SPEAKER_01: Our reading today is from Romans chapter three, verses twenty-one to twenty-six.
SPEAKER_01: But now, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.
SPEAKER_01: The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.
SPEAKER_01: For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forth as a propitiation by his blood to receive by faith.
SPEAKER_01: This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
SPEAKER_01: It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_02: The flip side of that is if you normally go to sleep now during the sermon, you cannot.
SPEAKER_02: That's why the seats aren't quite as comfortable.
SPEAKER_02: You can't just kind of chill out in the uh I know, sorry about that.
SPEAKER_02: But uh yes, it is great to be together.
SPEAKER_02: Uh today is the uh today is the culmination of uh four weeks or more of uh of build-up.
SPEAKER_02: Uh that's been a difficult few weeks, uh, but here we are, and I'm not talking about the Gresham, I'm talking about being finally at Romans 3 uh 21, because if you've been with us through uh the story so far in the book of Romans, for the last four weeks, it's been a pretty bleak picture uh that Paul has been painting about the the state of humanity apart from God.
SPEAKER_02: And now the uh the book begins to turn and uh as he begins to lay out the good news of the gospel of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Uh Martin Luther, the German uh reformer, uh former monk, um called these verses the high point of the book of Romans and the center of the whole Bible.
SPEAKER_02: So if you're here this morning and this is your first time, we're at the center of the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: You thought of it somewhere in Psalms?
SPEAKER_02: No, according to Martin Luther, it's here.
SPEAKER_02: That this is the most important, most densely packed set of verses that explain with such clarity what it is that Christians believe.
SPEAKER_02: But it's important to note that these verses flow out of Paul's argument that he's been laying before in these last four weeks.
SPEAKER_02: That is, that humanity has a problem.
SPEAKER_02: Now, take a moment, you realize that humanity kind of has a problem.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, humanity doesn't quite work right, societies don't work right, your relationships don't work the way they should, you don't work the way you would like uh to uh to live.
SPEAKER_02: And so you know that there's something not quite right, that there are problems that need to be addressed.
SPEAKER_02: The question is, well, what are those problems?
SPEAKER_02: Some people think that those problems are kind of um educational in nature.
SPEAKER_02: If people had more information, if people were better informed, if people were more educated in certain values or understandings of the world, then the world would be a better place.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, some people think that it's economic.
SPEAKER_02: Actually, if uh the problem that people have is that there is there's different classes, different social strata, uh, different economic backgrounds.
SPEAKER_02: If we level that playing field, that would solve a lot of the problems that we have in the world.
SPEAKER_02: Others will say that the problems that people have, well, they're psychological.
SPEAKER_02: It's to do with self-esteem and how we regard one another and ourselves, that if there was an improvement made on those areas, that would solve a lot of the strife, a lot of the uh the issues that exist between relationships.
SPEAKER_02: And let me say, all of those have a part to play.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not dismissing any of them.
SPEAKER_02: They all have a have an impact and have tainted our world and how we relate to it, but at its core, there's something else going on, and that's what Paul's been laying out.
SPEAKER_02: The core problem of humanity is the thing that humanity wants to talk about the least, and that is what the Bible calls our sin.
SPEAKER_02: Our sin is our hostility to God.
SPEAKER_02: In City Kids, uh, when uh when sin gets taught, it gets taught as shove off God, I'm in charge, no to your rules.
SPEAKER_02: Sin.
SPEAKER_02: Shove off God, I'm in charge, no to your rules.
SPEAKER_02: And that's basically what Paul's been saying for the last uh chapter and a half.
SPEAKER_02: That we by nature do not want God to exercise any authority or claim over our lives.
SPEAKER_02: Shove off God.
SPEAKER_02: That actually we want to be able to decide for ourselves, I'm in charge, no to your rules.
SPEAKER_02: And Paul spent a long time laying this out, and it's important that he's done so because if we cannot agree on what the problem is, then what Paul talks about here in uh Romans 3, 21 to 26 won't make any sense.
SPEAKER_02: You'll be like, well, why is there a cross?
SPEAKER_02: And why is Jesus dying by the cross?
