Romans 3:21-24

Righteousness Through Faith
21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.


Dig Deeper
When Abraham Lincoln was a younger adult he began a small store with a partner. It was the nineteenth century version of a corner grocery store. The store managed to stay open for awhile but then Lincoln’s partner basically skipped town and left Lincoln holding the bag for a great deal of debt to creditors and suppliers. Under Illinois law at the time, Lincoln was only obligated for his half of the debts and did not have to cover the debts that were left by his partner. That was the fair thing to do, but Lincoln didn’t think it was the just thing to do. Instead he vowed to pay not only his portion of the debt of the now-closed store but his partner’s portion as well. He called it his own personal national debt. Lincoln worked hard for years and finally paid off every cent of that debt. This is part of the reason that he gained a reputation as not just an honest man but one who was faithful to his word. People knew that Abraham Lincoln wouldn’t just do what was fair; he would do what was just.

As it stands to this point, Paul has left God with a big problem. Paul has demonstrated clearly that Jews and Gentiles alike stand speechless and defenseless before God and well deserving of his wrath and punishment. But where does God go from there? How can be considered righteous, or in other words, just and faithful to his covenant to bless the whole world and do something about the problem of sin. Paul has made it clear that everyone stands guilty before God because of that very sin problem, so how has God been faithful to his covenant promises? It might be a simple solution if the situation was as many Jews of Paul’s day imagined it; that Israel was just and the rest of the pagan world was not. They were simply waiting for God to sort that out and make it clear, exalting Israel as his special and privileged covenant people. But if God acted in that way he would be showing favoritism to the Jews and not treating them on even ground with pagans. That would make this an issue of God’s justice.

But for Paul, that’s exactly where things got extremely complicated and muddled. Israel was supposed to be that solution. The family that had been promised to Abraham in Genesis 12 that would solve the problem of sin from Genesis 3, had become part of the problem. They were just as guilty before God as the Gentile world. How could God live up to his promise to solve the problem of sin and still be faithful to his promise to bless the whole world through Israel? How could he be faithful when, seemingly, his chosen vehicle was faithless. His promise to Abraham was that he would create one family that would stand in the place of reconciliation but that it would come directly through Israel. Paul, as we can see, has worked himself into quite a corner in his defense of God’s righteousness. Just as Jacob was faithful to the covenant but Esau wasn’t, so God passed the covenant through Jacob, what God needed was a faithful Israelite, a Jacob, through whom the covenant could pass. This isn’t just a matter of God’s justice but his covenant justice.

This is exactly what the gospel is. It’s not just some new religion or ethical teaching. It is the declaration of an historical event. In the Messiah, and even more specifically through his resurrection (Rom. 1:1-6) God has made his righteousness known. Paul must walk a tightrope, however, with this declaration. It is apart from the law itself in that it is completely new. It’s not just the best that the law had to offer, but something quite different. Yet, it is not an invention that the Law and the Prophets, a common way of referring to the entire Old Testament, knew nothing of. It is new but it is the very fulfillment of God’s promises. If it was something entirely new, then God would not be considered faithful to his covenant promises. Paul’s point is that the revelation of God’s righteousness through the Messiah stands as something completely separate from the law yet comes from it and stands in continuity with the original promises given to Abraham. That is precisely why the gospel reveals God’s faithfulness to his covenant.

The wording of verse 22 in the TNIV can certainly be correct but it could just as easily be translated that “This righteousness is given through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for the benefit of all who have faith.” This slightly changes the common understanding of this passage but fits much better with the overall context of Paul’s line of thinking. It is not so much that the covenant faithfulness of god is given by having faith in Jesus Christ and then, redundantly stating “for all who believe” (although Paul will discuss the role and importance of individual faith in the gospel). Rather, Paul’s point is that the covenant faithfulness of God is revealed through the faithfulness and obedience of the Messiah.

One of Paul’s common ways of thinking that we need to understand in order to work through passages like this with him and arrive at the same point that he wants to take us is to realize that Paul is operating on the ancient understanding that what was true of the king is true of his people. Paul sees the Messiah through that same lens He represented his people so that what was true for him was true for them, and what was true of them was true for him. It is this close association that led the risen Christ to inquire of Paul as to why he was persecuting him when, in fact, it was the Messiah’s people that were being persecuted (Acts 9:4). The Messiah was the faithful servant of Isaiah 40-55 which meant that the servant wasn’t just a personification of Israel as many Jews of Jesus’ day thought. The servant really was one person that would represent the people (Isaiah 53:4). The covenant faithfulness is available in the faithful obedience of the Messiah to all those who respond in faith to the gospel and obediently put their hope in his life rather than their own. He was faithful to Israel’s role in the covenant and obedient by submitting to God’s will.

This is not just something, though, that was available to Jews. The Jews and Gentiles were in the same boat when it came to their guilt and now they have the same access to the covenant justice of the Father. He promised Abraham one family of his descendants and non-descendants and now that promise has been fulfilled. All were in need of this faithfulness because, as Paul says in verse 23 summarizing his arguments from 1:18-3:20, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
All humans were in obvious need of redemption. “Redemption” was a specific word that pointed to buying back a slave from the market but it also held connotations for the Jews of their rescue from slavery in Egypt. God has now done, in the Messiah, for the world what he had done for Israel in Egypt. All have sinned and continue to fall short of God’s glory, the purpose for which he made humankind. The Messiah has enacted the new Exodus and set all people who associate themselves with the Messiah and his gospel free from the enslavement and humanity-robbing qualities of sin.

This freeing action that has come through the Messiah is exactly the new power that the whole world needed. Humans were separated from God and unable to enact their own freedom. In the same token, the resurrection of the Messiah and the revelation of that life to those who would respond in obedience and faith, freely makes justification available. This is a monumental display of God’s grace. He didn’t just let people off the hook but declared them to be in the right and to be part of his family. There is a huge difference there. Many years ago, O.J. Simpson was found not guilty but most people still thought of him as guilty and treated him as such even if he was free. There is a far cry between let off the hook or simply pardoned for a crime and being declared to be in the right. All Jews and Gentiles who stand side-by-side, sharing in the same guilt in the cosmic courtroom that Paul has described have been shown the grace of God available in the life of the Messiah for all those who would respond to the gospel message in faith and determine to enter into that life and live by faith.


Devotional Thought
One conviction that is often difficult for Christians to gain or to keep consistently is the conviction that all human beings have sinned, have fallen short of God’s glory and stand in need of saving. This is a message that is particularly unpopular in our world today. How does it change the way you live among the world and evangelize if you have a firm biblical conviction in Romans 3:23.