Romans 3_20-22： The Heart-Shattering Grace of the Gospel
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In this episode of Real Christianity, I hit on what many theologians believe to be the most important verse in the entire Bible. In fact, it's so important that I'm preaching this episode standing behind the pulpit instead of delivering it from my desk.
Transcript
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to be the most important verse in the entire Bible.
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My hope is that you don't simply listen to this episode,
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but that you share it with many of your friends and family.
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welcome to real christianity my name is dale partridge today's episode is titled romans 3 20
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through 22 the heart-shattering grace of the gospel now as you know this show is an audio
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and video ministry of relearn.org and if you're watching the video recording of this episode
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please be sure to subscribe or follow for more biblical content if you're listening from apple
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Podcasts or Google Play or Spotify. Thank you guys for your faithful listenership. And a question,
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of theological warfare. I'd love to have you guys follow me at Dale Partridge there as well.
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Before I get to preaching, I wanted to tell you about two things. The first is our sponsor for
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donate. All right, guys, let's go ahead and get started and dive into this episode.
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All right, guys, I'm excited to talk to you about Romans chapter 3, verses 20 through 22.
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I'm also excited to be delivering this message standing up.
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You guys know that I've been regular listeners to the podcast, and I'm often sitting down here,
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so you get a chance to see a little bit of what this looks like on Sunday for me preaching a sermon.
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It says, I am convinced today that after all these many years of Bible study, that these verses are
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the most important in the entire Bible. That was Dr. Donald Barnhouse commentary on Romans chapter
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three, verses 21 through 23. And like flying over Arizona, if you guys have ever done this,
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it's pretty easy if you're not careful that you might just pass over the golden beauty of the
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Grand Canyon. It's right there. If you don't look out the window in time, you can absolutely miss
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it. And just like Romans, you can be walking through the landscape of this book and it's
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something that you don't want to miss. If you don't look down at the appropriate time, which
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is right now, you're going to miss the beauty of this passage of scripture and how important it is
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to the grand theological narrative of the gospel.
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I wanna just offer you a quick review of where we've been,
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we've been working through Paul's multi-chapter
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of God's impartiality of his wrath toward all men.
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all the way through 3.20, Paul really is stripping away any redemptive hope that someone might have
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in religious works or spiritual practices or activity that would bring them justification
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before God and really appease the righteous requirement of the law. So essentially, Paul
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is demonstrating the utter unrighteousness of all men. And this is important for us to grasp.
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He's talking about both Jew and Gentile are equally condemned by the law before God.
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And really, Paul's moving in an effort to drive people to a need for an alien righteousness
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We know that the word justification means to be found right or to be restored to right
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He's really driving and cornering them down through chapter 1, verse 18 through 320.
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he's really pushing them into a corner so that they have nowhere to go except look up to Christ
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as the means for their righteousness, their alien righteousness that's given to them through faith.
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And so this idea of the Jews being equally wicked as the Gentiles or equally condemned before the
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law was hard for them to swallow because they placed their redemptive hope in three things.
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Number one is who they were. They were the seed of Abraham. The second thing is what they had.
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They had the moral law of God that was given to them by Moses from God on Mount Sinai. And number
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three was how they were marked. They were marked with the covenant sign of circumcision. So these
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three elements, they placed a lot of redemptive hope in these three things. That was their identity.
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But verse after verse in Romans chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, Paul strips away
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the hope that these outward administrations of the covenant would bring about some sort
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And it's why Paul writes in verse 20, no man will be justified before God by works of the
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And so again, this is an absolutely staggering statement for the Jews to recognize their
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equality with the Gentiles and that religious works don't bring justification, that circumcision
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didn't bring justification, that having God's law and following it or attempting to follow it,
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and even being the seed of Abraham wasn't actually going to bring them justification before
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Jesus Christ. And so what they needed to really understand is they needed a way
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to get right with the Lord. And this is where Paul is leading them to think. And at the core,
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I think their problem was their misunderstanding of the law. They underestimated the condemning
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power of the law, and they overestimated their ability to keep the law. And that's the fundamental
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flaw. James 2.10 says, for whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of
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all of it. Now, in the last episode, I summed up really this entire narrative that Paul is giving
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about the impartiality of God, His wrath toward all men, that all have sinned, that are all
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unrighteous. There's not one that's good. This whole section, I summed it up with one statement
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that says, a low view of the law always leads to legalism. Now just stay with me for a second.
