Our scripture reading and our sermon text this morning comes from Romans chapter 3, verses 21 through 26. And I've taken the time to produce a translation of this for you, which is not normal. But there are quite a few things going on in this passage that I thought it might just be easier to put in front of you the way I think it should be, I guess. Translations differ here. And so for the sake of economy, your bulletin insert has a translation in it for you. I'm also going to read Romans 1, 16, and 17. Those two pairs of sets of verses go together. So we'll read together what's on the bulletin insert. Romans 1 16 and 17 and then 3 21 through 26 God's Holy Word Apostle Paul writes For I am not ashamed of the gospel For it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes the Jew first and also the Greek For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faithfulness unto faith, just as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. And then verse 21 of chapter three, but now the righteousness of God has been revealed without the law, though it is testified about by the law and the prophets. And the righteousness of God is revealed through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ unto all who believe. For there is no distinction. For all have sinned and are lacking the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God faithfully put forward as a propitiation in his blood, or a demonstration of his righteousness, due to the passing over of previously committed sins in the delay of God, the sake of a demonstration of his righteousness in the present time, in order that he might be just, even while justifying the one who has faith in Jesus. Let's pray. God, we pray that you would bless us in considering your righteousness and how it is, in fact, revealed in our Savior. Be with us then, illumine our hearts, provide for our many needs, we pray through your one word and spirit. We pray in Christ's name, amen. If you were going to try to point to something in this world to show what God's righteousness looks like, what would you point to? This is in many ways what our passage here, Romans 3, 21 through 26, is about, and in many ways what the whole first three chapters of Romans also are about. Where do we see God's righteousness demonstrated in the world? Of course, the background to our passage in Romans 3 starts much earlier in the letter. It starts in the part we read in Romans 1, and then it continues in Romans 1, 18 and following. And it's been quite a few weeks since I last preached in Romans, and quite a few more weeks since we began our series in Romans. So we will need to back up a little bit and get a running start here. I particularly want to start by thinking about Romans 1, 18 and following, where Paul first describes the revelation of something else, not specifically God's righteousness, as our passage focuses on, but firstly, God's wrath, a visible expression of God's wrath in some people's lives already right now. Of course, again, we covered this many weeks ago, but in that opening salvo, that opening passage, Romans 1, 18 through 32, Paul describes a mass of humanity who know God through what God has revealed of himself in the creation, but yet they grow wise in their own eyes. They worship and serve the creature rather than the creator. And in response to that, God gives them over in his wrath to many of the consequences of their rebellion, even now, even visibly so at the present time. Because of God's giving them over them, they become increasingly defiled in their whole persons. They dishonor their bodies outwardly, Romans 1.24. They become inflamed with every kind of passion inwardly, Romans 1.26. They become increasingly irrational or non-functioning in their minds, Romans 1.28. And so they pour forth unrighteousness. They become filled with unrighteousness, Paul says twice in that passage. And so become increasingly destructive, destructive of themselves, destructive of others. There in Romans 1 then is a situation of holistic degradation to the point that these people not only practice unrighteousness, but they defiantly praise it and say that it's good. So there in Romans 1, the situation is quite clear. It is clearly the opposite of God's righteousness, right? Human unrighteousness and of a hardened and a self-destructive kind and degree. While there's much that's clear there in Romans 1, the more difficult question is really, has always been, what to contrast that with. What is the opposite of that? That's what we're asking here this morning. Again, if that is what the wrath of God looks like when it's already presently visible in some people's lives, what does his righteousness look like? Where do we find a clear contrast to those that Paul first described in Romans 1? One answer that people often give comes up at the beginning of Romans 2. The opposite of those experiencing God's wrath right now is those who are not experiencing God's wrath right now, those with whom God is patient. whose lives are not given to the same kind of excess or the same clear signs of God's displeasure, and so their lives go somewhat better. They experience, by degree at least, relatively more blessing at the present time. These are people who disagree, even perhaps loudly disagree, with the way those in Romans 1 act. They condemn it, they judge it. Rather than wantingly pursuing a life of full rebellion or an obviously self-destructive pattern of life, they live a more restrained and generally more productive lives. The situation is relatively better. Perhaps in our modern