Session 7 – Romans; Romans 3:21-26: Mark Lanier, 05/18/25

[Music]

[Music] Thank you very much. I'm going to steal David Capes at the piano. Uh he's going to show great dexterity because I'm sure many of you are familiar with the notes of this scale. uh uh on the piano and he is there. And David, would you give us a C

uh on the piano? Well, you were just off by enough to make it really bad. Um no, a C C. Hear that? All right. Now, he's going to give us the the the next note, an E.

Everybody hear the E? Yes, you heard this. Compare the C and the E. And then let's add the fifth note, the G. C E G. Y'all got that? Now, David, can you play all three at

once? No. At Yes. Yes. Do that again. Hear that? That's a chord. That's a C major chord. Can y'all thank David Capes for that outstanding piano? He's a virtuoso. If I'd given him warning, he'd have brought his guitar and really had a good time and a tuxedo. Um, thank you, David. Each note alone has an impact. You can hear it say that's a C or you can hear it and say that's an E or that's a G. But when you put them together, there's something that's even more powerful and complete. I I I thought about [Music] um how to give this metaphor or allegory for the principle I want to make. And I and I thought, you know, there are two ways to do it. One would be with the piano um or a guitar, some musical instrument. The other way would be with the beeges. Because the BeeGees were these three brothers, Gibb, and each one of them had a good voice. But something happened when the three of them sang together that was more um it's just more powerful and complete and nobody goes to hear the one that's still I shouldn't say this. I am sure people are showing up for your concerts, Barry or whichever one is still the one alive, but it's just not the BG, you know, it's the BGs. The three of them together were just powerful. Well, I say that because this passage we're studying today in Romans, Romans 3:21-26, Paul has taken a Greek word group where the word itself is always just a great Greek word. It's one loaded up with meaning. But he's created a rich threefold theological chord, a theological harmony with these words that come off of one Greek word group. And it's just as I was studying on this passage, it I thought, what a fun way to approach this, to look at the word itself. That's the center focal point here. So, we're going to do three things this morning. We're going to explore this word group around this word. Then, we're going to work through that passage in Romans 3. And then, we're going to apply this rich theology or harmony and see what points we have we can take home. So, let's begin with exploring the the word group. Now, how many of you speak the English

language? Good. Um, that's going to help. If you speak the English language, you are actually speaking a heritage of many different tongues. English is

a melting pot. It is a witch's brew of different languages that have come together to make the English language. If you speak English, you have some level of dexterity with French words like cuisine, ballet. You were speaking French and you just didn't even know it. That's where our words came from. But our language is not only from the French tongue. Our language also reflects a good bit of Danish quality. Sky egg. These are Danish originated words. Now, we got a boatload of words that come from German and Latin, and we've kept some of both. So, we can talk about a cow using a German originated word, or we can talk about beef using a Latin word that's kind of come through French, a romance language, Roman language. We could talk about pig or pork. And these are words that are different in English depending upon whether we're using the word that came from the German heritage or the old English Anglo-Saxon or whether we're using the word that comes from the original Latin root. Uh deer is Germanbased word. Venison is the Latinbased word. Uh it's not just food, it's it's emotions. If we talk about uh fear, fear is from the German root. Terror is from the Latin root in the courtroom. Theft is the German root. Larseny is the Latin root. Witness is the German root. Testimony is the Latin root. Um, I'm trying to train for this stupid half marathon that my daughter's talked me into

running. And on Saturdays, I have to do a long run. I wake up at like horrible hours on a Saturday morning. that one day he ought to get to sleep in and and do it so that I don't go out and

die running in this Texas heat and humidity. I have convinced So Sarah, our daughter's running a full marathon. I'm going to run the half marathon. My goal is to run the half faster than she runs the full.

I needed someone to hold me accountable in training. So, I've talked Pastor Jarrett into running the half marathon as well. So, we're training together. And what we're telling everybody is that we're going to run a marathon in Alaska because he's running half a marathon and I'm running half a marathon. So, we think together we're technically running a full marathon. So, we're kind of like uh blurring the line by saying we're running a marathon, but technically we're running. I got to tell you, I was sweating like a mule yesterday morning running out in this stupid weather. And I say I'm sweating like a mule because I'm using the German word. If I wanted to use the Latin word, I'd say I was persspiring.

