God's Plan of Salvation Brings Him Glory

Well, good morning. Well, as I mentioned last week, these section of verses, actually before doing this study, I did not realize how important these set of verses are. And maybe you didn't either. You know, 21 to 31 in chapter 3 of Romans, I would say a lot of people don't realize the gems that are in there. Hopefully we can show you some more from last week, but it's just amazing. So I've labeled this section, actually the new part from last week is going to be verses 29 to 31, but I want to go back and look at verse 24 in depth a little bit more and then review the 27 and 28. So basically this is God's plan, this section has been labeled God's plan of salvation, and this particular section is to bring Him glory. Alright, so let's look at, this is an outline of those 10 verses 21 to 31 by Macaulay.

So he starts off, the nature of God's plan of salvation is, salvation is apart from works and is by faith alone. So we're going to talk a lot about works and faith, which you're probably somewhat familiar with, you know, man doing works trying to show that he's doing something for God versus trust in what Christ has done on the cross. The B part of this is that salvation is to all men Because all men need it right all men are sinners all have fallen short of the glory of God and in the basis of this is Salvation is based in God's redemption, and we'll talk about that again and propitiation Mike talked about a couple weeks ago.

I'm not going to review that again. We're going to focus on redemption this week and And the third, the purpose for this is to demonstrate God's righteousness, who God is, His holiness, the very holiness of God. And in that holiness and righteousness we see, you know, you think about righteousness, and I think Mike has talked about this quite a bit too, you think of God's judgment.

You think, well, God is a righteous God and He's going to judge me. He's going to lay the hammer down. But in that righteousness and His holiness is His love for us. And that love is shown in that His Son went to the cross on our behalf. So righteousness has more than just God's judgment. It has His love for us, too.

And then lastly, the results. There are three results. It humbles man. We'll review that again. It glorifies God. And actually, amazingly enough, it confirms the Law of Moses. Okay. So here's a statement that's kind of just amazing. And this is one of about three statements I came across.

As Jim mentioned, some people will say, Macaulay says verse 24 is the most important verse in the Bible. He just flat out says it. It's the most important verse in the Bible. And you say, well I thought John 3.16 was the most important verse in the Bible. But he says 3.24 is. And then Newell agrees with him.

Newell says, we now come to the greatest single verse, Romans 3.24, in the entire Bible. on the manner of justification by faith. So it's kind of important to see this is the most important verse in the Bible on this topic. I think it's probably better to say, because when you, it's like, have you listened to J. Vernon McGee?

Every verse in the Bible is the best verse in the Bible. And I have to agree with him. It's all God's Word. It's all wonderful. So this is the most important verse on this topic. Justification by faith. And it says, and he kind of relates to the last part, we entreat you, study this verse. We have seen many a soul, upon understanding it, come into peace. So as we know with almost all the scripture, it's written to the believer.

Until you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, you're going to have a tough time with scripture. You're going to probably make a lot of wrong assumptions. You're going to see things totally different. Once you know the Lord, then you can really come to understand about Him. And then secondly, I think this is, and I've really learned this as I've been studying these verses, a clear understanding of what we call justification, justification by faith, trusting in Christ as your Savior. It's the key, it's the opening the door to growing grace and knowledge of Him and being assured of your eternal security. Many people are uncertain about their security. They say, well, maybe I didn't believe right. Maybe I didn't do this. Maybe I didn't do that. Well, the thing is, God is the one that's controlling your security, not you. And you have to see that. You have to come to a fixed position about that. And then with justification, understood, you're prepared to kind of take the next step, if you will. You know, God has...

Salvation is a three-part experience, if you will. And Bob covered this in Sunday school this morning You've been you've the present aspect of salvation is that you were justified by faith. I'm sorry the past aspect the present is that you're being saved You're being saved from the power of sin as you walk by faith. That's also called sanctification So so that you know once you've seen justification right once you realize that your sins have been paid for then you're then you're ready to understand, well what does that mean about my Christian life?

What's that about? What's God's plans for my Christian life? And these truths are about who we are in Christ in the phase two of salvation it's called sometimes. The identification truths. Okay, that's just kind of a storyline or whatever. So let's look at the verses now.

So we're viewing being justified as a gift by His grace through redemption, which is in Christ Jesus. So God declares what He's accomplished for man. This is what God's accomplished in our behalf. You can render that part being justified as all are justified, and justified as the idea of being declared righteous. So here's what's happened.

