Mike Bickle emphasizes the importance of understanding the grace of God as presented in Romans 3, which allows believers to walk in confidence before God. He explains that many Christians live under a cloud of guilt and condemnation, failing to grasp that God not only forgives them but also enjoys them. Bickle highlights the legal and emotional dimensions of righteousness, asserting that believers are justified freely through Christ's sacrifice, which removes any barrier to their relationship with God. He encourages the congregation to embrace their identity as first-class citizens in God's kingdom, free from condemnation, and to run towards God in times of weakness rather than away from Him.

Well, we're continuing on the series on the grace of God, the gospel of grace, and so we're on session three. We're going to do 12 parts and it's a little bit theological for a few weeks, but then we're going to get into just kind of real practical subjects and pretty soon. Father, we thank you in the name of Jesus for this most remarkable passage in Romans chapter 3 that we could walk in confidence before you. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. So tonight we'll be giving our third message on the subject and we're going to a little theological tonight, but this passage is the premier passage, 11 verses to understand the gospel of grace. It's a little bit technical, but there's about three or four main terms and you can get them. And then there's another passage. It's a little technical in Romans 5 and 6. I want to lay those theological passages and then the rest of the series will mostly be practical and issues. What about this? What about that? And we'll be addressing quite a few issues. Some of them are being brought up in the question and answer each time. So put on your theology hat. Don't be afraid of the word, uh, Bible theology. All that means is the study of God. But this, these 11 verses, Romans 3, 21 to 31 are critical. I cannot overestimate the value of them in terms of understanding the grace of God. There's so much distortion on the subject of grace. One reason is a lack of living understanding of these 11 verses. We'll begin as we will most sessions with just a short review of the last session. Review of session two, the gospel of grace is distorted in two main ways. First, people trying to earn the grace of God, the love of God. And that's our focus tonight. The second way it's distorted is by people responding in half-heartedness because the gospel of grace is free. But when it's understood, it motivates a radical giving our, of ourself to God. I mean, with all of our strength, we go after him if we really understand it. And that's the, uh, one of the real, well, both of these are a real burden my heart, because if we get the revelation of the freeness of it, it creates confidence in our spirit. And when we have confidence before God, even in our weakness, then, uh, it, we have a, it completely changes the way we relate to God. Many born again believers. They know they're saved. They're they, they know they're going to go to heaven when they die, but they live with a low grade condemnation and a sense of guilt all the time. And they know the Bible a little bit. They've been in the kingdom for a few decades, some of them, but they can't get free from this kind of nagging sense of guilt and shame or condemnation. They're a little confused by it. And they never have this vibrant confidence. That's critical to walking in the grace of God, paragraph B. Now the number one cry of the human spirit, in my opinion, is the assurance that we are enjoyed by God. We have a book with Deborah Hebert. And in this book, I talk about the seven cries of the human spirit. And the number one in my opinion of this, the seven cries that are in every human heart, the absolute most important one is to have the assurance, not just that we're forgiven and one day everything will be okay. That's good, but that's not good enough. But to have the assurance that God actually enjoys us while we're maturing. And when people shift in their thinking from just kind of the standard approach of, I know I'm forgiven, but boy, I feel bad now. When they shift from that to this assurance that God not only is forgiven them, but he actually enjoys them. It's the emotional dimension of receiving the gift of righteousness. Tonight we're going to talk a little bit on the legal, but I want to mention also the emotional dimension. The legal dimension is everything that would hinder God from fully embracing us has been paid for, answered and removed. There's nothing from God's point of view to hinder him from fully receiving us. All the legal dilemma has been answered and settled forever. But there's more than a legal acceptance where we are made first-class citizens of the kingdom. There is an emotional dimension where he actually enjoys us. He accepts us first-class citizens in his family with all the rights and privileges of a first-class citizen in the family and in the kingdom. Say it any way you want, but it's more than that. He actually enjoys us. And I can, if I was mapping out a person's spiritual life, you know, just graphing it out, you know, they grew this time and they kind of were a little bit dull for a year or two there. I could, I could guarantee you that to the degree that they understood they were enjoyed, that's where the, if I was graphing out their spiritual growth, that's where the great growth begins. We're not going to have victory in Romans 6. We're on our way to Romans 6. I'm going to give the general themes of Romans 6 in the next couple sessions of how to walk in victory over sin, but we can't approach Romans 6 with any kind of foundation of, I mean, without any real hope of succeeding in Romans 6 without understanding Romans 3. So what I'm doing in this kind of build-up here, this introduction, is I'm wanting you so convinced of the value of Romans 3, verse 21 to 31, that