02.09. I. Gospel-Righteousness is by Faith (3:21-31).

I. Gospel-Righteousness is by Faith (Rom 3:21-31).

1. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested (Rom 3:21). Gospel-righteousness is apart from the law. This is the meaning of the expression, without the law, in the King James Version. The Revision reads correctly: But now apart from the law a righteousness of God hath been manifested. We have already seen that the law, instead of saving guilty man, only increased and emphasized his guilt. The righteousness of the gospel, then, is entirely apart from the law. This is only barely mentioned here, for it is to come up for fuller discussion further on in the epistle.

2. Being witnessed by the law and the prophets (Rom 3:21). Though gospel-righteousness is apart from the law, yet the law testifies to it. We shall come to this again. That the righteousness revealed in the gospel is not contrary to the Old Testament Scriptures, is the theme of the fourth chapter. There we shall see that salvation has always been by grace through faith—and that is the righteousness of the gospel; it is the revelation of it that is new.

3. Even the righteousness of God (Rom 3:22). This gospel-righteousness is God’s own righteousness. And in the tenth chapter we shall see that the righteousness of God is just Christ Himself, Who is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Under law, says Dr. Scofield (Correspondence Course), God required righteousness from man; under grace He gives righteousness to man. According to Cunninghame, the righteousness of God in this chapter is that righteousness which God’s righteousness requires Him to require. Hodge’s definition is that righteousness of which God is the Author, which is of avail before God, which meets and secures His approval. Brookes says it is that righteousness which the Father requires, the Son became, the Holy Spirit convinces of, and faith secures. Moorehead says it is the sum total of all that God commands, demands, approves, and Himself provides. And Paul defines it as Christ Jesus, Who of God is made unto us righteousness (1Co 1:30).

4. Through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe (Rom 3:22, R. VS). Gospel-righteousness is bestowed in response to faith. This is a restatement of Rom 1:16-17, and it comes in for full treatment in the tenth chapter. The point is that the righteousness of the gospel is not a by works righteousness, but a by-faith righteousness.

5. For there is no difference (Rom 3:22-26). The way was prepared for this statement by the preceding phrase, unto all and upon all them that believe. This also was said in Rom 1:16-17. The righteousness of the gospel is for all. As Stifler says, all need it, and no class of men has anything else to present before God for salvation. In Tit 2:2, it is written that the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men. A universal need must be met by a universal remedy. There is no distinction (R. V.):

(1) For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). There is no distinction as to the need. This has been very clearly shown in the first main division. The glory of God here may mean Christ Himself as God’s standard, the brightness of His glory (Heb 1:3), and surely all have come short of the glory of God in this sense. But more likely it has the meaning of the identical expression in John 12:43, where it is translated the praise of God in the King James Version and changed to the glory of God by the Revisers. God cannot praise or approve anything short of perfect righteousness, and no man can therefore merit His approbation. All have sinned, and fall short.

(2) Being justified freely (Rom 3:24). There is no distinction as to the remedy. This phase of our Lord’s redemptive work is reserved for the fifth chapter. But here Paul has arrived at his first statement in the epistle defining the gospel itself. We have been seeing something of its power, but we have now come to its description. The gospel is the good news of salvation. Of this salvation we here learn seven things: ‘

(a) That it is free. This is the force of the word freely, i. e., without cost to the saved one. He is justified (declared or pronounced righteous), and, so far as he is concerned, it is without money and without price.

(b) That it is by the unmerited favor of God, by His grace.

(c) That it is by means of Christ’s redemptive work (Rom 3:24-25), through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth a propitiation (1911 Bible). Redemption is a buying back—”a buying off, by means of a price paid” (Alford). Propitiation is the equivalent of mercy seat.

(d) That it is for those who believe (Rom 3:25); it is through faith.

(e) That it is based upon blood-shedding, through faith in His blood. There has been much theological hair-splitting as to whether this reading should not be changed to by his blood. Philosophy and theology have busied themselves here, without reaching unanimity, says Dr. Stifler, on a question which Paul does not hint at—the relation of the sacrifice to its end. God freely justifies men by means of the ransom power in Christ Jesus. He is such because God has set Him forth in His blood as a sufficient propitiation. Whatever reason may say about such a sacrifice, Paul is satisfied with it because it is God’s own. God is satisfied with the offering, for He provided it. It becomes a propitiation ‘through faith,’ because faith says of it just what God does—I accept what God has provided for my sin. That ends the difference between God and the sinner, and they are at one in Christ Jesus. This is justification by faith. Dr. Scofield says: It was upon the mercy seat that the atoning blood was sprinkled on the great day of atonement (Lev 16:14). The idea is not that God was made loving toward the sinner by the shedding of sacrificial blood, but that the sacrificial blood evinced the sinner’s acceptance of the righteous sentence of God’s holy law, so that God could still be just and yet be propitious to the sinner. The sinner’s faith in Christ includes ‘faith in His blood’ (Rom 3:25); that is, faith in Christ as ‘the Lamb of God’ voluntarily offering Himself on the sinner’s behalf in vindication of God’s holy law. The cross enables God to ‘be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.’

