We’ve been considering the very heart of the gospel over the past few weeks in our study of Romans 3:21-31. Martyn Lloyd-Jones called this section, “the most important and crucial passage in the whole of Scripture…the very heart and centre of the Gospel” [Romans: Atonement & Justification, An Exposition of Chapters 3:20-4:25, 149]. But is that mere hyperbole?
What makes these few verses so important? Let me explain it like this. Confusion exists even in the Christian community on precisely what the gospel is. Some think of the gospel as doing good deeds for less fortunate people. Others see it as the beliefs of their church without any specifics related to justification or redemption. Still others see it as the story of Jesus Christ, including His death and resurrection. While the latter comes closer to the point, one can view the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as a creative and inspiring story used to motivate sacrificial service without seeing the need for atonement for sins.
Every Sunday, millions gather around the world for Christian worship. Most of those gathered would say that they believe in Jesus Christ and His death and resurrection. Countless numbers will offer confession of this by reciting the Apostles’ or Nicene Creeds. Yet most could not explain the gospel or the reason for the gospel. Quite obviously, many confess the gospel in worship but have never believed the gospel.
I do not want to be fuzzy at this point. We can use the term “gospel” over and over without giving it the substance that the Scriptures give it. We can put our faith in what we think is the gospel while never grasping what the Scripture declares it to be. A person can think he’s a Christian because he has confessed a belief in his view of the gospel even though his understanding of it is deeply flawed. That’s the danger that I want us to consider. If Paul needed to clarify and explain the gospel to the Roman church, then I think it bears importance on us doing the same.
So what has this critical portion of God’s Word taught us regarding the truth of the gospel? First, the gospel is the revelation of the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. God revealed His righteousness so that sinners who rely on His Son might be counted righteous before Him.
Second, the gospel is a gift of God’s grace from start to finish. God initiates the saving work revealed in the gospel. He regenerates dead hearts to willingly believe the gospel. He eternally preserves those saved by the gospel of Christ.
Third, for God to offer salvation to sinners, He had to secure it without contradicting His righteous character or conflicting with His justice. In other words, God could not just dole out “free passes for salvation.” Eternal justice had to be satisfied. God’s wrath, just as much as His love, had to be fulfilled. The righteous God could not act unrighteously by forgiving debts of sin that had not been paid. So, God sent His Son to redeem sinners from the curse of sin and to avert His wrath through propitiating God at the cross. Paul uses the terms “redemption” and “propitiation” to explain this.
Fourth, for the gospel to be truly “good news” required the bloody, substitutionary death of Jesus Christ at the cross and His resurrection from the dead. Apart from Christ’s death on our behalf, God would not be just in justifying sinners. The cross publicly revealed God’s righteousness in declaring sinners to be righteous before Him.
Finally, the point of the gospel is the sinner’s standing of justification before God. Since this is a work of grace then no work of the law contributes to it. Justification is by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. Faith is never viewed as a work but as the God-given means to receive what Christ has already secured through His death and resurrection.
What is left for the Apostle to explain? Throughout his argument concerning the gospel, he has shown that no one is saved by works of the Law. Yet the human psyche gravitates toward law for justification before God. So it is necessary that we understand the place of the law in relationship to faith in Christ revealed in the gospel. Faith in Christ accomplishes what the law could never do. Yet the law is critical to faith in Christ. How can this be so? I want us to consider this under two headings. First, we’ll look at “one God—one way” as shown in verses 29-30; then we’ll attempt to see “the law’s place” in verse 31.
Throughout the opening chapters of Romans, Paul weaves his gospel exposition back to the character of God. The gospel fulfills God’s promise—so God is faithful to His word (1:1-5). God calls sinners “saints”—so God is merciful to the undeserving (1:6-7). God’s wrath is poured out against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men—so God is righteous in punishing sinners (1:18-2:11). God is impartial in His judgment to Jews and Gentiles—so God is just in His dealings with the creation (2:11). So it is not surprising that Paul helps us understand, by taking us back to God’s character, that there are not multiple ways to a right standing before God. God alone justifies and He always has and continues to do so through the instrument of faith and not by works.
