Justice for All

7/23/06 | Brian Bill | Romans 3:25-31 | Listen
Series: What Jesus Wants to Know

My wife Beth received a birthday card last month from my sister Cathy that reads, “For a Great Sister-in-Law. Now that you’ve been in the family a while, you’ve discovered our funny little secret…In fact, you’re married to him!” Real funny. I have no idea why she would say something so mean, though it could go back to the sympathy card I sent to her husband Chip right after they got engaged. I still remember that card. The front of it said, “So sorry to hear about your loss…” I can’t believe that Cathy would wait more than 15 years to get back at me! She probably thinks that she now has justice…but what she doesn’t know is that I will retaliate somehow.

Whenever I quote a family member in a sermon I always try to get their permission first. I sent Cathy this opening paragraph to get her OK and here’s what she sent back: “Ha! Yeah, well, the four of us are planning on giving you the boot some Sunday and giving your flock a real sermon. We’ll set them straight and the Real Brian will be revealed. Just kidding, glad you liked Beth’s card. I’ll try to be nicer to you. Not. Love, Cathy. P.S. You really do have great openings to your sermons. Always very funny and catchy. The rest of the sermons are pretty boring, but your openings are great! (I’m just kidding about the boring part).” Now you know why I didn’t like having four dumb sisters. Just multiply her comments by four and that’s a picture of what I had to put up with.

In our passage in Romans today, we come face-to-face with the concept of God’s justice. If the truth were known, many of us have a funny little secret as well. Do you know what it is? In our heart of hearts, a number of us have questioned, or still are questioning, God’s justice. If you haven’t asked these questions out loud, you may have pondered them, or perhaps you’ve heard others ask…

If God is so good why do I hurt so bad?

If God is fair, why is my family falling apart?

If God is so loving, why does he send so many to Hell?

If God loves me, why can’t I get my locker open?

Similar questions have been voiced by the writers of Scripture…

One observation stands out as I compare the questions that are asked today with the questions posed by Scripture. Our problem is that we find fault with God for not doing things the way we think He should do them; while the Bible wonders why God puts up with as much as He does. Why does God tolerate the treacherous? Where is His justice? Let’s take this a step further. In one sense, if God did not act in response to the atrocities of man’s sinfulness, He would not be just. But, as we will learn today, we can never accuse God of injustice because everything He does is fair.

Justice is not an external system to which God tries to adhere. His justice comes out of his inner being and is based on His holiness, His truthfulness, and His righteousness. Moses put it this way in Deuteronomy 32:4: “He is the rock, His works are perfect, and all His ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is He.” God is not only just; He is also kind according to Psalm 145:17: “The LORD is righteous in all his ways and loving toward all he has made.” We learned last week from Romans 3:21-25 that God’s righteousness has made a way for us to be right with Him. We ended by emphasizing the richness of three power words: justification, redemption, and propitiation. This chart serves as a good summary.

Word Use Meaning Result

Justification Courtroom To declare righteous Acquittal

Redemption Marketplace To release from slavery Freedom

Propitiation Temple To turn away from wrath Acceptance

This “salvation triangle,” from James Montgomery Boice, is a helpful picture of how these wonderful words work together. Jesus redeems people and offers propitiation to the Father, who in turn provides justification for those who place their faith in Jesus.

Why God Did What He Did

If our text last week focused on what God did for us, Romans 3:25-31 explains why God did what He did. Let’s look first at the second half of verse 25 and verse 26: “…He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished-he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” God did all this, mainly justification, redemption and propitiation in order to “demonstrate His justice.” He didn’t do any of it in secret. The word “demonstrate” means a “pointing out,” as with a finger. It’s as if God is pointing His finger at the cross and saying, “There’s the proof of my justice and my grace.” Notice that he says this twice, once in verse 25 and again in verse 26. He did it in the past (25) and He demonstrates it in the present (26). While it’s true that God sent Jesus to die because He loves us, this passage teaches that He sent Jesus in order to declare that He is righteous.

1. His mercy mitigates sins (25). Before God’s wrath was fully unleashed on the cross of Christ, in His forbearance, God held back His fury. The word “unpunished” means, to “pass over” or to “let go.” While God certainly judged some sin in the Old Testament, and people experienced the consequences of their sinful behavior during the Flood and when He vaporized Sodom and Gomorrah, He chose to not fully compensate every person for their unrighteousness. For centuries God had been doing what Psalm 103:10 says: “He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.” Acts 14:16 says: “In the past, he let all nations go their own way.” But God couldn’t keep postponing divine punishment because it would communicate that His glory and His righteousness are cheap and worthless. Acts 17:30 adds, “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” 2 Peter 3:9 tells us the purpose behind His patience: “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

PBC member Geoff Trembley sent me an email this week in response to a question I had sent him about this passage. I love his answer: “While it appears that God is accepting of sin, it is not the case. He is accepting of a perfect sacrifice that provides justification for the sinner.”

