Rom. 3:21-31

The gospel is the good news about Christ.  The gospel is God’s power to save people because it reveals His righteousness.  In Rom. 3:21-26 we see exactly how Jesus’ death and resurrection declare God’s righteousness.

Question #5: How does the gospel reveal God’s righteousness?  Rom. 3:21-4:25

Those who are saved are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵ whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood.

1.    Justification: a legal declaration that the believer is righteous.  This does not say that the believer is made righteous but that he is declared righteous by God.

a.     God does this “freely,” as a gift to the believer.

b.    God does this “by His grace,” not treating the believer according to what he deserves.

This raises an obvious question: How can a holy God declare a sinner righteous?  Would that not make God complicit with the man’s sins?

2.    Redemption: payment of a dept.  In this case, payment of the believer’s debt.  Redemption includes three concepts:

a.     Slavery: indebtedness beyond what a person can pay, from which the person is bought.  God told Adam, concerning the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, that “in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die.”  Death is the penalty for truth-suppressing law-breaking sinners.

b.    Ransom: the price that is paid.  The price of redemption is the “blood of Christ.”  He gave His life that people might be redeemed.  He could do this because His life was perfect; He did not have to pay for His own sin.

c.     Freedom: the liberty into which we enter.  The debt incurred by sin has been paid.  The sin is forgiven.  Thus, the redeemed person is free to live a life that is pleasing to his Creator.

3.    Propitiation: satisfaction of God’s wrath by an offering.  Not only must man’s guilt-inflicted sin be forgiven; the Creator must satisfy is righteous wrath.  He cannot remain righteous if He does not deal justly with the sin in His creation.

What God did is not like the pagan ideas of “the wrath of God.”  God himself has provided the offering for sin.  That is why Jesus, the Son of God, is called “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:19).  God has been offended but He has provided the ransom for our redemption and provided the Lamb that satisfies His righteous wrath.  Jesus is the ransom and the Lamb.  We see that God, by doing this, has demonstrated His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.