This passage is thought to be one of the most important paragraphs ever written. Paul has just spent the last two chapters explaining the purpose and insufficiency of the law, and now he starts with, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law”. “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” means that all have, are, and will always fall short of God’s glory. God is the standard, and we all fall short. Verse 24 starts, “and are justified by His grace as a gift”. Justification is a legal term meaning we are declared not guilty by God. This is done by imputation – taking Jesus’ perfect record and crediting it to our accounts. This was the big revelation to Martin Luther during the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic church teaches that God makes you into someone righteous by infusing His 7 sacraments. When you died, if you weren’t righteous enough, you would go to Purgatory where your sin would be purged from you through fire and suffering until you were righteous enough. But, justification is a legal declaration that happens all at once! It is a pronouncement…not a process. God’s righteousness in not infused into us, it is imputed, or credited to us. But God would not declare someone righteous without dealing with the sin in their life. Paul explains this with three words: through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: To redeem means to buy something back and restore it. It is a commercial term borrowed from the marketplace. It was used of the people of Israel who were ‘redeemed’ from captivity first in Egypt, then in Babylon, and restored to their own land. We were captives, in bondage to our sin and guilt, and utterly unable to set ourselves free, but Jesus ‘redeemed’ us, bought us out of captivity, shedding His blood as the ransom price. (Mark 10:45) whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith: Throughout the OT, we see that God requires a blood payment for sin. (Ex 12:13-28) God’s righteous anger needed to be appeased before sin could be forgiven, and God in His love sent His Son (who offered Himself willingly) to satisfy God’s holy anger against sin. The blood sacrifice of Christ propitiated, or satisfied, the righteous demands of a holy God. Forgiveness always comes at a cost. Jesus’ blood “propitiated” God’s wrath so that His holiness was not compromised in forgiving sinners. God poured out on Jesus the righteous anger He had on us. God’s righteous anger toward sin is not a contradiction with His love. Sin destroys His creation and the glory and righteousness which are the foundation of that universe. So, He hates, and is angry at, sin. He didn’t just die for you. He died instead of you. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. The cross was a demonstration or public revelation as well as an achievement. It not only accomplished the propitiation of God and the redemption of sinners; it also vindicated the justice of God. Forbearance means to delay or restrain. God left the sins of former generations unpunished, letting the nations go their own way and overlooking their ignorance, not because of any injustice on His part, or with any thought of condoning evil; but in His forbearance, and only because it was His fixed intention in the fullness of time to punish these sins in the death of His Son. This was the only way in which He could both Himself be just, and simultaneously be the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. Through the sin-bearing, substitutionary death of His Son, God has propitiated His own wrath in such a way as to redeem and justify us, and at the same time demonstrate His righteousness. How do we receive this gift? “so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Faith is our means of justification. God’s divine dilemma was how to satisfy His own righteousness and its demands against sinful people, and at the same time how to demonstrate His grace, love, and mercy to restore rebellious, alienated creatures to Himself. The solution was the sacrifice of Jesus and the acceptance by faith of that provision by individual sinners. Christ’s death vindicated God’s own righteousness and enables God to declare every believing sinner righteous. Faith in Jesus is a commitment of yourself to Him based on what you know about Him. He takes your sin, that you deserve, and you get His righteousness. (Psalm 89:14) Questions to Consider: - Verse 22 says this righteousness is “through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” What does “faith” mean in this context?
- Pastor Alex began the morning by asking how you would share your belief in the gospel with others. In your own words, how would you explain “justified freely by His grace” (v. 24) to someone new to Christianity?
- How does Jesus’ death show both God’s justice and His mercy at the same time? What does that mean to you?
- How does this passage impact the way you relate to others — especially people who seem far from God?
- How can you remind yourself each day that your right standing with God depends on Jesus alone, not your performance?
| 