And I like this, I like what AT Robertson says, is to be set right before God. Isn't that a wonderful thing? And a man says, I've got to work to please God. God says, no, I want to set you right before me. He takes the action, He's doing it. And you're believing that He's doing that. It's present tense, continuous action. God's doing it, not you.

And the root word here you'll see, justify, righteous. They're all kind of The same word, the same original word, dikios, but it's translated right, righteous, just, etc. And so the remainder of this verse is going to say how did God, how did He accomplish that? What did it take to justify, to declare you righteous, to set you right before Him? And it says it's as a gift. But what's interesting is it's, it's this word dorion, dorion, And actually you can translate it freely, gratuitously, but actually I think the best translation is without just cause.

And the reason I think that is because in John 15, 25, the last section it says, and Christ is speaking here, they hated me without a cause. So they hated Christ without a cause, so that without a cause is the idea of what God has done. There was no cause for God to save you. He didn't have to save you, but he saved you without a cause. There's no just cause before him, but he did it. And the next part of the verse tells you why he did it. It was by his grace.

Grace is this word charis in the original. And now for Holly Hillers, this is a definition that we've memorized here at Holly Hills. A definition of grace. Grace is the unlimited, unmerited blessings of God. based on a totally adequate work of Christ. A lot of words, a lot of things, so let's add some other statements to that to maybe help you out. Grace is a single principle by which God operates in the realm of salvation. And I'd also say, in his whole ministry with mankind, he only operates in the principle of grace.

You know, you think about, if you're into computers, well, I've got a Mac, I've got a PC, and one has the Apple operating system and one has As a windows operating system you think, wow, look at those two. They're different. They do things differently. They think differently.

Well, God says, you know, I have a principle and I operate on my grace. The unmerited favor of what Christ accomplished on the cross. That's how I operate. Grace is a principle that demands, and here's the key part, the meritless act of faith to appropriate its blessing. And we talked about this in Sunday School a little bit today. How does that figure in? How do we understand faith and what Christ has accomplished? How does that work? Hopefully we can talk about that more shortly here.

Another point, grace is inexhaustible. It's embodied in Jesus Christ. And then lastly, grace is free to us but at incomparable cost to God. It took His Son to die on the cross to give us that free grace, that grace that is free to us. Okay. So now the last part of the verse.

Through the redemption, which is in Christ Jesus. Redemption is found only in Christ Jesus. Notice it's in, in Christ, and whenever we see in, in relation to Christ or in Him, it's this marvelous concept. When you become a believer in the Lord Jesus, you're in Christ, you're called in Christ, you're in this living union with Christ on the basis of your faith.

You're in this relationship with him. People talk, well, I'm in a relationship. You know, if you're, I guess you're in the social media, you put, I'm in a relationship with so-and-so, right? Well, how about putting in there, I'm in a relation with Jesus Christ. That would be pretty cool, right? Probably not too many people are doing that these days. But anyway, that's what a believer is all about. He's in this relationship with our Savior. And redemption, as I mentioned last week, it's a very colorful word. Apollutrosis, I think that's how it's pronounced.

It's a release upon a payment of ransom. And the beautiful picture here, the picture is, and this is from Macaulay, it's a slave market. This world, and you don't have to, these days with the way our society is, it's not too, this is pretty easy to see, we're in this slave market. We're in the slave market of sin. And you owe a debt that you cannot possibly pay.

That's where mankind is at outside of Christ. But what did Christ do about that? Christ bought us in the slave market of sin by his own blood. Believers are bondservants. That's the word, ex agorazo, to be bought, to buy out of the marketplace. And the beautiful part, we're bought out and we're never to be able to never put back on the market again. We're bought out for Him and never for sale again.

It's just such a beautiful picture. Okay, that was verse 24. So this is a verse that people say, that is the key verse. And you probably think, wow, it seems like it's not enough. But I think it is enough. It tells you what God has accomplished on behalf of you. Okay, so let's go on to 27. This is a review from last week. So now the question, I'm kind of skipping over some verses, which we've covered in previous weeks.

The question comes up, where therefore is boasting? So, God has accomplished this wonderful act of redemption for man. So what about man? So what does man do with that? What is man's tendency, if you will? It says, where therefore is boasting? Glorifying, proclaiming oneself, one's merit. So it says, and the reference here is to the act of boasting, is to be self-congratulating. I think we've all experienced people that like to put themselves forward, they'll congratulate themselves, you know, you're privileged to be here with me today, you know, that kind of person.

