Made Right with God

But now. Paul has just shown that everyone has sinned, both Jews and non-Jews (3:9-20). Then come two hopeful words: “But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed” (3:21). God Himself has opened the way to be right with Him. For everyone. This way is “through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe” (3:22). It is the same for every person, because “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (3:23). Falling short. Think of an arrow that drops to the ground before it reaches the target. Every one of us has missed God's perfect goodness. Freely. We are “justified freely by His grace” (3:24). Justified means God declares us right, like a judge who says a person is not guilty. Freely means we pay nothing at all. Set free. It comes “through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (3:24). Redemption means paying a price to set a slave free. Jesus paid that price with His own life. His blood. God sent Jesus to die in our place “by His blood, through faith” (3:25). On the cross Jesus took the punishment our sins deserved. Fair and kind. God did not pretend that sin was nothing. He punished it in Jesus. So He is “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (3:26). He is completely fair and completely kind at the same time. What we learn. No one can earn a place with God, but anyone can receive it as a gift by trusting Jesus.

“But now” (3:21). Romans 3:9-20 closed every mouth: Jews and Gentiles alike stand guilty before God, and “by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight” (3:20). Then God reveals a righteousness that comes from Him, not from us. The Law and the Prophets had pointed to it all along (Genesis 15:6; Habakkuk 2:4). Justified (3:24). The Greek word is dikaioo (say: dih-kai-OH-oh). It is a courtroom word. It does not mean that God makes us perfect overnight. It means that God the Judge declares us right with Him: not guilty, accepted. Freely, by grace. Grace is God's kindness given to people who deserve the opposite. Freely means without cost to us. The cost was real, but Jesus paid it. Redemption (3:24). In Rome, redemption meant paying the price to buy a slave's freedom. Christ suffered “the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). The mercy seat (3:25). The Greek word hilasterion (say: hih-lah-STAY-ree-on) is the word the Greek Old Testament uses for the mercy seat, the gold lid of the ark. Once a year the high priest sprinkled blood there for the sins of the people (Leviticus 16). Jesus is the true mercy seat. His blood turns God's anger away from everyone who trusts Him, for “without shedding of blood there is no remission” (Hebrews 9:22). Sins passed over (3:25). God's patience in the past was never soft on sin. The animal sacrifices “can never take away sins” (Hebrews 10:11). God was waiting for the cross, where sin would be paid for once and for all. Just and justifier (3:26). The cross answers a hard question: how can a holy God declare guilty people right? He punished sin fully in Jesus. So He stays just, and He can justify everyone who has faith in Jesus.

Sin means doing what God says is wrong. Everyone has sinned, even people who seem good. Sin keeps us far away from God. Trying harder cannot fix it. So God made a way Himself. That way is Jesus. Jesus died on the cross in our place. He took the punishment our sins deserved. Now God can make us right with Him. Being right with God means He calls us not guilty. We do not pay for it. It is a free gift called grace. Grace means God's kindness that we do not deserve.

Everyone has sinned. Sin means doing wrong. Jesus took our punishment. Now God makes us right with Him.

No bragging. “Where is boasting then? It is excluded” (3:27). Excluded means shut out. Faith leaves no room for pride, because faith simply receives what God gives. One God for all. “Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles?” (3:29). Gentiles are people who are not Jewish. There is one God, so He saves everyone the same way. The law still matters. Faith does not throw out God's law. “On the contrary, we establish the law” (3:31). The law shows us our sin and points us to Jesus. Abraham. If Abraham had earned God's approval by his works, he could boast, “but not before God” (4:2). Believed. “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness” (4:3). Accounted means credited, like money put into a bank account that was empty. Wages or a gift. “Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt” (4:4). A boss owes his worker a paycheck. God owes us nothing, and still He gives. The ungodly. God is the One “who justifies the ungodly” (4:5). He does not wait for us to become good first. David's joy. “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered” (4:7). David knew what it was to be forgiven. What we learn. You cannot earn God's love, and you do not have to. Trust Him, and receive it.

Boasting shut out (3:27). Paul asks, “Where is boasting then?” and answers, “It is excluded.” The principle of works leaves room for pride. Faith leaves none, because faith brings nothing but empty hands. One God, one way (3:29-30). Paul argues from Israel's own confession that God is one (Deuteronomy 6:4). If there is one God over every nation, there is one way of salvation for Jews and Gentiles alike. The law upheld (3:31). Faith does not cancel the law. The law exposes sin, and “the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24). Accounted (4:3). The Greek word logizomai (say: lo-GID-zo-my) is a bookkeeping word. It means to credit something to someone's account. Paul uses it again and again in Romans 4. Abraham's faith did not earn righteousness. God credited righteousness to him. Genesis 15:6 says, “And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.” Wages and debt (4:4-5). Wages are owed. If salvation were wages, God would be in our debt. Instead He justifies “the ungodly,” the very people who have nothing to offer. Faith is not a work that earns the gift; it is the hand that takes it. David (4:6-8). Paul's second witness is David, quoting Psalm 32:1-2. David had sinned terribly (2 Samuel 11-12), and he knew what it was to be forgiven. Forgiven, covered and not counted against him: three pictures of one gift. Psalm 32:5 shows how it came: “I acknowledged my sin to You.” Two witnesses. Abraham lived before the law of Moses, and David lived under it. Both were made right the same way, by grace through faith.

Some people think they can earn God's love by being good. But the Bible says nobody can brag to God. Being right with God is not a paycheck. A paycheck is what you earn by working. A gift is free. Abraham was a great man of God. Even Abraham had nothing to brag about. The Bible says that Abraham believed God. God counted his faith as being right with Him. King David knew about this gift too. David had done some very wrong things. God forgave him because God is kind. David sang that forgiven people are truly happy.

