Category Archives: Romans

Lesson 18: Romans 5:6-11

For what kind of person would you be willing to suffer? What if you were in a line at a store and a rude person pushed everyone else aside, and got in the front of those who had been waiting patiently? Would you be calmly willing to give up your place for such a person? I’m sure some would. What if someone held you up with a gun and took your money? Would you gladly do without what was yours for a person like that? Some would.

What if instead of suffering little things, you were asked to die for such people? Would you be willing to die to benefit someone who was rude, or a criminal? Would you be willing to personally die for an average citizen who hadn’t done wrong? What if the person was very noble and virtuous? would you die willingly for them?

Hardly anyone would be willing to die for a rude person, or for a hardened criminal. Some might die for an innocent person. Some may even die for a virtuous person. But all that fades into insignificance compared with what Christ has done for us.

Romans 5:6-8, “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Paul builds a careful case. When a man is called “righteous” it means he is not a law breaker. As he explained, hardly anyone would die for a person simply because he was not a lawbreaker. Christ’s love was so great that he died even for the unrighteous. Remember what Paul wrote about all mankind back in Romans 3:10, “as it is written, ‘There is none righteous, not even one’.” Therefore, we are all criminals against God’s law. We do not measure up to being “righteous.” Yet such were the objects of God’s love.

Then he mentions “the good man”, one who is virtuous or noble in some way. Some, but not all, might even venture to die for such a person. But Jesus Christ died for us though we fall far short of this quality. Romans 3:12 says, “… There is none who does good, no, not one.” We are all unworthy rebels against God, enemies of the Creator, sinners against his law. Yet these too were the objects of God’s love.

That kind of love is truly Incomprehensible. There are many things in life that are beyond our full understanding. Some things are beyond us because we have no background in them. That is why some do not like certain sports, or appreciate some fields of science or history. It is why some get lost and bored over things that interest others. Some things are far too complex for us to understand. No one knows with certainty the actual nature of light or of gravity. No one can perfectly predict the path of a storm. There are diseases we do not know how to cure.

God’s love for lost humans is beyond our comprehension for a different reason. It is infinitely beyond our limited human nature itself to understand it. There is nothing in our make up that brings us close to understanding such an infinite love. A baby is more able to comprehend the details of quantum physics, than man is able to comprehend the love of God. Adults are many times smarter than a baby, but God’s mind and intentions are infinitely beyond the mind of any human. Psalm 139:6 shows the heart of the Psalmist as he thought about God, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it.”

Though comprehension is beyond us, God made sure that this love was openly displayed for all to see. It was “demonstrated” to us, made conspicuous, by the work of Christ. Though we cannot fully appreciate its depths or understand its foundation, we are privileged to see it held up for us to behold. Paul’s reasoning here is to help us appreciate the greatness of God’s love.

Jesus told his disciples in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” Then in verse 14, in words that applied this principle to himself, he made it clear what he would do. He said, “You are My friends … .” There is only one way to take it. His love for them was so great that he would die for them.

Later one of those disciples, the Apostle John, wrote, “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” (1 John 3:16). Later in 1 John 4:9 he wrote, “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.”

The death of Christ for his friends was infinitely greater than anything we mere humans could do for a friend. It was this love that moved him to take on a human body and soul, and to take on our guilt. It was this greatest of all imaginable loves that led him to the cross to redeem his people.

In his gospel (John 3:16) John wrote words that are known and loved by so many, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (KJV)

The world became so polluted by the rebellion of Adam and his race, that it is amazing that the holy God, who is the target of man’s offenses, would come to redeem any one from the human race at all.

The greatness of the giving of God the Son was not like a human father losing his son. God the Father would not “lose” his son, or become separated from him for a lifetime. This is often what we think of when a parent loses a child to death. The members of the Trinity were never really separated from one another as to their eternal and unchangeable nature.

What makes the Father’s sending his Son to die so great is different. Jesus came to take on the ultimate humiliation, and most extreme suffering possible. This one man would experience the horrors of the wrath of perfect justice. That which condemns the sinner to suffer in hell and agony forever, and which horribly offends the Creator, was collapsed into one man who paid it all in those hours on the cross. That suffering and agony is multiplied to include the countless numbers who are the Redeemed of God.

John 3:16 should not be taken to mean that he loved, and wanted to redeem, everyone in the world. That is not the point Jesus was making in John 3 as he spoke to Nicodemus. If he came to redeem all that are in the world, and even one person is condemned in the end, then Jesus failed. But nothing supports that. He fully succeeded in his work. This verse has to do instead with how great his love was, that he should love any of this world at all! The promise only addresses those who actually put their trust in the Savior. It is a very limiting verse.

R. B. Kuiper once said about John 3:16, “the point, then, is not that the world is so big that it takes a great deal of love to embrace it, but that the world is so bad, that it takes an exceeding great kind of love to love it at all.”

Contrary to the opinion of false religion, the Bible does not claim that God loves all humans. In this same book, Romans 9:13, Paul quotes from the Old Testament and writes, “Just as it is written, ‘Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.’ ”

It is neither loving nor true to tell all people that “Jesus died to save them”. We cannot know that about any individual person. The Bible tells us to call all to repent, and to trust in his death for sin. The message is to tell them what they ought to do because of God’s call to them. It is a sincere offer that either exposes the depth of depravity that makes them reject that offer, or demonstrates the work of grace that transforms the stubborn heart to see what it was blind to see.

If they truly turn to him and believe, then it become positively clear that they were redeemed by him. To imply to them that Jesus did what he could, then leaves its effectiveness up to them, destroys the idea of grace, and makes them out to be the lord’s of heaven instead of God himself. It makes up a different gospel. It wold be a lie about the most important message for a lost soul.

