Have you seen the commercial on TV in which people are invited to do their Lotto 649 happy dance? Let’s be honest, if we won a large amount of money, we would do a happy dance. Of course, as Mennonites, we would do it sitting down, but we would still find a way of expressing our happiness. Now that I have broken two of the Mennonite Commandments – don’t gamble and don’t dance – let me get to the point. When something great happens, we will find a way of expressing our happiness. It will show on our faces, it will find a way of expression.
Last week we talked about the bad news that we are all under the power of SIN and that God’s wrath is revealed against all who are living in godlessness and wickedness. Although there was good news in that message, I mentioned that we would talk some more about the greatest good news that arises out of that bad news this week. So today, we want to talk about the good news that the gospel reveals the righteousness of God. As we do, I hope, as we look at this amazing good news today, that we will walk out of here just bursting to find some way of expressing the joy that is ours because the gospel reveals the righteousness of God. The text we are looking at today is Romans 3:21-26. Let us read it together from the screen.
The Righteousness Of God Is Revealed
The beginning and ending of this passage speaks about the revelation of God’s righteousness. In 3:21 it says, “the righteousness of God has been made known.” In 3:22 it speaks about, “the righteousness of God which comes…” In both 25, 26 it speaks about the demonstration of God’s righteousness. It is clear that the key concept of this passage is the righteousness of God being made known. What does this phrase, “righteousness of God” mean and how is it made known?
Sometimes we have the idea that righteousness refers to the fact that God is a good guy, but it is so much more than that. You know the commercial on TV in which a football referee admits that he has made a bad call and that he will make a bad call on the other team in the second half in order to even it out? That is one way of looking at righteousness. It means making things right. That is what God is doing through the gospel. Things are very wrong and, as we saw last week, God’s wrath is against all the godlessness and wickedness of humanity. God’s righteousness is revealed because through the gospel God is dealing with all of that godlessness and wickedness. There are several levels on which this right making is happening. God is making things right so that he does not have to pour out his wrath against all those who deserve His wrath. He is making things right in the sense that those who are under the power of SIN are freed from that power. He is making things right so that once people have been freed from the power of SIN, they learn to live in a way that is good and right. He is making things right so that all evil will be dismissed and in the end everything will be good.
As you may recall, I have indicated that one of the problems in the church in Rome was the relationship between Jews and Gentiles. As Paul presented this radical message, the Jews could easily have accused Paul of inventing a new thing. In fact, that is what Jews to this day do. They say that the gospel of Jesus is a departure from God’s intention, a new thing. Paul assures them, in 3:21, that this concept is attested in the law and the prophets. I won’t take time to demonstrate this, but the promise of a Messiah who would come and make things right is found throughout the Old Testament, beginning with the promise of God in Genesis 3:15. With the gospel, we stand on solid and ancient ground, the solid ground of God’s Word.
How Can God Be Right When Everyone Is Bad?
Of course this idea of making things right poses some significant challenges. How can God make things right when everyone is so bad? How can God not punish the godlessness of the Gentiles? How can God overlook the wicked deeds of the Jewish people who continue in disobedience even though they are in covenant with God? The problem makes itself known in two directions. If God is going to express His love to people He will have to overlook wrong. If He does that, He is not righteous. On the other hand, if He punishes evil, He will have to break the covenant with his people and will not be able to express His love to those He has created.
When you type a document on a computer, you can have left side margins in which the left side is straight but the right side is crooked. Or you can have right side margins in which the right margin is straight but the left one is crooked. There is a third option and that is you can justify your margins in which they are both straight.
In Romans 3:26 we read that the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel so that God is both “righteous and one who makes right.” This means that God makes things right on both sides. God remains a good and holy God who does not overlook evil and at the same time is able to accept the people who have walked in disobedience.
Our hope is that in the end, God is going to make everything right. But we do not need to wait until then to see the right making of God revealed in the world. Please notice that according to 3:26, God’s right making is happening “at the present time.” Right now and ever since Jesus came to this earth, God has been making things right.
Through The Faithfulness Of Jesus
How is God making things right?
What God has done, He has done through Jesus.
Through the Faithfulness Of Jesus
This is an important concept in this passage. It is important for us to notice that God has made things right through the faithfulness of Jesus. Unfortunately most translations do not bring this idea out well. Most translations before Martin Luther did express this idea, but since then they have all been influenced by his translation. If you go back to the Greek text, it is much easier to see this idea and how important it is. Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 3:22. NIV translates, “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” Going back to the Greek, I have translated it “the righteousness of God which comes through the faithfulness of Christ is for all the ones who believe.” There are several reasons why this is a better translation. One is that it is redundant to say that it comes “through faith” and then to say “to all who believe.” The other is that, in Greek, Jesus Christ is genitive, that means that it should not be translated “in Jesus Christ” but rather “of Jesus Christ.” Another thing we need to understand is that in Greek the word for “faith” is the same word as the word for “faithfulness.” Greek does not make a distinction between trust in and faithfulness to. So when such an idea is translated, we need to decide which emphasis is meant. Therefore, given all of these reasons, I believe it is better to translate this text with the idea that the righteousness of God is revealed because of the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.
Not only is it a better sense grammatically, it also gives a much more powerful message. What it tells us is that God has made things right because Jesus was faithful to all that God called him to do. It puts the focus on God making things right and on Jesus as the one whose faithfulness made that possible. John E. Toews writes, “The issue in Romans 3:21-26 is the end-time, world-transforming revelation of the righteousness of God for all humanity and all creation to overcome the power of SIN. The means of that revelation is ‘the faithfulness of Messiah Jesus.’”
As we go on in the text, we see the way in which Jesus was faithful to God in order to make things right.
In Romans 3:24, we notice that God making things right happens “through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.”
