Another Righteousness of God (Romans 3)

In the previous chapter we saw how Paul had explained how circumcision was of no value as an identity marker if the Jew did not keep the law perfectly. Did this mean that the Jews had no advantages in being called by God to be a special people? They had one great advantage, which is that they possessed the word of God. Paul says more than that they possessed it – he stresses that it was entrusted to them, by which he means they were to communicate its message to the Gentiles. The Jews chose to communicate the details of the law, but is that they message that they were meant to communicate?

The message they brought to the rest of the world was not a message of hope. Although it was contained in the Old Testament, it was not the message of the Old Testament. The message of the Old Testament was not that we should keep the law in order to be recognised as God’s people. So what the Jews were doing in stressing law-keeping was that they were hiding the real message of the Old Testament, which was that God would provide a Saviour for lawbreakers. And when we realise this we see how terrible their use of the law was.

The good thing is that their unfaithfulness did not cause God to change his mind about the message he had entrusted to them in the Scriptures. He remained faithful to it, although the fact that his faithfulness now meant the gospel was preached, it did not mean that the wilful and wrong response of the Jews did not matter. They would be punished by him for their sins, says Paul, even though God’s other righteousness was now being declared. That is, unless they repented of their wrongdoing.

Losing their advantage

Because the Jews did this, Paul reminds his readers in verse 9 that they had no advantage in having the Old Testament scriptures. It is the same still, as Paul points out in several places in the New Testament. Both Jews and Gentiles are under the control of sin. What is such a life like from God’s point of view? Paul tells us in verses 11-18, and in them he quotes several Old Testament verses that describes how people behave whether they have the law or not. It is a depressing description, but it is a reminder that we have to be realistic.

Paul points out that the natural man does not seek God, that he has turned away from God, and in the process has demeaned his value. He does not anything that God would regard as good, their speech is deceptive and they will do anything to ensure they get what they want, even kill. They are strangers to ongoing prosperity, happiness and peace. This is the way they are because they do not fear God. Surely this description reminds us why we, as part of the ‘they’, need the gospel.

So what is the point of the law? It is to make people stop boasting about their own abilities, to remind them that they are accountable to God, and that it is impossible to have a right relationship with him through our own obedience or attainments. Instead the law reminds us that in our natural state we are lost sinners.

Paul here finishes, as it were, the dark background to the picture that he is painting. Now he commences to insert the details that he wants to highlight. And we can see from verses 21-26 that the beautiful and bright features are all connected to Jesus. What does he say?

The righteousness of God

First, he says that there is a righteousness from God that is not connected to the law. This should have been good news to those who had just heard his prolonged description of everyone’s failure to keep the law of God perfectly. Not only would it be good news, it would also have been surprising news because Paul has stressed several times in the previous section (1:18-3:20) that God is determined to punish lawbreakers. This must mean that God has more than one option with regard to how he treats those who have broken his laws, whether Jews or Gentiles.

Second, Paul says that this righteousness is recommended by the Old Testament. He says this when he writes in verse 21 that the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it. It is worth noting the tense that Paul uses with regard to the Old Testament – he does not say that the Old Testament bore witness (in the past), but that it bears witness. Since it bears witness, it means it must be obvious. A proper reading of the Old Testament will tell the reader that it is not about the impossible righteousness of the law. Instead it is about the promise of another righteousness that God will provide.

Third, this righteousness, says Paul, is received through faith in Jesus Christ. Of course, the title ‘Christ’ should alert us to the Old Testament message that Paul is stressing because it refers to the Messiah. Right away, anyone familiar with the Old Testament would begin to think of the many promises about and descriptions of the Messiah who was to come. I wonder how many of them we can think about. And the Messiah is Jesus, which means that he is the message of the Old Testament.

Fourth, this righteousness is given to everyone who believes in Jesus. Paul here mentions that unlike the law, in which there was a distinction between Jews and Gentiles, there is no distinction between those who believe in Jesus. Under the law, there was a sense in which the Jew was closer to God because he had his temple and worship. In the gospel, all are equally blessed in this other righteousness.

Fifth, this righteousness is a gift from God. Paul uses another word here in connection with righteousness and it is the word ‘justify’, which means to declare just, to announce that persons who had broken God’s law are regarded by him as justified because they have believed in Jesus. The law never gave a gift, not because it did not have them, but because we could never merit them. This other righteousness of God is a gift.

Sixth, righteousness can be received by sinners because of what happened to Jesus. What happened to him? Paul uses two descriptions that are full of meaning. One is that Jesus is the redeemer and the other is that God made him a propitiation. We can think about each of those descriptions briefly. It is possible that Paul is using them with both a Gentile and Jewish background, so I will mention them so that you can have a big picture of what happened to Jesus.

In saying that Jesus is the Redeemer, Paul may have in mind the way that slaves were liberated. This would be the Gentile use of the word. A slave would be liberated from his bondage through a new master paying a price for him. Jesus came into the slave market of this world and paid the price so that those in bondage to sin would be liberated. The price he paid was his own blood when he offered himself on the cross.

If Paul is using the idea with a Jewish background, then he would have in mind the person known as the Kinsman Redeemer. If a man got into debt or was enslaved, then his brother was responsible for setting him free. Jesus became our brother when he became a man, and took on himself our responsibilities and debts. Our responsibility was to obey God’s law and our debt was to pay the penalty for our failure to do so. Jesus, our brother, did that for those who would believe in him.

The other experience that Paul says happened to Jesus was that he became the propitiation. This is a sacrificial term that means the bearing of wrath or the turning away of wrath. God was angry with us; we were the children of wrath. That wrath which we should have borne, Jesus bore it. He experienced it on the cross. Because he, the Redeemer, became the wrath bearer, we can receive the righteousness of God by faith in Jesus.

Seventh, the fact that God was waiting for this other righteousness to be provided explains why he passed over the sins that were committed by his people during the Old Testament period. He knew, and delighted in, the salvation that he had arranged for his own Son to provide for lawbreaking sinners. In the next chapter of Romans, Paul will refer to two of those sinners, Abraham and David.

But now God shows to us his amazing righteousness, that he remains just when he justifies the sinner who believes in Jesus. His wonderful law has been magnified by Jesus, its penalty has been paid by Jesus, and its breakers can be forgiven because of Jesus.

Which law do we live by?

Paul in verse 27 says something surprising. What stops us boasting? We might think that he would say that we would cease boasting because we had failed to keep the law. Instead he says that we cease boasting because we have been justified by faith. A Jew could not boast in his religious privileges and a Gentile cannot boast in his achievements because as far each is concerned he had to be delivered by Jesus from what had been with them. Paul is saying here, is he not, that a believer is a humble person. It is the evidence that we live by the law of faith.