The gospel revealed in Scripture is not an easy message, nor is it popular. It is the truth. The Gospel is about the love of God that is so great, it is not about the choice of the person. We choose him because he redeemed us. He does not redeem us because we first chose him. First John 4:10 says, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

At the precise time God had appointed, Jesus died not for the righteous or the good, for there is no one righteous or good. He died in place of the ungodly who would be enabled by grace alone to believe his message.

Romans 5:9-11, “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.”

Here it says we are justified “by his blood.” Romans 6:23 summarizes what our sin deserves, “For the wages of sin is death…” The shedding of the blood of sacrifices represented the death of the sinner. Deuteronomy 12:23 says, ” … the blood is the life.”

When Jesus shed his blood, it fulfilled that for which the sacrifices stood. He poured out his blood until he died. This was to pay the penalty we deserve. In Hebrews 9:22 is says, “without shedding of blood there is no remission.”

The only just way to restore a lost human to fellowship with a holy God, is that the penalty be paid by God himself, by the Savior clothed in a true human nature, and having poured out his life to pay the price demanded by moral justice.

What moved God to do that for sinners? In verse five of this chapter Paul spoke of the love of God for his people. He began this next point in verse six with the word “for” showing the results of that love. This infinite and incomprehensible love of God moved the Savior to die for the unworthy.

The Bible speaks of us becoming “justified” from different points of view. They are not different messages. We see it from different directions to know its full beauty. Just as we turn an expensive jewel around to appreciate it from every angle, God’s word shows us the varied parts of our redemption.

We read in Romans 3:24 that we are justified “by God’s grace.”
This shows what motivated the work of Christ. It was not anything we have done or chose, but God’s own determination. It is God’s eternal, unchangeable, and amazing grace that moved him to redeem his people. In this sense, redeeming Grace and God’s redeeming Love, are hard to distinguish.

Here in Romans 5:9 we see that we are justified “by Christ’s blood”
This shows the means God used to pay the penalty for our sins. Justice was satisfied by a perfect and infinite substitute dying in our place. Our sins were paid for by him, one who deserved no punishment at all.

We are also told that we are justified “by faith.”
This is the means by which the redeemed person lays hold of the work of Christ. Faith is that confidence put into our hearts by the Holy Spirit that drives us to rest in the gospel. It is something one would not do if Christ had not died for him. It is something one will surely and willingly do if Christ did die for him.

These different sides of the work of justification help us to see the whole picture. Our faith reveals the grace of God which included us in the redeeming work of Christ.

If this great love moved him to restore enemies to fellowship by paying for their sins, then now that we are reconciled and made friends, it is much easier to be confident that we will be saved by his life. The promise goes way beyond just being saved from judgment. In Romans 8:29 we see that those same ones he justified he also promises to glorify.

We who are redeemed, are saved by Christ’s life in several ways.

His resurrection is a pledge of life to all who are justified by his grace.
The separation of spiritual death disabled our fellowship with God. The perfectly holy life of our Savior is credited to those who are redeemed. They stand clothed in his righteousness so that their fellowship with God is restored. Where there was death, there is now life. Beyond that, we have the promise of eternal life at the resurrection when our physical bodies are glorified and reunited with our departed souls to live in God’s presence forever.

Jesus said in John 14:19, “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also.”

In Romans 8:11 Paul wrote, “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”

Christ, being raised again to life, continues to intercede for his children.
Hebrews 7:25 “Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.”

In the final judgment, our Savior is the one who judges our case.
Matthew 28:18 Jesus said, “… All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.”

There could be no grater words of comfort and security. Our Savior did not just make a way for us to be redeemed from punishments. He actually saves us to live fully for all eternity in Christ. By paying for his people’s sins he made enemies into friends of God. Now living, he intercedes for them, promises to raise them to life everlasting, and assures them that he will be their comfort and joy all through this present life.

Paul says that we rejoice in God now. In verse 11 he adds that in addition to this work of redemption and promise, we “rejoice in God.” This is that victorious rejoicing that he mentioned back in 5:2. The reconciliation is ours now. It is a present walk with God, restored to fellowship with him. We who were once enemies are now made right with God. None of it is deserved or earned. It is all because of his gracious and amazing love. This is a good and worthy thing to stop to think about every day.

Oh the love that sets us free from our guilt, and adopts us into the family of God!

(The Bible quotations in this article are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)

Lesson 16: Romans 4

God created a diverse universe. This is the way he wanted it to be. When he made us humans he made us so that we would not all be the same. We are different in our talents, interests, abilities, health, intelligence, appearance, and callings. In this sense, all men are not created equal.

There is also a uniformity in God’s creation of man. All were made in the image of God, obligated to represent his sovereign lordship. All were equally represented in Adam, who was assigned as the head of the human race. All equally fell into sin and became depraved in Adam. His sin passed on to all his posterity. Romans 5 (our next chapter for study) very clearly summarizes this truth and its solution.

Sin has distorted our diversities into false categories. In our fallen nature we develop pride and prejudice very early in our lives. I remember playing around the neighborhood and on the school yard when I was very young. When someone crossed us we often formed “clubs” to exclude them. There were those we considered “friends” and those we excluded from the group. When I taught Jr. High I saw the tendency of teens to form cliques. They would often mercilessly exclude certain people, and prejudicial favor others.

Our society as a whole sadly reflects that same attitude even among adults. It is sometimes good and productive to form special interest groups to learn together, and to encourage others in specific areas. However, we also tend to come up with unfounded categories into which we put people different than us. Those are often looked down upon, or sometimes hated. Sometimes people are shunned because of racial prejudices or economic differences. Sometimes we divide up because others speak differently or have been raised with different mannerisms. False standards of virtue and acceptance create sinful pride and the unjust treatment of others.