SPEAKER_02: And what does the word propitiation mean?
SPEAKER_02: And what is all of that about?
SPEAKER_02: We will come to it.
SPEAKER_02: But Paul has been showing us that humanity, by our nature and our choice, we suppress the truth about God, we reject Him, and we express that rejection even in distorting the truth about ourselves, about our own relationships, about our bodies and our sexuality and how we think.
SPEAKER_02: We've tried to find everything in the world and everything within us that has the hallmark of God stamped upon it, and we've tried to rip it out or distort it.
SPEAKER_02: The problem is that every single part of you has the hallmark of God stamped upon it, and that when you begin tearing away, there's no end to the distortion that you would fall into.
SPEAKER_02: And then Paul has been saying, well, the religious people aren't any better.
SPEAKER_02: The religious people still do this, they break the laws that they've set up for themselves.
SPEAKER_02: Even if you're religious, that doesn't save you from this hard tendency to want to live your own way.
SPEAKER_02: And if you're not religious, and you're just living by your own conscience, your own moral guide, well, what you end up finding is that you actually don't even live up to the standard that you have.
SPEAKER_02: You even fail your own standards.
SPEAKER_02: And so as a result, Paul's been saying that God's wrath, let's think about what God's wrath is, because again, stuff that people don't tend to talk about and don't like to talk about.
SPEAKER_02: God's wrath is not the temper tantrum of a child, God's wrath is his settled hostility and opposition to sin.
SPEAKER_02: And Paul's been saying that that wrath rests on us because of what we have done.
SPEAKER_02: We cannot escape it.
SPEAKER_02: The divine judge finds us guilty because of our willful rejection of him.
SPEAKER_02: We have harmed others and we have harmed ourselves.
SPEAKER_02: And so what you looked at last week with Ben is Paul concludes this argument with this litany of just awful verses that are very difficult to read, spelling out what humanity is like.
SPEAKER_02: Our mouth is full of curses and bitterness, our feet are swift to shed blood.
SPEAKER_02: And these verses are designed to show that actually there is no part of us that hasn't been affected by sin.
SPEAKER_02: And that neither the morally upright and religious nor the irreligious are saved, so that both stand condemned.
SPEAKER_02: And that's the that's the black cloth that Paul has been laying out over these last four weeks, if you've been with us.
SPEAKER_02: And well done for persisting through because it's like it's basically the same message over and over and over again that humanity is kind of stuffed.
SPEAKER_02: He's been laying out this black cloth, and now, gloriously, 321 begins.
SPEAKER_02: But, but having laid the black cloth, Paul now produces and shows to us the diamond of the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: Said against the backdrop of human sin, it shines all the brighter.
SPEAKER_02: The good news that God has done what we could not do, that God has done what we could never do, that he has acted to save us, to forgive us, to restore us, to transform us.
SPEAKER_02: Where wrath was revealed in chapter 1, verse 18.
SPEAKER_02: Now we read in verse in chapter 3, verse 21, that the righteousness of God has now been revealed, made manifest.
SPEAKER_02: Where?
SPEAKER_02: To the world, through the cross of his son.
SPEAKER_02: Now, let's ask some questions of these verses to try and figure out what's going on, because I don't know if you've noticed, but some you get your own Bible reading, some uh passages, particularly in the Old Testament narrative, you can read whole uh whole chapters to get one story, one idea.
SPEAKER_02: And then other verses are pretty densely packed.
SPEAKER_02: This is a densely packed section.
SPEAKER_02: So let's ask some questions of it in order to try and figure out what is Paul saying.
SPEAKER_02: First question is this what is the righteousness of God?
SPEAKER_02: Because that's what he's saying is revealed.
SPEAKER_02: The righteousness of God has been manifested, revealed, apart from the law, though the law and the prophets bear witness to it.
SPEAKER_02: But what is it?
SPEAKER_02: What is the righteousness of God?
SPEAKER_02: Well, in these verses, what we will see is that it's two things simultaneously.
SPEAKER_02: It's something that's seen, it's something that's put on display for the world to see, and second, it's something that is given.
SPEAKER_02: It is something that is seen and something that is given.