The idea of redemption comes from some powerful pictures in the Old Testament. One of the clearest is the picture of the deliverance of all of Israel from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. In the Exodus, God released the whole nation from being slaves. He set them free.
There are a number of angles from which the word redemption can be understood. One is that it refers to “freeing for ransom.” That is, a slave would be freed if someone paid the price for his freedom. Although that idea may be included here, it raises some difficult issues about who the ransom is paid to and so on. I think the emphasis, when we talk about redemption, is on the concept of release or being set free. Last week we talked about SIN as a power which keeps us in its grip. We learned that we must not look at sin only in terms of the acts of disobedience which we engage in, but also from the point of view that SIN is a power which keeps us in bondage.
We have been saying that God is making things right through the faithfulness of Jesus. Jesus was faithful to God, by coming into our world. When He came into this world, He put Himself into the force field of sin. However, He did not yield to its power. Therefore He is able to set us free from the power of SIN. He is able to transfer us from the domain of SIN into the domain of God’s kingdom. That is what redemption means.
How could God do that and not be accused of overlooking sin?
The next verse answers that question when it says, “God presented this covering for sin through the faithfulness of the one who shed His blood in order to demonstrate His righteousness through the letting go of previously committed sins.” Please notice that this translation is different from most for the same reasons as I mentioned before. The focus is on the faithfulness of Jesus who covered our sin by his shed blood.
The idea of a covering for sin, or atonement, comes from the Old Testament. God required the Jewish people to offer animal sacrifices as an atonement, or covering for sin. Whenever they sinned, they brought an animal to the temple to have it sacrificed. As a nation, once a year, they sacrificed an unblemished lamb on what was known as the Day of Atonement, which is the day Jewish people still speak of as Yom Kippur. That is the day on which this happened. The shedding of blood was necessary to cover sin.
Jesus was faithful to God not only because He did not yield to sin, but also because He was willing to shed His blood on the cross. As an innocent person, He died in order to cover our sins and thus make redemption possible. Because Jesus was faithful, God is able to forgive our sins and accept.
So what this passage focuses on is what God has done in Christ. God making everything right is revealed through Jesus who was faithful to God. Jesus was faithful by coming to earth and subjecting Himself to the power of SIN, but never yielding to that power. He was faithful by shedding His blood in order to cover our sin and thus to free us from the power of SIN. When people are freed from the power of SIN, God’s making everything right is not finished. He continues to work in them to empower them to live right and, in the end, to take them into His eternal kingdom where everything will be right.
And that is why we have this astonishing good news which dispels all the bad news we looked at last week. It is good news which frees us from the power of SIN and sets us free to live right and to live eternally. How does this amazing Good News become ours?
We Are Among Those Who Have Fallen Short
The beginning point is the recognition that we are trapped. Whether we are those who reject God in our godlessness or those who seem to know God, but deny that knowledge by our disobedience, as we saw last week, we are trapped in the power of SIN.
Romans 3:23 puts it this way. “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” God intends glory for all of His creation, but because of the power of SIN and because of all the wrong things we do, we fall far short of it. There is no way that any person ever measures up. Carla’s aunt had a profound revelation a few days before she died. She wondered, “am I good enough.” We could gladly tell her, “There is no way that you are good enough.” You have fallen short.
But then we were also able to remind her that she was accepted by God because He has freed us from sin. You don’t get brownie points for good behavior and you can’t earn this freedom as wages. Because Jesus was faithful to the call of God and fulfilled all that God called Him to do, He is able to make things right as a gift of grace.
This is what we read in Romans 3:24. Every religion in the world tries to make things right as men, women and children do their best to fulfill every possible obligation. In the gospel, God is making things right by giving us a gift which arises because He is gracious. As we have already seen, because we fall short and it is hopeless, there is only one way that we can be set free and that is by receiving the gift of God’s grace.
It is much easier for many people to give a gift than to receive a gift. The problem is that we have to humble ourselves and admit that we need help. When we are able to do that, God’s gift is available to us.
How do we receive this gift? In one place in this passage we are given the answer to that question. In 3:22 we are told that this gift is given to “the all who believe.”
Last week we saw that God is impartial. His wrath is poured out on all people – both those who have no covenant with God and reject Him in their godlessness and those who have a covenant with Him, but reject that covenant by their disobedience. We saw it as good news that God was impartial in His wrath. The wonder of the good news is multiplied when we realize that God is not only impartial in His wrath, but also in the giving of the free gift.
One does not have to become a Jew first in order to become one of God’s people. One does not have to be from a certain culture or economic status or any other division on earth. Since it is given to all who believe, it is equally available to everyone on earth. All who put their trust in Jesus are set free from the power of SIN and are given the life of God now and for all eternity.
As we think about these things, I want to invite all of us to discover how we can respond to this amazing good news. How will you do your gospel happy dance?
If you are feeling trapped under the weight of God’s wrath and the knowledge of your own hopelessness, then I would invite you to accept the gift of God by trusting in Jesus. If you believe in your heart that Jesus died on the cross for you and if you confess with your mouth that He is Lord, you will be set free and given God’s gift. I would invite anyone who desires this gift to take the step of believing today.
If you have already received God’s gift, I would invite you to discover once again the wonder of what it means that God has made things right because Jesus was faithful and offered His life as a sacrifice. I would invite you, on this day of Thanksgiving celebration, to offer to God, from the bottom of your heart a deep and clear “thank you Lord!” It is so important that we understand that the revelation of the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus is the center of this passage. If we understand that, we understand the glory of the gift. Our thoughts and our heart are focused on God and our gratitude goes to Him. Surely we have reason to do a thanksgiving happy dance because the righteousness of God has been revealed. How will you celebrate your thanksgiving that the righteousness of God has been revealed through the faithfulness of Jesus?
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