Session 8 – Romans; The “Gold” in Paul’s Words, Romans 3:21-26: Mark Lanier, 05/25/25

[Music]

[Music] I'm pretty excited about class if for no other reason than we're going to start with Bugs Bunny. So, here we go.

Pierre, weigh this up. Yes, sir. And keep your thumb off of them scales or I'll blow it off. She's pretty small. $10. $10? It's getting so a man can't earn a dishonest living no more. There's gold in them D hills. Well, back with another one, eh?

Uh, how about a couple of carrots for this rock pier? Of course. Keep the change,

Doc. There's gold in them there, Hills. And Bugs was willing to give it away for two

carats. We've got some gold in these words of Romans. And I wonder how little we value them sometimes. Uh Becky and I were having a dialogue this morning and I said, "Uh uh, man, I hope people are coming to church today cuz cuz uh it's Memorial Day weekend. It's always a light weekend." And she said, "Yeah." She said uh she she was making a joke, but she said, "I wonder what attendance would be like if when people came, we gave them money." And I said, "Well, I don't know, but I'll bet it'd be higher." And then I I was thinking about the class that I'm teaching and this introduction. I thought, "And yet what we as a church have to offer is worth a lot more than money." And and it's We hey on the internet we don't charge you to come here. Y'all are welcome. We give it away. But if we look at Romans we see a value in these words that by God's grace I pray his Holy Spirit will communicate because it is of much greater value than the two carats that Bugs was willing to take for that big chunk of gold. So, we're going to do prospecting stuff this morning. And here's the way we're going to do it. I am going to give some background and context. Now, when I get the background, some of it is stuff that we've talked about before in this class because we've got to keep everything going. So, some of it I hope will remind you of earlier classes. If you want it in depth, you can go to the earlier classes, but I'm also adding a little bit that I didn't have in the earlier lessons because when you review something, it gives you a chance to show another side to it. And so, we'll do background and context quickly, but we need to put it into context to better mine for the gold in Romans 3, starting with verse 21, going however far we make it. and then we'll have the points for home. And so if you'll work with me on there, we'll start out with a background and context. Now, Rome was the biggest city in the Roman Empire. The number of population in Rome was somewhere around a million people. And so Paul writes a letter to him. And Paul writes this letter around 54 to 55 AD. Paul is in Corinth. Corinth is a sailor's town. It's a it's um it it's got both sides of the Greek peninsula have a port in essence. You you you had a canal, but a a port in essence in Corinth. And so it was a seafarer's delight and all that went with it as a port town, the commerce, the international culture, the tourism, the um u saltiness of the sailor's life, all of these types of things are rampant in Corenth. The Roman Empire itself is in a state of transition of sorts because Emperor Nero has taken the throne. He's a young man when he takes the throne and he's not the sorted uh emperor Nero that he becomes over the next few years as power seems to absolutely corrupt him. There is a church in Rome and I don't think it's a small church. It's a church that had its beginnings at Pentecost. And at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended, Acts 2 tells us that present among those who became believers were visitors from Rome. So when they returned home, they of course took the faith with them. And you have this naent church that begins with these Jews, but soon thereafter begins to add a notable number of Gentiles. The Jewish population of Rome was quite large. If you put the Roman population, let's say, at a million, you've got somewhere between 40 to 60,000 Jews. So, you've got a lot of Jews that are there. And the Jewish population starts having a fight. And that fight reaches a point in 49 AD when the emperor who is charged with keeping the peace of Rome is fed up. They're fighting over what most scholars would say is Christ. And so the emperor Claudius declares Udios impulsur impulsurestoid to multuantis Roma expulit. In other words, Claudius expelled from Rome the Jews who were constantly making disturbances at the instigation or over the issue of

Cresto. That's a latinized version of Christ. Maybe an I and E issue, but most scholars say that's the way Christ was written. Christ was not a a Roman name, a Latin name. Christ is a Greek name that or word that means anointed. So kicks out the Jews. That includes the Jews that were Christians.