SPEAKER_02: God shows the world his righteousness, his holy, his holiness, his holy character, his moral perfection.
SPEAKER_02: And at the same time, he doesn't just show us it, he gifts it to people.
SPEAKER_02: It is something that is received by sinful people.
SPEAKER_02: So, what is the righteousness of God?
SPEAKER_02: It's something seen and something given.
SPEAKER_02: Now we're gonna look in a little while as to how it is seen, but let's just think about it uh first of all as being something that's given.
SPEAKER_02: How is it that it's given?
SPEAKER_02: Uh Tim Keller, who up until his death was a pastor in New York, uh, gave a great illustration, and I couldn't think of a better one, and so I'm gonna accredit to him and steal it and tell you it, right?
SPEAKER_02: Because I think that's brilliant.
SPEAKER_02: Uh he talks about your C V.
SPEAKER_02: All of you have a resume or a C V that is your the basis of your qualifications or the summary of your qualifications that you will take to an employer, and you take it to the employer saying, This is the basis upon which you ought to employ me.
SPEAKER_02: This is my standing before you.
SPEAKER_02: Like, please, would you give me a job?
SPEAKER_02: It is a uh it is a summary, that is literally a resume of all of your achievements that allows you to stand and grants you access to the job that you want.
SPEAKER_02: So in a sense, your CV is your righteousness.
SPEAKER_02: It is what qualifies you to stand before your employer.
SPEAKER_02: Now, what Paul has been saying is that there is no amount of morality, no amount of uh good deeds, no amount of religious observance that can qualify you to stand in God's presence.
SPEAKER_02: Indeed, in verse 23, he re-emphasizes, in a sense, everything that he's been saying beforehand, that we have fallen short of the standard required to enter into God's glory.
SPEAKER_02: Your spiritual, moral CV is utterly, utterly insufficient.
SPEAKER_02: But now, in the good news of Jesus, that's the gospel, gospel means good news, God has done what?
SPEAKER_02: He has given us his righteousness.
SPEAKER_02: He has qualified us to stand before him, forgiven.
SPEAKER_02: It's in the sense that we get Jesus' perfect CV.
SPEAKER_02: He qualifies us, he makes us worthy.
SPEAKER_02: Then Paul says that the Old Testament, that's what he means by the law and the prophets, that the Old Testament has been pointing to this truth that God would give us his righteousness.
SPEAKER_02: But how?
SPEAKER_02: And that's the second question.
SPEAKER_02: How does the Old Testament point to this righteousness?
SPEAKER_02: Paul's been explaining, especially in chapter two, that the law was never meant to be the basis of our standing before God.
SPEAKER_02: It was our observance of the law was never supposed to be our CV that we would take to God and go, This is how you should let me into your glory.
SPEAKER_02: He could never do that because he couldn't ever perfectly keep it.
SPEAKER_02: But now he's saying that actually, while it's not our basis, it does do something very important.
SPEAKER_02: It points us to the salvation that God would bring.
SPEAKER_02: But where?
SPEAKER_02: Well, in one sense, the answer is that you couldn't chuck a brick in the Old Testament without hitting some sort of shadow or foretaste of what God would do.
SPEAKER_02: But let me just give you a couple to try and piece it together.
SPEAKER_02: Consider Abraham.
SPEAKER_02: We were considering Abraham for a good long while, there uh from September through to through to Christmas.
SPEAKER_02: And what did we learn there?
SPEAKER_02: Well, we learned that God promised him, made promises to him, that through him and through his offspring the world would be blessed.
SPEAKER_02: And what we read there in chapter 15, verse 6, a very important verse, if you're taking notes, jot it down to read it later.
SPEAKER_02: It says that Abraham trusted those promises, and God counted that faith, that trust of God's promise, as righteousness.
SPEAKER_02: That is, that because Abraham simply had faith, because he simply trusted the promises of God, God made him, declared him to be righteous.
SPEAKER_02: That is, uh Paul, Paul does a deeper dive in this in chapter four, and I think it's the passage actually that we're going to be looking at when we go to Grosvenor in a few weeks' time.
