The Good News of God’s Righteousness Demonstrated

This is an exegetical sermon from Romans 3:25-26. It examines a crucial doctrine of the Christian faith, explaining how Jesus is our full and just ransom payment for sin. This sermon was originally preached by Pastor Justin Bragg at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA. Audio unavailable.

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:: The Resolved ::

Justin Bragg (elder)

Romans 3:21-26

“The Good News of God’s Righteousness Demonstrated”

At the heart of the gospel there is a truth, which if we merely glance at it, offends our judicial sense of what is right and what is wrong.
We agree in our hearts and minds with what is written in proverbs 17:15, “he who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord” or 24:24 “whoever says to the wicked, ‘you are in the right,’ will be cursed by peoples, abhorred by nations.”

We love justice when we can use it to look down on others. We can’t stand it when the guilty get away. We are outraged when we don’t get what we deserve, and when people get what they don’t deserve
We do not tolerate judges who acquit the guilty. Our moral sensibility is outraged when wrong and guilt are condoned and given sanction. Yet at the heart of our gospel stands the sentence:
God justifies the ungodly that trust in Him.
God acquits the guilty.
That IS the gospel. But how can it be right for God to do that?
This goes back to what Nate preached on a few weeks ago – we want to do it ourselves. The thought that God does it all for us is insulting in many ways

what we are going to see, what is happening in vv 25-26, is penetrating through the issue of ‘justification‘ (v24) and through the issue of ‘redemption’ or ransom (v24)
To what CEB Cranfield calls “the innermost meaning of the cross.”

… Whom [referring back to Christ] God put forward [displayed publicly] as a propitiation [atoning sacrifice, expiation – ‘the turning away of wrath] by his blood through faith. this was to demonstrate his righteousness [note: this is the purpose of Christ’s death that hasn’t been mentioned yet – to demonstrate God’s righteousness. now why does God need to demonstrate his righteousness?], because in his divine forbearance [patience] he had passed over former sins [sins previously committed] [then he repeats this aim so we don’t miss is] for the demonstration of his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Strip that down to the most basic problem the death of Christ is meant to solve:

God put Christ forward (he sent him to die) in order to demonstrate his righteousness (or justice) [same word justice/righteousness].
The problem that needed solving was that God, for some reason, seemed to be unrighteous and wanted to vindicate himself and clear his name.
v26 says that he would have been unrighteous, or unjust, in justifying sinners, if Christ had not been put forward as a propitiation by his blood: he put Christ forward “…so that he would be just…”
That is the most basic issue. God’s righteousness is at stake. His name and reputation or honor must be vindicated.
Before the cross can be for our sake, it must be for God’s sake

Now, why does he need vindication? What created that problem? Why did God face the problem of needing to display a public evidence of his righteousness?

The answer is in the last phrase of v25 and at the end of v26: “because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed;”
And because he is “the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

What do these two phrases mean? They mean that for centuries God has been doing what Psalm 103:10 says, “He does not deal with us according to our sins or repay us according to our iniquities.” he has been passing over thousands of sins. He has been forgiving them and letting them go and not punishing them.

King David is a good example.
In 2 Samuel 12 he is confronted by the prophet Nathan for committing adultery with Bathsheba and then having her husband killed. Nathan says, ‘why have you despised the word of the Lord?” (2 Sam 12:9)
David feels the rebuke of Nathan and in v 13 says, “I have sinned against the Lord.” to this Nathan responds, “the Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.”

Just like that! Adultery and murder are simply passed over. It’s ludicrous. It’s preposterous. Our sense of justice screams out, “No. you can’t just let it go down like that. He deserves to die or be stuck in a jail cell his whole life.
But Nathan says the opposite, “the Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die.

That is exactly the kind of thing Paul is talking about in Romans 3:25 by the passing over of sins previously committed.
But why is this a problem? Is it felt as a problem to the secular mindset, those who don’t love God – that God is kind to sinners?
how many people outside the scope of any sort of biblical influence wrestle with the problem that a holy and righteous God makes the sun rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and unjust (matt 5:45)? Who struggles to understand the apparent injustice that God is lenient with sinners? Or even Christians, how many of us wrestle with the fact that our own forgiveness is a serious threat the righteousness of God?