The groups God has divided us into are of a very different nature. Though all are fallen in Adam, some are redeemed from that fallen condition, others are not. In our confused, fallen condition we tend to explain that in wrong ways. Humans tend to think of things people do as the cause of why some are saved and others are not. Some think that baptism or belonging to a certain church redeems us from sin. Some think that those who made a right decision or religious choice will be favored by God. Some imagine that they earn salvation from sin by doing good deeds, or by sincere thoughts. However, God’s word condemns those ways of salvation as prideful and wicked. Dividing men up by those standards is wrong.

In Paul’s day many of the Jews had created a religious clique. They believed their heritage, their descent from Abraham, made them better than everyone else. They believed that being from a circumcised family assured them of eternal life with God.

In Romans we are taught that the Jew’s own Scriptures show their error. No one has an advantage when it comes to salvation from sin. It is by grace alone that any are redeemed by the propitiation of Jesus Christ. To illustrate this, in chapter four Paul uses the life of Abraham, the father of all Israel.

Abraham was clearly a man justified before God. No one questioned that. His justification was not because of the things in which the Jews were taking pride.

Romans 4:1-5, “What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness,”

Abraham was the one to whom God revealed his promise to redeem a people for himself. He was justified. He was given the Righteousness of God, and forgiven for his sin and guilt. If he was justified by what he had done or earned, then he had something to brag about. But he didn’t. Abraham had sinned just like everyone else. He had inherited the same corruption from Adam. It condemned him, and separated him from God.

The righteousness he had was a gift from God. It was not a reward for what he had done, or for being a better person. It was imputed to him, credited to him, by means of faith.

It is important to know what part this faith plays in his being justified. Three facts about faith help us understand this most important teaching of Scripture.

1. True faith is not what most people think it is.
It is not just an inner feeling or conviction. It is not a blind or irrational leap in the dark contrary to known facts. It is not a trust in something without sufficient evidence. There is no virtue in these things. They are not what the Bible calls “faith.”

Just trusting in something is not always good. That kind of trust is what the first two commandments forbid. Faith in a false god, or in a false way of salvation, or in a false hope is condemned in the Bible. Faith is only a good thing when it trusts in the true promises God has spoken. Therefore, it is the object of our faith, what we trust in, that makes it either good or bad. A faith in what God has not revealed is a “wicked faith” and offends God.

2. Biblical faith is not something we naturally have.
As we saw in the last chapter of Romans, faith is impossible for unredeemed humans (3:10-12). They cannot understand spiritual things as they truly are, much less can they be confident in them. They cannot seek after the true God, so they will not trust in him. They cannot do anything truly good. Certainly exercising true faith in Christ is a good thing.

As Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 3:2, “not all have faith.” Biblical faith is a special work of God upon the heart to give it confidence in what he has said. It is a sure confidence that comes by grace alone to the unworthy.

3. Faith is not the cause of being justified. It is the means God uses.
The foundation of our being made right with God is the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. He died in place of his people paying the price they deserved for their sin. By his suffering and death he satisfied the requirements of justice completely.

As the Holy Spirit applies that redeeming work to undeserving hearts he removes their guilt and offense, clothes them with his righteousness, and produces in them life and true faith. Those redeemed respond with repentance and trust in the true promise of God alone. It is this trust, this God-given faith, that is the means by which the work of Jesus declares us to be justified.

The faith by which Abraham was justified was a trust in the true promises of God. The method of salvation has always been the same. Those who are justified, trust in the work of God’s promised Redeemer and not in themselves.

Before Jesus was born, believers looked forward with faith in the promise of redemption, even though they did not understand it fully. Since the cross and resurrection of Jesus, we believers look back with faith, resting upon the finished work of Jesus.

Romans 4:6-8, “just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works: ‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered; Blessed is the man to whom the LORD shall not impute sin.’ “

The quote here come from Psalm 32:1-2 by King David, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit.”

Men are justified before God by having Christ’s righteousness imputed to them. In imputation, we are not merely treated as if we were righteous. In Christ we actually become righteous. We are just because of his declaration.

The true believer has the righteousness of Jesus Christ placed around him like a robe. As Isaiah said, “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, My soul shall be joyful in my God; For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.” (Isaiah 61:10)

In all ages the method of salvation has been the same.

Paul turned back to Abraham to illustrate justification by grace through faith. Many of the Jews had come to classify people not based upon that inner work of grace, but by the outward sign of belonging to Israel, circumcision. It produced pride and prejudice.

Romans 4:9-12, “Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised only, or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. How then was it accounted? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also, and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised.”

God gave Circumcision as a seal to mark out his people. Circumcision proclaimed a righteousness which was not their own. They joined together in a community to live by God’s promise, the hope of Messiah. They admitted the hopelessness of doing anything that would make them right with God.

So it was a sign, saying their righteousness was by that faith God gives by grace. If it is a sign of something God does inwardly, then it cannot be the cause of salvation. The Jews were wrong who expected their circumcision to save them. They were wrong in thinking that uncircumcised Gentiles could not be saved. Abraham was not yet circumcised when God by grace justified him.

Believers from all nations were intended to be blessed in the same promise to Abraham. He is not just the spiritual father of the Jews, but of all who believe in all ages. As Paul wrote in Galatians 3:6-9, “just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you all the nations shall be blessed.’ So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.”

Today, after the shedding of Christ’s blood, baptism has become that sign. Baptism is the sign that marks out God’s people as those justified by grace through faith. It means the same thing as the Circumcision of the Old Testament. This is reflected in Colossians 2:11-12, “In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.”

