The Righteousness of God Demonstrated

"But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." -Romans 3:21-26

Okay, so I included yesterday's text, in addition to today's verses, in order to keep the context of verses 25 and 26 clearly intact. So, without further ado, let's dive in!

Remembering that we're looking at the redemptive plan of salvation being fulfilled through Christ, let's look at God's purpose behind Christ's death on cross... verse 25 says, "whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed;"

Once again we will review our necessity for a savior... Verse 23 says, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..." Thus, all of us are incapable of pleasing God in our own strength or efforts. Christ's death was the atoning sacrifice on our behalf, so that there might be a way for us to be reconciled to God. Therefore, as we see in verse 25, His blood was shed on Calvary as the propitiation (The act of appeasing the wrath and conciliating the favor of an offended person - dictionary.com "Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1996") of our sins, before a holy and righteous Judge. The penalty of our sins was blood and Christ paid that penalty, once and for all.

Now... the reasoning behind this sacrifice on man's behalf? Well... I could sit here and type for hours about how all things that have ever happened and will ever happen are caused, by God, to bring glory to God. The thing that we will look at today, though, is how God's character is revealed through the entering of sin into the world and then, through the death of Christ.

First, God's character revealed through the entering of sin into the world. Before sin entered into the world, here's what we know about God:
We know Him as Creator. In Genesis 1 we see that God made everything that exists out of nothing. This gives us an understanding of God's authority over all creation. We see His power to create matter, an ability that God exclusively posseses.
We see Him outside of space and time. We understand from Genesis that God existed before all matter. He is not bound by the same laws that bind us as finite beings.
We see Him as the Author of good. In each part of creation, we read that God saw what He created and called it "good."
We see Him as the Provider. He provides Adam with all of the necessary things of life in order to demonstrate His ability to completely satisfy all of man's needs.



Now, enter sin! What do we now see about God's character?
We see Him as Holy. His character is such that, once sin has entered into the world, perfect communion with His now stained creation is no longer possible.
We see Him as Judge. He pronounces judgment against the offenses commited towards His commands. (Gen. 3:14-19)
We see Him as compassionate. God does not completely forsake His creation because of their sins, but rather provides the first blood sacrifice as the atonement of their sin, and uses the skins to clothe them!
We see His faithfulness. Genesis 3:15 gives us the first glimpse of a Savior to come."And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel." This is God's first promise of the redemption to come, through His Son!

Now... enter Christ! The Savior of the sinful world!
We see God's Mercy! Mercy can be defined as "not receiving the punishment I deserve." Christ paid our debt... and with that act of mercy, we now have a Perfect High Priest who intercedes for us before the throne of God Almighty!
We see the Grace of God. Grace can be defined as "the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God" - (dictionary.com Random House)
Eph. 2:1-10 describes this grace in a very poignant manner.
We see the Love of God. God's love is made evident in His effort of restoration between us and Himself. We have nothing to offer God, but He gave up His only Son in order to restore our relationship with Him.

Finally, looking again at Romans 3, we see His righteousness displayed through the death of Christ. His righteousness was displayed towards mankind in order that we might be justified, by God, through our faith in Jesus. (v. 26) God alone is the Justifier of our souls. This is an attribute of the character of God, revealed through Christ's death. Does it seem like I'm going in circles? Perhaps I am, but somewhere in these circles I'm trying to make certain that we understand this incredible glimpse into the character of Almighty God! I'll try to make my point a little easier to understand...

God, through the death of Christ, allowed us to understand His love, mercy, grace, and compassion, to name a few attributes. These would have otherwise gone as unknown characteristics if we did not have the death of Christ as the demonstration of these attributes of God. Now, of course we see glimpses of His patience, mercy, grace, etc... throughout the Old Testament, but not to the perfect extent which we see in Christ Jesus.

Now! The final point. All of these attributes of God are put on display so that God might be glorified in all things. God, as perfect and holy, is the only One who is able to exalt and glorify Himself in a righteous manner. We as humans cannot rightly exalt ourselves, but for God it is perfectly right and just for Him to cause His name to be lifted high, because He alone is Holy, Holy, Holy!