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A low view of the law always leads to legalism. Namely, when people feel like they can meet the
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law's moral demands when they have a lowly view of the law they will actually try to keep it
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when they believe that they can meet the righteous requirement of the law because they view it as so
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low and so attainable they'll actually try to keep the law um they'll work they'll toil the labor
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they'll strive to accomplish and meet the requirements of the law and it's because they
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have a low view of the law this is the heart of a pharisee and this is exactly what the pharisees
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had. They had a low view of the law. But that's exactly the perspective that Paul is trying to
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eliminate here. He's trying to give them a high view of the law. He doesn't want you to deceive
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yourself with a low view of the law. He wants you to understand that you are incapable of keeping
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the law. He wants you to have this view of the law that's absolutely massive, a law that's so great
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and so big that no man can accomplish the requirement of the law, a law that's so large
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and so heavy that no man can lift it. This is really what he's trying to do. And again, this
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is at the center of Jesus's ministry as well, right? Jesus is a law magnifier. He is constantly
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saying things like, you've heard that it was said, do not commit adultery. But I say to you
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that even if a man lusts for a woman in his heart, he's already committed adultery with her in his
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heart or you've heard that it was said do not murder but i say that if you hate a person you've
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already committed a murder in your heart so he's showing that the the law isn't just about following
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with the actions but it's actually also following with your thoughts it's actually obedience to the
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law not just with your body but also with your mind and this drove the disciples to really ask
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the question like who can who can keep the law thin and that's exactly what jesus was doing he
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to say high view of the law makes you realize, oh, I can't keep this. I'm going to be found
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unrighteous. I'm going to be guilty of all of it. That's exactly what Paul's doing. It's the same
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thing that Jesus did, is he's trying to magnify the law to show your utter hopelessness of
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achieving justification through works of the law to drive you towards grace, which is the only means
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of attaining justification through faith in Christ. And so ultimately Christ and Paul want
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them to see the degree and the fullness of their sinfulness. He wants to push people away from any
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hope of justification by works. And that is the heart of today's passage. Romans 3, 21 through
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20, let's read through 22. It's, but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart
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from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God
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through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there is no distinction. Now, in the previous
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verse, he wrote this just to give you a little bit of context here. He wrote, by works of the law,
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no flesh will be justified in his sight. Namely, justification by works is a dead end
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to be found righteous with God. It leaves people asking the question, or at least it should
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leave you and I asking the question, if I can't work my way into God's favor, how can I be right
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with God? That is the absolute necessity of mankind is to answer that question. If I can't
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By works, make myself find favor with God or become a restore to God.
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And Paul begins to answer this question by saying something pretty shocking.
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He says, but now the righteousness of God, that righteousness that we need, has been
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why do we need to absolutely pay attention to this phrase here? And I'll tell you, because
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you and I have no righteousness of our own. We have no righteousness of our own. And this is,
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again, the central issue, problem that faces humanity. There's no more vital need on earth
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than this need. In fact, the need is even expressed in the oldest book of the Bible.
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if you turn to Job 9, verse 2, Job asks the same question. He says, but how can a man be righteous
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before God? It's already in the scriptures, it's the first thing that's coming out going,
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how can I be found righteous? If you turn to the Psalms, Psalm 143, verse 2, it says,
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enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you.
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If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
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Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
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So the need for righteousness before God is an absolute necessity for humanity.
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And so this is why we should be paying attention right now.
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if the righteousness of God is found apart from the law,
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that cannot overlook our sin because he would be unjust,
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and we need to be found righteous. And so what's going on here? How do we overcome this? How does
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God overcome this reality? So let's just zoom out for a minute. And I just want to remind you of
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the greater context so that you can grasp the gravity of this passage of scripture.
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Paul has just demonstrated, again, a universal case for unrighteousness, that all have sinned
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and essentially fallen short of the glory of God, that none is righteous, not even one.
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And so in a very real way, we need something that we do not have and that we cannot attain
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We need something that we do not have and that we cannot produce.