The promise has not changed. It is not different. God has always saved his people the same way. God grants life and faith by grace alone on the basis of the One Savior dying to pay the penalty of the sins of his people, satisfying justice and giving them his righteousness.

Dr. Charles Hodge explained, “As Abraham was the head and father of the theocratic people under the Old Testament, this relation was not disowned when the middle wall of partition was broken down and the gentiles introduced into the family of God. He still remained the father of the faithful, and we are ‘the sons of Abraham by faith,’ Galatians 3:7”

Romans 4:13-17, “For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (as it is written, ‘I have made you a father of many nations’) in the presence of Him whom he believed — God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did;”

Abraham is the spiritual father of all who believe, not just of the Jews who had the written law, and who practiced circumcision. He is father also to those who were redeemed among the Gentiles who know nothing of circumcision. When the gospel comes to them, and they too believe, they show the same promise at work in them.

These are the three groupings into which God divides mankind.
1. Some never profess to belong to God through his promise of atonement.
They are those not chosen to eternal life, and who never join with God’s people even in an outward way.

2. Some profess Christ but are not truly redeemed.
They may even join with God’s people and take part in worship and other activities. In the time between Abraham and Jesus, they would take on the sign of circumcision. In the era of the New Testament church they receive the sign of baptism. However, they are among those not chosen to eternal life by God’s grace.

Jesus addressed them in Matthew 7:21-23. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ ”

While these may have many outward advantages in this life by their association with God’s covenant people, they remain condemned.

3. Others are truly justified through Christ by grace alone.
These are the elect of God (Ephesians 1:3-6). They profess faith in God’s promise, come to him in honest repentance and trust in the work of the Savior. When able, they join with the visible church and take on the sign of the covenant (which in this age is baptism).

The sobering reality is that many might say they belong to Christ and even become baptized and join a church. They might seem to live a good life and impress many with their conservative ways. However, only those undeserving souls, humbled by grace and given confidence in Christ’s work, are robed with the righteousness of the Savior and restored to fellowship with God.

The basis for our redemption is based upon the promise of God. Paul briefly reviewed the details of Abraham’s confidence in this next section of Romans chapter four.

Romans 4:18-19, “who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.”

When God told him that he and his wife would have children in their old age, it seemed humanly impossible. There was no reasonable hope based on outward things. However, though his faith was still immature, he believed God.

Romans 4:20-22, “He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. And therefore ‘it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ “

There was a true faith implanted in his heart. Trusting in God’s provision for his sin, not in his own good works, the righteousness of God was imputed to him.

We too may wonder at times how God can forgive us and adopt us as his true children. Some may become confused by lapses into sin the way Abraham strayed and sinned. They may worry that they do not measure up or that their faith is not strong.

Grace is truly an amazing thing. Since our faith like Abraham’s is imperfect in this life, we will at times falter. It is the work of Christ that is the foundation of our hope. A weak faith should make us pray all the more, not to give up as if we haven’t done enough. By admitting that we fall short, we show the work of grace on our hearts.

John Calvin gave this comforting pastoral advice, “the mind is never so enlightened that there are no remains of ignorance, nor the heart so established that there are no misgivings. With those evils of our nature, faith maintains a perpetual conflict, in which conflict it is often sorely shaken and put to great stress; but still it conquers…”

Romans 4:23-25, “Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.”

Those who are redeemed have nothing in which to boast. Note how often this has come up in this section. If we are counted among God’s blessed people by what we do, we have cause to either worry when we sin, or to boast when we do well. Instead we learn to glory in Christ alone.

It is challenging living in our pluralistic society. These divisions as God makes them are hard for us to accept. Man never ceases to make prideful and prejudiced divisions of his own. The truth is, the gospel takes it out of our hands entirely.

If we have come to see our own unworthiness, and to trust in Christ’s work alone for salvation, then we ought to be thankfully humbled before God, and before others. We ought to engage in humble and faithful worship. We ought to struggle hard to obey out of gratitude, with no delusions of earning our salvation, and we ought to busily evangelize, tell others, all kinds of others, both the challenging truth which God has revealed to us in his word. We need to declare that in spite of our own record, our own successes, our own accomplishments, there is hope in the promise of God, in the work of Christ.

(The Bible quotations in this article are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)

Lesson 15: Romans 3:21-31

You have to decide how you will spend your time? What will you become familiar with, and what talents will you develop? Whom should you marry? How can you best raise your children? What kind of job should you have so you can pay for the things you need and want? How will you cope with frustrations and disappointments? How will you cope with losses and death itself?

There is a question far more important than these, or any others we can think of. It is a question that deals with how successful you can hope to be with all the rest. It has to do with finding real satisfaction in life. It has to do with the personal qualities that you develop in your life. It has to do with having a proper attitude toward others you will meet. How will you spend the rest of eternity? The question of course is this: “How can I become accepted in the eyes of God?”

This is the most fundamental issue a person ever faces. As we have seen in our last studies, the Bible clearly teaches that the corruption we all inherit from Adam and the sins that flow from it separate us from God.

Being separated from him, no one can see things as they really are. In this state the person is spiritually dead. A spiritually dead person has no real satisfaction in life. He has no way to grow spiritually. He has no way to deal with the imperfections in those around him, and he has no eternal hope. The Bible tells us that in God’s eyes lost lives are deeply offensive.

Paul has proven so clearly in the first part of Romans that since all inherit Adam’s corruption and guilt, no one is able to make himself right with God. Our depravity poisons our motives and keeps us from doing anything that truly honors God. Our guilt is so great, even for one sin, that no matter what else we do, we cannot save ourselves.

Here is the dilemma: The payment demanded is complete separation from God for all eternity. To ignore the just penalty each person deserves would violate divine justice. So then, how can anyone ever be saved from this horrible future?

