ROMANS 3
In this chapter Paul raises the question, “What then is the superiority of the Jew? Or what profit of circumcision? Much every way: and first, indeed, that to them were entrusted the oracles of God”. After what he had said some might think there was no superiority in the Jew, and no profit in circumcision. But outward privileges are advantageous as far as they go. In the first place the Jew had the oracles of God. This was a great advantage, though, in result, it turned out to condemnation, as is shown in this chapter, for the oracles of God stopped their mouths and stripped them of every excuse, and gave them the knowledge of sin.
When the oracles were given to Moses they were “living”, Acts 7: 38. That suggests to me that when God communicated those wonderful things to Moses it was in His mind that they should not be connected with man after the flesh at all, for that man was under death. The whole system of the tabernacle was “living” under the eye of God, for it spoke of Christ. The “living oracles” expressed the mind of God, which ever centred in Christ: and no doubt, as one who had the Spirit of Christ, and with whom God spoke face to face, Moses understood this in some measure. To such a one they were “living oracles”.
Those who are in possession of the Holy Scriptures may be said to have the oracles of God now. The Scriptures may cease practically to be light from God for men: that is a very solemn thing, and it is largely the case in Christendom today. But they are still [p. 48] the oracles of God, and it is a great privilege to have them, but it is a privilege that carries with it grave responsibility. If men have the oracles of God they are inexcusable. In chapter 1 men are inexcusable because they have the testimony of creation, and in chapter 2 they are inexcusable because they have the knowledge of good and evil, and know how to judge evil in others. In chapter 3 men are inexcusable because they have the oracles of God. All this is to prepare the way for the glad tidings — to show that men are verily guilty and without excuse, and that they are shut up to God, and to His pure mercy, for blessing. God is clearing the ground that He may bring in blessing in the perfection of His own grace.
Outward privileges amongst the people of God do not give faith. It may be expected that amongst those who profess to know God there will be the evidence of unbelief, but that does not invalidate “the faith of God”. “The faith of God” would be that faith which takes account of God, and accepts God’s estimate of things in contrast to one’s own. It is better to take God’s estimate. “But let God be true and every man false; according as it is written. So that thou shouldest be justified in thy words, and shouldest overcome when thou art in judgment”. I suppose David, blessed man as he was, had not really taken God’s estimate of himself. No doubt David had written many Psalms before he wrote Psalm 51, and he had probably expressed as a prophet more than once God’s estimate of man, but it is possible to do this without really justifying God in one’s own spirit. David had to fall into terrible sin to bring home to him that God was justified in everything He had said about man.
[p. 49] It is one thing to justify God in a general way, and admit that we are all sinners, but it is another thing to be personally searched, and to admit that God has said the truth about me. “Man’s spirit is the lamp of Jehovah, searching all the chambers of the soul”, Proverbs 20: 27. We see David’s spirit searching all the chambers of his soul in Psalm 51. He had to find out that God was justified in His words; he had to prove personally what he was capable of. It is most important to justify God. Unbelieving man is false. I only begin to have truth in the inward parts when I justify God. It is a very serious thing to read a chapter like this, and set our seal to it, and say, It is all true, not only in general of mankind, but true of me as one of Adam’s race. I justify God in every word of it. Apart from this we shall never really understand the righteousness of God, or even see the need of it. To humbly bow our souls under the truth of this chapter is the way of blessing, and it is better to come to a true judgment of ourselves in secret with God than to have to plunge into one evil after another to demonstrate that we are what God says we are. God must be justified; He is true; and everything that comes out of my heart naturally in relation to God is a lie. That is the terrible result of the incoming of sin.
“The faith of God” means that God has really come before the soul. God does not come before the natural man; there is no fear of God before his eyes, nor does he seek God; he says in his heart, “No God”. That is the language of my heart according to what I am naturally as a child of fallen Adam. If that is so, blessing can only come in by pure mercy and grace on God’s part, and the gospel shows how [p. 50] God has come out to make Himself known that we might have “the faith of God”. The more thoroughly I am convinced of the truth of what I am as born into this world, the more glad I am to know that God has come out in righteous grace that I might be blessed through Jesus Christ His Son, His anointed Man, and that, as having the faith of God and of Jesus Christ, I can be justified and receive the Holy Spirit.