We know from Acts the same story that's in uh uh agreement with the history that we've got from Roman historians where we read that Paul left Athens. He went to Corenth. He found a Jew named Aquilla, a native of Pontus. Pontus, by the way, which is on the it's in Turkey. It's on the northern part of Turkey. It's just it's a a coastal town for the Black Sea. Okay. Um uh Pontis, by the way, if you go back to Acts 2, there were also people from Pontis at Pentecost. And so you've got a real good chance that that may be where Aquilla and Priscilla became believers. But at least we know that Aquilla, a native of Pontis, recently came from Italy with his wife Prrisca or Priscilla, she's called both because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave

Rome. Claudius dies and his name is not Clausius. That's a typo. Claudius died uh on October 13 of 54. And at that point in time, the Jews could return. By the time Paul writes Romans, Aquilla and Priscilla are back. We'll see that at the end of Romans. Now, this is important because the Roman church, it wasn't full of a bunch of lightweights. Aquilla and Priscilla are the ones that took Apollos and helped educate him more clearly in matters concerning the Messiah. They knew their Old Testament very well. They were Jews steeped in it and they as teachers were able to teach. that becomes important to what we're going to see today because we're going to have a dialogue about some of this. So, you've got the Roman church that's not just like, oh, it's mostly Gentiles who, you know, don't really know much about Juda. Oh, no. This church knew the scriptures. And they had people in this church that were serious Christian teachers and theologians.

And so Paul's writing people who aren't brand new to the faith. That church has been there for almost 20 years by the time he's writing or has been there for 20 years. And those people are knowledgeable of what they're doing. And when Paul writes, he produces a masterpiece. And it's got rhetorical features. Rhetoric was a formal system of argument, persuasion, and and an informative speaking. There was training. You trained to be a rhetoric. And so rhetoric, there were textbooks. How do you write or speak? Rhetoric.

rhetorically. Now, Paul's letter as a result is not a normal letter. I we we it's very unusual in so many ways. And so, as an unusual letter, if we we have a thousands of old letters from this time period, somewhere around 14 to 15,000 letters to compare. And if we want to compare, private letters range from the low end of 18 words to the high end of 209 words. That's how long a private letter was. Literary letters where they're trying to do something more than just a private letter. Cicero, we've got 796 of his. They range from 22 words to 2530.

uh Cynica, a contemporary of Paul, 124 letter uh letters range from 149 to 4,000 words. If we look at Paul's typical writings, if Paul's average is 1300 words a letter, but in Romans, Paul is writing a letter that's got 7,100 words. More than Cicero and Synica's longest letters put together, at least out of the 900 letters we have of them. See, Paul's writing something here that's not just a pickme up. It's not just a short recitation like Galatians of the gospel message. It's something that's very powerful and very detailed and written with great care to an audience that was sophisticated when it came to biblical matters.

