know this is legit?’ Because, once again, this doesn’t come from you, or some other person, or anyone or anything in the world that might fail. You don’t have to earn this or muster any strength – verse 25: we are justified by his grace as a gift. We are declared righteous freely in his grace. It’s all grace!
I know some of you don’t like that, even if you won’t admit it, but you want to feel like you have a hand in everything, especially your own righteousness. That’s your pride. Surrender. Humble yourself. Freedom is found in the surrender of your own self-righteousness.
It doesn’t happen through you; it only happens through your redemption in Christ. You can’t save you; you need to be redeemed. Whenever you see that word redemption in the Bible, you should think of the Exodus – the great archetype of redemption in the OT. St. Paul is echoing back to the time of the Exodus here and how it was pointing us foreword to Christ. That’s why the apostle says we’re redeemed in Christ, whom God put forward as a propitiation.
Now, I don’t want to lose you here, so stick with me, this means that God planned, way back even in the OT that Jesus is the only way any human’s sin would be forgiven. That’s what the word propitiation means, means “by which sins are forgiven, atoned for.” It’s interesting the Greek word (ἱλαστήριον) is used only one other time in the NT (Heb 9.5), but it’s used 28 times in LXX describing the mercy-seat in the tabernacle/temple. The mercy seat is where the ancient Jews sprinkled the blood of the sacrifice every year on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) to atone for the sins of the people.
Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, St. Paul tells us here that Jesus is the true and better mercy seat. It is by the blood of Jesus that our sins are fully and finally atoned for, forgiven, but only when it is received by faith. Once again, how do we know this is legit? How do we know this check won’t bounce?
The text reveals here that this pattern, this biblical theology of atonement, all these ancient types, and shadows, and signs, and symbols, which pointed to the culminating work of God in Christ are for God’s own glory. St. Paul uses the same word twice (25 & 26); it’s hard to see in the ESV, but it’s the word show. That Greek word (ἔνδειξιν) could be better translated as “a sign;” a sign of what? Of his righteousness.
The mercy seat, the sacrificial system, all of it was a sign of God’s righteousness in past. How? Because God passed over former sins in forbearance. God did not ignore sins before Jesus, neither did his people earn their salvation before Jesus; no! When believers in the OT had faith in God’s promise, God looked forward to the death of Jesus and applied that to believers before Jesus. And so that sign, the mercy seat, the sacrifices, were signs that pointed to actual righteousness happening at the cross.
The death of Jesus for the forgiveness of sin is also a sign of God’s righteousness now because God himself is both just and justifier of one who has faith. God is just because he isn’t a corrupt judge; God doesn’t let guilty criminals go unpunished and we’re all guilty criminals. God executes judgment of all sin perfectly – either by eternal conscious punishment in hell or at the cross. And it is because of the cross that God is simultaneously just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus because if your faith is in Jesus, then the great exchange has happened – Jesus took your guilty verdict, and you have received his declaration of innocence.
God does all this, ultimately, not for us, though we are mercifully and graciously included, but as a sign of his righteousness. He does it for His own glory. And God isn’t going to let himself down. We don’t have to worry about whether the gospel can hold up, or whether it’ll actually work because it’s not on us, it’s on God and God loves Himself way too much to let Himself down.
Conclusion
And that’s really good news because we all want to feel like we’re good; like we’re in the right; like we’re ok. “Happiness is…freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of the road that screams with reassurance that whatever you’re doing, it’s okay. You are okay.” If Romans has made 1 thing clear so far, it’s that our greatest need is to be righteous before God; that’s why we don’t feel ok.
But we can be ok, we can be justified, declared righteous before God through faith in the good news of Jesus. And we can trust that message because it comes from God – it begins and ends with God. God is saving sinners for His own glory and He’s not going to let Himself down. So, let me ask you again, how are you? Are you good? Are you ok? You can be. Look to Jesus.