day we would think here not of the seedy and the licentious sectors of society that proclaim and experiment with sexual freedom, but rather the responsible, the hardworking members of the middle class who stand up for morality, who constitute something of the fabric of our society that helps hold it together. Working class, suburban middle America, Of course, when you look more closely at working class suburban middle America, the situation is not really very pure at all, is it? Maybe less extreme in some kinds of sin, may not flaunt its sin in quite the same way, but it's still very, very sinful. It's always been filled with greed, coveting, lust, anger, every other kind of problem that more obviously rebellious people also deal with. Middle class America may perhaps be, or may at least used to have been, better at masking it problems are still the same. Well, if the general throng of more conservative, traditionally-minded people don't truly show God's righteousness in their lives, what then? How about the more educated? How about the more articulate, moral reformers of society? This is what Paul turns to in the second half of Romans 2, particularly looking at a Jewish teacher who has a message for personal and societal improvement. Here's a clear contrast to those in Romans 1, right? Surely this teacher stands out from others, partly for how strongly he advocates for a higher standard. He's been taught at length from the law. He promotes a better way. He calls it instruction for fools, light for those in darkness. In today's world again, we have no shortage of similar examples. Moral crusaders who champion a clear standard of right and wrong. People who present themselves and present those who follow them as a cut above everybody else. This is the answer, right? To our society's ills. Sadly, Paul's response to the teacher in Romans 2 also sounds very, very contemporary today. This teacher who tells people to look to himself for guidance, this one who trumpets his own superiority over the crowd, still proves to be a great disappointment himself. Though he would teach others how to live, all his efforts at teaching still can't change the human condition. Inevitably, it would seem then, his pride in his own superiority and his ability to help other people leads him into scandalous sin himself. Have we heard this story before? Teacher doesn't listen to his own instruction, falls into adultery and stealing and other sorts of flagrant sins himself. The self-proclaimed reformer shows that his reforms are powerless. Again then, if not the general throng of upstanding citizens or the crusading moral teacher, then what? Well, maybe the people of God as a whole. This is where Paul turns in Romans 3, 9 through 20. The historic covenant community of the Old Testament, those who had been given a distinct and special calling, separated out from the mass of humanity for centuries by being given God's written word, his law, being given circumcision, being told not to intermarry with the Gentiles, being given many special rules of dietary practices and other things that would make them distinct from the world, would train them, would discipline them in their lives, keep them separate. Surely here we would expect to see a fundamental, a clear contrast to all of those in Romans 1, right? Well, of course, you know the answer. Immunity of those set apart from the world and given great privileges, true privileges by God and His grace. What does Paul find there in them? Their bodies, too, are defiled. Throats are an open grave, Paul says. The poison of asps is under their tongue. Their feet are quick to rush into evil, and so forth. And inwardly, their minds and hearts are corrupt, Paul says. No one understands. No one seeks for God the way that they ought to. Together they have become worthless. Not one single truly righteous person in the whole lot. There's a clear problem then, isn't there? With all of these attempts to demonstrate God's righteousness. Where do you point then? Show it. The problems here are two-fold at least. All of these prior answers are trying to find a positive expression of righteousness in man. Something to point to about what humans are, what we do. Here's what it means to see God's wrath in somebody's life. Romans 1 describes that. It means that those people do things that deserve wrath. And so we think that the opposite of that would then be what? People doing things that deserve God's blessing. And we don't find it, do we? All of these explanations fail because they seek to find a demonstration of God's righteousness through a positive correspondence. God's righteousness positively expressed, positively embodied and lived out in man. But what Paul finds instead is just greater and lesser degrees of sinfulness. Yes, some of them are more restrained than others. Yes, some of them are a bit better off than others, relatively speaking. And yes, all of them fail to show God's righteousness in any full or consistent way. This is why, for his part, Paul points to an entirely different kind of thing to demonstrate God's righteousness. Entirely different kind of answer in our passage points to the bloody death of Jesus. Not great teachers not moral reformers, not the mass of those who claim a higher ideal, not the humanitarian efforts of those who think themselves awakened in their social awareness, and not even the worship or service of the covenant community itself. As good as that is, it still exists in the midst of our inconsistency and our sin. It still is not something that we could point to people and