WE have called the Epistle to the Romans the great gospel epistle; and so it is, for in no other epistle are the great fundamental doctrines of the gospel so clearly developed.
The apostle Paul had never yet been to Rome; but inasmuch as he, and not Peter, was the specially chosen instrument in God’s hands to minister the gospel of God to the Gentiles (Rom. 15:15-20), he writes the more boldly and fully to those who had not the opportunity that others had had of listening to his living voice. We are not to suppose that the truths he communicated to the Romans by letter did not also form a part of his testimony in other places. But in the providence of God to us Paul writes to the Romans, so that not only they, but we too, should have a clear and an inspired unfolding of God’s way of salvation.
Man through sin is at a distance from God; he stands convicted and guilty before God (Rom. 3:19). Every privilege that God has surrounded him with has only increased his responsibility, and enhanced his guilt. The law, which required strength on the part of man to accomplish it, could not bridge the moral distance that separated man from God, nor justify the guilty sinner. “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight” (Rom. 3:20). The law that brought home man’s guilt to his conscience, could not pardon the sin, nor cleanse the guilty. “By the law is the knowledge of sin.”
What then must be done? God is a righteous God. In His righteousness He might justly visit man’s sin upon his own guilty head in condemnation. But God is also a God of grace and love. To condemn the sinner would be justice, but it would not be love, Was there any way whereby God’s righteousness and His grace might both be displayed?
Here is where the blessed gospel of God shines forth in the midst of a world of guilty ruined sinners. Man, it has been proved, has no righteousness for God; but God has a righteousness for man, a righteousness which extends to all, but benefits only those that believe.
“But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested,” that is to say, the righteousness which God provides in the gospel for the sinner who believes is not a righteousness on the principle of works, it is “without the law,” that is, apart altogether from the law as the ground on which it can be obtained.
But it has been witnessed by the law and the prophets. In other words, both the Pentateuch and the prophetic writings of the Old Testament bore their witness to the fact that God’s righteousness was to be revealed (Isa. 46:13, 56:1; Dan. 9:24). Testified beforehand it had been, but never revealed until after Christ had died and was risen and glorified. Here, then, is the force of this word “NOW” “but now the righteousness of God... is manifested.” Now, since Christ has died and risen, God can save the vilest sinner consistently with His own righteousness.
But how is this made good to the sinner? In one way only — “by faith of Jesus Christ.” And to whom does it extend? “Unto all.” Praise God! If man’s ruin is universal, the remedy of God’s grace is none the less so. “There is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” but the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ is “unto all, and upon all them that believe.” The flood gates of redeeming love have been opened by the cross, and God’s justifying grace bursts forth in its freeness and its fullness, “through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24).
A true mercy-seat has been found, yea, God Himself has set it forth: “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation” (or more correctly, a mercy-seat). The mercy-seat of old, under the Mosaic economy, was God’s appointed meeting-place between Himself and Moses, the representative of His people (Ex. 25:17-22). God in His majesty and glory was hidden behind the veil, and man in his sins dared not draw nigh. But there once every year (Lev. 16) the High Priest entered with the blood of propitiation, which he sprinkled before and on the mercy-seat, the Holy Ghost this signifying that the way in to the Holiest was not made manifest while the first tabernacle was standing.
After the work of the cross, the veil was rent, and the way was made manifest, though this is specially unfolded in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Here in Romans the great point is the all-sufficient ground upon which the believer can stand before a God fully revealed in His righteousness and glory; it is “through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” On this ground, and on this ground alone — not by law, not by works, not by prayers and ceremonies, but “through faith in His blood,” a righteous God and a guilty sinner can meet. To meet apart from that precious blood would be eternal condemnation and perdition; to meet “through faith in His blood,” means forgiveness, justification, salvation, and eternal glory.
But further, though it had not yet been shed, the precious blood of Christ had ever been the ground of God’s forgiveness in all the ages that preceded the cross. Foreseen by God in all its infinite value, He had shown His forbearance in remitting the sins of His saints in past ages, for this is the meaning of Romans 3:25; but now, since the cross, He declares “at this time” His righteousness, that He might be just and at the same time the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Eternal praise to His name! All that God is has been revealed at the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. His hatred of sin, His love to the sinner, His grace and His righteousness.
What a marvelous remedy His grace has devised for all the ruin that man’s sin had brought in! Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law, or principle? Of works? Nay! but by the principle of faith. To God alone be all the glory!
A. H. B.