And so in a true rhetoric form, Paul at the beginning of his letter puts what rhetoricians would have called a partitio. A partitio in rhetoric, we know because Cicero gave instructions to his nephew on how to be a good rhetorician. And Cicero said that uh uh you wanted to do this with a partitio at the start and the partitio will correctly render the whole speech clear and lucid. It is a summary of the whole speech. Paul summarizes the entire book of Romans in the beginning of Romans. This is to be matters which you intend to discuss briefly set forth in a methodical way. The form should have the following qualities. It should be brief. It should be complete and it should be concise. And that's what Paul has. Cicero said brevity is secured when no word is used unless necessary. So Paul writes a pro uh uh it's also called a propos propositio but a partitio is the better word for it. Paul writes one and he does it with four clauses and these four clauses you can divide up and this is a succinct statement of the entire book of Romans. And so we we constantly want to go back to it as we're reading Romans because it helps us understand what we're reading. We're reading an exposition, a a filling out of this concise statement. So the first clause, Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. And the gospel we've defined as Paul would define it as he defined it in his Corinthian letter. It's the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus on our behalf. That's the greatest news we can hear. So the good news, the great news is Jesus died and was resurrected on our behalf. And Paul says that doesn't shame me because the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Believes is the same Greek word as faith. It's just in a verb form. So to everyone who faiths believes to the Jew first chronologically, Carol Wilson, the Jews got the message first and then the Greeks came into the church later. Paul continues in with clause three in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. Now, this is interesting because uh uh I'll I'll come back to it. Let me get the fourth clause. As it's written, the righteous shall live by faith. Where he quotes uh um from the Old Testament. But if we put it up in English and Greek, the propitio um partitio uh for I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is estin in the Greek is the present tense. That means right now the death, burial, and resurrection right now is God's power. Moment by moment, minute by minute, day by day, for all eternity. The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is God's power to save everyone who has faith. Everyone. Period. And this present tense, this what I'm going to call the power of now means that all of us at any point in human life can trust. Believe is the same word. Pistu in the Greek is the verb. Pistus is the noun. It can be translated believe, faith, trust. All of us can trust that the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus gives God the righteous power to save everyone. No exceptions who has faith. The death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. In it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. Now, this apocalyptto word for

revealed, which you'll remember if you were in here when we studied Revelation because it's the first word in the book of Revelation. But it it denotes the idea that it's in a sense a pre-existing fact that is then laid out and displayed. It's opened up. Um I don't understand why this keeps popping. I'm doing all I can, but maybe it's certain words I'm using. If the popping is driving you crazy, go to sleep. Um, and I'll wake you up with a popping. Um, I thought maybe if I turned a corny joke out of it, I'd have

popcorn. You heard the one about the fella who is going to die and he left his instructions. He said, "Doctor, please let me know. I've I've instructed my family that I'm I'm to be cremated and I need to know like the moment before I die because I'm gonna just force down me a bunch of popcorn. I want my cremation to be

epic. The righteousness of God is revealed. We're seeing this in the now. The gospel message is new and fresh every minute, every day. The death, burial, and resurrection of Christ happened in history. But it is real and current for us. This is the reason my Greek professor for Romans was asked, "Tell us about the day you were saved." And his reply was, "Oh, it was a wonderful day. It was 2,000 years ago on a hill outside Jerusalem. It's it's current even as it's not now. All of that is in Paul's

partidio. And so we've got Paul saying that. Now if that is a summary statement, concise and brief, every word important, we read the rest of the letter with that as the guiding spotlight. So we can say and rightly should say if the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ is the good news, what was the bad news? What's life without Christ? And the answer is we're drowning in our sin. And that's where Paul begins the letter. After setting out the theme, Paul describes God's principles of judging. And his principles are be perfect, you'll be fine. If you're not, you're going to hell. And then he breaks it out and he says, "Gentiles, you didn't have the law of Moses. Jews, you had the law of Moses, but that really doesn't matter because you had God's law in your heart, and so you're going to perish. And Jews, you're not doing it perfectly, so you're going to perish." So, everybody's going to perish. The bottom line is everybody has sinned and fallen short of God's glory. And Paul spends a couple of chapters establishing universal sinfulness culminating in Romans 3:20 by works of the law. But this Greek doesn't have the word the there. Because Paul doesn't mean by works of the Old Testament law only. He means any concept that you're going to satisfy God by how you live. No human being will ever be justified in his sight. Don't think you get to heaven and you get to say, "Well, my good outweighed my bad." No. There's not a law, there's not a principle of God's judgment whereby anyone will be justified in the sight of God based on their personal performance. Not going to happen. So that background and context lays the framework for this incredible Romans 3:21 and following. And here we get but now nun

day pivotal words. He has just spent two chapters condemning everybody to hell. And if the book ended there, we have a no hope faith. If life existed without a Jesus who died for our sins and was resurrected, we are to be pied and

lamented. But the but now takes a desolate landscape and creates a garden of Eden. But now there is a righteousness of God that's been manifested apart from the law. Now when Paul writes this, our English says apart from the law down here. But Paul because his but now is so powerful put it right up at the top right after but now. Paul's says, "But now apart from law, and it's any law, a a righteousness, the righteousness of God, has been manifested. It's it's it's been shown." Let's let's put this here. He says, "These Gentiles are without the law, but they still have law. The law is in the heart. They have the lowercase law. They know what's good behavior and what's not. And then these have capital L law. They have the law of Moses. And Paul says apart from any

law. There's a righteousness of God.