Whether it was Jewish Christians in the church at Rome or Jews in the Roman community, some thought that Paul’s gospel of faith was a new way to be saved. Some went so far as to think that only Jews were God’s people; everyone else was unfit for God. So Paul asks the question, “Or is God the God of Jews only?” You can almost hear someone yelling, “But He’s our God!” and thus prompting the rhetorical question. Yet such a view of God actually denied the character and attributes of God. To think that He was only the God of the Jews implied that Gentiles must seek their own gods—thus giving credibility to idolatry. It also limited God to a small people group and geographic locale rather than acknowledge Him as Creator and Sovereign over the universe.
Obviously, in their confessions and worship they would acknowledge God as Creator and Sovereign yet in the way that this worked out practically as they viewed Gentiles, it became a subtle denial of God’s authority over them. God appeared “too small” in their eyes to embrace the much large Gentile world. Yet Paul’s insistence is that God “is one,” not many gods. His oneness extends to every molecule in the universe as He rules all of His creation in wisdom, grace, and justice. To deny salvation to any people group denies the oneness of God.
Actually, this tells us more about the Jewish people that Paul addressed than it does about the Lord God. They had denied personhood and worth to Gentiles, giving the impression that Jews alone were made in the image of God. But what was the Jewish position? They had been chosen by God but not because they were better than other peoples or larger or because they could do greater things for God. He chose them out of His kindness—period. He desired to show mercy to them in order that He might display His glory through the Jews; yet so many of them smugly and arrogantly embraced the electing grace of God. Instead, they should have been marked by humility and an intense desire to see the glory of God displayed among all peoples as the Psalms and the Prophets declare.
So, is God the God of Jews only and not of the Gentiles? Paul’s next question expects a positive answer. “Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also.” Now, what is the point that he’s making? He is showing that God the Creator has a people that cross all tribal, racial, and national lines so that He justifies all people, Jews and Gentiles, through faith alone.
As Paul reacts to the “He’s our God only” crowd, he makes a profound statement that we must pause to consider. “Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one.” Let’s extract the phrase for a moment: the one God will justify the circumcised and the uncircumcised. We don’t want to miss this for a moment because it stands at the core of the gospel. God is the one that justifies. Whether we are Jewish or Gentile we cannot justify ourselves before God. ‘Well, sure I know that, but certainly there are things that I must do to be in right standing with God!’ He does not say that God helps justify Jews and Gentiles. God never enlists our support to help Him do something that He just cannot quite pull off! God justifies!
I bring out that small but important issue because some among us may still be hanging on to personal achievement and self-effort as the way to appease God or achieve righteousness. You think that your level of performance is what God gauges in order to decide whether or not He will declare you to be righteous. Yet that is just what Paul explains God does not do. God justifies sinners—Jews and Gentiles. And He does it apart from the works of the law—therefore, it is apart from self-effort, personal performance, and religious achievement.
If you remember our study of John Bunyan a few months ago, he’s a great example of this very thing. Though a wicked man, Bunyan had some near-death experiences that affected his behavior. He began to seek to be righteous. He stopped his cursing and thought this might be enough. Still his heart troubled him. He increased his involvement at the local church but even with this he remained unsettled. He began to read and study so that he could discuss the Bible. He considered himself quite articulate regarding things Christian. Yet several poor Christian women that he overheard talking about the gospel put him to shame. At every turn, Bunyan tried to achieve what God gives only as a gift of His grace. His whole spiritual life made him miserable because he was relying on his own self-effort and not on the work of Christ alone. Bunyan thought that he could justify himself rather than seeing that God alone justifies sinners who have faith in Christ.
We saw in our previous study that Luther, along with many of the church fathers, added “alone” as an adjective to modify faith lest anyone get the idea that God justifies by combining faith and works or faith and the merit of the saints or faith and the role of the church. “God…will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith…” The two prepositions “by” and “through” do not distinguish separate kinds of faith experiences (one for Jews and the other for Gentiles) but only stylistic variations in Paul’s writing. Both prepositions speak of instrumentality or means. How does the redemptive work of Jesus Christ become personal instead of an abstract Christian teaching? It happens by faith alone.
