"But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets" Romans 3:21

Romans 3

What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, 

That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, 

and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man) God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world? For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner? And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.

What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;

As it is written, 

There is none righteous, no, not one:

There is none that understandeth, 

there is none that seeketh after God.

They are all gone out of the way, 

they are together become unprofitable; 

there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

Their throat is an open sepulchre; 

with their tongues they have used deceit; 

the poison of asps is under their lips:

Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:

Their feet are swift to shed blood:

Destruction and misery are in their ways:

And the way of peace have they not known:

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith. Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.

_______ 

"Now this expression “under sin” [verse 9] is a remarkable and unusual one. We need to note the same expression and context in Galatians 3:22:

“The Scripture shut up all things under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.”

“All things under sin” is a larger expression than “guilty of sin,” or, “in bondage to sin.” It is a general state described, as of convicts in a prison, or disease-stricken people “under quarantine.” An even stronger expression concerning human beings, Gentiles or Jews, asserts:

“God hath shut up all unto disobedience, that He might have mercy upon all” (11:32);

and the words, “The Scripture shut up all things under sin, that the promise . . . might be given,” bear out this fact. Moule says, “Being brought under sin, (as the Greek bids us more exactly render), giving us the thought that the race has fallen from a good estate into an evil.”

That the Jews and Greeks alike, that is, the whole world, are “under sin,” is next abundantly shown by Paul from seven Old Testament Scriptures. It will not do to say, as do some, that since the Scriptures were given only to the Jews, therefore the Jews only are in view here, in verses 10 to 18. For we read in Psalm 14, the very first Scripture here quoted:

“Jehovah looked down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there were any that did understand.”

“Children of men” is a wider term than Jews. Furthermore, Romans 3:9, which begins this great arraignment, includes both Jews and Greeks as being “all under sin.” This, therefore, is a world-wide indictment. . . 

Men’s mouths keep talking of their own goodness or of someone else’s badness, or of both,—as, for example, the Pharisee in Luke 18:9-14. But the moral history of mankind delineated in Chapter One; and the stern principles of God’s judgment which considered neither man’s high notions of himself, nor his religious professions, as shown in Chapter Two; and now, in Chapter Three, the fourteen sweeping statements of Scripture concerning the whole guilty human race, with the double conviction of the Jews as not only sinners, but also transgressors of the very Law they gloried in,—all this stops men’s vain mouths! For they are all brought into the presence of their Judge, and the sentence of guilty is upon them all. Not that they are brought in to have their just penalty executed upon them; but that they may be silent while God their Judge announces—astonishing thing!—that He has himself already dealt with the world’s sin upon a sin-offering, Jesus, His Son; whom, we shall soon see, He set forth at the cross as a righteous meeting-ground between Himself in all His holiness and righteousness; and the sinner, whether Jew or Gentile, in all his guilt,—through simple faith in the shed blood of this Redeemer! . . .

Verse 21: But now apart from law God’s righteousness hath been manifested,—borne witness to by the Law and the Prophets—The first words, “But now,” should be hailed by us joyfully, as beginning an account of something heavenly different from our guilt and helplessness, detailed in the preceding part of the Epistle (1:18-3:20).

The next phrase is: “apart from law”—lay it to heart! Unfortunately, the King James Version misses the emphasis here. For the Greek puts to the very front this great phrase “apart from law” (chōris nomou), and thus sets forth most strongly the altogether separateness of this Divine righteousness from any law-performance, any works of man, whatsoever. Luther’s rendering was, “without accessory aid of law.” In this revelation of God’s righteousness, law was left out of account. Righteousness is on another principle than our right-doing!

Now the great and most common error in setting forth God’s righteousness here, is, to allow law at least some place. Men cannot, it seems, get over reasoning thus: that since God once promulgated the dispensation of law, which called for human righteousness. He must thereafter be bound by it forever. And this despite Divine assurance, over and over and over, that the present dispensation proceeds on an altogether different principle; that there has been a

“disannulling of a foregoing commandment” (Heb. 7:18);

for He who had the right to command had also the right to disannul. It was

“because of its weakness and unprofitableness—for the Law made nothing perfect,”—

that the “foregoing commandment” was set aside. It had served its purpose—to make the trespass “abound” (5:20).

It is not that God has not the right to demand legal righteousness from us: but that He does not do it. “Righteousness which is of God” speaks in a way diametrically opposite to man’s law—obedience, of any sort whatsoever.

Men who do not see or believe that the whole history of those in Christ ended at the cross (for they died there, with Christ) must hold that God is still demanding righteousness: for “the law hath dominion over a man so long as he liveth!”

