Day 74: You Are Justified in Christ
Romans 3:23-24
For we all have sinned and fall far short of the glory of God. But we are justified (declared righteous) freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
This week we focus on how Jesus has set us free from our sins. He has done all that is necessary for us to be set in right relationship with God through His faithfulness and sacrifice. When we trust Christ—that His blood has set us free from the guilt and debt of our sins—we are declared to be “in the right,” in right relationship with Father God. In Christ our sins have been removed from us. Because of the redemption, forgiveness and justification that comes to us in Christ, we are also reconciled—put at peace—with God. This peace is not just the absence of hostility, it is the presence of His personal blessing as He now deals with us as His beloved Children.
WORDwork:
Romans 3:19-25 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For no one is declared righteous before him by the works of the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
21 But now an apart-from-the-law-righteousness of God (which is attested by the law and the prophets) has been disclosed—22 namely, the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 24 But they are justified (declared righteous) freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. 25 God publicly displayed Him as a propitiation accessible through faith in His blood…
Can you explain verse 20 in your own words?
What has now been disclosed or revealed according to verse 21?
How does God now disclose or display His righteousness? In whose faithfulness?
What is true of everyone according to the end of verse 22 and the beginning of verse 23?
What is possible for us according to verse 24?
What does it mean to be justified?
To justify someone is to declare that person to be righteous. So in order to understand justification, we need to understand what righteousness is. Remember our “definition” of righteousness: doing 1) the right thing, 2) in the right way, 3) at the right time, 4) with the right motives.
This passage from Romans is both about God’s “right way of doing things” and how that affects us. It is easy to understand that both who God is and what He does is always righteous—He always does the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, with the right motives and this is why He is true, good and glorious. We too were created with the capacity to act righteously, but we have fallen far short of that standard (God’s glory). The Good News is that although we have all sinned and fall far short of the standard of God’s glory (His holy beauty), we are justified—declared to be in the right with Him, in right relationship—because Jesus has done for us what we cannot do for ourselves. For this reason we trust Him and Him alone.
Father-God Reveals His Right Way of Doing Things.
So what does this passage tell us about God’s right way of doing things? First of all, God’s right way has now been revealed apart from the Law. In other words, what God has revealed about his righteousness is not based in law or law-keeping. This is good news for us because we can’t keep the Law perfectly! This “new revelation” of His right way of doing things is supported, confirmed by the Law and the Prophets (the Hebrew Scriptures), but it is something that has been clearly revealed in Jesus.
So what has God revealed about this new right way of doing things? In this present age, God’s righteousness is revealed in the way He declares sinners who place their ultimate trust in Jesus to be in right relationship with Him (justification) based on the work of Jesus.
We are declared to be righteous freely by God’s grace.
God now declares that we are in right relationship with Him not because we have caused this or earned it but because He desired to do so freely as a gift for us! The word “freely” here is used in other contexts of the New Testament to speak of 1) a gift (John 4:10, Acts 2:38), 2) doing something “free of charge” or “without payment” (John 15:25, 2 Corinthians 11:7, 2 Thessalonians 3:8) and 3) something that is done without a cause (John 15:25). We do not deserve what God has done for us in Christ and we cannot pay for it, all we can do is receive it! This is the very definition of Grace.
We are declared to be righteous on the basis of what Jesus has done (redemption).
Even though this relationship with God did not “cost” us anything, we cannot forget that it cost Jesus a high price—His life, His blood. He was faithful and poured out his blood for us (redemption). The basis for our being set right with God is not what we have done, but what Christ has done for us. We will talk more about redemption tomorrow.
We are declared to be righteous through our faith.
In the last verse of this passage, we get a very difficult line: “God publicly displayed Him as a propitiation accessible through faith in His blood.…” There has been endless debate over how to translate this line and also what this means. Basically we believe Paul is telling us that Father-God has displayed Christ publicly (on the Cross) as a propitiatory sacrifice, a sacrifice that annuls His wrath (we will deal with this in a future lesson). This word can also mean “mercy seat,” the covering of the Ark of the Covenant where the blood of Atonement was poured out. Paul wants us to see Jesus’ death on the Cross as the place where the perfect sacrifice was made and also the place where we find mercy and grace and forgiveness and cleansing.
He then tells us how we get “access” to all of these blessings: through faith in the blood of Jesus. Remember our discussion of Jesus’ blood earlier? Take note that all of the salvation and life-sustaining blessings that we receive from the Father come to us freely, but at the cost of Jesus’ blood!
Tomorrow we will continue to explore the implications of all that Jesus has done for us.
*You can find a complete list of all the MilktoMeat readings here.