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I don't know if you've ever struggled with some serious illness.
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I have, and I've sat in bed for weeks and weeks and weeks.
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And what does it force you to do in those situations?
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Lord, you are the giver of all good things, please heal me.
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That is essentially what happens in those scenarios.
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It forces you to do exactly what Paul wants you to do here.
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He wants you to see that the solution for our malady,
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for our problem is not in us, but somewhere else.
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away from finding righteousness within ourselves
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And so in verse 21, Paul says that the righteousness
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the cure for your terminal cancer has been manifested.
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If you were dying gravely ill and there was, you were hopeless and someone came to you
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and had like in their hand said, here is the cure for your malady.
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that's exactly what the drama that's behind this passage of scripture is that it's been manifested.
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The solution that you need, the healing for your soul, the righteousness that you need so desperately
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has been manifested. And it's been manifested apart from the law. And that is kind of a shocker.
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This is, I would say, a staggering statement, especially for the Jews. And to double down,
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Paul says, this is how it's always been. He says, the law and the prophets bear witness to it.
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Now hold the phone, okay, just for a second, right? If you're a Jew and you hear that the
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righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law and the prophets and the law
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bear witness to it, the question that a Jew would be asking is saying,
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our scriptures teach righteousness apart from the law? Like our scriptures, the Jewish scriptures
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teach righteousness apart from the law? Where? That's exactly what a Jewish audience would be
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saying. Because if you think about the pharisaical way of living, that you need to continue up this
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obedience to the law so that you can maintain your righteousness and be right before God.
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This is a shocking statement if you can understand the contextual reality of which it is written.
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Where is it said that righteousness is apart from the law?
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And it says, and he took him outside and said, talking about Abraham,
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now look toward the heavens and count the stars if you are able to count them.
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And he said to him, so shall your descendants be. Then Abraham believed in the Lord,
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and he credited it to him as righteousness. I'm going to read that again. He credited it to him
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as righteousness. It's right there in the account of the beloved patriarch Abraham,
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which every Jew admired, that Abraham was made righteous by believing in God, by trusting
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in God. And you should be asking the questions, how did the Pharisees miss this?
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How did the legalists miss this? How did the moralists miss this? William Farley
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brings a powerful insight to those questions when he says, quote, the default condition of our flesh
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is earn it. We enter the world in love with legalism. We are convinced that we can merit
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God's favor. We love moralism and we resist grace, end quote. And so what does this teach us?
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What does this teach? It teaches us that justification by faith alone is not a
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Reformation doctrine. Justification by faith alone is not even an early church doctrine.
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Justification by faith alone is a Genesis doctrine.
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It's the only way that God has ever made a person righteous.
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And while this doctrine may have been hidden by God's sovereignty
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it has now been fully manifested in Jesus Christ.
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the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there is no
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distinction. Now, one theologian said, and I thought this was really beautifully said, he says
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that righteousness is that which the Father required, the Son became, the Holy Spirit convinces
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of, and faith secures. I'm going to just say it one more time because it really shows a Trinitarian
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reality here, how it works with faith. Righteousness is that which the Father required,
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the Son became, the Holy Spirit convinces of, and faith secures. And so let's just talk about
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this doctrine for a moment, the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
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Justification, again, is the idea. It's the idea of being found righteous or being made right with,
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faith, being made right with God or reconciled to God or in right relationship or reconciliation.
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John Calvin once said, justification is the positive crediting of righteousness. It's
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when you've been given a righteousness, you have been justified. The righteousness is
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imputed to us in one way, and that's through faith. So we receive righteousness through
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faith. We receive justification through faith. It's never written in the scriptures that
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righteousness comes through repentance or that righteousness comes through baptism
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or that righteousness comes through prayer. These are all good things in and of themselves,
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but they are not the means which brings justification to a person. And so the question
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that we have to ask ourselves, and I thought this was a fascinating study on my own journey here,
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Why faith? Why faith over some other means of bringing about justification? Why not
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justification by love or justification by decision or justification by action?
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So first, saving faith is a gift from God. It's a gift from God. It's something we receive.
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It's not something that we do. Now, we often think that we have faith and that we just need
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to exercise that faith to believe. That's not how it works. That's not what the Bible teaches.
