What advantage then had the Jew, and what profit was there in circumcision? Much every way, says the apostle, for unto them were committed the oracles of God. In those oracles were special promises given to them, as to Messiah, the land of Canaan, and others, and if some did not believe, that would not make the faith of God of none effect which were contained in those oracles; He would be faithful and true in all that He said and did, according to what Psalm 51 said (Psa. 51:4). But if cavilers would come in and say, “But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God in fulfilling His promises, then how can He punish us;” the apostle answers, this will not hinder Him judging the world, however opposers might come in and say, “Let us do evil that good may come!” If God’s justice cannot be glorified in saving all through some refusing, His justice will be glorified in their damnation. God will assuredly in righteousness carry out His promises, but this will not hinder Him judging the unjust that refuse to receive those promises. We get a double view of God’s righteousness here, it will be displayed in fulfilling His promises to Israel; secondly, in the judgment of the world. Further down in the chapter it is seen as justifying the believer through Christ!
The argument is now summed up in quotations from the Jewish scriptures. From their own scriptures, the oracles in which they trusted, the Jews are proved guilty; there is none righteous, no not one, there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are altogether become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no not one! Romans 3:10, Man’s state is all wrong; Romans 3:11, his mind and heart all wrong (Rom. 3:12), his ways and works all wrong. And this refers to all, Gentile as well as Jew, none could boast over the other.
Man’s photograph is taken by God, and is held forth to our view. His picture is taken from head to foot (Rom. 3:13-18), his throat an open sepulcher, with his tongue he has used deceit, the poison of asps under his lips, his mouth full of cursing and bitterness, his feet swift to shed blood, destruction and misery in his ways, the way of peace not known, no fear of God before his eyes.
Now God spoke these things to those that were under the law, so the Jew could not get out of it, every mouth was stopped, the whole world was under sentence before God! The Gentiles had already been proved guilty, but now the Jews likewise are convicted out of their own scriptures. But if this is man’s condition, and he is already under sentence of death and judgment, how can the law justify him? By the deeds of law shall no flesh be justified in God’s sight; by law on the contrary is the knowledge of sin. The office of the law then is clearly brought out here. It was not given to justify man; it stops his mouth, it sentences him to death, it gives him the knowledge of sin, but how could it justify the man described, in Romans 3:10-18? In this part of Romans its chief office is to stop the mouth, and to bring man under sentence of death, convicting him that he has no righteousness for God; in Romans 7 its office is to give the knowledge of sin, that is, of sin in its root principle, not in its actions.
Thus, we have had the state of the Gentiles described at the end of Romans 1; God’s principles of judgment described up to Romans 2:16; the state of the Jews described at the end of Romans 2. Their advantages would not hinder God’s judgment in regard to the unjust amongst them, and in Romans 3:10-18, their mouth is stopped from their own scriptures. All the effect of the law was to prove guilt, and to give the knowledge of sin. Thus, the whole world is proved guilty or under sentence before God. Man is like a condemned criminal in the condemned cell waiting the execution of his judgment!
We now come to the second part of the Epistle. God is now revealed to us in His nature in righteousness, Romans 3:21-31 and Romans 4, and in love, Romans 5., and so forth. The guilty sinner is brought face to face with God, not for condemnation, however, but for justification. Jesus and His blood are set before him, as the objects for his faith to rest upon (Rom. 22-25); and the sinner is justified on his side on the principle of faith (Rom. 3:28). Romans 4 presses this side of the sinner’s justification by the great examples of Abraham and David, the two roots of blessing to the Jewish nation. Both are shown to have been justified by faith; and as Abraham was justified by faith before he was circumcised, so he is shown to be the father of faith, not only to Jewish believers, but also to the Gentiles. The principle of resurrection comes in at the end of the chapter, by the type of Isaac being raised up from the dead womb of Sarah his mother, and taken as a type of Christ raised from the dead. Being justified (Rom. 5) the sinner has peace, access into a new resurrection place, rejoices in hope of the glory of God, and is sealed with the Holy Spirit, who by bringing the love of God manifested in the gift of His Son into his heart, enables him to joy in what God is for him through Christ. He is thus reconciled to God as an enemy. From Romans 5:12-8 we are led up to what the believer’s place is in Christ, and are shown his deliverance from his Adam standing, and state in flesh; first as applied to his soul, then as to his body.