say, this is God's righteousness and expression. This is the scandal for many people, isn't it? Look at the way the church looks. You say your gospel is this and that, you say Christianity is this and that, and look at what all the Christians are doing. And what we have to say is, I know. That's why we all need Jesus. Where are all the good deeds of men? Where are all the accomplishments of society, past or present? We want, when Paul wants, to demonstrate God's righteousness and show where it is visible in the world, he points only to a man hanging lifeless on a bloody cross. But now, he says, the righteousness of God has been revealed. And it's revealed in Jesus Christ, described in verse 25 this way. Jesus Christ, whom God faithfully put forward as a propitiation in his blood for a demonstration of his righteousness. That's what demonstrates God's righteousness. Now about this demonstration of righteousness, our passage says many things. It's very dense. We don't have time in one sermon to deal with all the details for sure. But let me point out in particular five things. Firstly, this demonstration is brought about by God's own doing. We see this first in particular in verse 25. Remarkable here when Paul describes Christ's cross, he doesn't focus here on how Jewish leaders or Roman soldiers brought Christ to the cross. Instead, he focuses on how God himself put Christ forward. Some of us may be tempted, as we think about salvation, to think that God the Father is the one who provides the wrath, and Jesus Christ is the one who provides the satisfaction for wrath, turning God's anger away. But that's only partly true. In fact, if that's all that you say, and that's all that you think, it's a horrible distortion. Brothers and sisters, in our redemption, it is God himself who provides the answer to his own wrath, putting forward his own son by his own will to be a propitiation, to extinguish that wrath for us. This is why the cross shows us not just something about Jesus, but also something about God the Father as well. This is why it demonstrates God's righteousness. Romans 5, 9, Paul says that the cross shows us God's own love as well, that he sent his son even while we were yet hostile to him. Particularly, we might say here in our own passage, The cross of Jesus Christ shows us God's righteousness because it shows us just how perfect that righteousness is. It shows us that his righteousness can only exist and does only exist in contrast to the condition of sinful mankind. That is the only way you will ever see it. That is the only way you should ever think that you do see it. God cannot and God will not have his righteousness diminished and discounted and dumbed down in our insufficient view of what it is. And so he shows us in the cross just how perfect his righteousness is, just how perfect his righteous standard is. It's so perfect that the only full expression it has in this world is in a crucifixion. God putting forward His Son to receive the wages that we have earned for ourselves, the wages of death. Romans 6.23 tells us that. The wages of sin is death. But Christ, who Himself committed no sin, yet dies. Why is that? Well, clearly He died for our sin. He received our wages, or our deserving. And in this, he shows us just how righteous God truly is. God's righteous standard requires that sinful rebellion be punished. And so, God put Christ forward to extinguish his just wrath against our sin because there was no other way forward due to our sin. Secondly, this demonstration of God's righteousness is also brought about by Christ's faithfulness. It's brought about by God's own doing on the one hand, but also by Christ's faithfulness on the other, in verse 22. Now here we get into something of a challenge about our passage. I alluded to this before. There are other things as well, but the Greek words that Paul uses in verse 22 could be translated in several different ways, and so, of course, naturally, people in my occupation debate a lot about that meaning. But I've suggested what I think is best here, and I'll give you a few of the reasons, but I'm suggesting that verse 22 describes how God's righteousness is revealed through Christ's faithfulness. You'll remember back in Romans 3, 2 through 5, Again, you can look back there later. We've gone through that before. There, Paul described how God's faithfulness to the Jewish people was met continually with Jewish unfaithfulness. Unfaithfulness like the unfaithfulness of David with Bathsheba in Psalm 51, as Psalm 51 describes, which Paul quotes there. God's faithfulness met with human unfaithfulness. God's righteousness met with human unrighteousness. God's truth met with a human lie. But here, at last, in Romans 3, 21 and 22, we finally see the antidote to that, the opposite of that. Finally, here in our passage, we see how God's faithfulness meets with faithfulness also on the human side, the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. Christ's own faithfulness to come to earth in obedience to his Father and to faithfully do all that the Father had given him to do even in going to the cross. The point then is that Christ was steadfastly loyal to the Father inwardly in all of his thoughts and all of his feelings. And that Christ was steadfastly loyal to the Father also outwardly in all of his actions, which you can see when he hangs on a cross at the Father's will. Here, then, is the religious response to God our Father that He is actually due. We are unfaithful. But thanks be to God that Christ was faithful. And in this description of Christ's