But now another important part of the truth is touched on: viz., that man’s sinful state in no wise relieves him of responsibility. This epistle shows how God meets every attitude that the mind of man takes in relation to Himself and His truth. One attitude of man’s mind would be this, If I was brought forth in iniquity and conceived in sin, and if all my wrong-doing only proves that God is righteous in describing me as sinful, how could I help it? Why should I be judged for doing wrong? Men would wish to disclaim responsibility; they very often take that line. Paul reasons this out in verses 5 - 8: “If the truth of God in my lie has more abounded to his glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner?” A man will say callously, If my sinful state, and all the wrong thoughts of my heart about God, only prove that He has said the truth about me, I cannot help going on in evil, and why should God judge me for it? I will go on sinning, and hope it will turn out all right in the end. “Let us practise evil things, that good ones may come”. Paul himself had been charged with saying this. I suppose his pressing the total ruin of man by nature, and that all blessing must come in from God in pure grace, had been perverted by his adversaries in this way. But he has a very short answer to those who would thus set aside the creature’s responsibility.
He says, “Whose judgment is just”, and with that he leaves the subject.
The seven scriptures quoted here from the Old Testament give a terrible description of man after the flesh — our old man. There is no place for God with that man, and therefore no righteousness and no goodness. This stops every mouth, and brings in all the world as “under judgment to God”; that is, all men have incurred His displeasure; they do not answer to what He requires. But those called of God separate themselves by repentance from the man described here; they judge themselves in the light of God; they “let God be true”. If we look up the scriptures here cited we shall find that they not only contain God’s estimate of “the children of men”, but that they also show that God does secure a people for Himself.
For example, Psalm 14 not only tells us that “Jehovah looked down from the heavens upon the children of men”, and what He saw in them, but it also says, “God is in the generation of the righteous”, and it speaks of those whom Jehovah calls “my people”, and of the afflicted who has Jehovah as his refuge. Psalm 5, which is the next scripture quoted, speaks of some whose “throat is an open sepulchre”, but it also gives the language of one who can say, “But as for me, in the greatness of thy loving-kindness will I enter thy house; I will bow down toward the temple of thy holiness in thy fear. Lead me, Jehovah, in thy righteousness”. Psalm 140 not only speaks of some who have adder’s poison under their lips, but it voices the confidence of one who can say, “Jehovah, the Lord, is the strength of my salvation”. God secures a generation for Himself, with whom He [p. 52] has a place, and who have faith in Him. Man cannot produce that generation; it comes in, not on the line of nature or of descent from Adam, but, according to this epistle, by the calling of God.
The evidence of divine calling is that one condemns himself, and separates himself by repentance from all that he was as a child of Adam. He justifies God, and he learns that God’s righteousness is manifested towards him “by faith of Jesus Christ”. Divine calling sets things in motion in the soul; the fear of God comes in — faith, self-judgment, the appreciation of Christ. It is not always possible to tell which moves first in the soul; the fact is, these things largely move together like the spokes of a wheel. When a man fears God, and seeks Him, he is evidently morally apart from the man described in Romans 3: 10 - 18. He is prepared to appreciate, and set value on, Jesus Christ as God’s anointed Man, when that blessed Man is presented to his faith in the glad tidings.
“Wherefore by works of law no flesh shall be justified before him; for by law is knowledge of sin”. A divine rule applied to “the children of men” can only give knowledge of sin, just as a plumb-line applied to a crooked wall exposes its crookedness. The case is so proved against “all the world” that no one can say a word in self-defence. The law cannot justify; it only manifests the wrong that is there.
“But now without law righteousness of God is manifested, borne witness to by the law and the prophets; righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ towards all”. What an immense change is this from everything we have been reading from verse 19 of chapter 1 to verse 20 of chapter 3! We come now to what is OF GOD, manifested in grace to sinful [p. 53] men, wholly apart from law, and it is of the utmost importance that we should apprehend it. We cannot have peace with God if we do not know His righteousness, and souls who have got blessing from such verses as John 3: 16 and John 5: 24 have to learn the righteousness of God according to Romans in order to have a solid foundation of peace. A servant of the Lord said that there was nothing like the love of God to break a sinner down, but that the righteousness of God must be the foundation of all true building up.