Stay with me on this. If God had not punished sin and Jesus had not come to take the penalty for our sins, God would not be considered a righteous judge. In fact, He could be thought of as condoning sin if He did not condemn it and judge it. Let me be quick to say that this was not really a “problem” in God’s mind because all of this was planned out before the foundation of the world. He didn’t have to scramble to come up with a solution. John MacArthur writes: “The real ‘problem,’ as it were, with salvation was not the matter of getting sinful men to a holy God but of getting a holy God to accept sinful men without violating His justice.”

The Old Testament sacrifices were an homage to God’s honor but they did not take away sins as Hebrews 10:4 makes clear: “…it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” God would not have been just had He allowed the sacrificial system to continue. Thomas Constable explains it this way: “Those who offered sacrifices in the Old Testament paid for those sins with a credit card. God accepted those sacrifices as a temporary payment. However, the bill came due later, and Jesus Christ paid that off entirely.”

2. His justice justifies sinners (26). In this amazing verse, God who is just, is also the one who justifies jerks like us. This is the substance of the gospel message. We could translate verse 26 like this: “so as to be just and [yet] the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” This answers the great question: How can God be just and at the same time justify sinners? It makes sense that He would be righteous in judging sin, but how does He maintain, and even point to, His righteousness in justifying the sinner? This dilemma is solved through His plan involving the substitutionary sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross. God did not abandon His justice because His righteous wrath was poured out on Christ; and He accepted this sacrifice as full payment for sins. As a result He can forgive the fallen sinner and yet maintain His righteousness. That’s the glory of the good news of the gospel. With his justice satisfied and His love unleashed, sinners are declared righteous through faith in Jesus.

For the several thousand years before the cross, God was storing up the punishment and penalty of sin and then, when His Son became the sinless sacrificial substitute, He put this punishment upon Him. Ray Stedman points out: “The cross says that God remains just. All the stored-up punishment amply deserved by the human race, is now poured out without restraint upon the head of Jesus on the cross.” God’s justice was satisfied through the substitutionary death of the Savior. I really like how John Piper says it: “God saw His glory being despised by sinners—He saw His worth belittled and His name dishonored by our sins—and rather than vindicating the worth of His glory by slaying His people, He vindicated His glory by slaying His Son.”

Because God is a just God, He must judge everyone who does not meet His standards for perfection. That means you and that means me because sin has to be paid for and time must be served. God’s justice requires that there be payment for the penalty of sin. As the great preacher Charles Spurgeon once said, “Ah, sinner, if God punish not thy sin, he has ceased to be what He has always been—the severely just, the inflexibly righteous…Is it possible, then, that the sinner cannot be saved? This is the great riddle of the law, and the grand discovery of the gospel. Wonder ye heavens! Be astonished O earth! That very justice which stood in the sinner’s way and prevented his being pardoned, has been by the gospel of Christ appeased; by the rich atonement offered upon Calvary, justice is satisfied, has sheathed its sword, and has no not a word to say against the pardon of the penitent.”

There really is no tension between God’s love and God’s justice because Jesus is the fusion of divine love and divine justice. Picture a line drawn vertically -- that’s God’s justice. And another line drawn horizontally -- that’s God’s love. Where they meet is the cross. There is dissonance only if your view of love requires that God forgive sin without any payment being made.

Actually, the offer of Jesus as our sin substitute shows a greater love on God’s part than simply releasing us from the consequences of sin without payment being made. To fulfill his justice, God’s love was so great that He gave His Son for us. Love and justice are not two separate attributes competing with one another. God is both righteous and loving, and has given what He Himself demands. Remember that there was another way that God could have demonstrated His righteousness. He could have punished sin on the spot, but in His wisdom He showed that He could be righteous and merciful at the same time by punishing Jesus in our place, thereby justifying the guilty without compromising His justice. Matthew Henry says it beautifully: “Mercy and truth are so met together, righteousness and peace have so kissed each other, that it is now become not only an act of grace and mercy, but an act of righteousness, in God, to pardon the sins of penitent believers, having accepted the satisfaction that Christ by dying made to his justice for them.”