Paul summarized this universal and total inability of fallen man in Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The whole first part of the letter shows that no one is exempt.

All who have descended from Adam are corrupt and therefore commit sins. This includes Jews and Gentiles, the educated and the ignorant, those having the Scriptures and those left with only the declarations of nature and human conscience. They all fall short of the glory of God.

There are many ways in which we come short of this glory. On the one hand, fallen sinners cannot glorify God and enjoy him forever, but here the word “glory” is used in a different sense. It is a glory that comes from God.

Jesus used this word in the same way when speaking of the Pharisees in John 12:43, “for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.”

The original word translated “praise” is “doxa” (δοξα). The same word translated “glory” here. The Pharisees received glory from men, but they will not get the same from God. As sinners, there is no possible approval from God for anyone. Since we lack any hope of approbation from God, we need a righteousness that is not our own.

Romans 3:21-22, “But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference”

By “Righteousness” we mean perfect obedience to God’s moral principles. No one can be righteous by keeping the law. All have inherited the guilt of Adam’s sin. Therefore from the time a person is conceived, he is morally offensive to God. No one can obey all of God’s law perfectly without even one lapse or failure.

Since no one is able to be righteous on his own, God, by his grace, provides righteousness to fallen humans by means of the gospel.

Dr. Haldane says the expression “the righteousness of God,” “is one of the most important expressions in the Scriptures.” Somehow, by grace, the perfect holiness of God becomes ours. With it come all the benefits of being perfectly holy. We have the comfort and fellowship of God promised to us for all eternity. That is the Gospel. Truly good news.

This is the heart of the gospel message. What we unworthy sinners cannot have by even our best efforts, is provided through Christ. Only he could provide us with the blessings of holiness without violating the demands of justice.

Jesus was a real human, perfectly holy. At the same time he was God, infinitely powerful and worthy. By Sovereign decree Jesus was made to be the representative of his people. He was perfectly obedient to every point of morality and worship. He suffered the penalty of the law, though he himself did not break it.

Only Jesus could both be sinless and suffer to pay the penalty for sin. A creature may either keep the law, or suffer its condemnation, but Jesus was no creature. He was the Creator who humbled himself to suffer and die as one of his own offensive creatures. He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might have righteousness in him. God’s righteousness is credited to us freely, and our guilt is credited to him.

This was not a new idea. It is the consistent message of the whole Bible. God always promised to provide righteousness to unworthy sinners by grace alone through faith. It was witnessed to by “The Law and the Prophets” (an expression used for the whole Old Testament). Noah was called a preacher of righteousness in 2 Peter 2:5, and is called an ” heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.” in Hebrews 11:7.

In the next chapter of Romans (Chapter 4) Paul shows how Abraham was made righteous by faith alone. The whole Levitical system of regulations and sacrifices under Moses points to the coming of Jesus Christ, the lamb of God, to pay for his people’s sins. The Psalms and the Prophets base their whole idea of righteousness not upon our earning it, but upon the work of a promised Messiah, which is applied to individuals by faith in this promise.

Romans 3:24-26, “being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

There are several principles here that explain how Christ justifies us while remaining just.

This Justification is a gift of God’s grace. This means there is no merit to it. Nothing a person does even contributes to it. It is wholly the work of God by grace alone.

The work of Christ is called “redemption”. He paid the awesome price we owe for our offenses.

There is a hint in the Old Testament law to help us understand what Jesus did. Leviticus 25 presents the law of redemption. Sometimes people got into deep financial debt. They would have to give up their possessions or bond themselves as slaves to work off the debt. In time they could redeem back their possessions, or their freedom, by paying the price of redemption. No one had the right to redeem by this law, except the person himself, or a close relative. The price of redemption had to pay the debt in full.

This law, like the others, was given to lay the foundation for the redemption of souls by Christ. Here God defined the language he would later use in explaining the gospel.

For our spiritual redemption from sin the debt had to be paid in full, but the price is infinite. No one can pay it. Even though a person suffers in torment for all eternity, his debt is never satisfied. Jesus, the infinite God in human flesh, could pay it in moments on the cross. What we cannot satisfy in all eternity, was satisfied by our infinite Redeemer on the cross.

Therefore the redeemeer of a lost soul cannot be the person himself. He can never pay the price. However, Jesus was made of Adam’s family, kinsman to the race of Adam. As the only kinsman-Redeemer able to meet the price of our debt, he has redeemed all those of the race given to him by the Father (John 6:37).

Our Redeemer provides us with the Righteousness of God by “propitiation”. To “propitiate” means to appease God’s wrath. To remove God’s holy anger, our offensive sin and guilt must be removed. As long as the offense remains, there can be no restoration to fellowship with God.

Jesus, by shedding his infinitely precious blood for those the Father had given to him, paid their debt, removed their guilt, and took away the cause of offense before God. God is “propitiated” because the cause of his wrath is removed.

All through human history, God had purposed the death of Christ as the way of Righteousness. In the past, sin was passed over by the forbearance of God awaiting the fulfillment at Calvary. Now, in the ages after the cross, the way of Righteousness is fully disclosed.

Romans 3:27a, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded. …”

Since our righteousness is from Christ by grace, and not from ourselves, there is no place for bragging. No one on his own is better than anyone else. No one is more corrupt. If we come to Christ by repentance from sin and by faith in his work, we have come by God’s grace, not by anything that we have done.

Romans 3:27b-30, “… By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.”

The word “law” has 3 different uses in this passage.
1. It means the written Books of Moses. In the last part of Romans 3:21 it speaks of the “Law and the Prophets” which is a term used for the whole Old Testament.