But let us return to our subject, Romans 3:21. In the midst of man’s desperate need, as having no righteousness for God, and as being a guilty criminal under sentence of death, God meets him. Now righteousness of God is manifested apart from law; that is, that kind of righteousness, not man’s righteousness for God, but God’s for man And it is now, since the death, resurrection and glorification of Christ: for without that death, the justice of God could only be manifested in judgment. Up to the cross, man’s righteousness, if any, was being manifested, of which the law was the measure, but there was none! Now, in the glory apart from law, righteousness of God is manifested; it is divine righteousness, not human righteousness. The law of Moses was the measure of the latter (see Lev. 18:5). The former could be measured by nothing less than the death, resurrection, and glorification of the Lord Jesus (see also Rom. 10).
Law righteousness was what God required from man, and what man had to give to God. Christ as man kept it perfectly in His life, but that was perfect human righteousness. Man if he did it lived in it, that is he should continue living on the earth! But here it is not earthly, human, law righteousness, it is righteousness of God as contrasted with law righteousness, and manifested in heaven for us, outside this world altogether. It was indeed witnessed to by the law and the prophets. But it is God’s righteousness, by faith of Jesus Christ, the glorified man, nor confined as law righteousness was to the Jew alone, but unto all, and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, man and man, all have alike sinned and come short of the glory of God! Man has not only sinned, broken the law, and lost his earthly place in paradise, and on the earth, but he has come short of the glory of God. It is no question now of the government of God over an earthly nation, responsible to maintain their place in Canaan in responsibility to God under the law, but God’s nature and being is now made known, to save a people for heaven. Christ was the manifestation of God, and being rejected here, is so in the glory above. He is the manifestation of God’s righteousness! Now therefore nothing less than the glory of God is the measure of man’s coming short; he has come short of the glory of God! Blessed be God, my reader, that there is a righteousness revealed that fits for heaven itself, and that righteousness we see in Christ. If man has sinned and come short of the glory, there is divine righteousness manifested in the glory for man, and seen in the man Christ Jesus!
God then is looked at as the source of the sinner’s justification! It is the justice or righteousness of God that is manifested! But He justifies freely by His grace, or free favor, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus! Instead of law righteousness either in the sinner or Christ, being the ground of our justification, it is the redemption work that Christ wrought on the cross Jesus and His blood are thus held before the sinner as the way and ground of His justification! Blessed be God for it, and it is finished The Lord Jesus laid down His life a ransom for all, and God has brought out from the dead the man that paid the ransom, and so the redemption is in Christ Jesus. And God has now set forth that same glorified man to be a mercy seat through faith in His blood, for the showing forth of His justice, and whilst that justice is shown in the passing over the sins committed in times past, that is in old testament times, it is shown in this present time how God is just, and yet justifies those who believe in Jesus.
We have different illustrations of redemption in Israel’s history and laws: first, they were a nation of slaves themselves under Pharaoh, king of Egypt, originally belonging to God, but having forsaken Him and worshipping idols. Redemption was the setting free of this nation of slaves from Pharaoh’s power, on the ground of the payment of a ransom. In the type of the passover lamb, its blood was shed and sprinkled on the door posts of their houses, for they were sinners under judgment as much as the Egyptians. In the case of the setting apart of the firstborn children, the representatives of the nation itself, every firstborn child had to be redeemed by the blood of a lamb slain (see Ex. 12-13). Then secondly, they were set free by the smiting of the waters of the Red Sea by the rod of judgment; the way was opened through the waters and Israel passed through, a delivered people.