The “teachers of the Law” (I Tim. 1:7) say: “Behind God, as He talks with you in ‘grace’ is His eternal Law. And He must carry out what He has expressed in that Law. But, because you are not able to perform it, He has ‘graciously’ given Christ, to perform all its requirements for you. And the positive, or ‘active’ requirements are, the observance of all the commands of the Law to the letter,—which (these teachers say) Christ has by His perfect life of obedience to the Law on earth, furnished for you. And the negative, or ‘passive’ obedience, as they call it—that is, the penalty of death for your sins which the Law (say they) demanded, Christ has paid on the cross. So that, now your debts cancelled by Christ’s death, you have Christ’s legal ‘merits’ as your actual righteousness before God: for God must demand (they say) perfect righteousness from you, as measured by His holy Law,”—etc., etc.

This seemingly beautiful talk is both unscriptural and anti-scriptural.

God says that the believer is not under law, that he is dead to law,—to that whole principle, being in the Risen Christ; and Christ is certainly not under law in Heaven! Believers are “in Him”; they are “not in the flesh” (Rom. 8:9). They were formerly in the flesh (in the old natural life of Adam); but are now “new creatures” in Christ Risen!

If you put believers under law, you must put their federal Head, Christ, back under law; for

“as He is, even so are we in this world.”

To do this you must reverse Calvary, and have Christ back again on earth “under law.” For law, we repeat, was not given to a heavenly company, but to an earthly nation. Scripture says it was to redeem that earthly people (Israel) who were under law, that Christ was “born under the Law” (Gal. 4:4). You must thus, if you are “under law,” be joined to a Christ belonging to Israel, a flesh and blood Christ; and must consent to be an Israelite—to which nation He was sent. But alas! You find that such a Christ is not here! That He said He must “abide alone,”—like the grain of wheat unless it “fall into the ground and die.” To an earthly, Jewish Christ, you therefore cannot be united. And so your vain hope of having Moses and Christ is wholly gone. Therefore you must be united with a Risen Christ, or with none at all! But if to a Risen Christ, it is unto One who died unto sin (6:10); and those (Jewish) believers who were under the Law died with Him unto it (7:4). And you, if you are Christ’s, are now wholly, as Christ is, on resurrection ground. This truth will be brought out fully in chapters Six and Seven; we can but note it here.

The words hath been manifested (of verse 21) Conybeare lucidly paraphrases, “not by law but by another way, God’s righteousness is brought to light.” God had always dealt righteously, although His way was not as yet plain. He pardoned many, and He did not seem wholly to judge sin even in the unsaved world. But at the cross

“He spared not His own Son.”

Here was revealed, indeed, righteousness to the uttermost!

Borne witness to by the Law and the Prophets—by the Law, in its sacrificial offerings; by the Prophets, in direct statements:

“This is His name whereby He shall be called: Jehovah our righteousness” (Jer. 23:6);

and again, “Thy righteousness”—21 times in the Psalms! as, “I will make mention of Thy righteousness, even of Thine only” (71:2, 15, 16, 19, 24); and Isaiah:

“By the knowledge of Himself shall my righteous Servant make many righteous” (53:11).

Yet it was not brought to light how this should be, until “the fulness of the time” came, and God sent His Son to “suffer for sins, the just for the unjust,” to “put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself,” that God’s righteousness might be “manifested,” both in His dealing with sin, and in glorifying His Son in heaven, who had glorified His Father on earth.

It would have been righteous for God to smite Adam and Eve as He did the angels that sinned. He could have revealed Himself in righteousness of judgment in accord with His holiness and justice. He was not obliged to save any man. But it was God’s will to reveal Himself: for He is Love.

Therefore He now comes forth at the cross in love,—albeit He must there come forth also in righteousness,—for He Himself must righteously and fully judge sin upon the person of His own provided Lamb. The sword

“awakened against His Shepherd, the Man who was His Fellow,”—

the “fellow” of Jehovah of hosts! The Shepherd was smitten:

“He was bruised for our iniquity, the chastisement of our peace [that would procure peace for us] was upon Him.”

God spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up, and the penalty for our sin was visited upon Him, Jesus, God’s provided Sacrifice (Zech. 13:7; Isa. 53:5, 6).

God is able to come forth to us now in absolute GRACE, sending out His messengers

“preaching peace by Jesus Christ”;—

nay, preaching much more than peace. In effect, God says, “Utter and infinite oceans of grace shall roll over the place where judgment and condemnation were!” Forgiving us all our trespasses, He goes further: having raised up Christ from the dead. He says, I will now place you in my Son. I will give you a standing fully and only in Him risen from the dead! Not only did He bear your sins, putting away your guilt, but in His death I released you from your standing and responsibility in Adam the first. You who have believed are now new creatures in Christ: for I have created you in Him.’