SPEAKER_02: So more on that.
SPEAKER_02: Or you can consider the sacrifice of Isaac.
SPEAKER_02: Remember, that's the last, or the second to last sermon that we looked at, and you know the story of Abraham and Isaac.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, God says to your son, your only son, whom you love, to the place where I will show you and offer him as a burnt offering to me.
SPEAKER_02: And the culmination of the story comes in that breathless moment where Abraham is there with knife raised, uh, uh ready to slay his son, and the angel speaks with him from heaven and says, Abraham, Abraham.
SPEAKER_02: He says, What is it, Lord?
SPEAKER_02: He says, Well, do not slay your son.
SPEAKER_02: And Abraham looks up, and what does he see?
SPEAKER_02: He sees a ram, a male sheep, caught by its horns in the thicket.
SPEAKER_02: And he offers the ram in Isaac's place.
SPEAKER_02: And that's an important concept.
SPEAKER_02: He offers the ram as a substitute for Isaac.
SPEAKER_02: And this idea gets picked up again in the Exodus with the Passover lamb.
SPEAKER_02: Do you know that where we celebrated Easter time, or if you've seen Prince of Egypt?
SPEAKER_02: Um, I don't know where what your level's at, but Prince of Egypt or Easter time, where you they sacrifice the lamb.
SPEAKER_02: In the place of who?
SPEAKER_02: In the place of the firstborn.
SPEAKER_02: And the the blood is put on the doorposts and on the lintel as a as a sign that they are trusting the promise that God would pass over and not kill the firstborn in the house.
SPEAKER_02: And then all of this builds and builds and builds, and it finally expands into the whole Old Testament sacrificial system where there's a whole system of uh offerings and sacrifices to be made, where if you have fallen into sin, you take an animal to the temple, and what happens is the animal dies so that you can walk away free.
SPEAKER_02: The animal is a substitute, its blood is shed so that yours is not.
SPEAKER_02: Now, in time through the Old Testament, people began to realize that a lamb, cute though it is, was never really a true substitute for a person.
SPEAKER_02: That a lamb, a goat, a bull could never really stand in the place of a human being, and that that ritual never really dealt with a person's heart.
SPEAKER_02: And how did you know that it didn't deal with a person's heart?
SPEAKER_02: Well, because they had to keep on coming back, that they keep on doing it again and again and again.
SPEAKER_02: And so it would lead David in Psalm 51 to cry out to God and say, You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it.
SPEAKER_02: Rather, the sacrifices of God are a broken and contrite heart.
SPEAKER_02: He's saying, God, actually, I've beginning to realize that you need to do something on my inside that this ritual is not doing.
SPEAKER_02: And then the prophets begin to speak, and the prophets begin to tell of a time when God would act.
SPEAKER_02: When God would act in a different way to he had before, that he would act not just to make people clean on the outside, but to cleanse them on the inside by his spirit.
SPEAKER_02: The prophet Isaiah begins to speak of a servant who would come and who would suffer.
SPEAKER_02: For all those who, like sheep, have gone astray.
SPEAKER_02: We have all turned each to his own way.
SPEAKER_02: And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
SPEAKER_02: Jeremiah begins to talk about and look to a time when God will write his law on our hearts.
SPEAKER_02: Ezekiel begins to see a time when God will not just cleanse us on the outside, but cleanse our hearts by his spirit.
SPEAKER_02: And do you see that here now Paul is saying that all of that waiting, all of that peering down the corridor of time to try and work out how and when would God do and fulfill all of these things that He has promised, He's saying, Now it's happened.
SPEAKER_02: That all the things that the Old Testament had pointed to have found their fruition in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, that all the types and shadows have now been fulfilled with the coming onto the stage of human history of the man Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02: The righteousness of God has been made known apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.
SPEAKER_02: And how is this righteousness given to us?
SPEAKER_02: How do we receive this righteousness?
SPEAKER_02: Well, this is verse 22.
SPEAKER_02: The righteousness of God through what?
SPEAKER_02: Faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.
SPEAKER_02: There is no distinction, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and all are justified, declared innocent, declared righteous by his grace as a gift.