Now, that word righteousness comes from a family of words that we talked about last week, the DK family of words. And we get them translated into um righteousness, which comes from the old German. And we get them translated into justice and justification, which comes from the the Latin roots, because English is this melting pot of of languages. So, but now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested. This decay concept of righteousness, its primary meaning in this context certainly, but but period and in so many different forms of it is a courtroom verdict. Guilty, not guilty. A courtroom verdict that is based upon truth and fairness is what you have. But it's not just a courtroom verdict. It's also used certainly in the Old Testament sense of being faithful to a covenant. It's living up to an obligation that you have

made. And then you've got it also as a conforming behavior. A a righteous judge conforms his own judgment righteously. Doesn't run a kangaroo court. Doesn't play favorites. Doesn't apply the law here and fail to apply it there.

And then it's also got a context of taking what's all wadded up and messed up and setting it right. All of that is wrapped up in this word of the righteousness of God. So apart from law, God's the righteousness of God. And and does this mean the righteousness that he gives? Does this mean the righteousness that is his? It's ambiguous in the Greek but I think the context will help us. Apart from all the righteousness of God has been manifested. So this state or quality of righteousness dyiosune and we covered this in exhaustion last week but I want to make sure it's in front of us. this state or quality of righteousness. God giving a righteous verdict that's based on his righteous principles of judgment. God being faithful to the covenant that he made to Abraham and countless others. God being consistent with his own character of who he is as truth and light. and God seeking to set right that which is wrong. All of this has been manifested apart from human behavior lowercase law although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. And so this courtroom verdict and certainly the other things as well, but the courtroom verdict of God's righteousness has been uh uh testified to, if you will, the witness, testimony, the law and the prophets bear witness to it. And we'll see that the way Paul uses the law and the prophets here in a moment. Now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been manifested. Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. And this word has been manifested is a great word in the Greek. Fero is the verb. It means you something's been made visible. Something's been revealed. Something's been

disclosed in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. We have disclosed God's righteousness. It's revealed for us. We can see it. There is a

visible testimony and evidence that displays God's righteousness in the full sense of the word. And that's an amazing

thing. He was fornown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in last times. Peter in 1 Peter 1:20 uses the same word

bonaro in reference to Jesus. You see, when it says Jesus was manifested or revealed, Paul lived and spoke with a vocabulary and a theology and an understanding that the death of Christ was not plan B. The death of Christ was always plan A. Never let us think that God created Adam and Eve thinking that Adam and Eve would never sin. God knew what would happen and before the foundation of the world only created Adam and Eve with a commitment to sacrifice himself to redeem them. And that's been plan A all along. And Peter says it. So it's not he was um brought out as plan B. No, the language is the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ was a manifestation. It was a vis made visible disclosed what was already there. He was fornown before the foundation of the world. He was made manifest.