If I wanted to say I got up early in the morning, I could say I arose or I ascended. This is the English language. The English language is a melting pot of all of these different c um tongues. It's a linguistic melting pot. And this is important, but I want you to set it to the side for a moment and I want to talk about another concept. So just we're shifting gears, okay? Just set aside that melting pot. We'll come back to it in a minute. I want to talk to you about ancient Greece. Ancient Greece had an entire set of vocabulary words built around this word decay. DK is the the D, the delta, the ETA, the kappa, and the ada, which is a long e sound or a is the way we do it, but it's emphasized on the first syllable. So, it's decay. And DK originally in early Greek, the earliest that we know of, meant the custom or manner. But but quickly in ancient Greek it evolved into the idea of what's right or justice or even punishment. It it it um it's used in different forms of the language. You can have it as an adjective

deyios and it's used for example in 2 Thessalonians 1:5 as an adjective. This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God. It it's defining the noun as an adjective. You can take the decay word and you can turn it into a noun. In fact, decay itself is the noun form. 2 Thessalonians 1:9, they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction. That is a a noun there. And decay can be used as a noun. Decay can be used as a verb. Dio is the the form of of of the verb, one form of the verb. It can be used in multiple forms of verbs, but uh we see it in Luke 10:29. But he desiring to, this is uh the rich young ruler. He desiring to justify himself said to Jesus, "Who's my neighbor?" See, he wants to justify himself. And that's the verb deio. It's it's uh there um it can be used as an adverb to modify verbs. Um doyos uh Jesus continued entrusting himself to him who jud judges justly. Second Peter 2. So justly, you've got all of these words built around this Greek word decay and it's fantastic. Now, why does this matter? Put it up there. DK. And remember, English is a linguistic melting pot, especially loaded with terms that are German in origin or um early English, Anglo-Saxon, and words that are Latin in origin.

And these melting pot words are used to translate the same Greek family of DK. And so you'll have that one Greek family word DK, but you won't know it's the same word reading an English Bible because sometimes the translators will use the the German root word in English and sometimes they'll use the Latin root and and you're reading in English and you're thinking, well, these are different words and they are in English. They're not in Greek. They may be different forms, but they're from that same word group. So you can read the DK word group and you will see translations of

right. This is right. You will see translations of righteous. This is the righteous thing. You will see translations of righteousness. Paul uses it in the passage we'll look at multiple times today to talk about the righteousness of God. All of these are just the German root from our melting pot of the Greek DK. But sometimes the translators use the Latin root. And the Latin root of the English words is

just. The Latin root is justice. The Latin root is justify or justification. Those are all Latin derivative English words, but they're translating the same word group DK as the German And it's something that that in some ways is a blessing of the English language because there are nuanced differences in the meaning of these English words. But we're missing out if we don't understand that Paul is using one Greek word group of decay. It's just being seen in different languages in a sense. in the English translation. Does that make sense? So, for example, what this means, these DK words can be used in the Bible. Hold on. I don't put the cursor over here. That little junk in the corner stays there. Watch it go. Watch. Watch down here. See? Bye. Okay.

If we don't understand this, the Greek word itself decay can mean a host of different things. Again, depending is it a noun? Is it a verb? Is it an adjective? Is it an adverb? But let me give you four meanings of one of the most significant DK words we'll be looking at today. It can mean a courtroom verdict.

Guilty. Not guilty. The courtroom verdict is used out of the DK word group. Dyiosune is one particular word where it gets used. But but a courtroom verdict can be used out of multiple parts of that DK word group. It's it is one reason why in spite of Dale Hearn pestering me saying you're spending too much time on legal words, why I've spent so much time on legal words is because Paul has used repetitively so many legal words in the last two chapters of Romans. It's just like to a lawyer reading it, it's just an onslaught. and and and a lot of biblical scholars who aren't tuned in to ancient Greek and Roman law may not always see those words as law words because they have other uses as well. But boy, he's just killing it with the the law words. So, we've got a courtroom verdict is part of these DK words, but it also can reference the idea of covenantal faithfulness. Doing what is right by an agreement in a sense. Doing what is right by a relationship. Being just in a in a contract almost. Covenant's a little bit different but almost. So it's used of being right by someone in a covenant. A third way that it's used is like a checklist of conforming behavior, doing right. Uh uh it Paul used that in the Ephesians 6 passage that uh uh Jarrett preached on this morning. You know, there's a there's there's your behavior. You know, you want to do right. You don't want to do wrong. Do you know the difference between right and wrong? See all of that decay, conforming behavior, the words can be used to denote or reference this following the the rules doing right. And then a fourth way it can be used is by fixing setting right something that is wrong. Um, in the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagent, one of the DK words that we'll look at today, Dyiosune, is used over and over for the idea that God is going to come fix the problems that Israel's created.