SPEAKER_02: This righteousness comes to us not by your merit, not by your religious CV, not by your goodness or your ethnicity, social standing, background, but by faith.
SPEAKER_02: You take God at His Word, you trust His promises.
SPEAKER_02: By faith.
SPEAKER_02: And faith here in verse twenty two is not.
SPEAKER_02: Some sort of vague spirituality.
SPEAKER_02: People can talk this way, don't they?
SPEAKER_02: They talk about, oh, I'm a person, I'm a person of faith.
SPEAKER_02: Or a very spiritual person.
SPEAKER_02: When people say I'm a very spiritual person, do you know what that means?
SPEAKER_02: Spiritual means I like the idea of God, but I don't want Him to tell me what to do.
SPEAKER_02: So when somebody says I'm a spiritual person, that's what that means.
SPEAKER_02: Just so as you know.
SPEAKER_02: But people can talk about, oh you know, I like the idea of faith and I'm a person of faith.
SPEAKER_02: That vague notion of faith is not what Paul's talking about here in verse 22.
SPEAKER_02: No, faith has an object.
SPEAKER_02: Do you see?
SPEAKER_02: The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.
SPEAKER_02: Saving faith is faith in Jesus, reliance upon, trust in, obedience of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And in verse 23, Paul confirms finally what he's been claiming all along.
SPEAKER_02: That faith stands in contrast to our moral action.
SPEAKER_02: Our moral action or our religious observance leave us short of God's glory.
SPEAKER_02: It is only faith that can declare us righteous.
SPEAKER_02: But notice how else that righteousness is given to us.
SPEAKER_02: Did you see it?
SPEAKER_02: Verse 24, we are justified by his grace as a gift.
SPEAKER_02: It is given freely to you.
SPEAKER_02: The forgiveness that Jesus offers is given freely to you.
SPEAKER_02: Doesn't matter what you're dealing with when you walked in through this room.
SPEAKER_02: That is important and we want to care for you in that.
SPEAKER_02: But God offers you his righteousness freely.
SPEAKER_02: As a gift.
SPEAKER_02: Have you received it?
SPEAKER_02: Have you asked for that gift?
SPEAKER_02: Salvation comes to us not as a transaction where God says, okay, let me have a look at your C V.
SPEAKER_02: And even in this case, well, let me have you look at your CV, and he goes, Yeah, well, it's not great.
SPEAKER_02: But I'll kind of just pretend.
SPEAKER_02: That incidentally would be a more uh a more Catholic view of righteousness.
SPEAKER_02: Our righteousness is always tainted by sin, but God kind of looks at it and goes, well, I'll I'll pretend that it's better than it is, in the same way that when a child brings home a painting from school or a picture from school.
SPEAKER_02: So my kids are out of the room, so don't tell them that that this happens.
SPEAKER_02: But so they bring home their their painting or their drawing, and any good parent um treats treats that painting as though it were a Rembrandt.
SPEAKER_02: You know, like, oh my goodness, did Vincent Van Gogh come home?
SPEAKER_02: Look at this.
SPEAKER_02: Have you got two ears right now?
SPEAKER_02: This is amazing.
SPEAKER_02: Let's get this up on the fridge.
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, there's nobody, like I've got like an eye here, and it's like, oh, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay, right.
SPEAKER_02: So it's a painting done by a child, and so it's only ever going to be so good.
SPEAKER_02: But you treat it as though it's a masterpiece.
SPEAKER_02: Some people think that that's how God looks at our righteous efforts.
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's kind of okay.
SPEAKER_02: Well, you tried your best.
SPEAKER_02: So I'll treat it as though it's better than it is, as a kind of transaction.
SPEAKER_02: But no, gifts are not transaction.
SPEAKER_02: Righteousness comes as from the undeserved kindness of God.
SPEAKER_02: And as we're kind of digging and pulling apart all of these verses, you then ask the question well, to whom does it come?
SPEAKER_02: You see what Paul says.
SPEAKER_02: Verse uh, yeah, verse 22.
SPEAKER_02: The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all, all who believe.
SPEAKER_02: For there is no distinction.