Oh, really? Okay. And so what Paul just, he says, you know, what's interesting, Paul will, in this section, he'll, he knows the question marks, he'll ask a question, then he'll answer it sometimes. Sometimes he won't answer it, he'll answer it later on. So this is a series of those questions and answers.

It boasting was excluded. Excluded is the idea to shut out, to rule out entirely. It's an Aorist tense, so Aorist is the idea of an event. Indicative voice is a fact. Passive, this is God's plan. His plan was to rule out boasting. Man's boasting cannot help him in his interface with God, so to speak. And I like what Weiss says. It boasting was excluded by the coming in of the revelation of righteousness by faith.

So the first person you think of, and Mike's going to talk about him next week, is Abraham. Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. But I'd like to even go back farther. Maybe even Abel. He's talked about his righteous Abel. Abel was righteous because he believed God about what he should do, how he should sacrifice to God. So when that concept, when God revealed to man that concept, as far back as Abel, that's what we talk about, the righteousness by faith.

Our standing before God can be right because of our faith, which seems impossible. Now you explain that to somebody who wants to do a lot of works for God, and they think, well, that can't be. It just can't be. I just trust in Christ, and then God accepts me? I don't have to do anything good? I've got to do some good. I've got to show him I'm really sincere. No. You've got to believe him. That's what he wants. Okay, so now here's a series of questions. And actually the word law could be translated principle. So I took that translation from the interlinear. Through what principle? There's only two principles that are talked about in this verse, in verse 27. Man's answer of works. Man desires from his nature, from Adam, his fallen nature, his sin nature, to show God what he's done. I want to show you, God, what I've done.

Here's what I've done. And you're going to have to accept me. Before I was a believer, I came to the Lord late in life, in my 30s. I had this concept. I said, well, you know, I'll read the Bible one day. I'll get there. I'll read that Bible. It's a good thing to read. People tell me it's good. I've been to church. I've been baptized. You're baptized when you believe. Amen. So, um, and I didn't believe. I was baptized and I didn't believe. So I got baptized again. This is a little bit off topic, but, um, anyway. So a man desires to show God what he's done.

And I, you know, I didn't, I didn't know about it. I, you know, I said, well, I'm doing the best I can. I'm a pretty good person. You know, I'm an engineer. I've been to school. I know about treating people right. I can build, I can do stuff, but God's not looking for that. He's looking for your faith. It's not what you've done, it's what he's done. So here's, back to his dialogue here. Through what principle? Of works? That's man's answer from Adam. Paul says, no, not at all, but through the principle of faith. The principle is that salvation becomes ours by faith in Jesus Christ. Faith is what God requires, not works.

Boy, that's so key. If all the churches in the U.S. and the world could really Get a hold of that concept. It could be marvelous. It could be life-changing. But man wants to do works. So let's go on to verse 28. So it says, We maintain that a man is justified, declared righteous by faith, apart from the works of the law. So what's cool here is that Paul actually talks about, this wasn't a casual thought he had.

It comes from this word, logizimae. It's a Greek word, logizimae, it's to put down. It's a reasoned conclusion to put it down, put it down as true, think about it. And we have it used in Romans 6-11. It's called wrecking yourself dead to sin. It's a conclusion you come to by thinking about it, by spending your time on that concept. So Paul says, you know, I've really come to grab a hold of this. What follows is Paul's subtle conclusion.

Man is justified by faith apart from the works or the principle or a law principle, you know He he said it in 24. He kept coming down. He says it again. He got I'll say it again 28 He just keeps hammering this a man is justified by by faith apart from the works of the law. So here's the summary Man is declared righteous by faith this righteousness righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ and And remember, and we're going to talk about this shortly, you know, faith, I got a chance to go, I mentioned this last week, I got a chance to go overseas for five years and work on a U.S. base in England.

And I became a believer there. And there was this, I heard people talking about, well, I have faith and faith alone. What does that mean? I have faith and faith alone? I'm a faith person. You've heard the, we're people of faith. Well, what do you have faith in? It's the object of your faith that's crucial, and that's what's being pointed out here. It's the object of your faith, and it's Jesus Christ.