And so this idea of taking a modeled mess of string and making it straight, this idea of setting right what is wrong is also built into the word. You with me? We have now explored the word group together. So with that base of knowledge, let's work through the passage. Of course, we don't start out just jumping into it. We need to be reminded of the context. Paul is writing not simply a letter, but a pretty good rhetorical letter, almost a formal piece of rhetoric. And as such he gave us in Romans 1:16-1 17 what the rhetoricians would call a partitio. It is a brief concise statement of what your argument is going to be or what your point of persuasion is going to be. And Paul does this in Romans 1:16-1 17. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. And the gospel again in Paul's language is the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. That's what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15. The terms in which I preached to you the good news. The death Jesus Christ died, was buried, resurrected on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. That's his great news. Doesn't mean there's not other good news in the world. Doesn't mean that the word youon's not used in other ways by other people. certainly in the gospels, certainly in other uh secular worlds, but for Paul, the greatest news of all that makes every other news pale in comparison is that Jesus Christ died, was buried, and resurrected on our behalf. And that the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is the power of God for salvation in the fullest sense of salvation. Not just some escatological some end of time salvation but but the healing and the wholeness and the fullness that we can experience even in this life. It is only by the power um of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. You don't get the Holy Spirit without the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes the Jew first and also the Greek. in in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, God's righteousness, deio. This is the righteousness of God. And a phrase Paul will use again in a moment. The righteousness of God is revealed. Now you you you now having that word group in your mind start to wonder the righteousness of God. What is that? Because Mark said there's at least four different cogent areas of of meaning behind this word. Yes, bear with me. The righteousness of God is revealed for from faith to faith as it's written, the righteous will live by faith with the Habach quote. Now this is huge and I said this is Paul's partitio because what Paul is going to do is explain this throughout the whole Romans letter. And so this is the good news. Paul then begins the Romans letter by saying, "If this is the good news, if the good news is Jesus's death, burial, and resurrection on our behalf, well, what's the bad news? The bad news is what life is like without the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus." And that's bad news indeed because Paul says God's got principles of judgment. and his principles of judgment says basically if you live right that's going to be fine but if not you're in trouble and the problem he sets out is that none of us live right so by God's principles of judgment it's nothing but bad news and so within the context of this he explains it's bad news for the Gentiles and it's bad news for the Jews those without the law and those that are under the law it's bad news for both of them because Those without the law are going to perish. They've at least got the law inside their heart. They're without excuse. And those under the law, they may talk a good game, but they don't do it. So, they're going to perish. Everybody's going to perish under God's principles of judgment. That's bad news. That's the bottom line. Everyone has sinned and fallen short of God's glory. And so Paul has spent two chapters plus establishing universal sinfulness. Nobody merits the love of God. You don't. I don't. No one does. And he sums this up in Romans 3:20, which my friend Richard Hayes says, and I don't want to go there right now, but I love you, Richard. Um, for by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight. And by the way, that the is not in the Greek by works of law. And I think Paul's referencing the moral law that the Gentiles had as well as the written law that the Jews had. any law by works of law, no human being will be justified in his sight. Since through law, again, the word the is not in there, through law comes knowledge of sin. You can take someone who doesn't believe in God. You can take an atheist or an agnostic and they will still have an awareness that they don't measure up to the moral code that is inside them that they are hardwired with. Which by the way is one of the biggest reasons we can see and understand we were created by a moral God who has hardwired us. So this is the problem. You can have any moral code you want, but you will never be justified. By the way, that's a DK word. You'll never be righteousified. If we wanted to use the the German word, right? You will never be justified. You will never be righteous, made righteous in his sight because all you're going to do is just be aware of how short you come. And then we get to Romans 3:21 where we are today, noon day. But now the righteousness of God, the deaosune theu which was also present and is shown by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus according to Paul's partitio in Romans 1:16-1 17. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested. It's been uncovered and shown. It's become apparent. We now see it apart from law. And again, apart from law is in the Greek, it's it's up here. Cor um chores nomu. Apart from law, any law, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from any law. Even though the law and the ESV writers here capitalize the word for law, the ESV translators and and Paul's inserted the article the doesn't always mean this, but but here toote the idea that it's the law and prophets bear witness to it. And this is a huge but now he has spent chapter after chapter telling everybody you're basically going to hell. Your life's a wreck. You got no shot. You can't please a holy God. He has a standard you can't live up to. You feel guilty. Rightfully so. Serve you right to suffer. I mean, that's what he's been saying. And then he hits the but now and the nun d in in the the the d in in Greek, he uses that all the time. But to add the noun is is is like really turning a point usually in time. It's like that was then, this is now, but