There are two types of people, or two mindsets. Secular/biblical
The secular mindset doesn’t assess the situation the same way the biblical mindset does. Why is that? The secular mindset is coming from a completely different starting point. It does not start with the ‘rights’ of God – the right to uphold and display the infinite worth of his glory. It starts with man and assumes that God will conform to our rights and wishes. But here in Romans, the issue is: how has the glory of God been treated and what is God’s response to that?

Remember v 23: ‘all have sinned and fall short [or lack] the glory of God.” what’s at stake in sinning is the glory of God. We’ve been here before. When Nathan confronts David, he states that David has despised God. I imagine David saying, ‘what are you talking about I despised God? I didn’t despise God – I wasn’t even thinking about God. I saw a hot chick taking a bath and I wanted her, then I was scared to death that people were going to find out so I tried to make it all go away. God wasn’t even in the picture.

but God would respond to David – I am the creator of the universe, the designer of marriage, the one who gives life, the one who sustains your every breath, the one who made you king. You, David despised me by trying to get me out of the picture.

All sinning is a despising of God before it is an offense against man.
All sin is a preference for some fleeting pleasure of the world over the everlasting joy of community with God.

David demeaned God’s glory and belittled God’s worth. He dishonored God’s name. That is the meaning of sin – failing to love God’s glory above everything else. ‘All have sinned and exchange the glory of God’ (FURTHER CHAPTER 1)

Back to the problem at hand – when God passes over sin it is as if God seems to agree with those who spurn his name and demean his glory.
It is simply not important that his glory is despised.

He seems to condone the vandalism of his worth. That is what the passing over of sin – forgiving sin, justifying the ungodly (Romans 4:5) communicates: by itself, God’s glory and his name and worth are not valuable.

And that is the essence of unrighteousness. So God appears to be, and indeed would be unrighteous if he passed over sin without saving us in a way that demonstrates his passion for his glory – which is his righteousness.

Apart from divine revelation, the natural or secular mind doesn’t see or feel the crisis God was dealing with in the cross. What secular person loses any sleep over the apparent unrighteousness of God’s kindness of God’s kindness to sinners? And I ask those of you who call yourselves followers of God – do you lose sleep over the apparent unrighteousness of God in justifying sinners? Do you even care? What kind of God do you love and serve and trust? If God is unjust, then he is not worthy to be worshipped, followed and adored.

But according to Romans, this is the most basic problem that God solved by the death of his son.

Let’s read it again: “he did this [put his son forward to die] to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his divine patience he had passed over sins previously committed; for the demonstration of his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

God would be unrighteous if he passed over sins as through the value of his glory were nothing.

To maintain his righteousness (which is crucial if he is glorious and perfect and holy) God basically had two options:
1 – God could have settled accounts by punishing all sinners with eternal punishment for their sins in hell. This would have demonstrated that he does not minimize our falling short of his glory and belittling of his honor. God would be completely right and just if we all were destined to hell for our transgressions against us
2- But God does not delight to destroy, John 3; 17 “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” so we have the gospel. We have the solution that God chose to preserve his righteousness and show mercy and grace – the sending of his own Son to be the wrath-bearer for us.

So God is in between a rock and a hard place so to speak, a catch 22. Wrath or love. Wrath or love. Which is it going to be?

At the end of v 26, Paul shows what God’s two goals were met in the death of Jesus. Why did Jesus die? It was ‘so that God would be just [wrath – punish sin] and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus [love – saving the guilty].’ To be righteous and to reckon as righteous those who don’t have their own. These seem to contradict each other.

God’s righteousness would dictate: pour out your wrath on sinners who exchange your glory for themselves. Or: have no wrath against the ungodly – that would be unrighteous.

But if God demonstrates the infinite value of his glory and he justifies the ungodly, then someone – namely Jesus Christ – had to bear the wrath of God to show that God does not take lightly the defamation of his glory. That’s why the word propitiation in v 25 is so crucial. Christ bore the wrath of God for our sins, and turned it away from us.

The death of Christ is the solution. According to verse 25 God put Christ forward as a propitiation. How could God maintain the value of His own glory and be righteous, and yet justify the ungodly whose sin has belittled and depreciated that glory?

The answer – verses 25 and 26 is: by sending Christ to die and demonstrating the righteousness of God.
But how did the death of Jesus Christ demonstrate God’s righteousness, his faithfulness to the value of his own glory?

