Romans 3:22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe

v9 says all of us are under sin.  It means we have an obligation to, we answer to the authority of, sin.

v10 quotes from Psalm 14, no one righteous …

v11 – no one understands

v12 – all have turned away

v20 – says that the law cannot make us righteous, but on the contrary, reveals ours sin.

v21 – But now … praise the Lord for the but now … in scripture.  now a righteousness from God has been revealed, made known.

So, how can we get in on this?  I don’t just want to be a better man, I want God and I want to LIVE.  So, a revolutionary idea, a righteousness was made known apart from the law, but prophesied to by the law and the prophets.

How do I get in on it?

v22 – the righteousness FROM God, comes THROUGH FAITH, TO all who BELIEVE.  Salvation from sin, the imparting of His righteousness is completely an act of grace BY God, THROUGH the power of the Holy Spirit, IN the sacrificial work of Christ.  It is ALL provided by our triune gracious God, but it still has to be received, appropriated, by me.  But how?  It is through faith to all who believe.  Both words there are from the same root.  One is a noun, the other a verb.  The righteousness of God comes by God’s gift.  But God’s gift only comes by pistis (faith) and that is convinced determination, that I have a deficit, a debt, a sentence, and that the provision of the cross can wipe out my debt.  Then I must have willingness to make it my own by pisteuo, the verb action of believing, placing my faith in someone or something.

v22 – to all … there is no difference .  I am not better or worse as a sinner. Nor better or worse at the decision of faith.  We are all sinners, that is we are those who miss the mark of his glory v 23, but when I exercise faith through the action of believing, then i am freely justified v24 BY GRACE.

v25 – Because God presented him (Jesus) as a sacrifice of atonement … to demonstrates his justice.  It is like Abraham who offered Isaac, on the same mountain by the way, where David bought the threshing floor and also offered a sacrifice.  On that same hill then, God offered HIS son.  Remember David said, there, “I will not offer anything that costs me nothing“.  So God, so Christ also would not offer anything that cost them nothing.  Like a priest offering a sacrifice, God offered Christ.  All of those sacrifices before, in the law, were NOT salvation by works though.  They were still Grace too because God accepted them, v25, according to his forbearance.  The word is anoche – patience … he left those previous sins unpunished.  The law didn’t pay the penalty, it only delayed the penalty.  But God is JUST, as much as he is LOVE.  So, justice must be satisfied.   So, if we receive it, then God applies it to, v26, those who have faith in Jesus.

v27 – and that excludes boasting in MY actions, but ONLY in my faith.  because

v30 it is GOD who justifies us all BY FAITH.

Yes Grace

Yes Faith

so we respond … “hooray, I don’t have to live a life of obedience to nor accountability to that Old Law.  I don’t have to live obedience in action, forget the Old Testament Instructions and law, they are outdated and not necessary.”

WAIT!!

v31 – do we, then, nullify the law by this faith?  “nullify” – katargeo – abolish; set aside, wipe out.  Is that what Grace does?  … Not at ALL!  Rather, we uphold the law. – “uphold” is the word histemi – maintain, accept the validity of …

We do not ignore or abolish it, we are still people of faithfulness to the commands and expectations of God, not FOR our salvation, but BECAUSE of our Salvation.

And that is the word about Grace and the Righteousness of God.  Don’t believe the messenger who says that Grace mean’s freedom to do whatever you want.  It is not what Paul teaches in Romans.

What a wonder his grace, a wonder that he would love us, a wonder that he would receive us, a wonder that faith, enables us to enter into the wonder of Grace.