2. It means the stipulations of God’s covenant in Romans 3:21, 28 and 31. These are the moral commandments, the ceremonial laws, all types of revealed law. These are the rules God has given at various times for his people to live by.

3. It means a principle by which things operate. In Romans 3:27 it is used that way. We use the word “law” similarly when we speak of the law of gravity, the law of supply and demand, etc.

So then, by what kind of principle are we Justified before God? Not by a principle of works. No one can qualify by law-works because no one is without sin. We are re-born by the principle of faith.

This is not “faith” as the world sees it. No one is justified by a blind leap in the dark. That is foolishness, not holiness. No one is justified by scientific analysis. Faith is not a judgment based upon experiences. Trusting in a chair to hold you up, or in a bridge to hold you up is not what is meant by “faith” here.

This faith is a special quality implanted into us by the grace of God when he makes us alive in Christ. John Calvin reviewed the Scriptures about faith and came up with this description: Faith is “a firm and sure knowledge of the divine favor toward us, founded on the truth of a free promise in Christ, and revealed to our minds and sealed on our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Institutes 3.2.7).

Since faith is a grace implanted into unworthy sinners based on the propitiation of Christ, it is not the cause of our justification, it is the instrument God uses in justifying us. By grace, God grants faith to us so that by it he might justify us through our resting not in anything we have done, or in any merits of our own, but in the shed blood of Christ alone.

How this humbles us! Even our faith and the desire to come to Christ is ours as an undeserved gift of God! There is absolutely no grounds for boasting at all.

There is only one God. He is Creator and Lord of all humans. Those who remain in sin and have no faith in Christ as their Redeemer still answer to him. This also means that no one has an advantage. All who are saved are saved by grace.

This is the answer to the dilemma: God’s Justice is not set aside in saving us. Its demands are fully met! God does not just pardon us from the penalty of sin. He pardons us by satisfying sin’s penalty by the Savior.

In the work of the Gospel, God’s perfect justice and mercy are blended into one glorious message.

Paul adds one last thought …

Romans 3:31, “Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.”

He realizes that some will dig up a problem here to attack his reasoning. If we say that no one can be justified by keeping the law, then do we nullify or make void the law of God? He quickly answers: “May it never be!” — This is an idiom common at that time, “mae genoito” (μὴ γένοιτο). We might say, “No way!”

The whole Bible, Old and New Testaments, the writings of Paul and James, the sayings of Jesus, all teach but one way of justification, one way only that lost sinners can be counted as righteous. The one perfectly obedient and infinite Savior, who is God incarnate with a full human nature, paid the price of redemption to meet the demands of the law and propitiate God’s wrath.

So the law is not set aside or nullified. Its demands are fully met!

There is an immensely practical lesson in this gospel of grace. Not only is it a call to the unsaved to come to Christ and find deliverance. It is also a warning to redeemed believers to have a right attitude toward themselves and others.

Since we are redeemed by grace and not by our merits, this makes us all equal, equally lost that is. Undeserving, unworthy, unrighteous, criminally condemned before God. Therefore no one has the right to demean or ridicule another.

When conversations turn to ridicule of friends, neighbors, co-workers, or our national leaders, we need to take a different path than the world that boasts in its own works and worth. We need to remember the doctrines of total depravity and of grace.

If not for the grace of God, and the awesome price paid by our Saviour, we would be as blind, and as unbridled in sin, as anyone else. Holiness and spiritual understanding are not special talents or personality traits. They are graces of God upon undeserving sinners.

May God forgive us when we forget that, and while professing to believe in grace alone we live as if we are better or have earned our standing before God. May we never be among those putting others down or ridiculing those who do wrong.

This does not mean we excuse sin or by-pass right civil punishments for crimes. It does mean that we treat even the criminal, the perverse, and the foolish with the humility that refuses to gloat over grace, and demean what we too would be if not for Christ’s love.

How humbly and thankfully we all ought to live if we are to represent the good news, the gospel of Grace, which justifies unworthy sinners by faith alone in Christ alone.

(The Bible quotations in this article are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)

Lesson 14: Romans 3:9-20

There have always been news stories about scandals, accusations, and excuses for doing wrong things. Through it all, it is important that we have a moral sense of direction.

It is dangerous if we set up a false standard, or think that some people should be treated specially. Our fallen nature is easily tempted to classify people either as those who do wrong, or as those who don’t. That’s not what God’s word tells us about the way things really are.

There is a standard that applies equally to everyone. There is a court to which we all answer, God’s court. No tricky wording will get around the moral principles of that court. There is no excuse found in pointing out the wrongs of others who are just as guilty as we are. It is no excuse to say that what we have done is just our own business and shouldn’t concern anyone else. There can be no dismissing of our wrongs as if no real harm has been done. People try to point out their good intentions as if that excuses them from wrong doings. There is no excuse in claiming that the wrong we did was done because we didn’t know where else to turn.

The Jews in the time of Jesus, and at the time Paul’s letter to the Romans was written, had imagined that they were not going to answer to the same judgment as the rest of humanity. They thought they would be exempt because of the special blessings God gave them. They found it easy to take sin lightly and to make up excuses for bending God’s law. Like many today, they saw their own importance, affiliations or goals as being so good that they did not think they would be judged by the same standards as others.

Excuses, excuses — we humans are so quick to come up with excuses! As we saw in Romans 2:15, fallen humanity has two sets of excuses: either people try to excuse what they have done or minimize it as if it was not really all that bad, or they blame others for the whole situation and make themselves out to be the victims.

Does that sound familiar? It is the pattern we see every day, and maybe see in ourselves at times too. Accountability has become a relative thing. Moral principles have been detached from their anchors and now float, bobbling around in the open sea of confusion. Instead of being stationary markers for the channel, they have become dangerous obstacles people try to maneuver around to get where they want to go.