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The Bible teaches that we have mathematical probability. We don't have saving faith. We
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don't have the type of faith that can absolutely relinquish the authority of our lives and lay
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ourselves at the feet of Christ because we love sin. Our heart is distorted. It's spiritually dead.
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It's wicked. We have a condition, an illness of sin. Sin is not just an action. It's also a
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condition. We're spiritually dead. We need a resurrection. So there's all these things that
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are in the way for us to having saving faith. What we call faith today is you go, oh, you have faith.
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You just have to, you hop in a car every day and believe that you trust that you have faith in
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your car to protect you from an accident of death. No, that's not real faith. That's not the type of
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faith we're talking about here. That's mathematical probability. We have done the math in our brain
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and we've seen that most people don't die in a car accident and so we will feel comfortable
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doing those things. This is very different than saving faith. And so faith, when we talk about
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in scripture, at first it's a gift, right? It's a gift. Saving faith, the ability to have trust
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in Christ through all circumstances, a faith that perseveres. As we know that Jesus says he's the
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author and finisher of our faith. He who began a good work in you will finish it. There's this
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beautiful illustration of Jesus being the source and anchor of our faith. The second thing is that
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faith is the antithesis of work. Faith is the antithesis of work. What I mean by that is the
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central character of saving faith is rest. And so just think about that for a second. It's a passive
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act of reliance upon something other than yourself. That's what faith really is when you
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think about it. Saving faith is completely absent of human exertion. And this is important because
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this is a really essential distinction because a faith that is gifted and a faith that is
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characterized in rest and materializes in rest makes the salvation that it obtains free from
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man's work, rendering all the glory for that salvation to God. So that's essential. When you
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look at the mechanics of why faith. And so in other words, faith becomes the perfect means to
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save man without man's involvement at all. And so it's just a really beautiful picture that we get
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to see of what faith is and why God chose faith to be the means of justification. But faith alone
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does not justify, right? Even faith in God alone does not justify. We need faith in Christ alone
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that justifies. We know 1 Timothy 2.5 says, for there is one God, and there is one mediator
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between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. And this again is not merely faith in the historical
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man of Jesus, but faith in Christ, the divine Messiah that justifies. And so it's not just
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faith in the acknowledgement that you believe that a man named Jesus lived and died on a cross
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To rest in Christ, to not work to be right with God,
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has become your substitute by which he has died
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because your sins have been paid for, and he's not only died for your sins, but he's also lived
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by obedience through the law, and he has given you his righteousness through faith. This is a
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different type of saving faith. The understanding, the comprehension of the gospel is absolutely
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essential. It's faith that trusts in Christ, again, to earn that righteous verdict. It's faith that
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trust that God has credited your sins to Christ and credited you His righteousness. This is a
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whole part of the gospel that's so important. And this is essential because we have so many people
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who have come to the church, but they've never actually came to Christ. And I want to say that
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again. We have so many people that have come to the church, but have not come to Christ. We have
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an inflated church where the visible church is actually much bigger than the invisible church
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or the true church. And they claim Christ, but they actually don't bear fruit. They profess
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Christ, but they don't possess Christ. And they have a counterfeit faith that really trusts in
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themselves to make themselves right with God. And these people exist not because they don't
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understand Christ or they don't understand the gospel, but because they don't yet understand
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themselves. Okay, I want you to just sit on that for a second, because it's not that they don't
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understand Christ, but they don't quite yet understand themselves. Because the first part,
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remember, the way that the gospel is always preached in scripture is that it's always
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a mirror to the self. It's the affliction of the law so that you can pour on the ointment of the
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gospel. And so we essentially have a situation where we first need to see our sad state before
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the law. We need to see our condemned state, our hopeless state. This is what Paul's done from
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Romans chapter 118 all the way through verses, or chapter 3 verse 20, is that he's stripped away
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and given us a very accurate spiritual biography of ourselves, the biblical anthropology that is
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condemning before the law that we must run to Christ. And so these people aren't in the church
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and not saved because they don't understand necessarily the sight of Christ, but they
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actually first need to understand themselves. The door to salvation comes through the comprehension
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of the laws condemning power on our sin and our drive to Jesus Christ for justification.