SPEAKER_02: All, see that, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and all are justified by his grace as a gift.
SPEAKER_02: Who can benefit from this offer of the free gift of the righteousness of God?
SPEAKER_02: All people.
SPEAKER_02: Does this mean that everyone will be saved?
SPEAKER_02: Is that what this all means?
SPEAKER_02: That it is everyone in the world without exception.
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: That's not what Paul is saying here.
SPEAKER_02: When Paul says all, he does not mean everyone without exception.
SPEAKER_02: He means everyone without distinction.
SPEAKER_02: Let me try and explain that.
SPEAKER_02: Because in the last couple of chapters, what he's been dealing with, he's been dealing with there are basically there are two factions in the ancient world, in humanity.
SPEAKER_02: There's the Jew and there's the Gentile.
SPEAKER_02: And the Jews thought that they were the chosen people of God, and they thought that the Gentiles were kindling for the fires of hell.
SPEAKER_02: That's a bit of a summary, but that's essentially where we're at, right?
SPEAKER_02: And then the Gentiles look at the Jews and went, they're kind of weird.
SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't want to be following their God anyway, and I want to live my own way.
SPEAKER_02: And there was this division.
SPEAKER_02: And Paul is saying that there's one God, and he saves both Jew and Gentile the same way.
SPEAKER_02: That's what he means by all.
SPEAKER_02: That it doesn't matter your background, doesn't matter where you're from in the world, doesn't matter what color your skin is, doesn't matter what language you speak, doesn't matter how rich your parents were or how rich you are, doesn't matter whether you got a degree from Trinity or UCD or just went to DIT.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, whatever.
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_02: All without distinction.
SPEAKER_02: To whom does this righteousness come?
SPEAKER_02: To whom is this righteousness being made available?
SPEAKER_02: All people.
SPEAKER_02: What a glorious thing that actually the lights are on, and you can look around and see the different ethnicities and backgrounds here.
SPEAKER_02: That the great divides of our world are broken down in Christ.
SPEAKER_02: This is the inclusivity of Christianity.
SPEAKER_02: Do you see that?
SPEAKER_02: This is how inclusive Christianity is.
SPEAKER_02: God offers his righteousness to anyone, regardless of background, necessity, or social standing, but to everyone on condition of faith.
SPEAKER_02: All can be made righteous on condition of your faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Let's keep going.
SPEAKER_02: So, what have we looked at?
SPEAKER_02: We've looked at what the righteousness of God is.
SPEAKER_02: It's something seen and something given.
SPEAKER_02: We've seen how the Old Testament has been pointing to that righteousness.
SPEAKER_02: How is that righteousness given to us?
SPEAKER_02: It's given to us by faith, and it is given to all without distinction.
SPEAKER_02: But, next question, fourth question if you're tracking with me.
SPEAKER_02: What is the basis of this righteousness?
SPEAKER_02: How is it that someone is made righteous before God?
SPEAKER_02: Now, here, Paul in verse 24 begins to talk about redemption.
SPEAKER_02: And here we get into kind of the uh the real meat and denseness of this passage.
SPEAKER_02: So, verse 24, and are justified by his grace as a gift through what?
SPEAKER_02: Through the redemption, need to look at that, that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.
SPEAKER_02: Now, take a breath, have a shake, and then we'll unpack what this means.
SPEAKER_02: Redemption, first of all.
SPEAKER_02: Redemption, redemption is the language of the ancient slave market.
SPEAKER_02: Redemption is to purchase the freedom of someone who was in bondage.
SPEAKER_02: It is to purchase the freedom of someone who was enslaved.
SPEAKER_02: So something that is going on, something that Jesus is doing for you is He's, in some sense, setting you free.
SPEAKER_02: He's redeeming you.
SPEAKER_02: He's doing something that a slave could never do.
SPEAKER_02: You see, a slave could never free themselves.
SPEAKER_02: Their debt had to be paid by another.
SPEAKER_02: Spiritually speaking, our slavery is not to an economic power, it's to sin.
SPEAKER_02: Our debt was not monetary, it was a moral debt.