even though there's some legal language in it, you say, this is mine, this is my inheritance. I can't understand it. I'm going to understand it. But more than that, I'm going to apply it. And the way that we apply it is we get the truths of those 11 verses into our mouth and we say them before God. When the devil comes to accuse us, we renounce his lies and before God, we declare the truth about what God says about us. And tell these truths until we understand them in a general way, and you can understand them in a general way in one evening. But until you understand them in a general way and until they, second, get in your mouth to where you actually say them to God, they will not move you. And if we don't have a foundation of Romans 3, we're never going to successfully walk in the victory over sin in Romans 6. You can't skip Romans 3 on the way to Romans 6. Romans 6 is where we want to go. When we have this assurance, not that we're just forgiven, but that he enjoys us, we run to God instead of from God when we stumble, when we sin. Because the way the human spirit is created, we have to have acceptance or we guard ourself and run the other way. If you're going to have a meeting with somebody, even a friend, and you know they're angry and they're going to just rail at you, you're going to try to avoid the meeting. Or you're going to go in with your spirit guarded. You're not going to go in relaxed and you're not going to enjoy the dialogue. You're going to go in guarded or you're going to run the other way. And you might even kind of rev up to tell him what the real truth is about him, you know. You might want to retaliate or get defensive, but the point is you can't receive in an enjoyable way when you feel you're going to be rejected and it injures the relationship. So when we get this truth clear and our spirit opens, we run to the one who understands the most and who paid the price fully and who enjoys us. And I tell you, beloved, when that connects in our heart, and we actually run to him because it's the place we feel safest, because we understand these truths, it will be the time in your spiritual life where the great growth will accelerate quicker than any other time in your life. The opposite of confidence, the end of paragraph B, is condemnation. Condemnation is the fear that God is rejecting us. Now we know God can disapprove of something we're doing but still accept us. When God is disciplining us, when God disapproves with an area in our life, that does not mean that He disapproves of us as a person. Just like earthly parents. They can challenge an area in their six-year-old son or daughter and say, that area has to change. They're not rejecting the child when they're addressing an area. So God can discipline us. God can correct us, and He does. But there's no rejection in the correction. There's no driving us out of His presence when He disciplines us. Matter of fact, the Bible says He disciplines us because He enjoys us, because He loves us. Now where this is going is the great crescendo of Romans chapter 8, verse 1. You might just write that in. Romans 8, verse 1. There is no condemnation. None whatsoever. In the presence of God, that doesn't mean He doesn't correct us. That doesn't mean He doesn't highlight issues and says, that issue in your character needs to change. That's not the same as condemnation. That's conviction. That's He saying, I want to bring you into greater unity with my heart, but there is no rejection at all in my presence. Not at all. I delight in you. I like you. You're mine. I see who you are forever to me, and I see who you are to me even right now through what my son Jesus did for you. And of course, that great passage of there is no condemnation in Romans 8, 1. And that needs to be a verse that we all speak to God all the time when the devil lies to us. There's no rejection. Instead of the word condemnation, put the word rejection. No rejection before God because of Christ Jesus. He doesn't reject me at all. Even when He corrects me, there's not an element, not one degree, not one ounce, not one percent of rejection in it. Now, the reason this is so challenging, because most of us grew up in a, in a, in a context where our parents or our authority figures, when they corrected us, they rejected us. When they said, stop, don't do that again, they also said something like, I don't like what you're doing. And they had anger and they were, they were rejecting while they were correcting. So most of us are so familiar with correction, meaning rejection, that when we come under the leadership of our heavenly Father, it's hard to get this thing clear, that there is no condemnation, there is no rejection at all. Let's go to paragraph D. The foundation of the gospel. We looked at this in the last session, Romans chapter 1, verse 16 and 17. The foundation of the gospel is the revelation of the righteousness of God. That is the key truth on which our confidence is built. When we understand the righteousness of God and how God in His righteousness judged Jesus so that He could righteously give us His righteousness, or He could justly justify us. When we understand that, then we know the debt is fully paid and God will never, ever charge the same debt twice. Jesus paid it. It is impossible that He would ask you to pay it after it has been paid. That would be injustice. When we understand that, then it can't ever be judged again. That's, it's impossible. It's already been judged. When we get that, that revelation of righteousness, that we, it's because of God's righteousness that He righteously judged Jesus and gave us Jesus' righteousness because Jesus took the penalty, then we can't ever be in a place of rejection before God. Never again, ever. Even when an issue in our character comes up short with sin in it and darkness in it, the Lord will discipline us, He will correct us, but there will be no rejection whatsoever. His heart will, will