This righteousness is only possible apart from man's works. No set of rule keeping can achieve a right standing with God. Boy, that's just so key. So many people are trying to, well, I'll get right with God. I'll clean up my act. You can't. You can't clean up your act. Really, if you think about it, you're helpless and hopeless. You really cannot clean up your act. He has to do it. Okay, let's go on. So here's a little cool comparison. This is from Macaulay. I did it last week, but I thought it was worth repeating again.

So here's the comparison against a man justifying himself by works, what he's done, and justifying himself by faith, faith in our Savior, faith in what Christ has done on the cross. Justification by works, what man does, looks at yourself. Justification by faith looks outside yourself. You're looking to God. Justification by works is self-congratulating. Look what I've done. I'm amazing. Justification by faith says, I've got nothing to offer God. Thank you for saving me.

Justification by works looks at what I have done. Justification by faith looks at what God has done. Justification by works is grounded in man. Justification by faith is grounded in God. Justification by works glorifies man. Justification by faith glorifies God. And lastly, you have a justification by works that's a man-centered life, or justification by faith, which is a life centered in God.

Quite a contrast. Just amazing. Okay, all that was review. I thought it was worth it. Actually this is the last week on those 21 verses, 10 verses. And Mike, he used to do the cool examples of Abraham. So we kind of have the doctrine. The doctrine's been laid out in 21 through 31. And then we get to the examples of Abraham and my mind's going here, David. Okay, so today's verses, actually there's some cool stuff in today's verses.

We're going to talk about Basically the Jews and the Gentiles and their salvation and this phrase is going to show up by faith and through faith We'll talk to that a little bit in a moment, okay? So now he starts out this section verse 29 or is God the God of the Jews only and Is he not the God of the Gentiles also? Yes, of the Gentiles also. So another question and answer verse, he asks a question, he answers it partly, and then he finally answers it. So Orr is kind of like, you know, some of the readers here, some of the readers of these verses in Romans might have a question, they might have an objection to justification by faith apart from works, the law. So that's kind of what Macaulay thinks, and I think that sounds pretty good.

So he has rhetorical questions here to show he wants to show that both Jew and Gentiles are in the same place before God and And that's important if you you know if you want we watch this thing called one for Israel. It's a Jewish ministry I've mentioned this several times as Jewish people that come to know Christ as their Savior It's based out of Israel a lot of wonderful testimonies about how they've come to know the Savior just just amazing both Jew and Gentile are one in Christ and Okay, so the question is, is God the God of the Jews only?

So Paul doesn't actually give an answer, but this is the anticipated answer he's expecting you to answer this way. The answer is no. He's not the God of only the Jews. And he says, he is not the God of the Gentiles also? Is he not the God of the Gentiles also? And he answers this one, yes, of the Gentiles also. So these answers affirm that a man, Jew or Gentile, is justified by faith apart from works. Okay, so that was 29 of 30.

Since there is one God, so I like to, you know this verse says, since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one. Well, in the original, it starts out with, and the one is up at the front of the verse, so I kind of took the interlinear translation, so he starts off, since God, since one God there is, that's his premise, since one God there is, it's the idea there's only one God, and it's the God of the Jew and the Gentile, who will justify, to declare righteous, set right before God again, In this case it's future tense. So next God will talk about these two people groups. He's going to call them the circumcised, those are the Jews, and the uncircumcised, the Gentiles. He says, and he has kind of two, I'll just put it down here. So there's two kind of, two verses here.

The circumcised, the Jew, since God will justify the circumcised by faith, or ek faith, out from faith as a source, verses, or and, through faith, dia, which is the idea of through the instrumentality of faith. So you look at those, and you say, and I looked at several different people who have taught it, and they said, well, you know, it looks like Paul's just, you know, he's saying it somewhat similar, and I found it hard just with the Weiss translation of those out being circumcised by faith, out from a source of faith, or through the intermediate instrumentality of faith, a little bit too wordy for me. So I tried to take a crack at maybe explaining that a little bit more in detail. So let's look at that.

So why does Scripture have by faith and through faith? Does that help us to understand what faith is about? I think it does. So both of the expressions show that faith We get no brownie points. That's a bad word maybe. God doesn't say, good job, good job Roger, you believe on Christ. That was a good thing. No, we don't get brownie points.