faithfulness, we also see this. That even while it was God's will for Christ to go to the cross, even while Paul says that God put Him forward as a propitiation, we also see this. that Christ himself was no mere passive victim in this, that he went willingly, that he went knowledgeably. Yes, the cross is God the Father's doing, but the cross is also Christ's own doing, or it would not be what it is. His perfectly faithful, response to God the Father in our behalf. He faithfully did what God gave him to do. Loyalty and fidelity in obedience. This faithfulness then, brothers and sisters, is where we finally see a real contrast between the sinful lot of all humanity and Christ Himself. In other words, this faithfulness is where we finally really see God's righteousness on display. Previously, we see bodies, human bodies, defiled, used for all manner of unrighteousness. Previously, we see hearts and minds that are unfaithful to the Lord, erring and straying and deceiving themselves. But here we see a body and a soul inwardly and outwardly perfect. holistic, complete righteousness. That's what faithfulness means. It means he did what he was supposed to do, and he did it from a perfect attitude and mindset. Sometimes we talk to our children, talk to all of ourselves, really, but our children, not just obeying, but obeying cheerfully. It's always the harder next step, right? It's the next step for all of us, isn't it? bear up and grin and bear it and we do what the Lord says sometimes yet without really wanting to or having a good attitude or praising him. We do it begrudgingly, do it in anger, bitterness. Faithfulness of Jesus Christ means both outward and inward obedience. Thanks be to our God. Thirdly, this demonstration of God's righteousness we see was promised in the law, but goes far beyond what the law itself can accomplish. It's promised by the law. but goes far beyond what the law itself can accomplish. This especially becomes clear in verse 21. In verse 21, Paul says both, that the revelation of God's righteousness came about without the law, and that this revelation was also testified to by the law and the prophets. Now the second of those is maybe a bit easier to see what it means. It means that the law and the prophets together, which is a shorthand, not a shorthand, a longhand way of saying the Old Testament, right, what we would call the Old Testament. the whole Old Testament predicted that God would send Jesus Christ to accomplish our salvation. Of course, we could go through a whole litany of examples, but if we think back to Genesis 3.15, just as the first of those examples, God comes to a sinful Adam and Eve in the garden, who are shamed, who are hiding, who have disobeyed him, and among other things, he promises that he would send the seed of the woman to crush the head of the seed of the serpent. what we sometimes call the first preaching of the gospel, the first direct promise that God would indeed send Christ. And then from there, in the Old Testament, we see scripture after scripture making other similar promises. And so Christ's coming was clearly in complete accordance with what the law and the prophets predicted would happen. And yet at the same time, we also need to understand the other side of this. That while the Old Testament predicted that Christ would come, verse 21 also says that God revealed His righteousness in Christ without the law. Here, I think in particular, Paul points out that the salvation that's predicted by the Old Testament could also not be accomplished by the law itself or accomplished on the law's own terms. Something decisively greater was needed. For one thing, we should say this, that in going to the cross, Christ was not doing something that the law itself requires people to do for other people. The moral law teaches us right and wrong. And the moral law teaches us what right and wrong deserve. It tells us not to murder. It tells us not to steal. It tells us that the punishment that all those things deserve, ultimately, before the Lord is death. What it doesn't tell us, though, is that if somebody else sins, I should step in their place and be punished for them. No one's required to do that by the law. Because that's something that does not stem from the law. It stems from mercy. In its barest articulation, the law has no mercy in it. Do this and you'll live. Do this and you'll die because you deserve it. In both cases, that's what the law says. Be blessed because you deserve it. Be cursed because you deserve it. And of course, we all deserve the one and not the other. The law can do is either reward the obedient or punish the disobedient, and that's it. The law itself then, under the law itself, God is not obligated to save us when we sin and Christ is not obligated to die for us in our sin. These things are not based on the law, they're based on grace. This as well, under the law, obedience deserves blessing. But is that what Christ experienced? Christ, who never sinned, did not receive blessing. He received a curse. Scripture says that he became a curse for us, taking upon himself the curse that we deserve. This too is not law. It's mercy. Fourthly, We've seen that this demonstration is put forward by God, that this demonstration is through Christ's faithfulness, that it's not through the law, and then fourthly, that it shows us our sin and how we can be saved. This we see especially in verses 23 and 24 of our passage, and it flows from what we've just said, doesn't it? If God's righteousness is demonstrated in Christ going to the cross, then what verses 23 