be so comfortable with us in His presence. We won't be comfortable in His presence, but He's comfortable with us. In our unrenewed mind, we'll just be rejecting it and our, the spirit of conviction will be so preoccupied with the issue He's pointing out, but He's going, it's not me rejecting you, it's your own thinking because you can't connect with my word if you're not trying to live in obedience with me. But here's the point I'm trying to make. Romans chapter 1 verse 16 and 17 is the theme verse of the whole book of Romans. And the book of Romans is the premier doctrinal book in the whole Bible. There is no book more important for a New Testament believer than the book of Romans. In terms of understanding who we are before God in our legal position and how we are to live in our, in our living condition. There is no book more doctrinally complete than Romans. If I had to pick one other book in the New Testament as the companion of Romans, I would make it the book of Ephesians. If you have Romans and Ephesians together, you have so much of the revelation, the Pauline revelation in the New Testament. Those two books together will just about take care of it. Not exactly, that's, that's exaggerated because those other books are important as well. But the other books mostly expound what those two books lay the foundation of. Okay, let's look at this foundational theme verse. It's loaded with dynamic ideas and short phrases. Verse 16, the gospel is the power. So the point meaning receiving the gospel is the way that we experience the power of salvation. Now when we use, say the word salvation, it's the penalty, it's the freedom from the penalty of sin and the power of sin. When we talk about salvation, it's not just forgiven, it's also the way to walk free from those vices or addictions that held us in bondage in the past. So Paul is making this big statement, which many believers can't really relate to. He said if you've received the gospel, you're in the position to experience the power of God to be fully forgiven. They go okay, we sort of get that. We get it technically, though we still feel rejected. It's the power to walk free from sin. Doesn't mean sinless perfection, but it means these, this former bondage to certain vices, we have victory over it. Doesn't mean that we never stumble in it again, but the rule of our life is victory in that area after we understand how to appropriate it. And when we receive the gospel, we have the power to actually be used by God to minister to other people. Even when we're feeling bad, the power still is ministered through us. Now he goes on in verse 17, he goes, now let me tell you how this works, because everybody's excited about the power of God. The power to be forgiven, the power to walk free from former bondages of sin in our character, and the power to be used by God to minister to other people. Everybody wants verse 16. He says, well, let me tell you how verse 16 operates. It's based on verse 17, the revelation of the righteousness of God. If you don't understand that revelation, you're not going to experience the same measure of power, because you'll end up being short-circuited with condemnation, shame. You'll have a guarded spirit in your walk with God when you stumble. You'll run from Him instead of to Him. You'll kind of go hide away from God for a while till you kind of feel a little bit strengthened. Then you'll come back and relate to Him. And you, without the revelation of righteousness, verse 17, you won't walk in the power of verse 16. Then, having laid that foundational point, he takes the next four chapters, Romans 1 to 4, and says, let me explain the righteousness of God to you. Let me lay it out to you clearly. So that's what he's going, so that's what he's doing here. Okay, paragraph E. We looked at this last, in our last session. Romans 1 to 8 is the most complete presentation of the gospel of grace. Now, I'm not going to go through it again, but I just wanted to remind you of that. And I want to urge you, there's not that much information here, it's a couple sentences. I want to urge you to learn it, and then read these four chapters. And if they're completely new to you, because I remember when they were new to me, when they were new to me, I thought, what on earth is, what's he talking about? You get a few of the foundational ideas clear, then it's, it clears up the mystery. You don't have to know all the details of what he's talking about, but you need to know the main themes that he's making here. So don't feel like, until you understand it all, you can't understand any. No, pick the low-hanging fruit. You can understand the four or five main themes really quite quickly, without understanding all the little technical points that he's making. Okay, let's go to top of page two. Let's look at the revelation of God's righteousness. Again, chapter 3, Romans 3, verse 21 to 31, the most foundational passage in the whole of the book of Romans, the rest of Romans is built on these 11 verses. These 11 verses are actually elaborating on the passage we just looked at in chapter 1, verse 16 and 17. The gospel is the power of God, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed. So now Paul's taking 11 verses and developing that theme verse of chapter 1, verse 16 and 17. He's developing a bit more. Then in chapter 4 and 5 and 6 and 7, he's going to develop it even more. It's the clearest statement of the salvation, our salvation, or the grace of God. You can use those terms interchangeably. You can say it's the clearest statement of our salvation or the clearest statement on the grace of God. Right here in these 11 verses. The whole of the book of Romans is built on these 11 verses. Now the challenge of these 11 verses is that Paul uses legal language. He doesn't use language as kind of street language, but he uses legal language. He uses justification, propitiation, redemption. Those aren't words we use a lot. You