now God's about to save the day. If you read old Greek theater, uh very common Greek plot is something that they give a Latin name to. Deos mix Deus X Machina, God from the machine. And what would happen is it there'd be this horrible plot. Nobody can fix it. Everything's terrible. And at the end of the play, they had these big wooden mechanical cranes that were set up behind the the skea behind the the platform behind and the crane would lift over an actor dressed up like a god and drop the actor down and the god would come to save the day. So deus xmechina machina is god from the machine. Deus X Makita and this God from the machine comes out and saves the day in some miraculous fashion that never could have happened otherwise. Nobody can figure out how they're going to solve it. And and Paul's saying God's stepping into this picture, but it's not the same way as a Greek play. I mean, yes, it's dramatic intervention and divine intervention, but in the Greek play, it's almost like a plot afterthought. It's like the Greek person couldn't figure out how to resolve, the playwright couldn't figure out how to resolve the situation, so they just had God show up and fix it. And for Paul, this is no afterthought.

But this dramatic divine intervention idea he's talking about, but now look, this is what life is like. You are destined to be chopped into

firewood. But now there's a whole new ball game. Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones said, "There are no more wonderful words in the whole of scripture than just these two words, but now because this is Paul's turning point." And but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law. Apart from law and and you notice I've underlined it in our English and I've underlined it in our Greek. Paul bumps it up in the Greek because he's been talking about death under the law, under any law. And so his but now is even more powerful because his but now goes up there. But now apart from law, but now a whole different way of seeing things, a whole different way of finding righteousness.

This is part of the chord structure. What Paul is going to do here is he's going to develop how God's character relates to God's action and our status. Three strands of thought all tied together by one Greek word group in common. Now, apart from law, the righteousness of God, well, this is trouble. You can read theologians going all the way back to the church fathers and you've got so many different views on this, it's not even funny. But they all kind of fall into certain categories. Now, apart from law, the righteousness deioyosune. This is our DK word that we're looking at right now. This is a word that can mean a courtroom verdict. It can mean covenantal faithfulness. It can mean conforming behavior. It can mean setting right what is wrong. It can mean all of those things.

Daiosune is the state or quality of righteousness if we want to use righteousness the German word or of being just. All right. So deck the DK words just or right. When you take a Greek word like that and and here we've got it they add sun to the end. When you add sun to the end, it's talking at that point, it's making it kind of an abstract

quality. And so there is this abstract quality or state of being righteous and you can find it used in all of these different terms. My suggestion to you is we've been using courtroom vernacular for the last two chapters. I can find you 25 courtroom expressions in the last two chapters. And I think the idea of of God as a righteous judge, we've still got to deal with righteousness of God. Is it the righteousness he's sending out? The righteousness that's his character, that's who he is, the righteousness of which he's the source. Um, we've got to deal with all of that. But the idea is that God's righteous

verdict could be used. But to some degree, it's also his covenantal faithfulness because God's been promising since Adam and Eve to do something about the sin. And God Paul's about to pull out in the forthcoming verses how Paul God dealt with Abraham on this basis. So God made a covenant with Abraham based upon faith. So there's a certain covenantal faithfulness that's being dealt with here. And this is to some degree a conforming behavior because even as a courtroom verdict is being looked at, it stems from God being a fair judge. God is a righteous judge. So he will conform to his own character and certainly his courtroom behavior is a way of setting right what is wrong both in us in our world and in our future. So I think the word's fairly used in a really good sense but I want to go a little bit further because uh because I'm a word nerd. Okay, look, just face it. You have a word nerd teaching the class. So, bear with me for a moment. I just want to show you how the word's used. Dyiosune, the same word. Look at Hebrews 11:33. He's talking here about the list of of judges for Israel, Samson, and the like, and goes up through King David, who's a judge as well as a king. They through faith conquered kingdoms and enforced justice. They were those who delivered just decisions, courtroom