And because this is so, it is announced further:

“Him who knew no sin, God made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

These astonishing words state the present fact as to all believers,—of all those in Christ: they are the righteousness of God in Him! . . .

Verse 22: God’s righteousness, moreover, through faith concerning Jesus Christ unto all them that believe—If it were man’s righteousness, it would be through something man accomplished. But it is God’s righteousness; it is apart from out right-doing—that is, law-keeping altogether; for keeping law would be the only way man could get a righteousness of his own. 

But the moment we mention righteousness here, people can hardly be restrained from the notion that they are to have a new quality bestowed upon them. Since they have themselves lost this quality of righteousness, they are anxious to get it back,—the consciousness of it. But this is really self-righteousness,—and that at its worst.

For we read here the words, “through faith in [or concerning] Jesus Christ.” And people rush to talking of Christ’s “merits” becoming theirs, being “imputed,” or reckoned to them: so that they are, thereby, in a righteous state! 

But we shall see in Rom. 4:5 that God accounts righteous the believing ungodly as such; not those who are first to be in any wise “changed,” and then reckoned righteous; not those to whom certain “merits” of Christ are to be given, so that they are thereby righteous—not at all. But the believing ungodly are to be reckoned righteous—while they are still ungodly: it is that fact that makes the gospel! 

Justification is God’s reckoning a man righteous who has no righteousness,—because God is operating wholly upon another basis, even the work of Christ. If Christ fully bore sin for man, and has been raised up by God, a believing man has reckoned to him by God all that infinite work of Christ! Thus, no change in the ungodly man is necessary for justification. 

Of course, God will—does—give him life: it is “justification of life,” in Christ. But he is justified, accounted righteous, while ungodly; and only by the blood of Christ. God will also finally, indeed, present him faultless. But he declares him righteous upon believing—while he is ungodly! If God changed him first, he would not be “ungodly.” 

He believes, certainly. But faith is not a “meritorious” work. It is simply giving God the credit of speaking the truth in the gospel about Christ. It is Christ’s shed blood, and that alone, which is the procuring cause of God’s declaring an ungodly man righteous: while God’s grace is the reason for it. Our faith is simply the instrumental condition. God counts our faith for righteousness, because by it we give God and Christ the full glory of our salvation. Faith in God also brings the heart into His light; for, when “with the heart man believeth unto righteousness,” the heart, in thus believing, is turned to God directly, in the simplicity of a little child. When Adam sinned, he fled from God; when a sinner believes, he comes back!

Now concerning this chiefest revelation of Romans, we must go to Scripture only. It will never do to accept men’s writings as “authorities’” or as “standards,”—as men call them. For to do this is not to interpret the Scriptures, but to proceed along Romish lines. Nor will it do to rely on men’s devotedness to God, however real, as proof of their reliability in statements of Divine truth.

Take the Reformers: God brought them back, in principle, to the Scriptures as their only guide. (Would that there were the same devotedness and zeal today!) But, after mounting up to Heaven as it were, in personal grasp and use of the truth of justification by faith apart from all works, yet the Reformers put Christians back under Moses as a “rule of life,” under law “What is required? and what is forbidden?” in this Mosaic commandment, or that, is the burden of Christian living, according to this theology.

Godly and earnest men have thus held; but the only question is, what are the words of Scripture? We must “prove all things” men write, in the light of Scripture: for God says we are not under law: and that the “rule of life” is, that we are a new creation (Gal. 6:15, 16). Is the Pauline revelation that we died with Christ from all earthly “religious principles” (Col 2:20), (such as God declares the Mosaic system now to be: Gal. 4:9)—is this glorious fact once set forth in all the reformed “standards”? By no means! Believers were not seen by the Reformers as having had their history ended at the cross, and being now wholly in a new creation. Neither did the Puritans enter into this truth. This Pauline doctrine was not fully recovered until God wrought,—again in a reviving, almost a Reformation power, through godly and devoted servants of His, 300 years after Luther and Calvin. Truth is truth: and those seeking God’s truth welcome it wherever they find it! Revealed Truth belongs to the whole Church, to every believer. Those attached to, and entrenched in tradition, will always be found fighting for that.

We are glad to note, in Sanday and Headlam’s Romans, this word regarding William Kelly’s Notes on Romans: “His Notes are written from a detached and peculiar standpoint; but they are the fruit of sound scholarship, and of prolonged and devout study, and they deserve more attention than they have received.” This is a fair and honest admission. For its irrefutable setting forth of truth, its Christian fairness and love, and its brevity, make Kelly’s Notes invaluable.[e.g.,]...

   

Men prefer “belonging” to a system: 

(1) Because where faith is not vigorous it comforts the flesh to find oneself among a party. 