SPEAKER_02: Our sin deserved death in order to pay that debt and to right that wrong.
SPEAKER_02: So then we ask, so how does God set us free?
SPEAKER_02: How does God redeem us?
SPEAKER_02: Paul explains it in verse 25.
SPEAKER_02: Whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.
SPEAKER_02: Some versions will say the phrase sacrifice of atonement.
SPEAKER_02: If you're reading the NIV, you'll see the phrase sacrifice of atonement.
SPEAKER_02: Propitiation is a better word.
SPEAKER_02: It just needs explaining.
SPEAKER_02: Because I don't imagine that you ever go around talking about propitiating people.
SPEAKER_02: Although, can I just say that you do do it from time to time, especially husbands.
SPEAKER_02: Husbands propitiate their wives because every now and again a husband finds himself in what we call the doghouse.
SPEAKER_02: Don't know if you've ever heard of it.
SPEAKER_02: Apparently, it's a thing.
SPEAKER_02: I've never found myself there.
SPEAKER_02: But I'm I'm aware that it's a concept that other men might enjoy from time to time.
SPEAKER_02: And when you find yourself in the doghouse, uh, one of the things that you do is you seek to propitiate your wife.
SPEAKER_02: You uh you stop off at the garage and you buy those cheap flowers or and the chocolates that she likes, and you you make an offering uh so that she would be propitious towards you.
SPEAKER_02: That is, that you would divert her wrath and she would become favorable.
SPEAKER_02: And that's what the word propitiation means.
SPEAKER_02: The word propitiation means to make favorable, to divert wrath, so that you're looked upon with favor.
SPEAKER_02: In the ancient world, uh, when there wasn't garages and things like that, uh, if you were going on a if you were going on a sea voyage, you might offer a uh a sacrifice to Poseidon so that your sea voyage went well.
SPEAKER_02: You wanted to propitiate the god of the sea so that he would look favorably upon you and give your voyage success.
SPEAKER_02: Or if you were struggling to have a child, you would offer a sacrifice to the goddess Aphrodite so that she might look upon you with favor, that she might be propitious towards you and grant you the child that you're looking for.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus' sacrifice is one that in some sense makes God favorable to everyone who trusts in Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: None of this makes sense without the earlier verses.
SPEAKER_02: It is only when we realize that our sin is not just something outside of us that we stumble into, but something that is in us, something that is in our hearts.
SPEAKER_02: It is only when we realize something else profoundly important, which is that our sin, every sin, is in the end an offense against God.
SPEAKER_02: Do you see that?
SPEAKER_02: That every sin that you do is an offense ultimately against God.
SPEAKER_02: Even if you sin against another person, they're a person that God has made in his image and for his glory.
SPEAKER_02: And so when you sin against them, you're ultimately sinning against God.
SPEAKER_02: When you sin against yourself, you're sinning against someone who is made by God, who God owns.
SPEAKER_02: And so your sin is ultimately against him.
SPEAKER_02: You need to see that sin, put it a different way, put it the opposite way, you need to see that God is ultimately the offended party when it comes to our sin, or else the cross and propitiation will never make sense.
SPEAKER_02: I said in the pagan world, you would go and offer the sacrifice to Poseidon or Aphrodite or Nike if you were going into battle.
SPEAKER_02: But do you see what's happening here?
SPEAKER_02: God puts forward Jesus as a propitiation by his blood.
SPEAKER_02: Here, we do not offer the sacrifice that diverts God's wrath and makes him favorable towards us.
SPEAKER_02: No, do you see what's happening?
SPEAKER_02: God propitiates himself.
SPEAKER_02: He does not require your blood.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because Christ dies in your place.
SPEAKER_02: Like the ram.
SPEAKER_02: Like the lamb.
SPEAKER_02: Taking the wrath that we deserve.
SPEAKER_02: God's wrath is diverted on that first Good Friday on to Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: So that he might look upon you with favor.
SPEAKER_02: Eternally.
SPEAKER_02: The blood of Jesus shed on the cross is the basis, the only basis of our righteousness.
SPEAKER_02: We are set free because Christ has died to free us from sin, that is, redemption.