We need to re-attach these markers to the anchor that rests at the bottom of the sea. We need to return the moral principles we live by, to where they mark out the right course. There is no other way to avoid the hidden dangers that threaten to rip us apart as we wander out of the safe channel.

Our wiggling to escape accountability confirms what God’s word says about us. The Bible tells us that we are all Morally Depraved by our fall into sin. Depravity is so extensive that all humans have no hope based upon their own abilities. We are driven by God’s grace to the deliverance that is ours only in Jesus Christ. In the book of Romans, Paul shows us the truth that alone can set us free.

Romans 3:9-20 shows us what is wrong so we can deal with it in the right way.

Romans 3:9, “What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.”

This has been Paul’s theme in the first part of this epistle. The Jews had many advantages, but were not superior to others nor exempt from judgment. All are under sin and stand beneath its banner declaring them condemned as guilty before God. Just how depraved is man in his fallen condition? How morally disabled is he?

Romans 3:10-11, “As it is written: ‘There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God.’ “

We call this the doctrine of “Total Depravity“. It means that when Adam sinned, all of mankind became guilty of sin and were separated from God. This separation left man’s nature corrupted to where it is unable to please God. This corruption even effects man’s understanding of his own nature as it really is.

Sometimes people think of “Calvinism” when they hear about Total Depravity. However, this idea was not an invention of John Calvin. It was not even an invention of St. Augustine long before him. It is a doctrine evident in all of God’s word from beginning to end.

So to support this truth, Paul turned to the books of Scripture they had in their day. Psalm 14:1-2 says, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, They have done abominable works, There is none who does good. The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there are any who understand, who seek God.” (see also Psalm 53:1-2)

These passages teach us that no one is righteous in the eyes of God. Paul modified the wording of Psalm 14 not to change the meaning but to fit it into the Greek language his readers spoke. Clearly no one is excluded, neither Gentiles nor Jews. Not one person can say that as God see it, he has lived righteously.

No one understands things as they truly are. This does not mean we cannot understand math formulas or learn definitions of words. It means that we are all alienated from God, and cannot possible see truth truly. We are bound to make ourselves seem better and more in control than we are, and to make God seem less good, less sovereign, and less consistent than he really is.

No one seeks the true God revealed in Scripture. If we struggle to distort the truth about God, the God we seek will not be the true God. Fallen man loves to worship, but not as God prescribes, nor to worship the God who really is. He wants a God who will not judge him fairly for what he deserves, a God who will let him have his forbidden pleasures, and salvation too, a God who will measure up to his mistaken view of all the rest of reality.

This depravity is total and universal. It includes all humans and touches every part of each one. So, how does this depravity effect our behavior?

Romans 3:12, “They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.”

Here Paul quotes Psalm 14:3 and Psalm 53:3 (they both have the same wording), “They have all turned aside, They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one.”

Blinded by sin, all turn from the way God prescribes and take a wrong path. As those wandering into forbidden territory they no longer display God’s mercy and truth. They are corrupted to where they avoid the mandates God made them to fulfill. They are not good, not even one single human being.

Romans 3:13, “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit; The poison of asps is under their lips”

Here Paul combines Psalm 5:9 and Psalm 140:3. Their throat is like an open grave: inviting death and decay. Their tongue is filled with poison like a snake with its lies and deceit. Not just lies to others, but lies to self as well, refusing to speak of things as they really are.

Then he quotes from Psalm 10:7

Romans 3:14, “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”

Instead of blessing God and helping others to find the truth, the fallen heart leads others along in the way of God’s curses which brings life’s bitterness.

The next quote is from Isaiah 59:7 and Proverbs 1:16 (the same wording).

Romans 3:15-16, “Their feet are swift to shed blood; Destruction and misery are in their ways;”

The fallen heart is easily provoked to retaliation. Since self is their god, others are not as important. Those who get in their way are pushed aside leaving a trail of destruction and misery. Fairness and justice are deformed into vengeance and protection for self interests.

Romans 3:17, “And the way of peace they have not known.”

Paul interprets here showing the turmoil that replaces peace in the lives of fallen hearts. They live by revenge, selfish goals, selfish ambition, and self-serving values. This produces arguments, anger, grudges, gossip. In their presence there is no real peace. Their imagined “peace” is only found in the brief moments when they get their way.

Romans 3:18, “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Instead of reverencing the Creator and fearing his awesome dominion, they are more afraid of created things. They are afraid of what men might do to them, of what might happen to spoil their plans, to take away their things, or to keep them from a moment of self serving peace.

Their worship is man-centered. It either replaces spiritual reality with mystical visions and moods, or with a party atmosphere. Their values are corrupted because they are more afraid of not being able to sin than of the consequences and offense their sin brings before the one true God.

Isaiah warned with these words from God in Isaiah 51:12-13,”I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you should be afraid Of a man who will die, And of the son of a man who will be made like grass? And you forget the LORD your Maker, Who stretched out the heavens And laid the foundations of the earth; You have feared continually every day Because of the fury of the oppressor, When he has prepared to destroy. And where is the fury of the oppressor?”

The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 36:1, “An oracle within my heart concerning the transgression of the wicked: There is no fear of God before his eyes.”

People are more afraid of ridicule, of having an older car or a smaller TV set, than they are of facing the Creator they have offended.

The depravity of every human heart is seen in hundreds of Bible verse. One author collected 72 key verses all making this point. Paul quoted just these few which he felt were sufficient to make his case. All men, no one excepted, are lost in sin and totally depraved, without hope, on their own.

So if we are so terribly corrupted, where can we turn to discover the truth?