So, all things that exist are in existence for the final and utmost reason of glorifying God. This is a point which we could spend literal DAYS looking at and marveling about! I'll try to boil it down a little: If we live lives of Christ-likeness and in pursuit of God, bearing witness to His name and loving Him in all that we do... we bring glory to His marvelous love, grace, mercy, compassion, kindness, faithfulness and strength. On the other hand, if we live in selfish ambition and in rebellion to His Word... we bring glory to His justice, judgment, righteous anger, holy jealousy, and perfect wrath. So, in a nutshell, "You cannot escape your purpose in the glorification of God, no matter what side of the fence you're on!"

Well... that was a mouthful! Er... a "whatever-ful" it is when you blog for a long time on a very small set of verses! And I'm not even sure if any of it made sense! Hopefully, this will prove helpful to someone, in some respect. Otherwise... well... we'll just move on!

Grace and Peace, dear friends!

Questions or Comments? E-mail me at afflquestions@yahoo.com .

The Manifest Righteousness of God

"But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;" -Romans 3:21-24

Hello, all! Wow! It's been awhile since I've been on here... Well, God's been working in some interesting ways, in me, and I'm excited start blogging again! I won't go into all of the details of my sabbatical, just yet, but I assure you some of it will come up in some of the future blogs...

Well, with that being said, let's jump right in! I don't have a lot of time today so I'm going to try and break this down rather quickly this morning...

So, the last thing we covered was the Law and how it makes us aware of sin. Now let's get into the Good News! The Gospel, as it were, from Romans chapter 3... Now we see that "apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested..."

First, let's look at this word, "manifested." From dictionary.com the definition of "manifested" is as follows: "readily perceived by the eye or the understanding; evident; obvious; apparent; plain" (dictionary.com; based on the Random House Dictionary)

So, manifested means "apparent." God has made His righteousness apparent! Through what? His Son! In Christ Jesus, the righteousness of God was made apparent for all those who believe. This may seem pretty simple, and maybe it is... but it's essential that we grasp the point of our salvation, right here and now, before we move any further into Romans...

Without Christ being understood as our ONLY good and our ONLY righteousness and our ONLY hope... we will fall into the desperate depravity of believing that we are able, by some other strength, to redeem ourselves before God. That's why we've looked at the Law!

Paul showed us the Law so that we might realize the depth of our wickedness, not because he hoped that some might stand and say, "I've done all these things!" How can I say this? Because look at the very next thing that Paul says... "for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..." We looked at the Law so that we might realize our desperate need for a Savior.

Why is this so important? Why must we understand how wicked we truly are? Because until we do see our wickedness for the offense that it is against Almighty God... we will never understand the gravity of our sin and it's effect on our relationship with Him. Until we are able to take ownership of our faults, instead of passing the blame onto someone or something else, we will never be open or humbled enough to receive the healing that Christ offers us.

If you do see the depths of your own sins, however, and you do understand the need that you have for a Savior... then let's keep reading! Be prepared for the greatest headline that has ever hit this world! "Christ has been raised!"

Through the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, He has paid the penalty for our sins and made apparent, "manifested," His claims to deity by His resurrection from the dead. These claims have been made known to be true by His appearance to hundreds of men and women in the weeks following His resurrection.

"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come." -2 Corinthians 5:17

Let's look at verse 24 really quickly and then I'm going to have to be finished for today...

"being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus."

What a hope we have! We are justified, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, and can spend eternity in heaven with Him, because of what HE has done! It's a gift of grace, not something we have accomplished in ourselves... simply an undeserved measure of grace and mercy which has been poured out on us by the God of the universe! (Eph. 2:1-10)

What love! We were all sinners, damned to an eternity of punishment... "But God!" What an amazing combination of words! Please... read this passage and let it's implications rest on your soul as you go throughout this day...

"And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." -Ephesians 2:1-10

Grace and Peace, dear friends!

Questions or Comments? E-mail me at afflquestions@yahoo.com .