He says, it was by my grace that my son went to the cross and I'm operating totally on grace and you've agreed with that and you're now my son because of Jesus Christ. okay so by faith here's my my cracker by faith shows us that salvation is obtained out of our reliance upon Christ's death burial and resurrection that's the gospel right that's what we're told to believe by his death burial and resurrection it's our reliance upon that and then through faith shows us the salvation is obtained on our appropriation of Christ's death burial and resurrection they're pretty similar And here's the key part of this, and we had this discussion, it was amazing, we had this discussion in Sunday school.

It's not the faith that's important. You're like, wow, faith is important. It's the object of our faith that's important. So let's kind of think about that. It's the object of our faith. Man's faith is not the key part of this transaction. Yes, it's crucial, but it's not the key part. Okay, so Merriman has two comments about that.

You are saved, you are not saved by the quality or the amount of your faith. Remember the verse in the Gospels where Christ talks about if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can do all these wonderful things. So God isn't saying again, good job Roger, you had a giant amount of faith. You trusted my son. Well done. No, that's not the issue or the amount or quality is not the issue and then point two You are saved and this is a key point.

You are saved By the work of Christ on the cross his death burial and resurrection. That's that's what saves you Your face is only the channel to get to that and then Macaulay has some similar statements a little bit different twist maybe Faith is not the cause of salvation. We had this exact discussion in Sunday School. It's not the cause of salvation.

And here's what's key. And you can do a search. Scripture never says you're saved because of your faith. Go look. If my search of my computer is right, I did because I tried all different variations and actually other commentators said the same. You cannot find because of your faith you're saved. It says through your faith or by your faith. It's another variation of that, but by your faith or through your faith. And those both count upon Christ's work on the cross. And think about it.

If we were saved because of our faith, because of something we have then we would have something to boast about. And he just excluded that, right? He just said boasting is excluded. So we cannot be saved because of our faith, only by our faith and through our faith. Hopefully that wasn't too technical there, but I think it was worthwhile.

Okay, now this is going to become a tough verse. Okay. Do we then nullify the law through faith? So here's what happens. Again, Paul tries to answer every possible question out there. He says, well, some people are going to say, well, Paul, you've told us that we are saved by faith or through faith. Well, then the law that was given, we don't need that. Why was it even given? And he says, no, that can't be the case. The answer is, may it never be, God forbid.

So Paul will now, he will ask and answer questions again. In this verse, excuse me, in the context Paul has said that the law system, which could include the mosaic system and faith. Okay, so here we go. The righteousness of God, so this is, we kind of go back to 21 and 22 here.

The righteousness of God has been revealed independently and altogether apart from the law, so that his righteousness was revealed not requiring the law. So that's out of the picture. His righteousness also is through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe. Therefore, faith in Jesus Christ has always been the way to obtain God's righteousness, never the law. So in what sense is the law established? So if you think about this, this is kind of a discussion about what's the purpose of the law, the law given to Moses. What was his purpose?

And we have verses that talk about that, and I'll show you one shortly. The law brings in an awareness of our need. I like what Macaulay said, the law is a scale, not a matter, not a ladder. A scale says, oh, I weigh too much. I better go on a diet, right? A ladder says, I've got to climb up to God. The law is a scale. And this is a beautiful verse that talks about that.

Back in Romans 3.20. Because by the works of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight. For through the law, this is key, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. Okay, number two. Kind of a similar kind of idea. The law brings in a need for redemption. It shows man to be a sinner.

It shows that he's broken that law. and carries the penalty of death. And here's a verse in the Amplified, 1 Corinthians 15, verse 56, Now sin is the sting of death, and sin exercises its power upon the soul through the abuse or the breaking of the law. Alright, to sum things up, this is from a constable, so he kind of sums up this whole concept about the law, Paul was not saying that the law is valueless. Even though he believed in the salvation by faith, he saw that the law as having an important function.

Probably Paul meant its function is to convict people of their inability to gain acceptance with God by their own works. The law is not something God has given people to obey so they may attain righteousness. Man's inability to save himself requires a provision of a Savior. So what he's saying is, we needed a Savior to show us the beauty of the law, if you will. The law in a sense made Jesus Christ's death necessary.

Alright, so let's close. We thank you, Father. We thank you for your marvelous Word, Lord. We thank you of your salvation apart from works. Salvation by faith. Faith in our Savior for what He's accomplished. We're thankful for your scriptures that show us your truths. We ask in his name. Amen.