Salvation in three parts.
Romans- The Gospel Great and Glorious • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 35:30
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So I have told you all that the book of Romans is all about Good News! See it says so right here in the title of the sermon series- The Gospel ( good news) great and glorious.
But what we have heard so far in Romans has not been great news. In chapter 1 paul told us that all of humanity is guilty of rebellion against God denial of his authroity and that as a result God has allowed us to only grow in our sinful and broken natures.
In chapter 2 paul pointed out that even the folks who think they live moral lives are constantly failing that even as they judge others their in own hearts practice those same sins.
And in the first half of chapter three Paul brings this bad news to a head by saying that all of humanity is under sin. It rules us and lives within us. Such that we can’t escape it. and so all of us are recognized as sinful and deserving of death under the Law- The same law that we had hoped would help us escape judgement!
On its own that isn’t great news is it..
But it is the Truth! Isn’t it? The world is a profoundly broken place and more to the point no matter how good we look on the outside. On the inside we each recognize that we have a problem with sin that we can’t fix on our own.
Let that sink in- Paul is telling us that we all have a problem with sin that we can’t fix on our own..
But this is where we get to the good news!
The good news is God has done what we can not- and there is a cure for our condition. You and I can be saved!
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
This is where we get to the good news!! Paul is saying that God has revealed a righteousness that will rescue us. A rescuer that was anticipated by both the Law and the Prophets. Of course the righteousness of GOd revealed is Jesus! Who is the savior of all who believe!
But what does that mean? Salvation.
Paul describes our salvation with three different words that pain a very clear picture of how wonderful our salvation is. For the rest of the semon I want to take a close look at those those three words.
The first word that Paul uses is Justified.
The word Justified is a judicial word- it should make us think of a court and a judged. And the word Justified means that when we go
before a judge we are examined and declared to be of excellent standing. This isn’t just being declared not guilty- it is the complete oppisite here the Judge examines us and declares us to be full of righteousness. IAnd in this case the Judge who is declaring us to be righteous is God him self!
Obviously the first thing you might think is that the judge has a vision problem. But that isn’t the case. It is even crazier than that. It would take more than a dirty pair of spectacles to hide all our sins- rather what is happening is The judge is looking at a different life all together!
In order for God to declare us righteous God is looking at thelife of the man who is wholly with out sin.
Not even the lives of moses, abraham and joseph were good enought to be declared just- Only Jesus the son of God born the son of man lived that life perfectly. Rejecting sin and obeying his father’s will in all circumstances. And the wonder of salvation is that when God looks at our lives he declares us righteous because he sees the perfect righteousness of his perfect son.
For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;
my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
To understand the wonder of salvation through Jesus is to grow daily in our understanding of how we have been declared Righteous. Having been declared righteous we have the confidence to come into the presence of God. To pray and to enjoy him daily as we grow.
It also means that our battle with sin has changed as well. But more on that later!
Our justification is only one of the images that paul uses to describe our salvation in Romans 3.
The next word that he uses is Redemption as in.
24 “and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,”
To be saved is to be Redeemed which is a funny word that we really don’t use any more! So it sounds nice and happy but sounds a little strange as well. We redeem Coupons, We Redeem rain checks .
We don’t often think about redeeming human beings in the 21st century
But In the 1st century redeeming humans was a fairly common practice!
Say you were a prisoner of war and your family got together every penny they had to pay your ransom- Well then you would have been Redeemed. Or say you were a slave, You had been bought and now you were owned by someone else. Well if you were able to save enough money to buy your freedom or the freedom of your child then you could say that you were redeemed.
This is what Paul is describing here! Paul has said that we are all slaves to sin. Sometimes this slavery was obvious like when we refused to do right. But other times our slavery to sin looked a lot like good deeds. We were still slaves to sin in those actions as well- because we did not do them to bring glory to God. OUr actions might have seemed good but our motives were evil.
Theologians say that until we have been redeemed from sin by Christ on the Cross we have no ability not to sin. That our hearts are bound to sin in a spiral of destruction. Remember last week how Paul said that
“all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;”
This is our slavery to sin. But after Christ has redeemed us we are no longer slaves to sin. Does that mean that we will never sin again? Unfortunately that is not how God made it work.
We now have the ability to choose not to sin. We are no longer slaves to evil. But there is a war that is being played out in our minds and bodies. As we grow in our dependancy and hope in christ we are sanctified and our old slave masters are defeated.
And our Redemption is made perfect with the coming of christ.
Until that day we live in the comfort of knowing that we have been justified and that our victory is promised and that we are not alone in the journey but the spirit of the living God dwells within us to empower us to turn from our sins towards the peace and purpose of the kingdom.
The Christian is Justified - declared Righteous
The Christian is Redeemed- Freed from slavery to sin and satan.
Finally Christian has peace with God! God’s Wrath towards evil actions and hateful rebellion of his rule has been absolved. This is third piece of this picture of our slavation and it is the piece that brings it all into focus!
How are we Justified, how are we Redeeemed?
Paul says that it all happened because of
“Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
Here paul is saying that our salvation took place because God Accepted Jesus as a “propitiation- a sacrifice absorbing the wrath of god" on our behalf.
This may be a new idea for you or it might be something you have heard 100 times. But it is vital that we understand it! What Paul is saying is that our sin wasn’t the only thing standing between us and God. There was also God’s Wrath- our sins were deserving of a punishment that could only be our deaths. But Paul says that from the begining god did not treat humans as they deserved- He was patient with us in our rebellion he was merciful when he should have been just and wrathful. And this called into question God’s very character! How could god be good if he was forgiving sinners and passing over thier sins?
The answer paul says is God knew that Jesus would be the sacrifice that absorb his wrath on behalf of humanity under judgment.
Remember our scripture reading from Genesis today. how Abraham spoke to Isaac and how painful it was for him to take him up and to lay him on that altar. All of that was a divinely ordained foreshadowing of that moment with When God would do what Abraham didn’t have to do. When Christ went to the Cross God poured out his wrath towards human wretchedness on his perfect son so that humanity might be offered a hope of redemption.
Christ on the cross is the perfect image of the father and the son working together to accomplish the the redemption of those they love despite our hatred for them.
But paul isn’t saying that this is a redemption that will apply to all humanity. Rather this is a redemption that will apply to all who have faith in Jesus.
Common grace is Gods goodness and mercy on all that live.
Saving Grace is reserved for those who believe that Jesus is thier only hope for salvation and who put thier hope in him.
Once again this is about dependance! If our sin was a selfish rebellion against our heavenly Father.
our redemption comes when we realize the destructive power of sin in our lives and turn from it back to the relationship we were made for.
My friends
We are not saved by our good deeds, not by wealth, not by knoweldge, nor by our family tree. We are saved because God loved us in our rebellion and he paid every price to bring us home.
And now the the glory of God’s great love is made known to us who look to him through the eyes of faith!
Jesus has paid the price to bring you out of slavery and into freedom.
Jesus has made peace between you and God through his blood poured out in the perfect sacrifice for our sins.
And jesus has clothed you in his perfect garments of Righteous and you have been declared not just innocent but righteous before the Holy Judge.
And that is the good news of the Gospel!