Now, there's something really cool in the Greek that Paul's using. Paul uses a tense with the verb that in Greek is called the perfect

tense. Let me explain it. In Greek, a perfect tense means this is an action that's been completed in the past. But I want you to focus on the present consequences of that action. So when he says that Jesus, this righteousness of God was

manifested, when Paul says that that it was made visible, made clear, he says, I'm talking about what happened in the past, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. That's where the the manifestation was of the lordship of Jesus and the finished work. That's a past action. It's over. It's completed. But Paul doesn't just say, "So look to the past." He wants us to see the present implications. Let me give you an example to help you remember the way this Greek tense works. You can cross the river. They built a bridge. See, they built it before the bridge is finished. So now you can cross, drive across. It's a I I'm I'm saying they built a bridge not just so we have a history lesson. Oh, they built a bridge. But so that you know you can live and drive on the road, the bridge. I want to talk about a past because of its impact in the present. So Paul says, "Apart from law, the righteousness of God has been manifested." And he uses that perfect tense because he says it's something that's happened. It happened on Calvary and the empty tomb. But I'm not just talking about the history lesson. I want you to understand why it transforms your life today.

And then of course he says the law and the prophets bear witness to it. For in the death, burial, and resurrection. Oh wait, let me tell you what we're doing here. Remember this is Paul explaining what he gave as a summary, a partitio in Romans 1:16-1 17. Right? So think about this and help it help you understand it. help us understand it by looking back at what Paul earlier said in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, something that happened in the past, the righteousness of God is revealed, present tense, it is revealed from faith to faith. What happened in the past is relevant right now. this righteousness of God has been manifested and that has an implication

now. And so he continues to move and as he says it's apart from law, any law. And then he says, but don't get me wrong, the Old Testament, which is what he means by the law and prophets, it's capitalized law and prophets by the translators as a clue that Paul's talking about the Old Testament. It was a phrase that was used for the Old Testament. They didn't use the word Old Testament or New Testament until some lawyer stud named Tertullian gave the church that in about like 300 AD. So, um, wannabe theologian, lawyer stud, good guy. Um, the law and the prophets, they didn't use the word Old Testament. They didn't use the Hebrew word Tanakh.

But the Old Testament bears witness to it, testifies. It's a courtroom word. You can go to Matthew 5. You can go to Luke 24 and you'll find that the Old Testament is referred to as the law and prophets. But what we need to see here is Paul is not saying that the Old Testament has tucked away in it in some small little keyhole the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ is God's covenant righteousness and declaration of our not guilty. It's not tucked away. Paul's saying it's the point of the whole Old Testament.

He reads the Old Testament with an eye towards its fulfillment in Christ. And so when he says the law and the prophets bear witness to it, this becomes very important as we keep going because he's going to reference the Old Testament in just a moment, bearing witness to the saving work of Christ crucified, resurrected. Watch how he does it. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction. Again, a DK word. The righteousness of God. Courtroom verdict, covenantal faithfulness, conforming behavior, setting wrong, what is right. All of that he says through faith in Jesus Christ is there for those who believe. Now this faith in Jesus Christ or the faith of Christ um I don't want to take time to discuss that today. I'll try and do it at another time but there's some interesting dialogue we can have about that and it's it's worth us talking about it's just we won't have time today. He says because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That's why we need good news. But all are justified by his grace. Justified is that same DK word. It's the same word as the righteousness of God. It's the same root. And so when we're reading it, we might read it as, well, that says justified, but before he talked about righteousness. In the Greek, it's the same word family. So, we're still looking at those same four concepts. We are declared just. We get to walk in the covenant. We get our behavior conformed. God sets right what is wrong. All of this happens by his grace as a gift. Now, this by his grace, that's another Paul buzzword.

by the grace of him is a very Paul buzzword and let me show you what he means. If we go to the famous passage Ephesians 2

8-10, my buddy John Monson and I have been working through some of this stuff together. He's got some great insights in this as well and he often watches. If you're watching, John, love you. Can't wait to see you again. Great Old Testament scholar, great scholar, period. But you go to these famous words for by grace. You see the word grace carries, it's a noun. You have been saved through faith. It is the gift doron of God. Now this word grace in the

