Pondering His Holy Word

Romans 3:21-26

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Early during my walk with God, there was always a missing link in my understanding of Christianity. I didn’t quite understand the meaning of justified or justification. The only thing that comes to mind is the legal term justifiable associated with justifiable homicide. Which I understood to mean an intentional killing of a human in a manner that was considered reasonable or just under the law m. An example being self-defense. I watched a little too much Law and Order in my early 20s. 

But what is the meaning of justified? Well, the term used in the bible in the epistle to the Romans is dikaioō which means to render righteous or as one ought to be. In the Christian sense, justified means to be rendered righteous before God. Or simply to be in a right relationship before God. So, if I am justified before Christ as a believer, that means there was a time when I was not in a right relationship before God. How did this happen and how was I made right and by whom? 

At one point of time, God “saw everything that He made” and declared that it was very good. (Genesis 1:31). What happened between saying His creation was very good and humanity not being in a right relationship before good. Before we can understand how justification works, we need to understand what happened that destroyed the communion we once shared with God. 

On the sixth day, God created the first man, which we know as Adam, but in reality, God called the first man, The Man, which is ‘āḏām, which would become the proper name for Adam. He formed the man from the ground which means ‘ăḏāmâ. Where God spoke all His other creation into existence, He formed man from the dust of the ground, and He breathed life into his nostrils (Genesis 2:7). 

Another thing that made man, or humanity in the general sense, different from other creations is that “God created man in his own image” (Genesis 1:27). To be created in God’s image means we were created to be God’s representatives on earth. He gave man dominion over all plants, animals, fish, and birds. 

Also, God told man that they could eat of every tree in the garden of Eden, but “of the tree of knowledge of good and evil” they could not eat because when they eat of that tree, “you shall surely die.” That was God’s first no-no. Adam received this commandment from the mouth of God. He could eat of anything else, but not from that tree because when Adam eats of that tree, he will face death. 

There is something that is implied in this commandment. God didn’t create a robot or a doll that would follow Him blindly. Man had the ability to obey, and he had the ability to disobey. Eve was deceived by the serpent and ate from the fruit of the tree. Then, she gave it to Adam, and he ate of the tree. At that moment, their eyes were opened. When they heard God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, they hid themselves from Him. God knew what they did. They knew what they did. Adam may not have known good and evil, but he knew what it meant to obey and disobey.

Why Did Adam Disobedience Become Our Disobedience

Now, I’m spending a lot of time speaking about the first two people that God created. Why are they important? What does their disobedience have to do with us in 2024? Well, a lot. God created Adam and gave him dominion over the entire earth which includes his offspring. After Adam and Eve ate of the tree of good and evil, their first inclination was to run and hide themselves from God. We, as their descendants, have inherited that same inclination. We are born with our hearts set against God. Our inclination is to cover ourselves and hide from God.

We have inherited Adam’s moral corruption that came from disobeying God. And on our own, we cannot win God’s favor or be right in His sight. Since antiquity, we have known this. Job, likely the oldest book of the bible, ponders this idea. Job asked this question, “But how can a man be man in the right before God? If one wished to contend with him, one could not answer him once in a thousand times” (Job 9:2-3). 

Every religion, since the fall, has sought to answer this very question. How can man be right before God?” There are two answers that most religions offer: law and debauchery. On one hand, we do good deeds and live moral lives, at least as moral as possible. We seek to perform rituals and ceremonies, many of which are still performed today. On the other hand, some people just give up and live in the dark of lawlessness. They understand where they stand with God and decide to live in debauchery and enjoy the short days they have on this earth. 

As humans, we all know what we deserve from God. So, we try to justify ourselves before him. We also inherently understand that God is a Holy God. No one can stand before Him justified. As a result, we can reach a point of despair and depression. We understand that all our good deeds are like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). I knew this before I began my walk with God. 

To have the fear of God is to understand that God would be completely just to condemn all of humanity to eternal damnation. There is no question about this. To live in this reality is a dreadful, hopeless, and pitiful thing. So, we know that God is just in His judgments. Now, we have the question: How can a person be right with God since we know that our works will not save us? 

How are We Justified?

In the third chapter of Romans, Paul explains, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” (Romans 3:21). God displayed His righteousness apart from the law. God being a just God had to punish sins otherwise He would not be a holy God.

Although He passed over our sins, but didn’t excuse them. God gave us redemptions through Jesus Christ. While we were sinners, Jesus bore the sins of the world (Romans 5:10). Jesus, who comes from God and was born of Mary, lived a perfectly righteous life; He did not turn to his left or to his right. His obedience to the Father led Him to the Golgotha, where He bore the full wrath of God that was meant for us. He was a righteous man and did not deserve death, we did. John Piper explains it beautifully, “The death of Jesus is not divine compliance with fair trade laws. It wasn’t a fair trade. The Son of God died; rebels live. That’s not fair. That’s grace” (Piper, 2019). Jesus knew no sin but was made sin so that we may become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). 

Justification is a gift from God. He bestowed His Grace or unmerited favor on us so that we can be in a right relationship before God. Before we were criminals before God and could not stand before His holiness. Now, because of Jesus’s obedience, we can not only stand before Him righteous, but He dwells in us. 

To be justified or declared righteous before God, we must understand that we can not do anything to achieve that. Even our faith is a gift from God. Our righteousness does not come from within, but a foreign righteousness (Barrett). This righteousness is given to us from Christ. We receive this righteousness by faith. We believe what and Who God has revealed to us, and it is credited to us as righteousness (Romans 4:23-25). 

Let’s be careful to boast of our standing before God, because we know that our faith came from God. He opened our eyes to Christ and pointed us towards Christ. Our justification is not something we earned. It was a gift from God. He created us in Jesus Christ for good works, but it is not our good works that saved us. It was Christ who saved us (Ephesians 2:8-10).

To be clear, we are justified by faith in Jesus Christ because of His grace. God is just in his judgment against humanity. Yet, he justified us through Jesus Christ who bared the sins and took the punishment for all of Adam’s descendants who believe in Him.

References 

Barrett, M. (n.d.). The Five solas. The Gospel Coalition. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/the-five-solas/

Piper , J. (2019, June 15). Our worth is not in what we own: Fifteen-minute gospel presentation.  Desiring God. https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/our-worth-is-not-in-what-we-own