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Nothing to Brag About Romans 3:27-31 |
May 9, 2004 Pastor Tom Marcum |
I suppose every parent looks back across the catalogue of their parenting decisions and senses that some of those decisions were right on target while others, they would gladly do over if only they could. I know that's certainly true for me. One of the parenting decisions about which I am most pleased was my decision to accompany Jordan on as many of her school field trips as I possibly could. That decision led to an accumulation of shared experiences that were an absolute delight and set of memories that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world.
From kindergarten through 7th grade, I drove carloads of Jordan's schoolmates to museums of every description, to California missions and to the gold country; we went on a variety of tours, floated down rivers, chased crabs at the ocean, wandered through parks and botanical gardens and enjoyed a diverse array of picnics and barbeques. I think I missed 1 field trip in 8 years. It was father/daughter bonding of the highest magnitude and we loved every minute of it.
Back at home following one of those field trips, Stirling told me about a conversation she had with Jordan earlier in the evening. She said Jordan came to her and said, "Mom, I think it's really great that dad has the time to come on all of my field trips." Stirling said she immediately responded, "Jordan, have you ever noticed that every time your dad joins you on one of your field trips that he works late into the night on the days following those field trips? Honey, your dad doesn't have the time for those field trips…he makes the time for those field trips." She said that Jordan's response was, "Oh, I guess I'd never thought of it like that."
Last week, we looked at 6 of the most remarkably rich verses in the entire Bible. 6 verses overflowing with the Good News of all that God has accomplished on our behalf to make it possible for us to have a right relationship with Him. In fact, those verses are bursting with so much substance that I seriously contemplated titling last weeks' message, "The Most Important Sermon I'll Ever Preach or You'll Ever Hear." And your reaction has told me that you would have probably agreed with that assessment as following that sermon, many of you told me that you would have to re-read those verses and re-visit the notes you took several times to even begin to soak up all that those verses contain.
Well, this morning, as we move on to the following verses we get the sense that Paul is going to try and do for us as we try to rightly understand the meaning of those previous verses, the very same thing that Stirling was trying to do for Jordan, to help her rightly understand my participation in those field trips, which is basically to say, "You know, before you move on, I want to encourage you to reflect just a little bit longer on what just happened here because I think there may be some aspects to this whole process that you don't yet fully understand or appreciate." Paul is going to encourage us, in these next 5 verses to chew, just a little bit longer, on the meaning of the previous six verses because he's sensing that there are still some aspects to God's actions on our behalf that we've not yet fully understood or appreciated. And he wants to make sure that we do.
So, before we move ahead to look at verses 27-31 let's take a few moments to review some of the key aspects of verses 21-26. And let's begin by reminding ourselves that the key question Paul is addressing throughout the book of Romans is this: How can we get right with God? And the answer that Romans offers is this: Through faith in Jesus. And in verses 21-26 Paul explains how that process of getting right with God through faith in Jesus works. And here's the essence of what Paul tells us.
God is fundamentally righteous and we are fundamentally sinful. And one of the things that righteousness demands is that God must be just in all that He does. And one of the thing that justice demands is that sin must be punished and the punishment for sin is death.
But God is not merely a God of justice; He is also a God of love. And so God's great desire was to find a way to satisfy both the demands of justice as well as the demands of love. And God's plan led His sinless, only Son, Jesus, to die on a cross. And verses 21-26 identify some critical aspects we must understand about Jesus' death on the cross.
First, we learned that Jesus died as an "atonement" for our sins. And that means that Jesus' sacrificial death fully satisfied every requirement that justice demanded on account of our sins.
Second, we learned that through Jesus' death on the cross we have been "justified." And that means that God has credited His own righteousness to our account so that He could, in a one time for all time judgment, declare that we are now made right with Him.
Third, we learned that through Jesus' death on the cross we have been "redeemed." And that means that God has counted Jesus' death as payment in full for our sins.
Fourth, we learned that Jesus' death on the cross demonstrated conclusively that God is, indeed, a just God because Jesus' death was sufficient to cover every sin, ever committed.
And, finally, we learned that "faith" is the means by which we access God's offer of righteousness. If we will simply accept as true everything that God has told us about the gift of righteousness that He is making available through Jesus, that gift will be ours and we will be right with God.
No Reason to Boast
So, that's the heart of the message contained in verses 21-26 and it's this message that Paul is now going to encourage us to reflect upon just a little bit further. And he's going to encourage this process of reflection by asking a series of questions beginning in verse 27, yet his very first question catches us just a little bit off guard because it seems to be off target. Verse 27 begins, "Where, then, is boasting?"
"Where, then, is boasting?" Who said anything about boasting? I thought we were talking about the cross. Why would Paul suddenly introduce what appears to be a completely unrelated issue? And, of course, the answer is that this is not an unrelated issue at all. What it is is an aspect of the cross that we might easily miss without some prompting. So Paul is prompting us to see that God dealt with our sin in such a way that no one can get all puffed up with pride because God declared them "righteous."