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And so the only people who run to the cure are those who are sick. The only people who don't
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run to the cure are the people who don't believe they're sick. The law really becomes the catapult
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to the gospel. Jesus says in Luke 5, 31 through 32, and Jesus answered them,
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those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call
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the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And so darkness is what makes a fire so glorious,
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right? We know this, right? Darkness is what makes a fire so glorious. If you've ever sit
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at a fire during the middle of the day, you can barely see it. And it's not glorious.
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Sickness is what makes healing so beautiful. Sinfulness is what makes the gospel such good
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news. And until you see your own sinfulness before the law, you'll never prize Christ as you should.
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And the conclusion of it all, and really what this is wrapping up, what Paul's saying here,
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is that justification by faith alone is the absolute heart of the gospel. It's the absolute
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centerpiece of the gospel. It's what launched the Reformation. It's the very truth that saved your
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soul. It is so core to understanding gospel fluency, to understanding gospel mechanics.
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And if this doctrine doesn't activate your affections and fascinate your mind and your
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heart and your desires and drive you to worship, you're probably missing it. You probably have a
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high view of self, a low view of the law. You're not understanding what you've been rescued from.
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And again, I always remind people that if you really believe that you've been rescued from
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something great, you'll have a higher appreciation for the Savior. If you have a low view of what
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you've been rescued from, you'll have a low view of the Savior. We have so much legalism and so
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much bad theology in the American church today that we really need to get back to looking at
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the mirror of the scriptures to seeing our wretchedness, to seeing how bad we truly are
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and our deep need for Christ. Because when we have an accurate and authentic view of who we are,
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we will so appreciate what Christ has done for us. And I know it's easy to forget these things.
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I know that it's easy to make the gospel clinical.
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I know that it's easy to make the gospel theological and intellectual.
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And you kind of get out of this devotional element of it all.
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And it's easy to not want to exert the mental energy to admire this truth.
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I have to remind people that Jesus says that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord
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your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
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And the second is like it to love your neighbor as yourself.
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And so the mental exertion to revel in this beautiful doctrine is absolutely essential
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for us as Christians because we need to make the gospel personal. We need to remember that
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the gospel is not just for the lost, it's also for the saved. There's a great Dutch artist. You
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guys might know him as Rembrandt, and he has a famous painting of the crucifixion. And it's a
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picture of the painting, there's some soldiers and some people that are lifting up the cross.
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And your focus of the painting is really Jesus on the cross. That's what your eyes are drawn to
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pretty quickly. But then you start to notice there's a crowd gathered around. And then after
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you notice that there's actually a lone figure just sitting into the shadows in the far right
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corner. You can barely even see them looking down with a kind of a sad countenance. And
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what you don't know is that that man is Rembrandt himself. He actually painted himself
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into the painting after realizing that his sins contributed to putting Jesus on that cross.
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And that's what we need to do. We need to remember to paint ourselves into the picture
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of the gospel. We need to see ourselves as the gospel paints us, and we need to recognize
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how great justification by faith alone really is. The gospel, again, is not only a cure for the sick,
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but also a treasure for the saved. And do you treasure it? Do you treasure the gospel? Do you
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treasure Christ? Do you treasure the cross? My favorite stanza from Rock of Ages is,
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nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling. Naked, come to thee for dress.
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Helpless, look to thee for grace. Foul, I to the fountain fly. Wash me, Savior, or I die.
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well guys i hope that was helpful for you guys uh that are regular listeners here to this podcast
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and i hope this sermon was helpful for you guys to understand the beauty of justification by faith
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alone um to understand the radical and beautiful grace that we've been given that we don't deserve
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in the gospel of jesus christ if you're a regular listener to the podcast uh thank you uh would you
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guys consider leaving a review. You don't even need to write something. You just need to tap
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the stars. They really do help the exposure for our show and more people get to hear the gospel
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as a result. On that note, I'm excited to give you guys the next sermon in this series. I don't know
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if I'll be sitting down or standing up for that, but please stay tuned and come on the journey with
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us through the book of Romans. It's been very helpful, not just for me, but for many other
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people that have been listening along. On that note, my name is Dale Partridge. This is Real
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Christianity, and we'll see you next time.
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