know, maybe a little bit. Hey, I want to justify or vindicate myself. We might use justification, but mostly we don't use it in everyday life, these terms. They were terms used in legal context. Now the reason Paul uses legal terms is because before the throne of God, when Jesus offered His blood and paid for our debt, that was a legal exchange at the throne of God. That's why Paul uses legal terms. So don't be tripped by the legal terms. Again, it's only three or four terms. But there was a legal exchange at the throne of God. My debt, my sin or my debt, I'm using that synonymous, my debt before God, meaning if that debt's not paid, I can't have a relationship with God. My debt or my sin is so big, I can't pay it. Jesus, the innocent one, became guilty. So that the guilty one, me, became innocent as a free gift. That was a legal exchange. It's like the Father said, Jesus, if you will pay for him, he's free. I'll never charge him again. If you'll pay for him, I will never charge him ever again. If you'll pay the debt. And Jesus said, I'll pay with my own perfect innocent life. I will become the guilty one, and I will pay the prison sentence for him, so to speak. I'll go to prison for him. But in this sense, I'll bear the wrath of God, his penalty for him. Then he doesn't have to go. And so there's a legal exchange. God's presence, our life, and Jesus's blood. There was an exchange of our debt, I mean, and our sin. Now, to the degree we understand that we had a legal problem before God, and that God offered a legal solution to our problem, when we understand that, we end up with great confidence. The reason, when I know that Jesus legally paid my debt, you know, he, all that I owed in order to relate to God, or he paid my prison sentence, if you want to use a, a popular analogy in our, you know, in our modern society. He went to prison for us. It didn't exactly work that way, because he bore the wrath, and it was a short-term bearing of the wrath. But he paid the penalty for us. When I get that, and I know that it's been paid, when I feel, uh, in a bad mood, or I'm not doing good, I don't relate to God based on how I'm doing. I based on God related to what he did, and the fact he paid the debt. In other words, understanding the legal exchange gives us confidence before God. Paragraph B, this startling truth, the righteousness of God, apart from the law. Now, Paul uses the phrase, or the, the term, the law, four or five different ways in the book of Romans. Now, you can kind of lose your way, if you don't have a little bit of foundation on it. And some people mix up the way he uses the word, the law. He uses it several different ways, and without a little bit of training, you can kind of lose your, your bearings on it. But in this context, in Romans 3, when he says, the righteousness of God is revealed apart from the law, it means in a practical way, apart from you earning it. So you can put that phrase in, apart from me earning it, the righteousness of God was revealed, or another way to say it, was made available to my life and given to me. The righteousness of God was accessible to me without me earning it. Now, the stunning part is the quality of the righteousness. I mean, it's too good to be true. I mean, it's, you know, I was talking to Wes Hall, and he said, when I first encountered this doctrine a few years ago, it was too good to be true. I go, the amazing thing is, it's better than we can imagine. When we think how good it is to the highest extreme, it's actually better. It really is. It is the righteousness of God. Let, let that sink in. It's the very quality of righteousness that God possesses Himself. I mean, this is staggering. The righteousness you receive the day you were born again can never, ever be improved. Never, ever. It can never be improved. God's own character of righteousness is not superior to the righteousness you receive. I mean, I think of the holy, righteous God. Impossible to improve upon it. The righteousness He has is not superior to the righteousness He gave you. It's exactly the same thing. Beloved, that is staggering to our minds. He can't even increase it, the quality of it. Even if He wanted to, He couldn't give you a superior righteousness. It does not exist, and never will. That's the measure of your security and your confidence before Him, if you want to walk that out. You have that reason to have confidence in His presence. A million years from now, when you've had a resurrected body for a million years, you will not have a righteousness superior to the righteousness you received the day you were born again, when your mind was filled with wrong thoughts. Your standing, your legal position before God will, is as dynamic and full the day you're born again, as a million years from now in the resurrection. It's too good to be true. It's what Wes said, as a young man, but it's better than what we could ever imagine. Paragraph D. Now the dilemma, we know the dilemma, God's holy, we're sinful. Because God's holy, or you could put the word righteous, and we're sinful, we can't be in relationship with Him until the sin is paid for. It's a very important phrase here. And if you get this, even when you share with other people, and you help other people understand the truth, that's a very important phrase. So kind of underline this one. God did not overlook our sin, He paid for it. There's a big difference. God did not look at our sin and say, I'm so kind, I will overlook it. He says, no, that's not how He said it. He goes, I am a hundred percent, I'm infinitely kind, but I'm also infinitely righteous. And I'm infinitely just. So He's a hundred percent kind, a hundred percent righteous, a hundred percent just. God cannot overlook His righteousness because He's kind and just make you righteous. So I like you so much, I'll just make you righteous. He had to make us righteous in a just way, in a way that didn't violate any of the justice around His