decisions. Let me give you another passage. U covenantal faithfulness. Titus 3:5. God saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness. Dyiosune. It's not because you and I were good to the covenant. It's not because we lived up to the covenant. It's not because we were faithful to the covenant. We weren't. He saved us anyway. But this righteousness here is referencing covenantal faithfulness by us. By the way, it's also used the same way in the Old Testament. I'll give you the septuagent uses of the same thing if you want to go back and look them up. But this idea of covenantal faithfulness is found in all the conforming behavior, the checklist, the dos and the don'ts. Flee youthful passions and pursue good deeds, righteousness, faith, love, and peace along with those who call on the Lord. Daiosune. This is, you know, do what's right. He's saying words used that way in the Torah as well. Genesis 18:19 is a great illustration of it. And then the fourth, setting right what is wrong. Look at Hebrews 12:11. For the moment all discipline when God disciplines us. It seems painful rather than pleasant. But later it yields the peaceful fruit of

deioune. It writes it. It takes our muddled up string and makes it straight. It can write what is wrong. So, we've got this situation where Paul is saying that apart from law, not based upon what you're doing, the righteousness of God. And look, I got no shot getting through all of this this week. We're going to have to look at this some more. I don't know how. I may do a dialogue with with Dr. Capes. I may I don't know how we're going to do it. But this this this is um there's a great deal

of tamalei. Okay.

Um let's see. All right. Here we

go. If I wanted to, I could wear a sign.

um around my neck and I could tie the sign around my neck and I could have like signs that I change in and out and it could tell you things about me. Have you ever played that game where you go to a party and people put some note on a post-it and you put it to your forehead and you're supposed to walk around interview people and find out what your note is without looking? You know, I can put an the Greek language like the Latin language. The Greek language has endings that they put on words that tell you how the words function. And one of the interesting things about it is you don't always know exactly what it is. So there's this stuff in Greek that um we'll just say is the

genative sign that gets put at the end of a word. And a firstear Greek student will be told that the genative falls into different categories. You can use the word of, you can use the word [Music] from, you can use the word in, you can use the word to, you can use a lot of different words to explain what that sign is. So, let's look at this phrase that Paul's put here. He has put a phrase that says the

righteousness of God. But if you're reading that in the Greek, all you're going to have is the

deyiosune. And then you're going to have God. You don't have the word of. You have God. And you have God in the genative. Where in the genative sign? This is the ending that tells you it's in the genative. Okay. So, what does this mean? Well, it could mean a lot of different things. This could mean the righteousness. Let's see how to do this. We'll do it this way. This could mean an attribute of God. So, it's a God's

righteousness, an attribute. This is a like um um uh th this is Mark's computer. It's a computer of Mark. It's mine. It's it's it's so this is this is something and in that sense it could mean God's

justice. So this is God's justice or it might even mean in the same sense um God's faithfulness to a covenant. God's faithfulness to a covenant. So you can have both of those as the righteousness of God. That's could be what it means. But it doesn't have to mean that. It can also mean a righteousness. There's a genative called a genative of source the way we learned it. But it would mean that it's a a status given by

God. So the righteousness of God may be a status that that God has given to someone. It's um a righteousness um that that is Yeah. Um, now it could also mean a righteousness that's valid before

God. It can also refer to an activity of God. And so in that sense, it's um God's saving act.

All of those are possible meanings. Dr. Capes has accused me of being an eclectic theologian and I think that was a pretty good description because I I think Paul has a primary meaning and I don't want to run from that but I think Paul recognizes how all of this is wrapped up in there. And the reason you can find theologians who believe any of those things are right is because all of those things are true. They're biblically true. Whether this is the source for the biblical teaching or not, we know that God has a character, an attribute of being just, we know that God has an attribute of being faithful. Is one of the Old Testament Hebrew words used over and over for God. It's his covenant loyalty. We know that God gives us the status of being declared righteous before him. We know that this is a righteousness that is valid before God. And we know that God's the one who did the saving act. All of those are true even as we try to figure out what Paul means. But as we try to figure out what Paul means, I urge us to recognize that he's already put this in his partio and this is the saving power of God. So apart from law, there's a saving power of God that's found in the gospel, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. And it shows God's righteousness, which is his character, who he is. But it's a two-sided coin because it's also the righteousness we have that allows us to stand before him not

guilty. And the law and the prophets bear witness to it. By the way, bear witness to it. We tend to think of these words as um 21st century Christians. We talk about sharing your testimony or witness depending upon whether we're using the Latin or the German. Um but but we talk about bearing witness to Jesus. And this is in its mane a courtroom word. This is the witness in a courtroom.