(f) That it is retrospective in its effect (Rom 3:25), to show His righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God. The King James Version is very faulty here: our quotation is from the Revision. The idea is that during the ages before the cross, God had apparently been lax with reference to sins. As Paul says in Acts 17:1-34, He winked at them. The death of the cross was needful to set God right in the eyes of men, to show His righteousness. When the Lord Jesus died on Calvary, it was as much for the sins of Adam as for those of men living after the time of Calvary. God had for centuries labored under the suspicion that in the passing over of sins He had somehow sacrificed His righteousness. It might be supposed that He had shown mercy at the expense of justice. This, of course, is impossible with a righteous God, and the Lord Jesus must be lifted up, if for no other reason than to show that His Father was righteous. For four thousand years, says Godet, the spectacle presented by mankind to the whole moral universe was, so to speak, a continual scandal Divine righteousness seemed to sleep; one might even have asked if it existed. Men sinned here below and yet they lived. They sinned on and yet reached in safety a hoary old age. Where were the ‘wages of sin?’ It was this relative impunity which rendered a solemn manifestation of righteousness necessary. In the passage before us, Dean Alford translates, for the showing forth of His righteousness, because of the passing over of the former sins, in the forbearance of God; and says: i. e., because God had overlooked the sins that had passed in His forbearance; and the words contain the reason why God would manifest His judicial righteousness; on account of the overlooking of the sins which had passed, in the forbearance of God; i. e., to vindicate that character for justice, which might seem, owing to the suspension of God’s righteous sentence on sin in former ages in His forbearance, to be placed in question: to show, that though He did not then fully punish for sin, and though He did then set forth inadequate means of (subjective) justification,—yet He did both, not because His justice was slumbering, nor because the nature of His righteousness was altered,—but because He had provided a way whereby sin might be forgiven, and He might be just. Observe, the fact mentioned is not forgiveness, nor remission, as the Authorized Version erroneously renders it, but passing over, or overlooking, which is the work of forbearance (see Acts 17:30), whereas forgiveness is the work of grace,—see Rom 2:4 : nor do the former sins mean, ‘the sins of each man which precede his conversion’ but those of the whole world before the death of Christ. See the very similar words, Heb 9:15.

(g) That it is also prospective in its effect That is to say, the work of Christ on the cross had in view those who should live afterward, as well as those who had lived before the cross was set up. There is a second showing forth here. The supplied words, I say, in both the King James Version and the Revision, spoil the sense. Paul is not merely repeating in Rom 3:26 what he has already said in Rom 3:25 : he is saying something new. Rotherham’s reading of the passage (Rom 3:25-26) clears up the matter: Whom God hath set forth as a propitiatory covering, through faith in His blood, for the showing forth of His righteousness, by reason of the passing-by of the previously committed sins, in the forbearance of God, — with a view to a showing forth of His righteousness in the present season, that He might be righteous even when declaring righteous him that hath faith in Jesus.

Here is the great triumph of the gospel. God Himself is justified, and He succeeds in justifying sinful men! By the gospel God’s righteousness is shown as to the past; His righteousness is shown as to the present time; and His righteousness is shown in His justification of those who, on their own merits, are only unrighteous! Surely, this is a wonderful salvation, and He is a wonderful Saviour!

(6) Where is boasting then? (Rom 3:27-30). The gospel excludes human boasting, and this not on the principle of works, but on the principle of faith. The proof is given in Rom 3:28, where therefore should read for. Both the King James Version and the Revision fail us here. The force of the word is Because. In this verse we have the reason for the exclusion of all human glorying; namely, that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law (1911 Bible). And that this latter statement is true is shown by implication in the queries that follow: Or is God the God of Jews only? is he not the God of Gentiles also? The Gentiles had not the law; it had been given to the Jews alone. If therefore justification was by means of the law, the Gentiles were shut out. But this was impossible, for God is the God of Gentiles also: if so be that God is one, and He shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith. Since there is but one God, there can be but one means of justification. A righteous judge could not render contradictory decisions where all are alike guilty, and certainly He could not decide in such a way that His judgment to save some would necessarily exclude others. The unity of God makes salvation by faith exclusive of every other means (Stifler).

(7) Do we then make void the law through faith? (Rom 3:31). The question raised here is a natural one. If salvation is by grace and apart from the law, does it not follow that the law is made void? God forbid! says the apostle, nay, we establish the law. The sinner establishes the law in its right use and honour, says Dr. Scofield, by confessing his guilt, and acknowledging that by it he is justly condemned. Christ, on the sinner’s behalf, establishes the law by enduring its penalty, death (Reference Bible). Moffatt’s translation of Rom 3:27-31 is interesting:

Then where is the exulting? Shut out. By what kind of law? A law of deeds? No, by a law of faith. For we reckon that a man is justified by faith apart from deeds of law. What! is God only the God of Jews? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Assuredly, of Gentiles also, seeing that it is one God who shall justify the circumcision in consequence of faith and the uncircumcision through the same faith. Then ‘through faith’ do ‘we annul the law?’ God forbid! we uphold the law. The theme of Rom 4:1-25 is suggested by this question and answer. The law here means not only the Ten Words of Sinai, but the Old Testament in its entirety. Is it set aside, or made of none effect? No, far from it! In the fourth chapter it is shown that the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel is indeed witnessed by the law and the prophets.