(2) Where direct personal knowledge of Scripture is lacking it is a comfort to the heart to be told “authoritatively” what to believe—what the party to which one belongs, holds, 

(3) It is abhorrent to the flesh to walk by the Spirit. It is infinitely easier to be occupied with the “Christian duties” practiced or prescribed by your sect. 

(4) The flesh cannot bear to be little, despised, but desires to be of those that have the regard of “the Christian world” (an awful phrase!). 

(5) Even among the most earnest Christians the temptation and the tendency have always been to seize upon those truths emphasized by the leaders of the sect they follow and claim those truths and principles as their own! But this in effect denies the unity of the Body of Christ, and that all truth belongs to the whole Church of God.

Now all this is of the very essence of Sectarianism. If your Christian consciousness is of anyone but Christ as Head over all things to the Church, and of any body but the Body of Christ, of which all true believers are members, and you members of them—then you are on forbidden, sectarian, “carnal” ground:

“For when one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not men . . . are ye not carnal, and do ye not walk after the manner of men?”"

Simple faith, then, receives “God’s testimony concerning His Son,” and rests there. They used to say of Marshall Field in Chicago, “His word is as good as his bond.” It was no credit to the merchants that trusted Mr. Field, but it was a great credit to him! It gave him the public honor of his integrity.

God’s righteousness, moreover, through faith concerning Jesus Christ—Here we must study carefully. The King James Version reads, “by faith of Jesus Christ.” “Through faith” is more accurate, as the preposition is, dia, “through,’” as the Revised Versions, both English and American, read. Concerning the form, “of Jesus Christ,” see Mark 11:22, Acts 3:16, Gal. 2:16, Jas. 2:1 where the same Greek construction appears.

The expression “faith concerning Jesus Christ,” literally, “faith of Jesus Christ” must be regarded either as:

1. Faith in the gospel of God concerning Jesus Christ, as set forth at the beginning of the Epistle, involving of course appropriation of Christ with all His benefits for oneself; or,

2. Trust in Christ. But Christ has already died for sin, for the world; and trust, here, would mean relying on Christ to do something for the soul; either to put forth power to deliver; or, as they say, to become one’s “personal Saviour”; or, “to see one through to the end,” or the like. This is in accordance with man’s gospel: “Jesus Christ will save you if,”—rather than in accordance with Paul’s gospel of believing God’s Word concerning Christ as having accomplished for us a work that was finished once for all on the cross.

3. The rendering received by many today in certain circles which would make “the faith of Jesus Christ” mean Christ’s own believing on our behalf! which, they explain, is “exercising His own mighty faith,” instead of calling upon the strengthless hearts of men to believe. But this avoids our responsibility to believe God. They quote here Mark 11:22: “Have faith in God,” as, “Have the faith of God”; a grotesque, unbiblical, impossible meaning! Our Lord said, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” He did not say, “I will believe for you.” Again He did say,

“This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him Whom He [the Father] hath sent” (John 6:29).

4. Finally, some have thought to render, “the faith of Jesus Christ” as His faithfulness to us; which is not the meaning of the Greek, is out of place, and is contrary to the apostle’s usage.

We believe that the first meaning we have indicated—that is, faith in the gospel of God concerning Jesus Christ as set forth at the beginning of the Epistle, is the true one here; for it accords perfectly with this first great expansion in Chapter Three, of the announcement of Chapter 1:1-3,

“the gospel of God concerning His Son”:

the power of which is that

“therein is revealed God’s righteousness on the principle of faith.”’

Faith is not trust, and must be carefully distinguished therefrom, if we would have a clear conception of the gospel. Faith is simply the acceptance for ourselves of the testimony of God as true. Such faith, indeed, brings one into a life of trust. But faith is not “trusting,” or “expecting God to do something,” but relying on His testimony concerning the person of Christ as His Son, and the work of Christ for us on the cross. So faith is “the giving substance to things hoped for.” After saving faith, the life of trust begins. In a sense that will be readily perceived by the spiritual mind, trust is always looking forward to what God will do; but faith sees that what God says has been done, and believes God’s Word, having the conviction that it is true, and true for ourselves.

In saving faith, then, you do not trust God to do something for you: He has sent His Son, who has borne sin for you. You do not look to Christ to do something to save you: He has done it at the cross. You simply receive God’s testimony as true, setting your seal thereto. You rest in God’s Word regarding Christ and His work for you. You rest in Christ’s shed blood.

It is GOD that justifieth (8:33), as it is God against whom we sinned. And it is God whom we find in Chapter 3:25 setting forth Christ on the cross as a righteous meeting-place (between the sinner and God) through faith in His blood. And again: “To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him [God] that justifieth the ungodly” (on the ground, of course, of the blood of Christ).