throne. So God has this dilemma from the human, from our human point of view. He says, I love you, but you have to be as righteous as I am for me to relate to you. You can't do it. There's no amount of prayer, fasting, obedience that can erase all of our sin. I love you, but you have to be righteous to relate to me because I'm a hundred percent infinitely righteous, infinitely kind and loving, and I can't give you a righteousness without upholding justice in the way I give it to you. So He looked at His right hand and said to His son, the only way I can justly give them righteousness because I love them is if the innocent one, you Jesus, you become a man and live innocent and you bear the penalty. If you'll do that, then I can express my love for them or kindness, whichever word you want, I can make them as righteous as I am so there's no impediment, there's no hindrance, and I don't violate my just ways around my throne. I uphold justice a hundred percent. I do it the right way. The innocent one became guilty. Again, paragraph D is a very important few sentences and important in the sense of a practical way you can, if you learn these few sentences, these ideas, you can put them in your own words, you will be able to minister to unbelievers and explain things to them a lot better because like I'm talking to the reporter, you know, we have this news group coming in next week and so I'm doing a little talk on the phone for, you know, some this is where this discussion is going next week and when we talk and so the executive producer of the program has given me this is where we're going and they said so we talked for a while and then she says, well, okay, we hear your Christian point of view, it's kind of interesting and these are the things that she says, okay, you're going to say these things in the interview, right? I go, yeah, okay, where does it all end up for people who don't believe like you believe? I said, well, let me say it differently. Is there another way of salvation besides one way? She goes, yes. I said, there isn't. She's quiet. It's a conference call. There's some others there around the table. I can imagine like one of those guys. I said, let me tell you why I said, I'm Christianity is not a superior religion in the sense of we have a religion. They have a religion and our religion is better than a religion. I go, that's completely the wrong concept. I go number one. It's a relationship, not a religion, but number two and even more as equally important. I said there was only one innocent man and he became guilty. And the guilty can now become innocent. If the other world religions can produce an innocent man, then we can talk about another way of salvation. It's an issue of justice, not the superiority of our religious traditions. And she said, she actually said this, that actually makes sense. Now, I don't know if people will say that in another setting, but I said, if any of the world religions produces a perfect man who will take the wrath for the others, we got now we got another way of salvation. I go, but none of them even claim there's a perfect man. They don't even claim it. It's not an issue of love. It's an issue of justice. Who's going to pay for the debt. God can't in his kindness, overlook the debt. He can't just give us righteousness in an illegal way. He has to give us righteousness in a right way. Paragraph E. Now the two expressions of God's righteousness, because this is the feet. This is the central theme, the critical theme, the righteousness of God. We receive imputed righteousness that relates to our legal position before God. Our it's like you are legal citizens in the nation. You may not feel very patriotic. You may not be a good citizen. You may even sin against the country, but if you have a legal citizenship, you have rights. No matter what you feel or what you're doing in that moment, you're still legal. That's what I mean by our legal position. Now the scripture makes it clear and you can find all the places in the new Testament, particularly the book of Romans, where the word imputed is used. It's a legal term. It's an accounting term. Another word for imputed is the word accredited to your account. Jesus's righteousness is credited to your account because he was willing to pay the debt. So you can use the term it's counted to your benefit, credited to your account, imputed to you. Again, it's an accounting term. Now there's another kind of expression of the righteousness of God. It's the imparted righteousness. That's the righteousness we walk out in our everyday character. We have imputed righteousness, a legal position, a hundred percent righteousness is given to us the moment we're born again. So that righteousness is a hundred percent intact. It cannot be improved. It's God's own righteousness. It could never increase even a million years from now in the resurrection. It's instantaneous. Now the God's desire is that when he imputes righteousness to us, now we can relate to him. And in our relationship, we experience more power in our thinking and our emotions. And then we walk out imparted righteousness, meaning our character becomes righteous. The point of imputed righteousness is to lead to imparted righteousness. Parted means we actually walk righteous with our speech, with our character, with our motives. Here's my point. One is our legal position. One's our living condition. Those are just terms that are used by many. One of them is instantaneous. The other one is progressive. Put the word progressive there next to living condition or are imparted righteousness. It is progressive. It's little by little we grow in it. Here's the bigger point I want to make. Some people think of the grace of God and they think I get imputed righteousness. I get a legal position. Now I can just go live in sin. The point of the imputed righteousness is to empower you for imparted righteousness. That's the point of the gospel of grace. The