The cross was at once the most horrible and the most beautiful example of God’s wrath. It was the most just and the most gracious act in history. With the concentrated load of sin that Jesus carried to the Cross, God poured out His righteous wrath on Jesus. It was with this act that God’s holy justice was completely satisfied. The mystery of how God can be both just and the justifier is solved only in the Savior. God is merciful toward hell-bound sinners and saves them in such a way that His justice is not compromised and He does so at the expense of His Son. Note that this plan is only activated in one’s life when faith is expressed.

One writer captures this well: “The God of Christianity never claims to be fair. He goes beyond fair. The Bible teaches that He decided not to give us what we deserve – that’s mercy. In addition, God decided to give us exactly what we don’t deserve – we call that grace.” Albert Midlane penned this reality in a poem:

God could not pass the sinner by,

His sin demands that he must die;

But in the cross of Christ we see

How God can save, yet righteous be.

How to Respond to What God Has Done

Based upon these amazing truths that God’s mercy mitigates our sins and that His justice justifies sinners, we have a response to make. Using diatribes again, in which Paul asks and answers various questions, Romans 3:27-31 gives us four implications that come from these two truths. Actually, most of the rest of the Book of Romans covers the deductions or implications of justification by faith. This is such an important doctrinal truth that we must first understand it and then embrace all of its implications.

1. Pride has no place (27). Look with me at verse 27: “Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith.” Boasting is the outward form of the inner condition of pride. For the Christian, arrogance is excluded, and boasting is banished because God has done it all. The word “excluded” was used to shut someone outside the door of a tower. Boasting is to not even enter the character of the Christian. It’s all about Him! We are saved by His worth, by His work and by His word.

In Psalm 101:5, God says “…Whoever has haughty eyes and a proud heart, him will I not endure.” Pride is the worst transgression of all for it was Satan’s sin in Isaiah 14:13-14: “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” Friends, we are most like Satan when we are arrogant, boastful and proud. Those who boast are busted because no one gets the gift of grace because they deserve it. If we received what we deserved we’d be in a heap of trouble. I like the reminder in 1 Corinthians 1:31: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.” I should add that we are allowed to boast in one area according to 2 Corinthians 11:30: “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.”

One night this week I took our two youngest daughters Becca and Megan for a bike ride. Somehow our bikes ended up at Casey’s and we all got a treat. Instead of jumping back on our bikes and trying to juggle our snacks while we rode home, we decided to sit on the sidewalk outside the store. In order to pass the time I suggested that we have a contest to see how many cars of a certain color would drive by. Megan chose red, Becca chose tan and I picked white. The first one to get to ten would be declared the winner. It was a pretty close race and when one of us won, a victory dance ensued and self-congratulation pierced the air. As I thought about that, the winner of this arbitrary contest really did nothing to win. It had everything to do with what cars drove by Casey’s. Likewise, it’s absurd for us to be arrogant about our own salvation because we had nothing to do with it.

2. Faith gains God’s favor (28). As a great teacher, Paul knows the importance of repetition so he says again in verse 28: “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.” He’s really going back to verse 24 to establish that salvation is gift to be received, not a paycheck to be earned. Working calls attention to the worker while faith calls attention to the faithful One. We are declared righteous by faith, and even our faith is a gift from God. Notice that the word “faith” is used five times in these five verses. Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible.

I’ve never been there but I’m told that the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem has a very small entrance. In fact, it’s so small that you have to duck down low to get inside. They deliberately designed it that way because several centuries ago local big shots liked to ride their horses right into the sanctuary. By lowering the entrance, they had to dismount before entering. If we want to get to heaven we must get off our high horses. Once we’re saved, great gratitude must be our attitude, not big boasting.

I read this week that every revival within the last 500 years has been directly related to people humbly embracing the doctrine of justification by faith. It can literally transform each of us and this church. I talked to a woman last week who said with tears in her eyes, “Now I know that I’m saved.” John Bunyan, author of “Pilgrim’s Progress,” wrote these words as if God were speaking after studying Romans 3: “Sinner, you think that because of your sins and your infirmities that I cannot save your soul. But behold, My Son is by Me and upon Him I look, not upon you, and I will deal with you as I am pleased with Him.”

Here’s the gospel message in three simple sentences:

3. Everyone can experience salvation (29-30). Once again, Paul reiterates that salvation is not the exclusive right of one group of people as he puts an end to narrow nationalism in verses 29-30: “Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.” Paul has already made this point in Romans 1:16 when he said that the gospel is the power of God for salvation to “everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” God created everyone and Christ died for everyone.