Justification is by faith because it is by grace alone (3:24). Since we do not contribute to our justification by our works but are saved only by the grace of God, then the means God has chosen to apply the work of Christ at a point in time is through faith. Faith excludes works so it leaves no room for boasting. Faith strips us of self-reliance; it casts aside all dependence on performance or achievement. Faith relies on God’s mercy alone. It leaves us with Him and His provisions through Christ.
God justifies “the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.” Jews and Gentiles stand on level ground. One does not hold a more secure place with God than the other. God does not favor one more than the other. That’s what the Apostle gets across in this statement. “What God requires of the Jew is faith. What God requires of the Gentile is faith. Faith is the only way” [Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, 188].
God has given no other way to be declared righteous and acceptable before Him but through the means of faith. One must not fall back on some crutch in an effort to avoid faith-dependence upon Christ crucified. Someone might say, ‘I’m going to depend on my election by God for my justification.’ Election is wonderful and certainly a God-given point of assurance but we’re not justified by our election. We’re justified by Christ through faith. Faith calls us to the gospel, to reliance upon Jesus Christ alone in His atoning death and resurrection. Faith takes us to the cross as a helpless sinner and leaves us with Christ’s bloody death to turn away God’s wrath and satisfy eternal justice on our behalf. Faith raises our eyes to see the empty tomb that we might have the assurance that God accepted the sacrifice of His Son on our behalf for our justification. The one God has one way of granting pardon and eternal acceptance—and that is through faith alone in His Son.
Does all of this talk of faith alone negate the function and usefulness of the Law? Some thought so; therefore the Apostle felt compelled to answer their quandaries about the law’s place with regard to faith.
Have we entered the gospel age so that the law is a thing of a past era? By that, I mean, did God save through the law in one age and now He saves by faith in the gospel of Christ in the present age? Some think this to be the case. However, Paul’s insistence on the oneness of God and that justification is never by the works of the law rebuts this view (3:28).
Well, in that case, what’s the use in even considering the law? Is it necessary for our day or any era? “Do we then nullify the Law through faith?” For the quick answer, Paul uses the strongest phrase in his arsenal, “May it never be!” Absolutely, positively not! So we see immediately that faith doesn’t void or invalidate the law. He has already shown us that the law works with faith by closing our mouths from making any claims to righteousness and holding us accountable to God as condemned sinners (3:19-20). “Through the Law comes the knowledge of sin,” Paul tells us. Unless we have the knowledge of sin then we cannot recognize the need for the gospel or understand what the gospel accomplishes. In a sense, the law sets the stage for faith alone by rendering us helpless before God to do anything to save ourselves.
“Do we then nullify the Law through faith?” When we use the word “faith” in our day it can carry broad meaning. Some think of it as an “inner gumption” by which we “put our best foot forward” and “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.” In other words, faith is all about us and doing our best. It’s about working up enough courage to call ourselves Christian. But that’s not biblical faith.
Others think of faith as a general belief in whatever one chooses to believe. So whether you understand the biblical gospel or not is really not the issue; what matters is just that you have “faith.” It’s a faith that has no grounds; it’s faith without an anchor, drifting in an endless sea of vain and vague ideas.
Faith is normally used in two ways in the New Testament: objectively and subjectively. Objectively, faith is used to express the body of truth upon which we are relying (e.g. Eph. 4:5). So quite often “the faith” is used to refer to the gospel of Christ. At other times, faith refers to the subjective experience of believing in Christ (e.g. Eph. 2:8). It’s not a vague feeling but a definite reliance upon the revelation of Christ in the gospel. Context is the best way to determine how it is used.
That brings me to our text. How is faith used? In our context he has been speaking of “a law of faith,” or a principle or rule of faith. Rather than depending upon the principle of works for justification, by grace, we depend upon the rule of faith. So in this sense, is Paul speaking of something objective or subjective? I must answer “yes, yes!” He emphasizes the subjective experience of relying upon Christ alone; yet such reliance is upon the objective body of truth known as the gospel. They are inseparable as he uses them in the present context. So I would put it like this. Paul is using faith in this context not simply as the experience of reliance on Christ but the faith—the gospel truth—that is the ground of our experience. Does this kind of faith nullify the law? Absolutely, positively not!