They were brought to God in result at Mount Sinai. The blood of the lamb was the ground of their deliverance, the price paid down to God to satisfy His justice. The passage of the Red Sea delivered them out from the dominion of Pharaoh.
Again if one of the Israelites got poor and had to sell his land, his brother might redeem it. If he got so poor as to be obliged to sell himself to a stranger, his brother might also redeem him. He would first pay down the price, and then restore the land to his brother, or if his brother were a slave, set him free. (See Lev. 25:47, and so forth.)
So man by his sin has sold himself, and lost his inheritance, the earth as well. But Christ has paid down His life’s blood to God, and by that same blood has bought the lost inheritance, (this latter thing, however, we have not here), and every believer is redeemed to God. This part of Romans, chapters 3 and 4., shows redemption by blood, Romans 5 and 6, redemption by power. Here in Romans 3:24-25 we seem to have the combined types of the Passover Lamb, Red Sea, as well as the mercy seat, set up after the people’s arrival at Mount Sinai. Through the blood of Christ and His death, resurrection and ascension, we have been ransomed, redeemed from the power of Satan, and brought to God. God on the ground of Christ’s redemption and what He is as the mercy seat, displays His justice, in justifying every one that believes in Jesus. All that believe are justified from all things.
But some one might ask, “What do you mean by justification?” Justification is the judicial sentence of the Judge in favor of the criminal accused. Romans 8:33 explains its meaning! Who shall lay any charge against God’s elect, it is God that justifieth! First, then, God is the justifier: second, we are justified freely by His grace or free favor (Rom. 3:24). This is God’s side of our justification. Third, we are justified by faith, Romans 5:1. This is our side of it. Faith is like the hand that takes it from the free favor of God who gives it righteously, for it is His righteousness. Fourthly, we are justified in the power of Christ’s blood (Rom. 5:9). This is the ground of it. Fifthly, it is a justification of life, a life perfectly cleared from all charge (Rom. 5:18). This life is in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ raised from the dead, and is communicated to the soul as a present thing, connecting us now in spirit with the dead, risen and glorified Christ, and second, is communicated to the body when He comes again, so that we are completely delivered from everything that could be touched by judgment before the day of judgment. This however, shows its connection with life communicated. It is definitely in the life of the dead, risen and glorified Christ, the Head of the justified race. Sixth, justification is by works, James 2. But this is before the Assembly and the world, not before God, (comp. Rom. 3:20, Gal. 3:11 with James 2:18.) This last is a test for those who say they have faith. Faith and salvation are connected together in God’s Word. Works come after as a proof to men of our justification. Before God, this epistle teaches there is no such thing as justification by works (see Rom. 4:2). We are justified by faith! In Romans 3 and 4 we however only have developed to us, justification by the blood, clearing us from our sins!
All boasting is now excluded! If justification was by law there might be boasting, for man could have given a righteousness to God, and could have got a reward for it! But being guilty and being driven to faith in the blood of Christ, all this was at an end. He had to receive righteousness from God, and that a divine righteousness. Forgiveness of sins was his by faith. This was righteousness on God’s part. God was righteous in forgiving him through Jesus and His blood. On man’s part it was on the principle of faith. He had to take the place of a receiver. This excluded works. He was justified by faith without the deeds of the law. But since this righteousness is divine God is God of the Gentiles as well as of the Jews. Both are justified by faith, the Jew on that principle, in contrast to law under which he stood, the Gentile through the faith actually now revealed. But is not this making void law through faith! Nay, says the apostle, we establish the principle of law. Supposing a murderer is hung, the law is established, not thrown away. Christ on the cross established law. He submitted to the righteousness of its demands, taking as He did the sinner’s place as his substitute.
Thus the blood of Christ meets all the sins of the sinner, and God’s righteousness is displayed in forgiving and justifying every believer in Jesus. The two principles brought out at the end of the chapter are, first, that justification is by faith, secondly, that this blessing goes out to Gentile as well as Jew, since God is the God of both.