Christianity is exclusive because Jesus is the only way to heaven. Unfortunately fewer and fewer people believe this today, including some pastors. In a recent interview in Time magazine (7/10/06), the new leader of a large denomination (which I will not name publicly) was asked for her views on a number of topics. When asked if belief in Jesus is the only way to heaven, she responded: “We who practice the Christian tradition understand him as our vehicle to the divine. But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box.” The way to heaven is narrow the last time I checked!

The Jewish people were in a special covenant with God but they also had a sacred commission to share these blessings with gentiles. As God first told Abraham in Genesis 12:3: “…all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” Instead of considering themselves as belonging to God, many Jews virtually considered God as only belonging to them. They were ethnically exclusive and spiritually separatistic.

More than 30 years ago, Campus Crusade for Christ launched the “I Found It” campaign on college campuses that eventually spread to more than 100 countries. Many Jewish groups were offended by this so they bought billboards that said, “We Never Lost It.” Actually, we’ve all lost it and the only way to find it is by putting our faith and trust in Christ, no matter what our religious or denominational background is. That’s why we support as many missionaries as we do and why we partner with Rebecca Cox as she serves Christ in Spain. The gospel message is to go out around the globe, not just in our country.

I like how James Montgomery Boice applies this truth:

Who may come? Everybody.

How may I come? Just as you are.

When may I come? At any time, but don’t delay.

4. The Law of God should drive us to the Lamb of God (31). Paul anticipates in verse 31 that some might think that he has no place for the law: “Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.” Paul quickly replies that the Law is not outlawed or done away with. One Greek scholar said that the word “nullify” is pictured by the phrases “pull the teeth out” or “declaw.” The law has not been declawed. In fact, the sense is “May it never be! A thousand times no!” As we established a couple weeks ago, the law serves as a mirror to display our need of grace. The Law is not a ladder by which we climb to God to earn His acceptance. Instead, it’s like an X-ray to expose the extent of our sin and guilt, so we see our need for mercy. Paul will come back to this theme in chapters 6 and 7 so I’ll just summarize the good aspects of God’s law briefly. Christianity is meant to be neither legalistic nor lawless. Paul says that the Law must be upheld because it…

Do vs. Done

As we come to the end of Romans 3, we’re finishing what is at the heart of the Bible. As we’ve established, there really is no secret to salvation. It all boils down to this…

Am I going to trust my work or God’s work?

Am I going to focus on my failures or will I put my faith in the Faithful One?

Am I going to continue to “Do” or will I rest in what has been “Done”?

Chuck Dunning gave me a book a couple weeks ago called “The Speaker’s Treasury of Anecdotes,” published in 1948. I think he realized I needed some help not just with my introductions but also with my conclusions! As I thumbed through it this week, I came across a story about a pastor who was trying to get one of his members to come back to church: “Well, George, how is it that you have not been to church lately?” “Ain’t got no Sunday trousers,” replied George. The pastor thought quickly and said, “I have an extra pair I’ll send you.” The trousers arrived a few days later and George came to church three Sundays in a row. But then George stopped coming again. About a month later the pastor met his parishioner again and reminded him that he was missed at church. George responded, “Look here, parson, I like for a man to speak plain. You’re thinking about them trousers. I come to church three Sundays, and if you don’t think I’ve earned them, tell me how many more Sunday’s it’ll take, and I’ll either come back to church or send them back to you.”

I’ve put two chairs here on the floor. One is labeled “Do” and the other chair has the word “Done” on it. These two chairs represent the two kinds of religion in the world. Every religion is either a “Do” religion or a “Done” religion. The “Do” people think they have to earn a pair of trousers, or forgiveness, or heaven by performing prayers, going to church, giving money, or by following the 10 Commandments. Friends, every religion other than Christianity is a “Do” religion.

Those who are seated in the “Done” chair recognize that Jesus did it all. It is finished. The debt has been paid. They’ve stopped trying and started trusting. Instead of working for the gift they’ve simply received it.

Here’s my closing question. What chair are you in? If you’re in the “Do” chair, are you ready to get up right now and come down here and sit in the “Done” chair? We’re going to close our service with a couple more songs. While we’re singing, I want to invite you to come and sit down in the “Done” chair if you’re ready to receive what Jesus has done for you. Let this be your response to God’s offer of redemption.