“Righteousness shall be reckoned unto us who believe on Him that raised Jesus our Lord from the dead” (4:5 and 24).

This, it seems, is what the Lord meant in His last public message to the Jews, John 12:44:

“Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on Me, believeth not on Me, but on Him that sent Me.”

Faith, indeed, lays claim to Christ and possesses Him, but it is through believing the testimony of God the Father concerning His Son. And this seems to me the meaning of the words in Chapter 3:22, “through faith concerning Jesus Christ.” Peter also says not only that we have

“the answer of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (I Pet. 3:21),

but:

“through Him [Christ] ye are believers in God, that raised Him from the dead, and gave Him glory; so that your faith and hope might be in God” (I Pet. 1:21).

Thus also, he says,

“Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God” (I Pet. 3:18).

We must remember that it is the “gospel of God” (Rom. 1:1) in its general aspect, which we are now studying; and that it is “concerning His Son.” Christ says also in John 5:24,

“He that heareth My word, and believeth Him that sent Me hath everlasting life and cometh not into judgment.”

Now we believe concerning Jesus Christ: 

(a) that He is the Son of God, 

(b) that He has put away sin by His blood (as Paul will soon show); and 

(c) that He is and has become through simple believing our very own, so that what He has done was really done for us.

You may say, this is simply “believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Yes; but it is believing God concerning Christ. In Chapter Four we find that Abraham believed God, and righteousness was reckoned unto him. We also

“believe on Him that raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification.”

Here the faith is in God, and is made possible by His raising Christ, upon whom He had placed our sins. Sanday says: “‘By faith of Jesus Christ’: that is, by faith which has Christ for its object.” In the gospel of God concerning Christ, God announces not only Christ’s person as Son of David, and Son of God; but also His finished work, that He has been set forth by God as a propitiation, a righteous meeting-place between the sinner and God. It is therefore God whom the sinner believes; and in believing God he appropriates Christ, and His saving work.

There is another question in this 22nd verse which must be answered. The King James Version adds, after “The righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ unto all,” the words “and upon all them that believe.” The Revised Version omits “and upon all.” This, we believe, is the correct reading. The righteousness of God is not put “upon” any one. That is a Romish idea,—still held, alas, among Protestants who cannot escape the conception of righteousness as a something bestowed upon us, rather than a Divine reckoning about us. But the best authorities omit these words “and upon all,” as do the oldest manuscripts, and both the English and American Revised Versions. The words, “God’s righteousness through faith concerning Jesus Christ unto all them that believe,” describe it all, and fully.

I know people argue that “unto all” describes the “direction of the blessing”; and “upon all” those who (as they put it) have the blessing actually “conferred upon them.” But please notice the present passage is setting forth the fact of a new, present revelation—God’s righteousness by faith in Christ, as over against man’s legal righteousness. Since we find this righteousness is God’s accounting or holding righteous a man who believes, rather than a conferment of a quality upon a man, we must read the passage thus. It sets forth this present by-faith righteousness. It is God accounting a man (even as he is, “ungodly”—4:5) righteous in His sight. Do not destroy the gospel by adding to Romans 3:22 words which evidently have been supplied by some one ignorant of the truth. It is simply “God’s righteousness through faith about Jesus Christ.”

Righteousness is a court word. Righteousness is reckoned by God to them that believe. The faith of the ungodly man who believes is “counted for righteousness” (4:5).

The words that close verse 22, “for there is no distinction,” should be joined with verse 23: “for all sinned, and are falling short of the glory of God.” Pridham well says, “The all-important point to be regarded here is the complete setting aside of the creature-title.” That there is no difference as to the fact of sin, between Jews and Gentiles, is, of course, primarily before us in the words “no distinction.” Exactly the same expression is found as to the availability of salvation in Chapter 10:12: “no distinction between Jew and Greek.” We may well apply it to everybody, as does Pridham in his “no creature title.” There is no distinction between sinners—between great offenders and small, with respect to this matter of sinnership. Not the degree of sin, but the fact of sin is looked at here. If you should visit a penitentiary, you would find some imprisoned for terrible crimes, and others for lesser offences, but you would find, in the eyes of the law, no innocent men! . . .

We now come to the greatest single verse in the entire Bible on the manner of justification by faith: We entreat you, study this verse. We have seen many a soul, upon understanding it, come into peace.

Verse 24: Being declared righteous giftwise by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus—God having brought the whole world into His courtroom and pronounced them guilty (vs. 19),—“under sin,” now exhibits Himself in absolute sovereign grace towards the guilty!