We cannot earn God's love. Abraham trusted God. God counted his faith. God's gift is free! We just say thank You.

Before the sign. Was Abraham counted righteous before or after he was circumcised? “Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised” (4:10). Circumcision was the sign God gave Abraham's family in Genesis 17. God counted Abraham righteous in Genesis 15, years earlier. A seal. The sign was “a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had” (4:11). It was like a seal stamped on a letter that was already written. Father of us all. So Abraham is “the father of all those who believe” (4:11), Jews and Gentiles alike. He “is the father of us all” (4:16). Not by the law. The promise came “through the righteousness of faith” (4:13). It is “of faith that it might be according to grace” (4:16), so that every believer can be sure of it. The God of life. Abraham believed in “God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did” (4:17). Hope against hope. Abraham was about a hundred, and Sarah could not have children (4:19). Yet “he did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God” (4:20). Fully convinced. He was sure “that what He had promised He was also able to perform” (4:21). Then God kept His word, and Isaac was born. What we learn. Faith looks at God's promise, not at how impossible things seem. God's family is open to everyone who trusts Him.

The order matters (4:9-10). In Genesis 15:6 God credited righteousness to Abram. The sign of circumcision came in Genesis 17, at least thirteen years later (Genesis 16:16; 17:1). So the sign could not be the cause of his right standing. It followed it. Sign and seal (4:11). A seal marked a document as genuine and owned. Circumcision marked Abraham as already belonging to God. It was a picture of what God had done, not a way to earn it. Two kinds of children (4:11-12). Abraham is father of uncircumcised believers, the Gentiles, and of circumcised Jews “who also walk in the steps of the faith” he had. Family likeness is faith, not ancestry. “And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:29). Heir of the world (4:13). God promised that all the families of the earth would be blessed in Abraham (Genesis 12:3). Through Jesus, Abraham's Seed, that blessing now reaches every nation (Galatians 3:8). Law and promise (4:14-16). The law “brings about wrath” because it exposes our disobedience. If the promise depended on keeping the law, no one could be sure of it. Because it rests on grace, it is “sure to all the seed.” Life from the dead (4:17-19). Abraham's body was “already dead” in terms of having children, and so was Sarah's womb. God brought life out of that deadness when Isaac was born. The same God raised Jesus from the dead. A growing faith (4:20-21). Abraham's faith was not perfect; Genesis 16 shows him trying to help God's plan along. Yet in God's promise he “did not waver.” He was “strengthened in faith,” and he gave God the glory.

God counted Abraham right before he had the special sign. That sign came years later. So the sign did not make him right. His faith in God made him right. That is why Abraham is the father of all who believe. People from every nation can trust God like Abraham. God promised Abraham a very big family. But Abraham and Sarah were very old. It looked like there was no hope at all. Abraham kept hoping anyway. He gave praise to God. He was sure that God could do what He promised. Our God can bring life where there was none.

Abraham was very old. God made a big promise. Abraham kept trusting God. God kept His promise!

For us too. “Now it was not written for his sake alone… but also for us” (4:23-24). Abraham's story is our story when we trust God the way he did. Died and raised. Jesus “was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification” (4:25). The cross paid for our sins. The empty tomb shows that God accepted the payment. Peace with God. “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (5:1). We were against God because of sin. Now the fight is over. Access. Through Jesus “we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand” (5:2). Access means being allowed to come in. We can come close to God any time. Hope. We “rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (5:2). One day we will see His glory and share in it. Troubles. “Tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope” (5:3-4). Tribulation means trouble. Perseverance means not giving up. God uses hard times to make us strong. Love poured out. “The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (5:5). The Holy Spirit lives in every believer. What we learn. If you trust Jesus, you are at peace with God. Your hard days cannot change His love for you.

Written for us (4:23-24). Genesis 15:6 was not only a record of Abraham. It was written so that everyone who believes in the God who raised Jesus can know how God credits righteousness. Delivered and raised (4:25). “Delivered up because of our offenses” echoes Isaiah 53: “He was wounded for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53:5). The resurrection was God's public verdict that the payment was complete. Peace with God (5:1). This is peace with God, not first a calm feeling inside. The war between the sinner and a holy God is over. The peace of God that guards our hearts (Philippians 4:7) grows out of this peace with God. Access (5:2). In the ancient world a king could be approached only through someone who brought you in. Jesus brings us in. So “let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16). Glory in troubles (5:3). Christians do not boast because trouble feels good. They boast because they know what God does with it. Tribulation produces perseverance, a steady endurance that keeps trusting under pressure. Character and hope (5:4). Character is tested strength, like metal proved in fire. Tested faith gives a stronger hope, because we have watched God hold us up before. Hope that does not disappoint (5:5). This hope will not leave us ashamed. Its guarantee is the Holy Spirit, who pours God's love into our hearts. The Spirit is a Person given to every believer, and Romans 8 says much more about Him.

God did not write Abraham's story only for Abraham. He wrote it for us too. We trust God the same way Abraham did. We believe that God raised Jesus from death. Jesus died because of our sins. He rose again to make us right with God. Now we have peace with God. That means we are God's friends, not His enemies. We can come close to Him at any time. Hard times can even help us grow. They teach us not to give up. God's love fills our hearts through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit lives in everyone who trusts Jesus.

Jesus died and rose for us. Now we have peace with God. God fills us with His love. The Holy Spirit lives in us.