Greek it can see if we can there we go it can refer to someone being gracious a disposition but it is in the main right here actually a word that can properly be translated

favor. It's a free

gift, free

present. It's a gift God gave you. It's a favor God did for you. And that's the best way to translate it here. So, here's the question. Paul says to the Ephesians, you want to know how you've been saved? Well, the cause of your salvation

is grace or a favor God did for

you. And if that's the cause of your salvation, how does that salvation reach you? What are the means? By grace you have been saved through faith or trust. Same word. And the result aside from being saved, he gives in the next few verses is good

works. Now, this is a classic illustration of Paul's language. Grace is a favor God did for you. What is the favor he did for you that gives you

salvation? It is the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. That is how we are saved. That is the grace of God that saves us. So when Paul says here that we're justified by his grace as a gift, we are justified. We are declared not

guilty by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. It is Jesus doing what we should have done. Die for sin. That is the gift that God has given us. This is the redemption in Christ Jesus. He says that is through the redemption in Christ Jesus. This is how we were saved. This is the gospel. This is the grace of God. This is something that's happened in the past that is appropriated to us in the here and now. And God does it in a way where God is still just. In fact, it shows his justice. It says God put forward Jesus, his grace, his gospel, the death and resurrection of Christ as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This propitiation, hilsterion in the Greek, is a word you need to know. It's only used twice in the New Testament. She used 27 times in the Old Testament. David Capes, I don't see him here, but David did this one Sunday and I was really impressed.

Ready? Get the chalkboard up here.

Helsterion. It's caused Bible translation wars.

Hilastion is translated in the English Standard Version as propitiation. That's not an everyday word. I would love to know how many of you out of this entire room have used that word in normal non-Bible conversation in the last 24 hours, last week, last month, last year, last lifetime.

It means in its original Greek the idea of appeasing God's wrath. Like you're in trouble with him. You better better appease his wrath. You don't want lightning to strike. And and the church for a period of time didn't like this word because they don't want to portray God as a wrathful

God. But scripture does teach that God has wrath against sin. Sin has

corrupted his creation.

We get disease because we live in sin. Say, well, yeah, but no, let's go back to Adam and Eve. This is not a perfect body. We are all destined for decay in this body. We will get an eternal body, but this ain't it. If Adam and Eve had never sinned, whole different story. But with sin came corruption, came disease, came death, and God's wrath is on sin. Sin is not a good

thing. So God's wrath needs to be satisfied. That's part of justice. Now, some people like the Revised Standard Version were upset over this and so they translated the word as expeation instead of propitiation. Expeation is very different. Propitiation means I'm going to satisfy God's wrath, appease God. Expeation means I'm going to cover up my sin. It's not a reference to the wrath of God. It's a reference to covering up my

gunk. The Greek word is rightly translated propitiation, but it does have an overlay of meaning which would allow this to be an acceptable translation as well if we understand it in the true sense. Let me give it to you since Paul's using so much courtroom talk. Let me put it to you in a courtroom analogy. The defendant stands in front of the judge. Propitiation means justice is satisfied. Expeation means the record's been wiped clean.

If we use it in that sense, it's okay to say that the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ appeases God's wrath and it covers my sin. That's that's biblical. That's good. But there's something else here that we're, I think, making a mistake if we don't grasp. And that is that this word in the Old Testament out of the 27 times you find it in 21 of it is used for the mercy seat in the ark of the covenant. Remember the mercy seat? Remember the ark of the covenant, Indiana Jones, Moses. The ark of the covenant is one where God sits enthroned above the wings of the cherubim. Cherubim is plural for cherub. Cherubim. There are two of them, hence the plural. Their wings outstretch and it looks like an ancient Egyptian throne. And the idea is that God sits enthroned above those.