Being declared [or accounted] righteous—Justification, or accounting righteous, is God’s reckoning to one who believes the whole work and effect before Him of the perfect redemption of Christ. The word never means to make one righteous, or holy; but to account one righteous. Justification is not a change wrought by God in us, but a change of our relation to God.

Declared righteous giftwise—The Greek word dorean means, for nothing, gratuitously, giftwise, as a free gift. Paul, for example, uses the same word in reminding the Corinthians of his labors to make the gospel “without charge.” “Freely [dorean] ye received, freely give,” said the Lord to the twelve (Matt. 10:8). “I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely” (dorean),—for nothing (Rev. 21:6); and it occurs in almost the very last verse of the Bible:

“Let him take of the water of life freely” (Rev. 22:17).

Perhaps the most striking use of this word, dorean, is by our Lord: “They hated me without-a-cause” (dorean) (John 15:25). The cause of the hatred was in them, not in Christ. Turning this about: the cause of our justification is in God, not in us. We are justified dorean—freely, gratis, gratuitously, giftwise, without a cause in us! This great fact should deliver just now some reader who has been looking within, to his spiritual state, or feelings, or prayers, as a ground of peace.

By His grace—We get our word “charity”—from the Greek word translated “grace” here (charis). True, our word “charity” has been narrowed down in our poor thought and speech to handing out a dole to the needy. But as used by God, this word grace (charis), means the going forth in boundless oceans, according to Himself, of His mighty love. who “so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” The grace of God is infinite love operating by an infinite means,—the sacrifice of Christ; and in infinite freedom, unhindered, now, by the temporary restrictions of the Law.

Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus—Remember that everything connected with God’s salvation is glad in bestowment, infinite in extent, and unchangeable in character. Christ’s atoning work was the procuring cause of all eternal benefit to us. Concerning the Greek word translated “redemption” here (apolutrōsis) Thayer says: “Everywhere in the New Testament this word is used to denote deliverance effected through the death of Christ from the retributive wrath of a holy God and the merited penalty of sin.”

The effect of redemption is shown in Ephesians 1:7:

“In whom we have our redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.”

Otherwise we were unpardoned and exposed to Divine wrath for ever. Compare Colossians 1:14:

“In whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins”;

as also Hebrews 9:15:

“A death having taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant.”

Here Thayer’s interpretation of this word “redemption” is again excellent: “Deliverance from the penalty of transgressions effective through their expiation.”

Before you leave verse 24, apply it to yourself, if you are a believer. Say of yourself: “God has declared me righteous without any cause in me, by His grace, through the redemption from sin’s penalty that is in Christ Jesus.” It is the bold believing use for ourselves of the Scripture we learn, that God desires; and not merely the knowledge of Scripture.

Verse 25: Whom God set forth a propitiation through faith in His blood, unto showing forth His [God’s] righteousness in respect of the passing over of the foregoing sins in the forbearance of God—This verse looks back to the whole history of human sin before it was judged at the cross,— the vast scandal (so to speak) of the universe!—a holy God letting sin pass for four thousand years, from Adam to Christ. God had been righteous in thus passing over human sin, both in pardoning without judgment, the sins of the Abels, Enochs, Noahs, and the patriarchs,—even all whom He knew as believing Him; and not only so, He was righteous in forbearing with the impenitent. His enemies: for He purposed both sending Christ to become the propitiation for the whole world; and He would also deal in due time in righteous judgment with those rejecting all His goodness.

But now, in the gospel, His righteousness in all this is publicly shown forth; and the ground of it all seen—even the Lamb “foreordained, indeed, from the foundation of the world, but now manifested,” and sacrificed. At the cross was sin seen at its height; and also the righteousness of God in dealing in judgment with it. It was not until the gospel that all this was manifested. Although God had been dealing righteously in the past ages, it was first seen clearly when He judged human sin openly in the Great Sacrifice: where His own Son was not spared! 

Whom God set forth a propitiation—Let us consider now this word “propitiation,” concerning the meaning of which there is much uncertainty in many hearts.

Inasmuch as Christ died for our sins “according to the Scriptures” (I Cor. 15:3), we must go to those Scriptures (Old Testament, of course) to find what is there set forth concerning His death.

Now the two goats, on the Great Day of Atonement, represent two great effects of Christ’s sacrifice. To quote: “Aaron shall take the two goats, and set them before Jehovah at the door of the tent of meeting. And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats: one lot for Jehovah, and the other lot for Azazel” (“removal”—the goat of removal of sins) (Lev 16:7, 8).