The “righteousness of God” is “borne witness to by the law and the prophets”. The whole of Scripture testifies to the fact that God has a way of relieving sinful men of the burden of guilt, apart from any works of theirs, and His righteousness is made known in this wondrous way of grace. The teaching of the sin and trespass offerings, and, above all, that of the day of atonement, spoke of a ground of forgiveness, or clearance from guilt, entirely different from men’s works. And as early as Genesis 4 God said to Cain, “If thou doest not well, a sin-offering lieth at the door”. It all bore witness to the righteousness of God.
There is a wonderful word in Isaiah 53: 11 as to how we are instructed in righteousness: “By his knowledge shall my righteous servant instruct many in righteousness; and he shall bear their iniquities”. Isaiah 53 brings before us Christ as the Guilt-bearer. He was God’s righteous Servant to bear iniquities, so that we might learn the righteousness of God in full remission. One loves to think of Christ in the way that He is presented here. Not only accomplishing in sufferings and death the great work of sin-bearing, but having perfect knowledge of all that He has [p. 54] effected thereby. The Blessed Person who accomplished the work is the One who understands it. We may feel that we know very little about it, but God knows the value of that atonement, and it is known also to Christ, His righteous Servant. It is precious to think that Christ, as God’s righteous Servant, has not only established the righteousness of God in bearing the judgment of sin, but that He has perfect knowledge of what has been effected, so that He can instruct in righteousness those who have the faith of Him. How blessed to regard Romans 3 as the personal instruction of Christ! We need to be preserved from what is merely doctrinal and theological, and to learn the righteousness of God under the direct instruction of Christ. It is as it comes to our souls as His instruction that we learn its true value and blessedness.
Righteousness of God is “by faith of Jesus Christ towards all”. God has introduced into this world a Man whom He could anoint. Every feature in Jesus, inwardly and outwardly, was suitable for the Holy Spirit to come into contact with. He was altogether God’s delight; and God is now presenting Him as an Object for the faith of men. It is the business of those who preach to set Jesus Christ before men — to preach Him in the truth of His Person, and in the detail of His moral glory and wondrous worth, that men may have the faith of Him. How striking the first verse of Mark’s gospel: “Beginning of the glad tidings of Jesus Christ, Son of God”! God has brought in One who is in every way worthy to be the Object of faith. He is the One of whom God could say from the opened heaven, “Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight”. God is saying to [p. 55] men, What do you think of Jesus Christ, My Son? No one will ever be able to say that there was something about Him which made it impossible to have faith in Him. He was God’s Holy One, the perfectly righteous One, yet, withal, full of grace to sinful men, Has anyone found a flaw in Jesus? Is there anything that discredits Him, that would lead men to feel that He was untrustworthy? No, it must be admitted that He deserves to be the Object of faith to all men. There was everything in Him for God’s pleasure and man’s blessing. “The law was given by Moses: grace and truth subsists through Jesus Christ”, John 1: 17. Grace and truth were perfectly blended and united in one through Jesus Christ. We see all that is of God, and all that is suitable to God in a man, in Jesus Christ, and it is “towards all”. The law was never towards all, but when God manifested His righteousness by faith of Jesus Christ it was “towards all”. When He was here God was “preaching peace by Jesus Christ”. It surpasses fable, and yet it is divinely true, that God has approached His sinful creatures in a Man, in the way of peace and grace and truth, awakening faith by the very character of all that He presented in that blessed Man. What did it effect when He was here? It attracted the wretched, the weary, the helpless, the sinful! Every one with a broken and contrite heart was moved and attracted. Every one exercised before God was attracted. And this is ever the effect of the preaching of Jesus Christ.
