Romans 3

We All Fall Short

Authors Note: I apologize for the lateness of this blog. For the first time since I started, I couldn’t get it out on Monday as I was out of town and couldn’t post. So, one day late – here it is!

At the center of our need for the gospel is this: we are all sinners and fall short of God’s holiness. In other words, we are all in need of the grace and mercy of God. We must understand that God is holy, righteous, truth and love and, well, we are not. The only way we walk in holiness, righteousness, truth and love is in Christ. The only way we come back to having a relationship with a holy God is Christ. We all fall short. Once we finally come to grips with our sinfulness and lack of ability to earn our way into heaven, we can turn to the One who can lift us up and represent us as our true High Priest before a holy God. We are justified by our faith in Christ who is our salvation.

Vs 1-4 So what advantage does the Jew have? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? Considerable in every way. First, they were entrusted with the spoken words of God. What then? If some did not believe, will their unbelief cancel God’s faithfulness? Absolutely not! God must be true, even if everyone is a liar, as it is written: That You may be justified in Your words and triumph when You judge.

Paul makes it clear in 2:11, “There is no favoritism with God.” God doesn’t have favorites. The Jewish people are his chosen people for a purpose. They were entrusted with God’s law and His Word. Through them, the Messiah has come. Through them, the gospel has been spread throughout the world. It doesn’t mean God loves them more, or best, it means He entrusted them to be a light to the nations so that all would come to know Him. They have a great advantage in this. They were the first to experience God’s goodness and God’s faithfulness. They were the first to speak the gospel and shed light into the darkness. But, there are those who still do not believe. Does that mean God is not faithful? Not at all. Paul says “God must be true, even if everyone is a liar.” The great preacher Spurgeon says of this phrase, “It is a strange, strong expression; but it is none too strong. If God says one thing, and every man in the world says another, God is true, and all men are false. God speaks the truth, and cannot lie. God cannot change; his word, like himself, is immutable. We are to believe God’s truth if nobody else believes it. The general consensus of opinion is nothing to a Christian. He believes God’s word, and he thinks more of that than of the universal opinion of men.” God is unchangeable. His word can be trusted. Therefore, we are the ones who are in the wrong. We are the liars. Paul quotes Psalm 51:4, which says, “Against You—You alone—I have sinned and done this evil in Your sight. So You are right when You pass sentence; You are blameless when You judge.”

Vs 5-8 But if our unrighteousness highlights God’s righteousness, what are we to say? I use a human argument: Is God unrighteous to inflict wrath? Absolutely not! Otherwise, how will God judge the world? But if by my lie God’s truth is amplified to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? And why not say, just as some people slanderously claim we say, “Let us do what is evil so that good may come”? Their condemnation is deserved!

As sinners, we deserve the wrath of God, who is righteous and holy. There were those in Paul’s day who believed their unrighteousness highlighted the righteousness of God so, doing evil caused God’s righteousness to be amplified. This was their way of excusing their own sin, but it didn’t work with Paul. He says, even though unrighteousness accomplishes the work of God, it’s still unrighteousness. It’s still sin. Case in point – Judas betrayal of Jesus. Through Judas’ betrayal, Christ went to the cross and brought salvation to the world. So does the end justify the means? Absolutely not. This bears out in Judas’ great guilt and ultimate suicide. He knew what he did was wrong and he couldn’t live with himself. Instead of seeking the forgiveness of God, he chose to end it all. Just because the glory of God can come out of an unrighteous act, it doesn’t excuse the act. It’s still sin, and condemnation is still deserved.

Vs 9-20 What then? Are we any better? Not at all! For we have previously charged that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin, as it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away; all alike have become useless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave; they deceive with their tongues. Vipers’ venom is under their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and wretchedness are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that whatever the law says speaks to those who are subject to the law, so that every mouth may be shut and the whole world may become subject to God’s judgment. For no one will be justified in His sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law.