On the great Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16) the high priest presented before Jehovah these two goats: one was slain, and its blood brought by the high priest into the tabernacle, through the holy place, and past the second veil into the holy of holies. There the high priest sprinkled the blood upon “the mercy-seat” (the covering of the ark of the covenant, where the Shekinah glory of God’s presence was above the cherubim), and also before the mercy-seat, seven times. This was the blood of the goat upon which the lot fell “for Jehovah”; therefore we have here first the holy and righteous claims of the throne of God as to sin completely met. The golden covering of the ark was called the “mercy-seat” (Hebrew, kapporeth). In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, this golden covering of the ark is always called by the same Greek word, hilastērion, which we find translated “propitiation” here in verse 25; and “mercy-seat” in the only other New Testament occurrence of the word, Hebrews 9:5.

Does “propitiation” (hilastērion), here in Romans 3.25, then mean that the death of Christ made expiation for human sin? Or does it mean also that Christ, having thus died, therefore becomes to the soul the “mercy-seat” where God in all His holiness, and the sinner in all his guilt, may meet?

The latter may be included; for the type is thus carried out; inasmuch as the blood was sprinkled upon the mercy-seat (Lev. 16:14), the covering of the ark of the covenant, which was called the mercy-seat; the “mercy-seat” thus calling attention to the effect of the sacrifice as affording a righteous meeting ground between the sinner and God. But in Chapter 3.25 it was to show forth God’s righteousness that Christ was “set forth,”—the fact that God, though forbearing 4000 years, had not forgotten or abated His wrath against sin: so that it is Christ’s actual death as an expiation of human sin that is seen here as showing God’s righteousness. We may well read, “God set forth Christ propitiatory”: thus showing Himself righteous, and also a gracious Justifier of sinners.

The other question connects itself with what we have just said: Should we regard our faith as making the propitiation actual? Of course, the expiatory death of Christ becomes effectual only for those who believe, who rest upon it. But the expiation was made to God for human sin and the propitiation effected, apart from any man’s faith therein! This is a plain fact of revelation. Christ “tasted death for every man.” “He gave Himself a ransom for all”—whether any avail themselves of it or not. Faith does not have any part in the propitiation, though it avails itself of it. Propitiation is by blood alone . . .

Verse 26: For the showing forth of His righteousness at this present season: that He might be Himself righteous, while declaring righteous the person having faith in Jesus.

Both in verse 25 and verse 26 it is the effect of Christ’s sacrifice, as displaying the Divine righteousness, that is before us. From Adam to Christ God had “passed over,” not judged and put away, sin. The word translated “passed over” (paresis) in Chapter 3:25, is not the word for “remission,” of Matthew 26:28, which is used fifteen times for the active pardon of sins; whereas the present word (paresis) is used in Romans 3:25 only. This word carries, in a sense, almost the same thought as the word “overlooked,” in Acts 17:30. Of course there had to be, before the cross, such displays of Divine government as the Flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the plagues in Egypt, and the dispersion of rebellious Israel. Nevertheless, God did not take up man’s sin for judgment according to His own being, until the cross. There He held the public Judgment Day of human sin, displaying His absolute righteousness in not sparing His own Son. Before the cross, as Bengel says, “the righteousness of God was not so apparent, for He seemed not to be so exacting with sin as He is, but to leave the sinner to himself, to regard not.” But in the atoning death of Christ, God’s righteousness was fully exhibited in His wrath against sin as it was in His holy sight. He was shown righteous, at the very moment He was, in love, working out the deliverance of the sinner from the wrath due. He was the Justifier, and yet just!

In the words, “at this present season,” God directs our gaze back to the cross, where Christ was publicly set forth and judged for our sin; and also He covers this whole “season” of mercy the present dispensation. Old Testament believers looked forward: they were forgiven on credit. But “this present season,” is better. It is characterized by a righteousness already displayed in God’s judging our sin at the cross; and therefore by God as the righteous Justifier of all who believe.

Now our faith is that one act of our hearts that appropriates the work of Christ; and we stand, by virtue of that work alone in the immediate presence of the infinitely holy God. The words “most holy” occur about forty times in describing the sanctuary matters of the Old Testament; but faith in the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ who fulfills all those shadows, takes the place of all this: therefore, in the New Testament, our faith is called “our most holy faith”! (Jude 20).

Verse 27: Where then is the [Jewish] boasting? It is excluded. By what manner of law? of works? Nay: but by a law of faith.

Where then is the [Jewish] boasting? It is plain all through this discussion that Paul has the religious position and opposition of the Jews in mind. Boasting “was excluded at the moment when the law of faith, that is, the gospel, was brought in.”

In view of this new gospel-revelation of the finished work of Christ, who did the whole work for us on Calvary, and that by God’s appointment, everything is seen to be of God, and not at all of man. Therefore, even the Jews, to whom the Law had been given, had their mouths completely stopped, “because there was no work done,” and no ground for boasting!