“Faith of Jesus Christ” takes account of Him in the truth of what He was, and what He is. In Jesus Christ we see the glory of God in a Man, for He was, and is, the Image and glory of God. We see in Him [p. 56] the full measure of that glory of which all Adam’s children have come short. There is a personal Object for faith; not merely a finished work to rest on, but a Person for the heart. This breaks the power of the world in the heart of the believer. God says by the prophet Hosea, “I drew them with bands of a man, with cords of love”, Hosea 11: 4. No one can gainsay that Jesus Christ has every feature and qualification that renders Him worthy to be the Object of faith. I think it was Napoleon who said that it would be a greater miracle to imagine such a Person than that such a Person should exist! It could never have entered the mind of man to delineate such a character. How could the natural man, as described in this chapter, have ever conceived the perfection, the moral glory, the holy beauty of God’s Anointed? No! Jesus Christ is a divine Reality; and the “faith of Jesus Christ” is simply that He becomes a Reality in the heart of the believer. It is no working-up of sentiment or emotion, but perceiving the blessed character of the One in whom the grace of God is set forth to men, and having the faith of Him. But the preaching of Jesus Christ tests every heart that it comes to. If one turns from it, and says in effect, That is a Person I care nothing about, does he not condemn himself?
We can add now the wondrous fact that He has been in death, descending into the sinner’s place and just desert, so that the righteousness of God might be known in the way of perfect grace.
On man’s side “there is no difference; for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”. The more conscious I am that I have come short of the glory of God, the more thankful I am to have the [p. 57] faith of One who has not come short, but in whom the glory of God shines forth in the way of grace. It is open to all men to have the faith of Jesus Christ, and all those who have it are “justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus”. The word translated “freely” here is translated “without a cause” in John 15: 25. What a beautiful thought it gives of the ungrudging way in which God justifies! It is an act of pure favour; He has pleasure in relieving the believer of every charge and liability. There is complete absolution; no question of the believer’s sins will ever be raised by God; all guilt is completely blotted out. “Be it known unto you, therefore, brethren, that through this man remission of sins is preached to you, and from all things from which ye could not be justified in the law of Moses, in him every one that believes is justified”, Acts 13: 38, 39.
Then this is “through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus”. Let us weigh this well, for it expresses one of the greatest thoughts of God. It is God setting forth that He has the right of redemption, and that He has exercised that right in the most wondrous way. He has provided for the recovery — the bringing back to Himself — of the creature that had fallen into a state of alienation, and under terrible liabilities. He has exercised the right of redemption that He might free His creature from every liability under which that creature had come by sin. Redemption will secure ultimately that the creature once fallen, and lost to God, will be set in sonship before Him with an incorruptible and glorious body. Justification is the first-fruit of redemption; redemption in its present application is the forgiveness of offences through the [p. 58] blood of Christ (see Ephesians 1: 7; Colossians 1: 14); but in its full result it will set the saints before God in the condition, place, and relationship of Christ as the risen and glorified Man. Redemption is in Christ Jesus; we see the character and value of it, its greatness and blessedness, there. God in bringing man back to Himself, through His own right of redemption, does not propose to recover him to the point from which he fell — to the innocence of Eden — but to a place and condition which will fully satisfy His Own heart. He redeems that He may have sons in the most blessed nearness to Himself (Galatians 4: 5), and we are God’s sons in Christ Jesus; Galatians 3: 26. The full value of the redemption which is in Christ Jesus will not be manifested until the revelation of the sons of God, when with redeemed and glorified bodies holy myriads will be conformed to the image of God’s Son, so that He will be the “firstborn among many brethren”, Romans 8:19; Romans 8:23; Romans 8:29.
The redemption which is in Christ, Jesus is not developed as to all its results in Romans 3. It is introduced as that through which God justifies those who have the “faith of Jesus Christ”. But it illumines the blessed character in which God is to be known. He is to be known in redemption. He had taught His people in Old Testament times that there was such a thing as the right of redemption. It must have been very precious to God to intimate that to His people, for His glory was to come out in it. Satan had perceived that God’s heart was set on man, so he brought all his subtlety to bear to rob God of the creature of His predilection, and man came under sin and death. But God fell back on the right of redemption, and brought in a new Head for man, One who by God’s grace bore the judgment of sin, and the penalty of death to which man had become subject, and who is now a risen and glorified Man in heaven. It is not a redemption that takes man back to Eden and innocence, but that shows the full pleasure of God secured in a risen and heavenly Christ, and if men are blessed at all they are blessed according to the power of the redemption which is in Him.