And when Paul says that the law and the prophets bear witness to this fundamental truth, the law and the prophets was a common expression that referred to all of scripture. You'll see Jesus using it in Matthew 5, Luke 24. The law and the prophets. The law and the prophets. The law and the prophets. This is the Old Testament. The law are the strictures. The prophets are the teachers. uh the explainers uh the the the speaker of the voice of God you that this is all of scripture the law and the prophets but what Paul's saying is unlike deusex mechina machina where it's um almost like some easy way out Paul's saying this was the plan from the beginning and and it's all of scripture that bears witness to this The idea of the righteousness of God isn't some small keyhole tucked away in the Old Testament that nobody can see or find until someone elucidates it. It is something much grander than that. I mean, it's the whole point of the Old Testament. Paul says that is the reason the Old Testament is there is to teach us these things to drive us to Christ, to point us to Christ. He'll use a Greek phrase uh compound word is not phrase Greek compound word a pago pyogos is uh I guess it's a pedagogue is the way it's translated but it's pogo pyog go my brain's mixed up pedagogi. Thank you. Um, it it's it's the the tutor that would take the kid to school and make sure the kid was safe. Going to school, pick the kid up from school, take him home, make sure the kid did his homework, make sure even before school age, the kid learned his manners. Paul says that's what scripture was for us. Certainly what the law was in that passage in Galatians. You know, the whole point of the Old Testament is to get us ready for Jesus and to point to Jesus and to let people know who Jesus was and for people to understand the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. And that's why on the road to Emmas, Jesus can open the law and the prophets, the Old Testament, and explain how they bear witness to him. That's what Paul is saying here. He's saying this is a righteousness, and that's why I'm distinguishing between that law and this law. This is a righteousness apart from any type of of of legal standing before God. Any law you want. This is a righteousness from God and of God and about God. It's who he is, but it's also what he's done. It's the full chord. It's God's character and God's action and the result for us. It's not a C. It's not an E. It's not a G. It's C major chord. It's the whole chord. It's the righteousness of God that's been manifested that the whole law and the prophets have borne witness to this righteousness of God uses the same phrase. This righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. Okay? And I'm laughing because I mean there's just like there's a lot to be said about this stuff. But this is the DK word again and it's the DK word in all of its fullness. Though I think especially as a courtroom verdict because we're using courtroom technology over and uh terminology over and over. But that doesn't deny what's tucked into the whole concept of the word and even of the courtroom analogy. Now, we do have a problem here because Paul's got another genative. Remember the genative? Remember how optional, if not confusing, it can be on what it might mean. And remember I said it might mean in, it might mean of, might be

from. Here's a genative here. Puos means faith. [Music] Easu. See the o at the end of Jesus Christ. Just like the Ou at the end of God, that's the genative sign it's wearing. So this means the faith in Jesus or the faith of Jesus, the faith that Jesus had, the faith we have of Jesus, the faith that Jesus gives. It could mean all of those things. The ESV translators are translating it faith in Jesus Christ, but it can be faith in or faith of. The argument's pretty compelling that it's faith in. But I don't think that Paul drew those distinct lines that we draw in our Greek grammars today so clearly. I think Paul's fine with it being read both ways because both are true. If Christ had not been faithful, if Christ had not been willing to go to the cross and while praying for God's cup of wrath to pass, he says, "But not my will, but thine be done without the faithfulness of Christ." And I'll tell you, that's really useful because a lot of people say, "Okay, I have faith, but it's not enough. Is it enough? Do I have enough faith?" There's only been one person alive in the history of the world who had perfect faith. Do you know who it was? Jesus. You get his faith. Your little minuscule, scrawny, inadequate faith gets the full faith of Jesus. So, so biblically, this is true however we want to read it. But it seems to be that Paul's saying righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Some say that he means the faith of Christ for all who believe and that means for all who believe isn't redundant. But others will say no, it's the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. And the for all who believe is there not for redundancy as much as it is to emphasize the all who believe. There's no distinction. Paul continues, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. everybody and all are justified. It's the same DK word group. We just now switched from right and righteous and righteousness into the Latin. Same

word

group we are justified. It's the verb form from the DK group by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. And so here we've got the same word group. Here we've got the same options. We are all declared not guilty. We are all restored in covenant relationship. We are all reaching for conforming behavior and and being transformed where he'll say in Romans 8 that the law of the spirit of life has set us free from the law of sin and death. And it's a freedom to live better, right? It's all God setting right what's wrong in us. All of that is true, but I think primarily we're still dealing with courtroom terminology here in the context. We're all declared not guilty by his grace.