Paul doesn’t spell this out for us, in detail, but let’s go to the gospel to put the pieces together. Everything Jesus did in life and death he did for the glory of His Father. For example, as Jesus approaches the hour of his death, he says, “Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say, ‘Father save me from the hour?’ no! For this purpose I have come to this hour: Father glorify your name” (john 12:27, 28). Then when Judas had left the Last Supper and Jesus’ death was imminent, he said “now is the Son of Man glorified and in him God is glorified” (John 13:31).

Finally in Jesus’ great prayer in john 17, he views his death as virtually complete and says: “I have glorified you (Father) upon the earth having accomplished the work you gave me to do: (17:4).

What we see from these texts is that everything Jesus suffered, he suffered for the sake of God’s glory. All his pain and shame and humiliation and dishonor served to magnify the Father’s glory because it showed how infinitely worthy God’s glory is that such a loss should be suffered for his sake.
God glorified himself in the life and death of Jesus.
And so he shows himself to be righteous in justifying the ungodly

John Piper – “When we look at the death of the perfectly innocent and infinitely worthy Son of God on the cross and hear that He endured it all that the glory of His Father might be restored, then we know that God has not denied the value of His own glory, He has not been untrue to Himself, He has not ceased to uphold His honor and display His glory, He is righteous. The awful death of the Son is the means whereby the Father can be both righteous Himself and the one who justifies the ungodly who have faith in Jesus.”

Christ bearing the wrath we deserve makes it plain that we are “justified by his grace through the ransoming in Christ Jesus (v24)
God will be just/righteous in counting those who trust in Jesus as righteous

Let’s bring this all together by making it painfully clear how you and I can receive, and get connected to this great work of God in Jesus. Three times in this short paragraph (21-26) Paul says it. Work backwards

22 – …even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe
The righteousness of God is for all who believe. The righteousness that you yourself cannot ever have is given to you as a gift – by his grace, through your faith. Trust Jesus. This is what he calls for – not a payment, nor works to put him in your debt, but as we will see in the coming weeks as Paul writes in Romans 4:5 “trust in him who justifies the ungodly”
25a – …whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith”
The wrath that we deserve is bore by Jesus so we do not get what we deserve. It is a beauty and grace to be marveled at – marvel and wonder by trusting Jesus to do what he said he would
26b – …so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
It’s all faith in Jesus, trust in Jesus

Time and time again it seems that the point of application, the thing that we really try to tell you is the message of faith. Every week: “God is righteous, you are unrighteous, have faith that God gives you righteousness in Jesus Christ.”
Guess what people – I know we say it over and over again. We do this because Paul says it over and over again.
There are no new formulas.
The message isn’t being updated for the new millennium.
It isn’t a culturally relevant message.
It’s not postmodern, modern or premodern.
The message doesn’t change. It stays the same.
Faith has always been, and always will be trusting Christ to be the only means for salvation and satisfaction in life.

It is all faith in this life. I wish that I could stand up here and preach as if I understand and live this… but I can’t. I suck at faith. I let so many things get in the way:

Faith is the answer to your unworthiness
(It used to be that preachers always appealed to the people who would object that they are too unworthy to receive salvation. I believe that the more accurate appeal now to people is that they believe themselves to be worthy enough, without biblical saving faith.)
All are unworthy, and it is in the awareness of your unworthiness that it is possible for you to truly know your need for a savior

The other response to faith used to be ‘but my faith is so weak.’
I feel this one more than anything.
Your faith, your love and your hope and everything else are weak.
But it does not take strong faith to be saved. Just faith.
Spurgeon ‘the weakness of your faith will not destroy you. A trembling hand may receive a golden gift’
Reach out your hand.

There is a weight in these verses. Paul, coming from this legal background understands the seriousness of an accusation that God is unrighteous in saving sinners.

You and I – we don’t get it. We don’t care. I don’t care about God’s righteousness. I care about getting a paycheck every two weeks so I can pay rent, go to movies, buy beer, get some new clothes so I can look good and hopefully catch the attention of a pretty girl that I can maybe get to like me and make out with me. I care about myself. God fits in that he seems to give me what I want, he gives me comfort, and I can feel good going to be at night believing that I’m not going to hell.

What we must understand from these verses is this: your salvation, your ‘get into heaven free card’ isn’t worth anything if God is unrighteous.
God must show himself to be righteous, which he does, and we must believe him and trust him to give us this righteousness.
Somehow – this has to mean something to us.
I don’t know how.
I don’t have the answers – but I know there is something there
There must be something in what God has done for us.
There must be a substance to our faith.