This caporit, this is the mercy seat in Greek,

elastion. And under this is where the ten commandments were

kept. The law is down here. And the problem is while we live down here under the law, it won't make us clean before God because we're all guilty. And so once a year during the day of atonement, the high priest would kill the animals, the sacrifices, take the blood and sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat on the hill Asterion, both to satisfy the wrath of God and to cover our sins with the sacrif acrifice of an innocent albeit goat or a bull or something but the hilasterion is the mercy seek on the ark of the covenant. The only other place it's used in the New Testament is in Hebrews 9:5 and it's used very clearly as the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant. And a lot of scholars will say, "Yeah, but you know, Paul can't mean that because that's pretty sophisticated knowledge of the Old Testament." Well, this is where I go back to the statement that they weren't a bunch of rubes in Rome. Hey, you've got Priscilla and Aquilla there. These people, they knew their Bible. They knew and and and certainly just like the writer of Hebrews expected his audience to know. He says, let's see if I can make it a little larger. Even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness. A tent was prepared. The first section where the lampstand, the table, bread of the presence. It's the holy place. Second curtain, a most holy place with a golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold. There's a golden ern holding the mana staff that budded the tablets. Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the hillastasterion, the mercy

seat. And he says, I don't have time to go into it in detail here. That's a first century sermon that's being replicated in Hebrews that's being written out. The Romans knew what this was. And so when Paul's writing this, he's got Leviticus 16 front and center, which explains all of this out in great detail. He's got John 3. God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. And John three at the end says those who don't believe on them the wrath of God remains. You've got God's wrath on sin and it's got to be propitiated. Your sin needs covering but God's wrath and justice needs satisfaction. And this God put Jesus forward as a propitiation. Remember this is just several verses from Paul saying that the Old Testament bore witness to the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Here's where it bears witness in capital letters. The sacrifice of an innocent that could satisfy for human beings has to be a pure undefiled human and that was Jesus Christ. So that God put forward Jesus to satisfy his holiness, his wrath as well as to cover our sins to be received by faith. Why? God, he had to die. God's righteousness. God can't be an unjust judge. He can't run a kangaroo court. He's not inconsistent. And sin must be punished. Evil must be destroyed. And in God's divine patience or forbearance, he passed over former sins. He passed over the sins of Abraham. He passed over the sins of David. How can he do that? Did he run a kangaroo court then? No. He could only pass over their sins and have covenant with them where they will be justified by their faith. He could only do that because he had already determined he would die for their sins too. So by his blood is applying to the Old Testament as well. And this is shows his courtroom verdict, his covenant faithfulness, his conforming behavior, setting right, what is wrong historically as well as in the

future. See, that's the whole point here. It is huge to understand the righteousness of God goes backwards as well as forwards or as Paul finishes this thought. It was to show his righteousness DK word at the present time. So he shows it now so that he can be a just judge and he can justify those who have faith in Christ

justly. What's that old hymn? It's one of my favorites. Beneath the cross of Jesus. Anybody ever did y'all sing that? I know Melna did. Beneath the cross of Jesus, I feain would take my stand. The shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land, the hope within a wilderness, the rest upon the way from the burning of the noon tide heat and the burden of the day. Next verse. I take, oh cross, thy shadow for my abiding place. I ask no other mercy than the sunshine of his face. Content to let the world go by, to know no gain or loss, my sinful self, my only shame, my glory, all the cross. And Charles, you remember that next verse where it says um it calls the cross, oh twisting place, where heaven's love and heaven's justice meet. The cross is where God's justice and God's mercy are both 100% validated.

and all of its glory. So, let's go to points for

home. Can we just talk about the awesomeness of God for a

minute? How cool is that? from the very

beginning. Look at what he's done for us in Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. The power of God for salvation to all who believe. How can any of us refuse that? How would anybody refuse that?

I just want to be blessed. We've been blessed. I want to be thankful for the blessing. I want to be

grateful. We stand before God in spite of all of our gunk. His wrath has been appeased. Our sins have been covered. And so with humble heart we can stand before him loved and embraced for

eternity. Father in the name of Jesus I ask your blessing of you opening our eyes and heart and ears. Lord don't let the the evil one deceive us. Don't let any burden of our sin impede us from walking in the victory won by you on the cross and in that empty

tomb. Just let us soak it in. Let your spirit convict us of our sin, but of your righteousness and your judgment in Christ.

We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.