gospel is not a kind of a free covering to just deny our relationship with God in our lifestyle. Can't like live in immorality and steal money and live in covetousness and bitterness and slander and claim grace without repenting. We're still in the grace of God, but the Lord says your lifestyle is violating the whole reason I gave you grace. I love you. You're still mine, but you're not living in the fruit of why I gave you the grace of God. The grace of God, the free grace of God, is always to lead us to righteous character. Paragraph F, when God looks at me, he sees my debt paid. It's imputed or credited. Now here's, here's the dynamic thing. He relates to me based on what he credited to my account. When he looks at me, in order to embrace me, he's a holy God. In and of myself, I'm an unholy man. He wants to embrace me. A holy God can't embrace an unholy man, but he says, ah, on your account is my son's perfect righteousness. There's nothing hindering the relationship from my point of view. Now, if I live in compromise and when I stumble in sin, it doesn't hinder God from embracing me, but it hinders me from enjoying the embrace. God's still wide open arms going, no, the debt's paid. You're mine. But we have unrenewed thinking. We have guilt, condemnation. We, because we don't repent of it. The Spirit is convicting us. We can't enjoy the open embrace that's fully offered to us. Let's turn to page three. Now, Romans 3, verse 21, the word is now. Not the future, now. The righteousness of God, apart from earning it, is made available, accessible to you. And he goes on, Paul makes this very amazing point. He goes, it's witnessed by the Old Testament law and prophets. Here's what he's saying. He goes, the righteousness by faith, the free gift is not contrary or different than what the Old Testament taught. Some people have this, this confused idea. In the Old Testament, they were saved by works. In the New Testament, they're saved by faith. That's complete confusion. Paul is saying, no, no. The Old Testament, which means the law and the prophets, that means the Old Testament. Just put the phrase Old Testament when he says law and prophets. He means the scriptures, the Old Testament scriptures, they testify, they preach this message. Matter of fact, we looked at it last week for a moment, our last session. Romans 4, which we're not going to spend much time in, in this series, Romans 4, his point was this. Abraham, who lived about 400 years or 500, maybe 600 years before the law of Moses, before Moses ever gave the 10 commandments, Abraham was saved by faith 600 years before the 10 commandments. Romans 4 tells us a man 600 years before the 10 commandments was saved by faith. Then he says, King David, 400 years after the 10 commandments, he was saved by faith too. On both sides of the giving of the 10 commandments, my people were saved by faith. It's exactly the same way they're saved in the New Testament. So get that clear. That's what that means. When it says this righteousness was witnessed or it was proclaimed, it was validated, verified. It was, it was set forth by the law and prophets, by the Old Testament scriptures. Here's the point. It's not a new idea. God did not change in the Old Testament was law. I mean, Old Testament was works and New Testament is grace. No Abraham and David on two sides of the giving of the 10 commandments were both saved by grace. Verse 22, he goes, it's the righteousness of God and the Jewish people were trying to attain it through this rigorous obedience. No matter how obedient they were, they could never attain it. The only way it could be accepted by human beings or attained received by human beings rather is by faith in Jesus. The word faith or the idea of faith would mean confidence. We put confidence in the fact Jesus paid the debt. So we come to God. We say, father, my only chance is that he paid the debt and I have total confidence that he did. That's what it means by faith in Jesus. And because of my confidence in that, but in confidence, faith doesn't stop with confidence in the fact we're forgiven. Faith always means a commitment to come under his leadership. Do you have confidence that he would save us? Is in the same theme to God as having confidence in his leadership over our life, which means he says live this way, not that way. We have confidence in your leadership. We have confidence in your salvation. We have confidence. Your way is the right way. We will live that way because your way is the right way. We're not earning it. We're declaring our confidence in his wisdom, his leadership, and his salvation. Some people think faith means confidence in forgiveness only when faith always means confidence also in God's leadership and God's ways of life. So our flesh doesn't always want God's ways, but we have confidence. They're superior to anything we could come up with in our flesh. Then Paul goes on and he says, there is no difference. And what he means here in verse 22, there is no difference. What he's saying here is quite amazing. Go on all the way down to six point six. There is no difference. He's telling the Gentiles who were typically perverse people. The Jews were at least in theory, moral people. They were not so moral, but in terms of their ideology, they said, we're a moral culture. You know, the, we are, our culture is based in morality. Again, it wasn't that true, but they had the idea, but the Gentiles, they were open about worshiping demons and orgies and immorality and murder. I mean, they didn't have any scruples about it. They said, Hey, not a problem. We want to be as immoral as we want to be. We want to worship any false God. And so when the Bible contrast Gentiles and Jews in the book of Romans, it's not always, but many times it means the perverse ones and the moral ones is kind of the general argument he's making. Now again, the Jews were not so moral, but they kind of thought they were when Paul says here