Now, as we have said, the first-fruit of redemption is that the believer is justified freely by God’s grace. God is acting within His redemption rights in justifying the believer; He has secured those rights at His own cost, and in virtue of the blood of Christ. If God justifies, and is righteous in doing it, “Who shall bring an accusation against God’s elect?”
Then God shows us something of the glory of the Mercy-seat. “Christ Jesus; whom God has set forth a mercy-seat”. The glorious character in which God is presenting Himself to sinful men is here magnified to the utmost. His throne has taken the character of a Mercy-seat. God is “of purer eyes than to behold evil”, but He has at His own cost provided for its being dealt with in holy judgment, so that Me might come out to men in purest mercy. The Mercy-seat was pure gold; it is all divine; it speaks of what God is — of what He has a glorious right to be — in mercy. The rending of the veil of the temple from the top to the bottom was an intimation that the Mercy-seat could now be brought forth from its secret place, and set forth on God’s part to men. Soon it will be the day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, but it is now the day of the setting forth of Christ Jesus as the Mercy-seat. God is coming out in the glad tidings in the glory of His [p. 60] mercy. What volumes does it speak of the power and holy value of the blood of Christ! There could have been no Mercy-seat if the blood of the Sin-offering had not been sprinkled upon it. Thank God, He has provided the Bullock and the Goat of the Sin-offering, glorifying Himself in righteousness in view of the blessing of both heavenly and earthly companies of called ones. The burning outside the camp of the bodies of those beasts whose blood was carried into the holy of holies spoke of the consuming judgment which Jesus bore when He was the forsaken One upon the cross. But the blood sprinkled on the Mercy-seat told of the God-glorifying power of the death of Christ, which has so vindicated and satisfied every claim of God as to sin that His mercy can be set forth towards all. No creature will ever know the full value of the blood of Christ, but it is known to God, and He is setting forth Christ Jesus as a Mercy-seat in the power and value of that blood. God is more glorified in the justification of a believing sinner than He would be in the eternal destruction of that sinner if he remained impenitent.
The blessed light of God known in redemption, and of Christ Jesus as the Mercy-seat, comes into the souls of men through faith. What a knowledge of the glory of God thus comes into man’s heart — God known in His righteousness and holy mercy! It is impossible for God to add anything to make the appeal of His grace more powerful and touching. Is it not certain that if men remain untouched and impenitent after such a setting forth of God before their eyes, there can be no place for them but the lake of fire? The lake of fire was not prepared for men, but for the devil and his angels. It is the place where [p. 61] obdurate rebellion meets its just desert. But human beings who remain finally hard and impenitent after hearing of redemption and the Mercy-seat will share the doom of those wicked spirits.
Christ Jesus as the Mercy-seat in the power of His blood throws a wondrous light back over the Old Testament history, and illuminates the past ways of God in grace. The righteousness of God is hereby shown in passing by the sins of Old Testament believers; God passed by their sins on the ground of the death of Christ. And now Christ Jesus being set forth as a Mercy-seat shows forth the righteousness of God “in the present time, so that he should be just, and justify him that is of the faith of Jesus”. God clears of every charge the one that is of the faith of Jesus, and His righteousness is shown forth in the fact that He does it through redemption, and on the ground of the value of the blood of Christ. Man’s works and boastings have no place here; “a man is justified by faith, without works of law”. It is purely a question of what GOD is, and the way in which He is pleased to present Himself to His sinful creature man. All hangs on that.
GOD cannot be limited to Jews, so that if He is just and the Justifier, all men may know Him to be so. But the principle on which He can be thus known is faith. Faith gives the light and truth of what God is a place in the heart of His sinful creature. How could works give the knowledge of God’s righteousness through redemption, or the apprehension of Christ Jesus as the Mercy-seat, or any estimate of the value of His blood as meeting every claim of divine glory in regard to sin? These things are known to faith, and God justifies on that principle alone. The Jew [p. 62] who had the law could only be justified on the principle of faith, and if that were so, how useless it would be to propose works of law as a ground of righteousness to the uncircumcised Gentile! God would justify him also by faith. Boasting is completely excluded, for this great blessing comes only through the knowledge of God as revealed in righteousness and grace — a knowledge received by faith.