The Epistle to the Romans. Lecture 2.―Righteousness of God.
Romans 3 and 4
IT might be helpful if I just pointed out that in the first chapter as far as the eighteenth verse there is a kind of introduction to the epistle, and in that introduction we are given briefly the great truths that in the after-part of the epistle are more fully developed. Now, there are two great subjects that the gospel of God is about, viz., the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ―and in that gospel God has been fully and perfectly revealed.
When the Lord Jesus Christ was here upon earth, He was the perfect revelation of God, so much so that He could say, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father also.” He was God here manifest in the flesh. God had come into the world where sin was, He had come into the midst of this world, He had come near to sinful man in grace. That did not bring man nearer to God, and it is important that we should understand that. Though God was here amongst men in the person of His Son, that in itself did not bring us one bit nearer to God than we were before. On the contrary, it showed how far morally we were from Him. It required that the Lord Jesus Christ should die, and that in His death He should accomplish that mighty work of atonement for us to be brought near to God; and that is one of the great subjects of the gospel.
The apostle says in the sixteenth verse, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.” Man is ashamed of Christ, professing Christians are ashamed of Christ, and it is a remarkable thing that it is only those who profess the true religion who are ashamed of their religion. You do not find a Mohammedan ashamed of his religion. Paul, however, says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation.” Is there anything to be ashamed of in that? That into a world where man lay lost because of his sinfulness, God’s power should have come to save him out of that condition―is there anything to be ashamed of in that? Certainly not. “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” That is God’s order—the Jew first and then the heathen.
And in the next verse he says, “for therein is the righteousness of God revealed.” In the cross of Christ every attribute of God has been glorified; all that God is has come out and been glorified, God’s righteousness, His love, His hatred of sin and His love to the sinner, all has been shown forth in the wonderful work that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished. All that God is in reference to sin has been manifested at the cross, and His nature in this respect is absolute abhorrence of sin. So it says in the next verse, “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven.” Before the cross God had brought upon His earthly people, Israel, various judgments and governmental chastisements. For instance, the Assyrian of old was used as the rod of His indignation upon His people. But at the cross of Christ God’s hatred of sin was brought out, and His wrath from heaven was revealed, and that is what now makes the moral state of man before God so serious; that, too, is what makes the gospel so precious.
From the nineteenth verse of the first chapter on to the twentieth verse of the third chapter, we have unfolded in great detail the condition in which man found himself when this gospel came to him. First of all the state of the heathen. The heathen world was left without excuse, shutting their eyes to the testimony that God gave them of His eternal power and Godhead in creation, refusing also the testimony of tradition handed down from father to son, closing too their ears to the voice of conscience, they were left without excuse, and instead of glorifying God as God they made gods of their own and bowed down to stocks and stones, so that God gave them over; but not until they had given Him up.
Well then, in the opening part of the second chapter, down to the end of the sixteenth verse, we are shown the state of a certain portion of the Gentile or heathen world. That is to say, the philosophers amongst them, of whom there were many, as Plato, Socrates, and others, who had systems of religion or philosophy; they condemned the follies and sins of the heathen, and yet they committed exactly the same things―so that they, too, were inexcusable.
Then from the seventeenth verse of the second chapter down to the end of the nineteenth verse of the third chapter, we have brought out the special privileges that belong to the Jew, and the increased responsibilities that press upon him. He had the law and boasted of it; he prided himself in being better off than the Gentiles, for he had the oracles of God. True, says the apostle, and it is by no means a small privilege to have the oracles of God―to be addressed by God as they had been under the law. But what does the law say? and to whom does it say it? When the law speaks it speaks to them that are under the law. Then in the opening part of the third chapter, beginning at the tenth verse, we are told what the law says to them who are under it― “none righteous, no, not one; there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God,” &c. &c. It is God’s verdict on the whole human family that we get in the nineteenth and twenty-third verses of the third chapter. We will read from the nineteenth verse, “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped” ―the Gentile or heathen mouth has been stopped already, the philosopher’s mouth, too, has been stopped, and now the Jew’s mouth is stopped just as much―that “all the world may become guilty before God.”
Then we read in the twenty-third verse, “for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”; and mark what we have come short of! It is not merely that I have come short of what my conscience tells me I should be or what the law tells me I ought to be, but I have come short of the glory of God. In other words, God has been fully and perfectly revealed, and man in every condition―heathen, philosopher, and Jew―has come short of what God’s nature requires that man should be, in order to be in moral relationship with Him. Man has been on his trial, and that is the verdict. Of course we know that the day of judgment is yet to come. God has appointed the day, we read; and man has to die, and after that the judgment. All that is true; but man has already in a certain sense been brought up before God’s judgment bar. His whole case has been gone into already. All the evidence has been gathered together, and the whole world has been pronounced by God to be guilty before Him. Is there no remedy?