in verse 22, there is no difference. He goes the most religious and the most perverse, the most moral, the most immoral are saved on exactly the same basis, receiving the a hundred percent righteousness of God as a free gift. Now look at paragraph two freely verse 24, Paul says we're justified freely through his redemption freely. We receive it free in one moment. We receive it fully the full righteousness of God. And we receive it instantly and we receive it forever. We don't lose it. I mean, we have it a billion years from now. It never wears out. Paragraph four, Paul said, we are justified freely through the redemption redemption. That was a term. The Greeks use that was a common term, redemption to describe releasing a prisoner. If somebody would pay a ransom price, like there would be a prisoner or a man who owed a debt because slavery in those days was based on, you owed somebody a debt. One of the ways a person was brought. Well, one way people were brought into slavery is one nation invaded another nation and took their people's slaves in a real evil way. But there was another type of slavery that if you owed a debt and you didn't pay the debt, you were an indentured servant for seven years. You had to be a slave for seven years or whatever to pay that debt off. If somebody came along and paid the debt for you, you're out of slavery. They ransomed you from your debt. You were a prisoner. You were a slave and indentured servant because you owed a debt. Another guy came and gave the a hundred thousand and the, and the man that you were his slave, he goes, you're free. Now your debt's paid. That's what redemption meant. I remember hearing the story of Peter, the great, it's a moving story. I'll give the short version. There's a long version of it. He's the Tsar of Russia, about 1700. And this is written up in his journals. And he's out in a military operation one night, you know, tens of thousands of soldiers. They had those, you know, vast military campaigns. And it's late at night and he sees a light burning in one tent. The lantern was still lit. He goes, here, you know, three o'clock in the morning. What is that man doing over there? You know, we have a battle tomorrow. Peter, the great, was just surveying the camp of these thousands of soldiers. So he was curious. He went over there and peeked in there. And there was this man. And this man was over one of the main accountants of the army. And this man had embezzled, stolen thousands of dollars, according to our currency. And he had been caught. And he was going to be executed with open shame the next day. And so he is in such turmoil. He writes down all of the money he stole. And he admits it all. And he writes down such a great debt. Who could ever pay it? Hundreds of thousands of dollars, hypothetically. I don't remember the amount. Well, through the fatigue of the night, in the midst of this battle, this military campaign, he falls asleep before he kills himself. I mean, fell asleep out of fatigue. Peter, the great, walks in. He looks over his shoulder. He sees the hypothetical hundred thousand. I don't know the real amount, but it was a great amount. He sees it line items. And it wrote such a great debt. Who can pay it? And he was moved by compassion. And he wrote his name, Peter, the great. The guy woke up the next morning. His debt was free. He was not executed. And there was no charge against him. That was written up in his journals and of his life story, Peter, the great. And I think what a perfect example. Such a great debt. Who can pay it? Jesus writes his own name and we're liberated when we're about to be executed. Paragraph five, we're justified. You know what justified means? In essence, you've heard the phrase, but it's a, it's a popular little phrase, but it's the true. It's true. Just as if we never send as though there, we stole a hundred thousand dollars. We don't know even one single penny as though there is no debt. We are declared in God's court as though we never sent like a paragraph. Jay, you can read that on your own. We're going to look at this more in detail that we are a new creation, but here's the verse I want to lock into verse 21. We're going to really develop this passage. We are a new creation. All things have passed away. All the old judgment is gone. 100%. The old things, the judgment is gone. It means more than judgment, but in the context tonight, we're talking about confidence before God. The judgment is gone. 100%. Look at verse 21. We, this is staggering. We become the righteousness of God. What? Your human spirit, you're made up three parts, body, soul, spirit. Your body isn't righteous yet, but it's going to be your soul, your personality, your, your, your thinking, your emotions. They're not righteous yet. They're growing in it little by little, but your spirit man was made righteous. Your human spirit that you can't even feel the presence of your human spirit was made as righteous as God was. That righteousness is literally your spirit has actually been one preacher calls it recreated in righteousness, the new creation. I don't know the best way to say it, but our born again spirit is as righteous as God is. Now the problem is we can't feel it because our five senses can't measure or discern our spirit man because it's, it's, it's of a different order, but your spirit is as righteous as God is. We're going to develop that at more when we get to Roman six, top of page four. And we're at the end of this, but I just want to point out a thing or two verse 25. I'll just be brief. Whom talks about Jesus. God set forth Jesus as a propitiation say propitiation say it's hard to say propitiation. At least it is for me. I have about four words that all kind of merged at the same time. When I say propitiation, April Pritchett, there you go. That word it means here's what it means. It is a sacrifice to satisfy God's justice. Jesus was set forth as a propitiation as a sacrifice to satisfy the claims of justice. I get it's a word we don't use, but in the Greek culture, they were real familiar with that because they would have these propitiatory sacrifices that would appease the gods in their culture. It didn't really work. It was all demons. They were worshiping, but the concept Paul borrowed it and said, that's what I'm talking about. The only true God, the God of Israel was satisfied entirely. 