Sermon Tone Analysis

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Justification and God’s Righteousness (Romans 3:21-26)

We are in this section in Romans that focuses on Justification and God’s Righteousness.

Many theologians have called this paragraph the central point of Romans, Luther said it is the hinge upon which all of redemptive history swings, and Leon Morris said that is the most important paragraph ever written.

Last week, we looked at verses 21 to 23, in those verses Paul explained the solution that God provided for the problem of the sinfulness of the human race, the solution is that in the Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed.

Next, Paul explains how that solution is played out.

We can have a great solution to a problem, but unless the details of the solution are explained there is a chance that it all remains theoretical, and never gets out into effect.

The problem as you recal is from Romans 1.18.

The wrath of God is against all mankind, and we are not justified by the law, or by attempting to be good.

The solution is

Justification and God’s Righteousness (Romans 3:21-26).

The solution described-(vs.21-23)

The Origin, the Method, the Means (vs.

24-26)

The Origin

God the Father

Where does this justification or where does this alien righteousness come from?

Paul writes- all are justified freely by HIS Grace.

The origin of our justification is God and His grace.

Here in verse 24, Paul says all are justified freely by His grace-who is the all Paul is referring to?

Is it all, like all of mankind? the all in verse 24, is the all in verse 22-all who believe-

All who believe then are all who justified freely by His grace.

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Justified freely by his grace-The source of the justification is God and his grace,- it is not of us.

Grace means unmerited favor.

It is unmerited-there is nothing that you do that causes grace.

God’s righteousness comes to us from God, freely-by His unmerited favor.

We are not justified by attending church, or through baptism.

The sacraments are not vehicles for grace.

If that were the case the the sentence would need to say something like, to all who are justified, by the sacraments, through the church.

We are justified by the unmerited OR UNEARNED favor of God

Like it is said again in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8-which says-

Through faith-not the sacraments.

God the Father, initiates it, by sending God the son Jesus.

Jesus also freely gave himself up for us willingly, and Jesus did will of the Father-

God freely gave us the gift of justification.

That is the origin-God the Father.

The Method

The Cross

Next, the method of our Justification-the Cross.

The cross is how God the Father is able to justify us.

The cross is the method God the Father used to secure our justification.

In the cross Paul shows us three important points involved with our justification.

The Cross

The Redemption

The Propitiation

The Demonstration

At the cross we see the redemption, the propitiation, and the demonstration.

We will take these one at a time, starting with redemption.

We talked about this earlier, the Bible says that the whole human race is under sin.

Being under sin is positional with respect to authority.

Paul, now starts to introduce new imagery of a financial, slave market nature.

We are under the authority of sin, or we are all enslaved to sin.

But for ALL who believe-Christ Jesus by the cross redeems us.

That means He buys us out of slavery to sin.It is as if we are slaves on an auction block and Christ purchases us by His blood.

Just like how the Jews were redeemed from slavery to Egypt.

Christ has purchased us with his blood by his death we are no longer slave to sin.

This is sometimes referred to as the ransom rescue.

The result is that since you are purchased by Christ, You now belong to Jesus.

The Cross

Redemption

Propitiation

Demonstration

Next, The cross does not only provide redemption it is also a propitiation.

In the NIV the translation reads God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement.

If we would use the NASB translation we would read.

To whom God displayed publically as a propitiation.

The greek word there is sometimes translated as atonement as it is in the NIV, but it can also be translated as as propitiation.

Either of these words are not common to our modern thought.

Let me explain what we are talking about.

When two parties are in disagreement, they need to come together, or they need to reconcile.

Sin is our doing something wrong against God.

Even when we wrong our neighbor, we are still in the wrong with respect to God, since God has told us to love one another.

Now the Jews kept the 10 commandments in a box called the ark of the covenant.

The cover of the box was called the mercy seat or the atonement cover.

There is the same word in the Greek translation of the Old Testament.

When people broke the 10 commandments the priest killed an animal by shedding blood and sprinkled it on the atonement cover.

This was done in private behind the curtain of the Holy of Holies.

The blood covered the sin of the people and the relationship between God and the people was reconciled or restored, upon the mercy seat.

When a relationship that was broken is restored 2 things need to happen.

The wronged party needs to no longer be angry.

They must be placated the anger must stop.

Also, the wrongs that have been committed need to forgiven or removed.

There are two words that refer to this process.

The same Greek word again-Propitiation, and also expiation.

Propitiation is the satisfying of God the Father’s righteous anger toward sin.

God does not like sin.

Sin angers God.

Paul has been making that clear.

God has this wrath or righteous anger toward sin.

If justification is going to happen or if the relationship is going to be reconciled God’s wrath must be propitiated or His wrath must be satisfied.

In the cross the wrath of God which is due to us for our wrongs is poured out on Jesus instead-so that God is no longer angry at our sin.

But that is not all, something still needs to happen to those sins.

Then, at the cross also is this idea of expiation.

That is contained in the Jewish mind when they talk about the atonement cover,, this is called expiation.

The prefix EX meaning away- Our sins are taken away from us.

The theologian John Stott notes that we can always remember this dual action of the cross by looking at the cross itself.

The vertical beam represents that God and us are reconciled through Jesus on the cross, and the horizontal beam represents that our sins are removed from us or taken away from us.

At the cross God’s wrath is satisfied and our sins are removed.

The Cross

The redemption