No one can walk around looking down their noses and feeling superior to others just because things have been set right between themselves and God. Why? Because God took the issue of pride completely out of the righteousness equation the moment that he decided that our efforts, our hard work and all of our good deeds would not even factor into His decision about whether or not we would be made right with Him. Instead, God decided that He would base His entire decision upon our willingness to put all of our faith and all of our trust in what Jesus did for us on the cross.
That's the point of verses 27-28. "Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified…(that is, made right with God)…by faith apart from observing the law." In other words, getting right with God is 100% faith and 0% our good deeds. 100% faith and 0% trying to live a good life. Let me give you the Marcum paraphrase of these verses, "We maintain that being made right with God is 100% faith in what Jesus did for us on the cross and 0% about what a wonderful life we've lived. So, how are you gonna brag about that?"
Now, some bright soul out there might be thinking, "Well, Pastor Tom, that all makes perfect sense but I still don't see why it's such a big deal. I mean, why's it so important that our being made right with God is all about God and nothing about us?"
Good question and I think I can answer it real quickly. Folks, try to imagine spending all of eternity in heaven surrounded by people convinced they deserve to be there! If you think 3 hours at a snooty dinner party with an egotistical blowhard sitting next to you is torture, imagine an eternity like that! I got news for you, folks. That's not heaven, that's hell!
"Thank you, Father, for taking pride completely out of the righteousness equation."
One God for All
And with that, we come to verse 29 where Paul once again dons his prompter's hat to move us to consider another often overlooked aspect of God's amazing plan for dealing with our sin. He writes, "Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles, too…"
Here's the point. When God revealed His law to mankind, He entrusted that Law to the Jews. It was their responsibility to safeguard and make known God's law. But if God had decided that the Law would be the basis upon which He would determine who would be declared righteous and who would be condemned, well clearly the Jews would have been in a distinctly privileged position while everyone else would have been distinctly disadvantaged and…as for God, well, forget all that stuff about being just because clearly He's playing favorites.
But, no one can accuse God of playing favorites now because He's made it abundantly clear that being "justified" is "by faith apart from…the law." What's more, no one can claim that God is for them alone if He judges all people according to the same standard. And that's the other point Paul makes here in verses 29-30, which say, "Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised...(that's the Jews)…by faith and the uncircumcised…(that's everyone else)…through that same faith."
So, put it all together and here's what it means: the cross proves that there is only one God, that He is the God of all people and all people are made right with Him in exactly the same way…through faith in Jesus.
How does faith uphold the law?
Now, then, as we move to verse 31, Paul is going to take us deeper into the significance of the cross one last time with one last question and, finally he raises a question that clearly pertains to the matters under discussion. Unfortunately, this time the answer he offers seems to be completely self-contradicting. Let's look first at the question.
In verse 31 he writes, "Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith?" The point here is clear-Paul's discussion of the process by which we are made right with God has so emphasized the importance of faith and so diminished the importance of the law that one could easily conclude that faith has rendered the law completely useless. That it has, in effect, rendered the law null and void. And to see how that might happen, all you have to do is think back to some of what Paul has told us over just the past 10 verses alone:
--verse 21 says, "But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known…"
--verse 22 says, "This righteousness…comes through faith…"
--verse 26 says that God, "…justifies those who have faith…"
--And just in case there was even a shred of doubt remaining we come to verse 28 and read, "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law."
No wonder some might be led to conclude that the "law" has been "nullified" by "faith." Yet, after posing the question, Paul's emphatic response is that nothing could be further from the truth. He writes, at the end of verse 31, "Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law." In other words, not only does faith not nullify the law, faith, he says, actually upholds or establishes the law. Now, folks, the obvious question is, "How in the world could that possibly be so? In what way does faith uphold the law?"
And the answer is that faith upholds the law in the sense that it helps us to rightly understand God's purpose for giving the law. Many people had wrongly concluded that God had given the law to us so that we could be saved or made right with Him by observing it. But, Paul has clearly shown us throughout the first three chapters of Romans that the sinful nature in all of us makes the very concept of earning our way into right standing with God impossible.
So, then, if it wasn't intended to save us or make us right with God, what was the purpose of the law? And the answer is that God gave us to law to point out our need for a way of salvation outside of the law. And what is that way of salvation outside the law? Faith. Faith in Jesus. As Paul writes in Galatians 3:24, "The law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith." So, far from nullifying the law, faith actually upholds the law by helping us to rightly understand the very purpose for which God gave us the law.
And, once again, we come to this time to reflect back on all that God's word has told folks and, us, there's only one conclusion. This is Good News. This is really good news.
In the cross, God found the perfect way to address the awful predicament of mankind that was created by our sin. Through the sacrifice of Jesus, on our behalf, we have the opportunity to move from…
…condemned to saved; from…
…guilty to forgiven; from…
…destined for Hell to destined for heaven; from…
…being enslaved by our sinful nature to being set free by the power of Christ; from…
…being completely estranged from God to having all things made right between ourselves and God.
And all we have to do to access those blessings is say, "Yes, I believe that all of this is possible through Jesus."
If you've already said, "Yes," to Jesus, I want to encourage you to thank Him for all that He's done for you.
If you've not yet said, "Yes," to Jesus, I want to encourage you do so, today.
© Copyright 2004 Pastor Tom Marcum