100% satisfied. There's one, there's two more phrases. I want to look at three more in God's forbearance. He passed over the sins previously committed. What does that mean? When Abraham and David in the old Testament, they would come before God, they would offer the blood of a slain lamb. I don't know that they fully understood it. They probably understood it a little bit more better than we think they did. They would offer to God, they would kill a lamb, offer to God the blood. And that blood was a, like a promissory note of sort. That blood was kind of a, it was like a statement saying, when your Messiah, your son sheds his blood, then we cash in on all of these offerings that we've offered to you. They were like promissory notes. So when Abraham and David died and all the old Testament guys, they went down into the righteous compartment of shield shield. And the old Testament was just the place of the dead. The word shield was used in the old Testament. Many, many, many times it had three different compartments. So to, or three different chambers, they had the chamber for the unredeemed. They had the chamber for certain demons. I don't want to get into all that right now, but they had a chamber for the redeemed, Abraham's bosom. And it was, it's down in the center of the earth, somewhere down there. So all the righteous ones of the old Testament, they offered the slain lamb, the slain bull. They went down into the righteous chamber of shield. Their spirit did waiting for the Messiah for Jesus to become man, pay the price. Then the scripture says that when Jesus rose from the dead, he descended. He takes these guys at Abraham's bosom. He goes, guys, I'm making up this part. I'm cashing in the promissory notes. You've killed lambs for several thousand years. I'm the lamb. I'm cashing it in. Come on. We're going to the father. And then he brought them all to the father. But he could not bring them to the father till he actually cash did it with it. Because if he would not have died, those slain lambs in the old Testament would never ever sold it in salvation. I mean, this is impossible, but just for the sake of, of the concept, if Jesus somewhere in it says, father, I changed my mind. I'm not going. Those slain animals of the old Testament would have resulted in nothing. And all those guys down in Abraham's bosom wouldn't end up judged for their sin. They were like promissory notes. That's not a perfect analogy, proclaiming their confidence that the lamb would come. A man would come the innocent one, become the place of the guilty and make them innocent. And when Jesus rose from the dead, he brought all of them up, but they could not be saved until he did it. That's the forbearance of God. He restrained himself and just wiping out Abraham and David because Abraham and David, all they had was a slain lamb, a slain bull that couldn't get anybody saved. If it wasn't a real lamb of God, Jesus, who was going to make it real boy, they were excited. I can just picture, you know, the amount of transfiguration of Matthew 17. It says Moses and Elijah do it. You know, they came to Jerusalem right before Jesus died and they spoke to Jesus of his death. Now, let me just throw in my own made up conversation. Moses and Elijah, Jesus, there's a whole bunch of us down there. We killed lambs. We're really counting on you not backing off because we are totally excited because you're about to cash in our promissory notes. Didn't happen anyway like that, but you get the idea. They spoke to him about his departure, his death. Final point note, almost final point, verse 26. Here's the biggest point of the entire teaching and we're out of time, but it's verse 26. God is the just and the justifier. That's the phrase. Meaning he justified us. He made it just as if we never said we're justified. That's what that means. He paid the debt, but he did it in a just way. That's the point. He didn't break the rules of justice. When he gave us the gift of righteousness, an innocent man became guilty and really paid. God says, I was just 100 percent when I provided justification for you. I did not suspend my justice because I loved you so much. So that's why someone says, how could a God of love send somebody to hell? Because the God of love can't forgive them except through an innocent one who became guilty. And if they reject the innocent one who became guilty, there is no way for them to be saved even with love. So God is justified you and me, but in a totally just way. That's the point. And here's the final point. Verse 27, where's boasting? Where's boasting? You get to put the same idea. Where's condemnation? We can't. God provided a salvation. So a billion years from now, I am still going. I love you. Thank you. There's no boasting even in eternity. Nobody can boast. We're saying, I love you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. There is no boasting, but as equally as there is no boasting, there is no condemnation at all. None. We have no right to boast or to tell God, well, we sort of deserve this and we have no right to even take condemnation because if God judged Jesus, he will never judge the same crime twice. Never. And our crimes have been judged. When we take condemnation, we are taking the judgment of our crime. And Jesus could say, my blood paid for that. How dare you walk in condemnation after what I did for you? He doesn't really say it that way, but how dare us in our religious pride try to pay the penalty that his perfect blood paid fully for us. Amen and amen.