I can well understand that a man, whose conscience has been in the smallest degree pricked by these things, will say, What is to be done? Is there a remedy? Now, look at what is said in chapter 3:20. Before God tells me of a remedy, He first of all tells me where there is none. There is no remedy in the law. There is no remedy to be found for man’s sinful state by works that he can accomplish. By the law is the knowledge of sin. No law can justify a guilty man. The law of this land could not justify one who was guilty of breaking it. It can show up his guilt, but it cannot justify him. So we are told, “by the law is the knowledge of sin,” not its forgiveness. And forgiveness is what we need. But in the twenty-first verse we read, “Now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested,” and that word “without” is a peculiar word, it means altogether independent of the law―the righteousness of God entirely apart from the law. The righteousness of God is not the same thing as the righteousness of the law. The righteousness of God is the only remedy which God proposes for man’s state in the gospel.
I want to speak a little to-night on that subject―the righteousness of God. What is it? It is a new sort of righteousness altogether. It was a sort of righteousness that man until the cross new nothing about. He knew something about the righteousness of the law, but that was a human righteousness a righteousness that God demanded, no doubt, but a righteousness that He demanded from man, it was a righteousness which, if man could accomplish it, he would be entitled to call his “own” righteousness. Look at the Epistle to the Philippians, “Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law” (Phil. 3). It was not a legal righteousness which Paul now possessed. He could make a boast of his legal righteousness, he could pride himself in it. His legal righteousness he could speak of as something peculiarly his own; he had worked for it and wrought it out by his own power; just as we get in the Book of Deuteronomy, “The Lord commanded us to do, all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive, as it is at this day. And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as He hath commanded us” (Deut. 6:24, 2524And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day. 25And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us. (Deuteronomy 6:24‑25)). “It shall be OUR righteousness,” that is not the righteousness of God. The righteousness of God is a new kind, a new character of righteousness altogether. It comes from God, it is not a righteousness that God demands from man, but a righteousness which God bestows upon man. It is not a righteousness which God claims from the sinner, it is a righteousness which God provides for the sinner. That is a totally different thing! When man has been proved to have no righteousness for God, God says, I have one for you. I will relate an incident to you in connection with this: ―
At the close of a meeting in Switzerland some years ago, I noticed an old lady apparently thoroughly enjoying the gospel, and so I got into conversation with her and asked her how she had been brought into peace with God.
She said, “That carries me back many years. It was when I was a girl, and I was very much distressed about my sins, but nothing seemed to meet me and give me what I needed for the peace of my soul. I heard of an Englishman who was preaching in the town, and that he had told the people some wonderful things that had never been much heard of here before, so I thought I would go and listen for myself. The moment I heard him I felt, That man has the remedy for my state. But I did not get an opportunity of speaking to him for a long time. At last I sought an interview late one night.
“‘Oh,’ I said, I am in terrible distress about my sins.’
“‘I am very glad to hear it,’ he replied, ‘because it shows me that God is at work. The Spirit of God has done that for you.’
“‘But,’ said I, ‘I am in terrible distress.’
“‘What have you been doing?’ he asked.
“‘I am doing the very best I can, and that has not succeeded; the more I do, the worse I get.’
“‘That is a terrible case,’ he replied, ‘cannot you do something more?’
“‘No, I do not think I can, I have done all that I can think of.’
“‘That is a sad thing,’ he said, because God requires righteousness.’
“‘I know it, and that is the very thing that troubles me,’ said I.
“‘Well, and have you not a righteousness that is sufficient for God?’
“‘No,’ said I, if I had I should be perfectly happy.’
“‘Well,’ he said, if you have not got a righteousness of your own, who is your righteousness?’
“Slowly I replied, ‘Is it Christ?’
“‘Very well,’ he said, ‘and do you want a better?’
“I saw it in a moment, I had no righteousness of my own for God, but Christ was the righteousness of God for me and I could not have a better, and from that time I have never had a question, never had a doubt.”
Now that is what we get here―the righteousness of God. It is a different kind of righteousness altogether from what Paul had known before, or man had heard of under the law. This was the righteousness of God. But if the righteousness was of a different sort, the righteousness was also obtained in a different way, so in this 22nd verse it goes on to say, “Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ.”
(To be continued.)