and 24 say is relatively clear as it follows, right? Clearly then, all have sinned and are lacking God's glory. And so the only way to be justified, the only way to be declared righteous before God by a gift is by his grace. A gift we don't deserve. In fact, we need to say this. A gift that we have forfeited. A gift that we deserve the opposite of. It's not just that I don't deserve eternal life, it's that I deserve eternal death. So do you, and so do all people, and yet that's not what we get, is it? Turn to Christ in faith. If anything in the world shows, brothers and sisters, that all have sinned, it's Christ's cross. Because a person does not send their son and put him forward as a propitiation if there's another way. If there's another way for all humanity to receive blessing, if there's another way for God's ultimate purposes of eschatological life to be achieved, if there's another way to do any of these things, this would be foolish. Paul says that in Galatians 2. If righteousness were by the law, then Christ died in vain. People who deny their sin deny that it makes any sense for Christ to die. But Christ did die. God did put him forward as a propitiation, and so it shows us quite clearly that we're all sinful. that there's no other way except to receive this gift, this gracious gift that we deserve the opposite of. And so the cross shows us how absolutely necessary grace is for us. No other hope, no other way. Fifthly, The demonstration of God's righteousness also shows God's fairness. God's fairness. We see this in verse 22, as well as in verses 25 and 26. For many centuries throughout the Old Testament, God had privileged one people group. He had an exclusive relationship with the Jewish people, essentially. There's a few exceptions, but essentially that's the way it was. And he showed that people particular patience, and he showed them favor. And what else did he do? He bore with their sins patiently, not handing them over to wrath for centuries and centuries. Sin after sin through failure. After failure, God continued to be their God. He continued to call them his people. Now, all by itself, this might seem a certain way, and it did seem a certain way to many in Paul's day, including to Paul himself before he was a Christian. All by itself, it seems like God has a double standard, because these sinful Jewish people, the Israelites, he puts up with. In fact, he blesses them. and the sinful Egyptians drown at the bottom of the Red Sea. It's a double standard, right? Isn't it? That's the way many people took it to be. Are there people in the world that God just likes more? That he just kind of winks at their sin? It doesn't really bother him. Because something about them, I don't know why, it just doesn't bother me. We're that way, but God's not that way. If he were, again, there would be no need for Christ's cross. The cross shows us that there is, in fact, no distinction, as verse 22 says. That there is no preferential treatment or favoritism. Yes, throughout history, God has passed over the sins of some people, temporarily, verse 25 and 26 describe. We can think here, in part of the Old Testament festival of the Passover, Israel itself was not less sinful than Egypt, yet Egypt got punished with the death of the firstborn and Israel got spared. Why? Because Israelite sin doesn't matter as much? No, but merely because God in His sovereignty had chosen to show mercy for a time, delaying His wrath against their sin till Christ would come and it would be laid upon Him. And when Christ comes, He didn't come just for the sins of Jews, but for the sins of Jews and of Greeks, as Romans 1.16 says. In fact, all who look to Christ in faith are justified, are they not? Jewish believers, Egyptian believers, Greek believers, American believers, African American believers, Iranian believers, whatever you might want to say, there is no distinction. rich, poor, slave, free, male, female, et cetera, any other distinction that you can draw. It may have looked in the Old Testament like God is a God who plays favorites, but in Christ it is decisively clear how much that is not so. He treats us all in exactly the same manner, condemning our sin, everyone's sin without exception, and granting righteousness as a gift in Christ to those who look to him in faith. To everyone who looks to him in faith without exception. So we see here the cross of Christ shows us many things. Many things about God, many things about Christ and about ourselves. It shows us God's just judgment, his righteous standard against sin, but it also shows us his love. It shows us Christ's faithfulness to go to the cross on our behalf. It shows us that salvation is not through the law, nor possibly could be. That all have sinned. that all can be justified only through an undeserved gift and that our God is fair in sin with regard to sin or to salvation. Here then is a clear picture for us and of our God and of how we stand in relationship to him. The only place that we see righteousness truly in the world is not in the accomplishments of men and of societies, but in the bloody cross of Jesus. Thanks be to our God for making this indisputably clear history right in front of us for all to see. Father, we pray that you would take this home to our hearts, that you would teach us to rest in this cross and in this cross alone more and more for your glory, for the spread of your grace in our lives and the lives of others. We thank you that in you, and because of Christ, justice and grace can, in fact, go together. We look to him, we pray in his name. Amen.