Romans 3:19-20, “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”

As the first part of Roman had shown: God has made his truth known to everyone. He wrote in Romans 2:14-15, “for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them)”

Those who have not heard the written word are still exposed to truth. It comes to them in the wonders of the things created, and in the voice of human conscience. No one is isolated from truth. God’s law convicts us all. There is no one excused.

But the law is not able to make us right with God. That was never its purpose. The law is not to provide a way of salvation, but its purposes are important.

1. The law of God silences our excuses and objections. It closes our mouths. It shows us the standard of God which we cannot and have not kept. It shows us that, though we have suppressed or ignored what God has declared, we are not excused from knowing and from believing the truth.

2. The law of God holds us all accountable. Some insist there is no law over them. They claim to be bound by nothing but themselves. They obey the laws of society only because they want to avoid the consequences. They curb their tongues, and watch their ways only when it i s to their benefit. They proudly and blindly grip to the illusion that they answer to no one. God’s law shows that, like it or not, we all answer to a heavenly King.

3. The law of God exposes our sin. We can fool other people, even the human courts of justice. They only look at outward evidence and listen to our words. So people work to conceal their sin, question the standards, use deceitfully worded testimonies and contracts, and argue against convictions. Self-love stops at nothing to make excuses for what pleases itself.

In contrast, the judgment bench of God sees the heart, the truth, the secrets. No one is innocent since in Adam all sinned and are truly guilty for their offenses. Tricky words and hidden evidence ca not fool our heavenly Judge. There can be no missing details or convincing perjury. The law of God makes the standard clear and leaves no one excusable.

4. But the law of God does not justify the guilty sinner. They are wrong who teach that we are justified by rituals or ceremonies, or by good works and nice deeds, or by our works of personal decisions, choices, or commitments. These deeds fail to honor this biblical truth. Nothing we do can save us.

This is not because the law is unable to show us what God requires. It shows us quite well, so much so that according to Romans 2:13, “… the doers of the law will be justified;”

The problem is not in the law. It is in the person’s inability to meet its demands. There is none righteous, no not one. No one understands or seeks after God.

There are also positive things God’s law accomplishes as it brings knowledge of sin.

1. The law of God prepares us for, and directs us to, the wonders of God’s Grace. When we come to know our hopeless condition we have no where else to turn but to Christ.

If the law is not used to teach persons that they are unable to right themselves with God, then the gospel has no real meaning for them, then grace is not seen as the unmerited favor of God. The work of the Savior is reduced to a stirring example instead of a triumphant atonement.

The law must be the first part of evangelism. It presents the lost with a holy God and with the reason why they need a Savior.

2. The law of God shows us how to be grateful to our Savior by obedience once we are made alive again by the application of the work of Jesus Christ. If there was no law of God then we would not recognize the perversions of our sin darkened hearts.

God’s law is a wonderful guide to the believer. By it he can know what he can do to show proper gratitude to his Lord. The redeemed need to know what our Creator says pleases him, not what we assume will honor him.

Humanly invented moral rules can lead us in the wrong path. When detached from the anchor of God’s truth, his gracious law, the rules we live by float about aimlessly and fail to mark out the channel.

I remember my dad teaching me when I was very young about guiding a boat through a channel. He told me to watch the red markers. I still remember the little phrase that helped remind me of where to pilot the boat, “Keep red on you right when returning from sea.”

The markers were anchored to the bottom and were unmovable indicators. If you wandered out of the dredged out channel you might go aground, hit rocks that could tear out the bottom of your boat, or you might get in the path of another boat and cause a serious accident.

If the markers were detached and just floated aimlessly around they would be useless. Boaters would have no guidance from the dangers of the waters.

Our modern culture has cut the cord that holds our moral rules in their proper place. Without the law of God as the anchor, our depraved hearts wander into dangerous waters.

We who love our Lord, and have by his grace come to know him have an important duty. We need to reattach our moral markers in life to the anchor God has given us in his word. The principles we live by must be fixed to God’s law which he has graciously provided, not as a means of salvation, but as markers of the right way for his redeemed children to live. God’s law teaches us how much we need the Savior, and shows us the way to express our love for the God who made us and who saves us from our guilt and condemnation.

It is tragic that in our age of relativism even some who claim to be Christians hate God’s law. They fail to see that the fulfilling of the prefigurings of Christ still point to him today. We are not to engage in the sacrifices, ceremonies of the Tabernacle, the dietary laws and such which were only temporary. However the moral principles were not given to Israel. From the beginning it was wrong to have or to worship other gods, to dishonor his name, to violate the Creation Sabbath, to dishonor those God puts in authority over us, to murder, to commit adultery, to steal, to lie, and to covet. God’s law lays out the attitude of humble worship where creatures fallen and redeemed by grace alone come to praise their Creator and Redeemer.

The Apostle Paul and the other writers of the New Testament certainly didn’t dismiss God’s previous words to his children in that way. Later in this letter to the Romans Paul commends God’s law as still very important as his guide in living to honor his Lord. In Romans 7 he wrote in verse 7, “… I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, ‘You shall not covet.’ ” Then in verse 12 he said, “Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.” There are many places in the New Testament where we are shown the right us of God’s law.

The moral relativism we see nauseatingly repeated in the daily news and entertainment media reminds us that we all are morally corrupt to the core. God’s word as brought to our hearts by the Holy Spirit stirs us to confess our total unworthiness and dependance upon God’s redeeming grace alone for our strength and obedience. When we learn to love the law of God, that ability is also ours by grace alone, not by anything in our depraved hearts. We must strive to know and to obey the ways of God. We look to the firm foundation in Christ which is the anchor for our souls.

We learn to pray with the writer of Psalm 119:97, “Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.”

(The Bible quotations in this article are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)