SPEAKER_02: And he has borne the wrath.
SPEAKER_02: That is what we sing.
SPEAKER_02: Born the wrath so that we might stand forgiven at the cross.
SPEAKER_02: This is the only ground for salvation, the only basis of our assurance, the only solid rock upon which we stand.
SPEAKER_02: Final question.
SPEAKER_02: How does this all show God's righteousness?
SPEAKER_02: Remember what we were looking at?
SPEAKER_02: But righteousness is also something that is shown, that is declared to the cosmos.
SPEAKER_02: How does God show it?
SPEAKER_02: This is our final point, and then we will close.
SPEAKER_02: Chapter two and the first half of chapter three leave Paul with a bit of a problem.
SPEAKER_02: That is, if the sacrifices of the law and the sacrificial system didn't actually deal with a person's sin, then what happened to it?
SPEAKER_02: What happened to David and Abraham and Moses and uh and Elijah and Elisha and all of the people of the Old Testament?
SPEAKER_02: What happened to their sin?
SPEAKER_02: How did their sin get forgiven to God?
SPEAKER_02: Did God just sweep it under the carpet?
SPEAKER_02: If the sacrificial system wasn't doing what we thought it was doing, Paul, then has God just ignored all of their sin?
SPEAKER_02: And what does that say about him then?
SPEAKER_02: What does that say about his holiness or his justice?
SPEAKER_02: What does that say about his character?
SPEAKER_02: That he would look at thousands of years of history and go, yeah, it's fine.
SPEAKER_02: Until now, what's happened?
SPEAKER_02: There's a question about God's holiness and his character.
SPEAKER_02: And so Paul answers it in verse 26.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, well, let's go, second half, verse 25.
SPEAKER_02: This, that is, the sacrifice of Jesus openly, publicly, before the whole world on that first Good Friday, verse 25.
SPEAKER_02: This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, that's his patience, he had passed over former sins.
SPEAKER_02: It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: What this is telling us is that God did not sweep away the sins of the past.
SPEAKER_02: No, rather, in a sense, he set them aside, he stored them to one side until the time when Christ would come.
SPEAKER_02: And then he laid all of those sin, all of that sin, on him as well.
SPEAKER_02: Christ died for David.
SPEAKER_02: Did you realize that?
SPEAKER_02: Christ died for Abraham, Christ died for Moses, Christ died for Elijah and Elisha and Zerubbabel and everybody else that you can think of.
SPEAKER_02: And he died for you.
SPEAKER_02: It's not salvation's one way in the Old Testament and another way in the New Testament, that it's works in the sacrificial system in the Old Testament and it's grace, like God's just become nicer in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_02: No, it's grace all the way through.
SPEAKER_02: For Paul, this is hugely important because this means that at the cross of Jesus, God vindicates himself.
SPEAKER_02: He shows the world that he is committed to justice, that he will not let sin go unpunished, and simultaneously at the same time, he is committed to all of his promises to save a people for himself.
SPEAKER_02: Do you see?
SPEAKER_02: That is why at the cross we talk about the cross being the place where wrath and mercy meet.
SPEAKER_02: Where a holy God who stands opposed to sin shows that he is just and fair, and that he is the gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
SPEAKER_02: And so that is why Paul can say that God at the cross shows himself to be both just and the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Put it another way: God shows himself to be righteous and the righteouser, the righteous making God of those who have faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: So as we look at the cross, we see the righteous character of God on display, his holiness, his commitment to justice, his moral perfection, and we see his love.
SPEAKER_02: We see his mercy.
SPEAKER_02: We see his grace.
SPEAKER_02: For those of us who have fallen short of his glory.
SPEAKER_02: Not only is that righteousness displayed to the cosmos, it is given as a gift to the likes of us that we might be transformed from the inside out.
SPEAKER_02: This, friends, brothers and sisters, is the only hope for the world, the only hope for the problems that our world has.
SPEAKER_02: And it is offered to each individual.
SPEAKER_02: Put your faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Be set free.
SPEAKER_02: No longer under the condemnation of your sin.
SPEAKER_02: But welcomed by a gift of his grace into his glory forevermore.