Um, grace is a loaded theological term for Paul.

Grace, as Paul uses it almost always, not when he's doing a greeting or something like that, but almost always, is a reference to the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. It is a noun that is a favor that God did for us. One we didn't deserve. It's an unmmerited one, but it's a favor. It's a gift. And he he says it, it's a gift that he's given us. And he uses the other Greek word for gift. We're justified by the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. It's the same word that Paul uses in Ephesians 2. By the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. By grace, you've been saved through faith. Now, we've got to pick up on this next week, but I'm going to pause here. We're not going to get through the rest because I got to get to points for home. But do you see how Paul's developing how God's character relates to his

actions which gives us our status before

God? If God doesn't care about

justice, what kind of God do we have?

But if God only cares about justice and doesn't have mercy, what kind of God do we have? So how does a just God give a full measure of mercy to those undeserving? He does it by paying the price for us through Christ. So God's character is not compromised. It's illustrated by his action dying for us which gives us a restored status before him. And um I'll will miss the rest of these slides this week, but let's Oh man, we got a lot to cover too. Wait till we get to the word hillyisterion. You think this was weird.

Um can we so this picture makes no sense because we haven't talked about the different ideas behind Hillisterion including mercy seat but can we just talk about the awesomeness of God for a moment as we look at points for

home God's awesomeness is shown that he can be a thoroughly just judge. He can run a court that is absolutely by the letter of the law playing no favorites. And yet he can take his church, he can take his children, and he can provide a death that pays for their sins. It's the ultimate insurance company. You go to court, you get to pod that car. You have no fear because you've got someone who says, "Yes, it was my person's fault, but I'll pay the price and absolve justly." And God extends this mercy, this awesomeness of God that not only can declare the courtroom verdict, but can restore a covenant faithfully that can can help us become what we're made to be that can set right what's wrong in our life now as well as for eternity. And that's what he's done for us. That's the power of God found in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

Who on earth would refuse this? Why would we ever want to say, "I got this on my own, God. Thanks. I'll call you if I need any help." I will close with this illustration and I've run over one minute and I'm sorry. Fella dies. He goes to the pearly gates. I don't think this is the way it actually unfolds. Uh, spoiler alert. I'm taking a little liberty here. And there's a line of people waiting to get in. And the fellas overhearing the people in line in front of him. And he hears that Peter says takes a thousand points to get in. And I got to tell you, this guy felt pretty good because he'd been a good guy. And he's just starting to rehearse them in his brain. He gets up to the line. Peter says, "All right, a thousand points to get in. What you got to say for yourself?" Guy says, "Okay, first of all," and he starts listing all the good things he'd done in his life. And he didn't list a thousand. He listed 2,000. Peter said, "That's pretty incredible. We haven't had anybody that good in a long time. I'm gonna give you a point for

that." I said, "What?" He said, "I'm giving you a point for that. And the guy thought, "Oh, I left out church." Okay, I was at church every time the doors were open. When I was a kid, that was three times a week. Now it's just Sunday morning, but I was there and I would come to class and I would d and I served and I did BBS and I and listed another 3,000 things all associated with church. Peter was like, I'm telling you, we haven't had anybody this good in a long time. I'm giving you another point. Guy says, wait a minute. And this goes on for a while and finally the guy says, "So I've done all these things and you're giving me three points." Peter says, "Yeah." Guy said, 'Well, how but by the grace of God does anybody get in there? Peter says, "And that's the thousand

points." Why would anyone refuse that God not only is talking about an eternity, but he's talking about sorting your life out now? I want that God. I want the power of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ in me. I need it. Would you join me in a word of prayer? Father, in the name of Jesus, we pray to you. And I pray uh on behalf of anybody listening that has not yet said, "Lord, I put my trust in you. I will rely upon you. I need you. I confess a need for the blood of Jesus and the resurrection power of Jesus to invade my life. I give myself to the lordship of Jesus. I join them in that prayer. And father, I pray that we will all bring our lives under submission to the obedience and faithfulness of your son on Calvary and the strength and power of your son in resurrection. I pray this through Jesus. Amen.