It is so easy for us believers to look out at the world and say “Look at all that sin! Look at what they’re doing. They’re the reason every thing’s gone wrong.” But Paul reminds us – “are we any better? Not at all.” Back in 1988, Michael Jackson wrote a song called Man in the Mirror. The chorus goes like this: I’m starting with the man in the mirror. I’m asking him to change his ways. And no message could’ve been any clearer. If they wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change. Before we start pointing the fingers at “those people” maybe we should start with the person we see in the mirror everyday. Realize that person is just like every other person in the world – in need of a Savior. Throughout the rest of this section, Paul quotes several passages of scripture from the Old Testament. They show us that God’s holy and perfect Law bears witness: there is no one who is righteous. We’ve all turned away and sinned. As we have stated before, the Law was given so we could realize our need for God. It highlights our lack of ability to be righteous. This is a gift from God. Why a gift? Because it also highlights God’s great grace. Read on:

Vs. 21-26 But now, apart from the law, God’s righteousness has been revealed—attested by the Law and the Prophets—that is, God’s righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe, since there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. They are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God presented Him as a propitiation through faith in His blood, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His restraint God passed over the sins previously committed. God presented Him to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be righteous and declare righteous the one who has faith in Jesus.

God’s grace began with the Jews. He made a way, through the sacrificial system, for them to come before His mercy seat and seek forgiveness. This was a picture, a foreshadowing, of what was to come. Christ became sin for us on the cross, so we could come boldly before the throne of God. I love the word propitiation. The Greek word is hilastérion and it means to appease or to ease the anger of. What the priest did, as they came before the mercy seat with the blood of the lamb, was propitiation. They sought to appease the justified anger and wrath of God against His people. This had to be done each year. In fact, through the sacrificial system, appeasement happened every day on some level. This shows us the truth of what Paul says – For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So God’s grace goes further – beyond just a yearly propitiation. His grace takes Him to the cross where the ultimate propitiation happens. Our faith in Jesus, as the Lamb of God, covers us from His justified wrath and anger. Through Christ we have been justified and redeemed as He has become the eternal and last propitiation for us.

Justification solves the problem of our guilt before a righteous Judge. Redemption solves the problem of our slavery to sin. Christ’s eternal and last propitiation solves the problem of our offense toward the Creator of the universe. It’s like a puzzle that has a piece missing. Without it, the puzzle is incomplete – it is not whole. We all fall short. The piece is Christ. Justification came as a free gift. There is no way we can be justified without this gift. There is nothing we can do to justify our own sin. The Greek word for freely is dórean. It means a gift to no purpose, or a gift without obligation. We are not obligated to pay it back. In fact, this gift came at the cost of redemption. The Greek word for redemption is apolutrósis. It means a release effected by payment of ransom. So, there was a payment for the gift – it just didn’t come from us. We are under no obligation to pay, but it was paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ. He stood in our place to pay for this gift. In 1 Corinthians 6:20, Paul explains it like this: For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

Vs. 27-31 Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By one of works? No, on the contrary, by a law of faith. For we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is God for Jews only? Is He not also for Gentiles? Yes, for Gentiles too, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then cancel the law through faith? Absolutely not! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

So, Paul says, there is no kauchesis – we cannot boast in anything – except for Christ. By what kind of nomos or law (principle) was assigned to us as our plumb line, our standard, or our bullseye? Our works aren’t gonna cut it! No, the nomos or principle, is faith in Christ Jesus. Boasting and pride are incompatible with the free gift of salvation. It only by our faith in Christ that we are justified. As human beings we can’t stand that. We want to make our own way. We hate excepting help from others. I’m currently reading a nice Christian novel called Patchwork Holiday. One of the short stories is called Twice Loved by Wanda E. Brunstetter. In it, a Christian woman is having a hard time financially, but she hates accepting charity. She even gets mad when she finds out someone has helped her “behind her back”. Talk about art imitating life! We hate being “beholden” to someone. That’s why God’s grace can be so hard to accept. Deep down, we want to be able to boast in our own accomplishments. We want to work out our own salvation. We are like the toddler who says “by myself mommy!” as we stumble and fall. But we can’t do it by ourselves. Not when it comes to God. We all fall short.

Next Paul reminds us again – yes, the Jews are God’s chosen people. They were chosen to carry the gift of the law and to be a light to the world. The Messiah came through them and the gospel was spread throughout the world by them. But, salvation was not only for them. The purpose was to bring salvation to the whole world. So does all this cancel out the law? Have we no more need of it? Paul says – absolutely not! Just because we can’t uphold the law, doesn’t negate it’s validity. The law is still the perfect, holy standard of God. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow and His standard of holiness never changes. What we don’t understand is this – the law was never put into place for us to keep. God knew that would be impossible. We all fall short. That’s the reason He set up the sacrificial system in the first place. No, the law was put into place to shed light on our sin. It was there to highlight our shortcomings. Why? So we would recognize our need for God’s propitiation, justification and redemption. Yes, we all fall short, but God has made a way.