By what manner of law? of works? Not at all! but by a law of faith. “Law” in this instance is rule, or plan. This “law,” or principle, of faith, applies not only to our justification, but to every aspect of the believer’s life thereafter,—“building up yourselves on your most holy faith.” “That life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God.”

Verse 28: For we reckon that a man is declared righteous by faith, apart from Works of law—This verse is not a conclusion arrived at, but a reason given why boasting is excluded.

Verses 29 and 30: Or is God [the God] of Jews only? [who alone had the Law]. Is He not [the God] of Gentiles also? Yea, of Gentiles also: since it is one God who shall declare righteous the circumcision on the principle of faith, and the uncircumcision through faith. To paraphrase: “Or is God the God of the Jews only? (as He must be, if justification is by the Law: for only to the Jews did God give the Law). Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yea, of Gentiles also: since God is One (in His being, and alike to all nations). And He shall justify the circumcision (Jewish believers) out of simple faith (and not by their keeping Moses’ Law though they had it from God), and the uncircumcision (Gentiles, who had nothing) through their faith (apart from His giving them the Law).”

Verse 31: Do we then annul law through faith? Banish the thought! on the contrary, we establish law.

It is the constant cry of those who oppose grace, and most especially that declaration of grace that our justification is apart from law—apart from works of law—apart from ordinances, that it overthrows the Divine authority. But in this verse Paul says, “We establish law” through this doctrine of simple faith.

To illustrate: In the wilderness a man was found gathering up sticks to make a fire on the Sabbath day. Now, the Law had said, “Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations on the Sabbath day.” How, then, was this Law to be “established”? By letting the law-breaker off? No. By securing his promise to keep the Law in the future? No! By finding someone who had kept this commandment always, perfectly, and letting his obedience be reckoned to the law-breaker? No, in no wise!

How then, was the Law established? You know very well. All Israel were commanded by Jehovah to stone the man to death. We read:

“And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation. And they put him in ward, because it had not been declared what should be done to him. And Jehovah said unto Moses The man shall surely be put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him to death with stones; as Jehovah commanded Moses” (Numbers 15:33, ff).

Thus and thus only was the commandment of Jehovah established—by the execution of the penalty.

Paul preached Christ crucified: that Christ died for our sins [and that we died with Him, unto sin, unto the Law, unto this world], that “He tasted death for every man.” And that Israel, who were under the Law, He redeemed from the curse of that Law by being made a curse for them. Thus the cross established law; for the full penalty of all that was against the Divine majesty, against God’s holiness. His righteousness, His truth, was forever met, and that not according to man’s conception of what sin and its penalty should be, but according to God’s judgment, according to the measure of the sanctuary, of high heaven itself!

The Jew, prating about his own righteousness, went about to kill Paul, crying that he spake against the Law; whereas it was that very Jew who would lower the Law to his own ability to keep it, instead of allowing it its proper office; namely, to reveal his guilt, curse him, and condemn him to death, and thus drive him to the mercy of God in Christ, whose expiatory death established law by having its penalty executed!

RIGHTEOUSNESS WITHOUT WORKS

If God announces the gift of righteousness apart from works, why do you keep mourning over your bad works, your failures? DO you not see that it is because you still have hopes in these works of yours that you are depressed and discouraged by their failure? If you truly saw and believed that God is reckoning righteous the ungodly who believe on Him, you would fairly hate your struggles to be “better”; for you would see that your dreams of good works have not at all commended you to God, and that your bad works do not at all hinder you from believing on Him,—that justifieth the ungodly!

Therefore, on seeing your failures, you should say, I am nothing but a failure; but God is dealing with me on another principle altogether than my works, good or bad,—a principle not involving my works, but based only on the work of Christ for me. I am anxious, indeed, to be pleasing to God and to be filled with His Spirit; but I am not at all justified, or accounted righteous, by these things. God, in justifying me, acted wholly and only on Christ’s blood-shedding on my behalf.

Therefore I have this double attitude: first, I know that Christ is in Heaven before God for me, and that I stand in the value before God of His finished work; that God sees me nowhere else but in this dead, buried, and Risen Christ, and that His favor is toward me in Christ, and is limitless and eternal.

Then, second, toward the work of the Holy Spirit in me, my attitude is, a desire to be guided into the truth, to be obedient thereto, and to be chastened by God my Father if disobedient; to learn to pray in the Spirit, to walk by the Spirit, and to be filled with a love for the Scriptures and for the saints and for all men.

Yet none of these things justifies me! I had justification from God as a sinner, not as a saint! My saintliness does not increase it, nor, praise God, do my failures decrease it!"

William R. Newell 

From Romans Verse by Verse, Chapter 3