The word “establish” means to confirm or to make valid [histami, BAG, 383]. Rather than viewing faith and law in competition with each other as means to justification, Paul insists that faith confirms the right place or right use of the law. Further, faith validates the nature and value of the law. I want to point out five ways that faith establishes the law.
First, faith declares the law as holy, righteous, and good (Rom. 7:12). There’s nothing immoral or wrong with the law! What is the law? It reveals the divine standards of holiness, righteousness, and goodness. What constitutes right living before God? The only way to answer that is to look at His law. The law objectively states what pleases God and what displeases Him.
That is just fine if we obey the law at every point! But what happens when we do not—which is the regular case with each of us? The law condemns us. It is “law” and not suggestions. We understand the nature of law in our society most often when we break a law. The standards by which we are governed intend to bring us into moral conformity as a society for the betterment of the population. So when we break a law we face a level of condemnation and consequences. Laws anticipate justice to be served when the moral standards are broken. Apart from this, nothing would deter us from unending lawbreaking.
The fact that faith is necessary to be justified in the face of our lawbreaking, serves to declare the rightness of the law. Faith accepts the sentence of God on His Son as He represented us before the condemnation of the law.
Second, faith establishes the law because it reveals God’s character in the moral law, God’s ultimate redemptive purpose in the ceremonial law, and God’s kingdom rule in the civil law. While the latter two—ceremonial and civil laws—served temporal purposes until their fulfillment in Christ by His sacrifice and His kingdom rule, the first remains constant, especially as expounded in the Sermon on the Mount. The gospel emphasizes the importance and place of each aspect of divine law. The moral law demands justice so Christ died to satisfy this requirement; the ceremonial law anticipated eternal satisfaction through thousands of sacrifices until Christ fulfilled every detail by His death at the cross. The precision of every sacrifice offered pointed to the one, final sacrifice that covered every detail of eternal justice through Christ. The civil law governing Israel gave way to Jesus Christ as Lord ruling over a spiritual kingdom characterized by “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit” (14:17). Faith affirms the place of each aspect of divine law now fulfilled in Christ so that He is the end of the law for righteousness (10:4).
Third, faith in the gospel of Christ shows that fulfillment of the law is vitally important. That’s why the Bible makes much of His active obedience to the law. Never for even a moment was our Lord careless with God’s law. He fulfilled all righteousness, even to the point of being baptized by John in the Jordan (Matt. 3:15). Satan had no ground to lay claim to Him because of the purity of His obedience. Christ’s opponents found nothing to convict Him of sin (John 8:46). His obedience to the law becomes our righteousness through faith, thus establishing the law’s just demand for righteousness.
Fourth, faith shows that the demand levied by the law against transgressors is just. Such judgment reveals God’s hatred of sin and His wrath against transgressors. Faith bids us look at the cross to see God’s disposition against transgressors; for there the Son of God took the place of transgressors and met the horrid fury of divine wrath. There His passive obedience in accepting God’s judgment on our behalf secured our pardon for eternity. Faith establishes the justice in the law as sinners find refuge in Christ’s death.
Finally, faith shows that the demand for God to be propitiated, revealed temporally in the ceremonial law and endless sacrifices, has its fulfillment in Christ. The law required satisfaction; God’s wrath must be turned away or His people would justly perish in His fury. Yet no lamb or goat could ultimately assuage God’s wrath. That work belonged to Christ alone. Faith relies upon Christ having propitiated God forever. There’s no more work that we can do to turn away His wrath. Christ did it all. Faith looks to Christ alone.
Has your faith found a resting place in Christ alone? Even the law has its fulfillment in Him. So stop trying to justify yourself through the law that Christ’ has satisfied.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be explicitly approved by South Woods Baptist Church.
Please include the following statement on any distributed copy:
Copyright South Woods Baptist Church. Website: www.southwoodsbc.org. Used by permission as granted on web site. Questions, comments, and suggestions about our site can be sent here.
Copyright 2008, South Woods Baptist Church, All Rights Reserved