CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 3
In the former chapters we have had the darkness of man, now we get the light of God coming in, that is, we have God making Himself known, and the first thing is His righteousness. The essence of the gospel is the revelation of God, and as it is God acting in regard to sin, the first thing it reveals must be His righteousness. Man having broken down, the first impression in restoration that he must get of God is that He is righteous, nor could God be known in love apart from that. No one understands the love of God until he has the Holy Spirit. As to the order of revelation, that “God is love” is the last thing learnt; we do not find the expression until John’s epistle. God had acted in love, and Christ was the expression of that love; but the teaching that “God is love” does not come out until the epistle of John.
[p. 45] In this chapter the apostle first brings in the testimony of Scripture to confirm all that has been said in regard to the state of man. It is a great thing for us as sinful beings to know that God is not like us, and that, entirely independent of us, He takes His own way and reveals His righteousness. All works through the conscience, and the great point is how God is to be known by us. We must know Him in the way in which He presents Himself. The revelation of God is light, and the first element in that light is righteousness. Righteousness is in contrast with sin. The revelation of God’s righteousness proves that man has none. The testimony of Scripture takes up every part of man — throat, tongue, lips, mouth, feet; everything is corrupt; an “open sepulchre” would let out a good deal of corruption; the corruption is within; but the throat being open, the corruption comes out.
The force of the argument (verses 3 - 8) is that the unbelief of man does not affect what God has given to be believed; if men have had the oracles of God, their unbelief does not diminish the value of them. The “faith of God” is that which is to be believed; it is much the same as in Jude — “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints”. In christendom today, with Bibles plentiful, the unbelief of the professing christian does not make the faith of God without effect; whatever people may say, they are responsible as having the oracles of God.
The definition here of righteousness is that it is God’s righteousness; it is in contrast with sin, and comes out in the gospel because the revelation of God is in regard to sinful beings; hence the first element must be righteousness; if righteousness were not manifested in the gospel, it would be manifested in judgment.
The holiness of God is seen more in nature; righteousness more in bearing and conduct. God is [p. 46] holy and abhors sin, but when He acts it is in righteousness. Our unrighteousness commending the righteousness of God had special reference to those under law. God’s righteousness went out much wider in consequence of the proved unrighteousness of the Jew. It is now for all, but it never went out world-wide until the unrighteousness of those under law had been fully proved. In these verses the apostle exposes the refuges behind which a Jew might get. “Our” speaks of the privileged people, the Jew. It is deeply interesting to note that in this chapter it is entirely a question of God. There is no reference to Abraham or David or to the new sphere, neither have we our justification or righteousness in this chapter. It is the light of God coming in, and His righteousness — that is the burden of the latter part. It is greater than the fourth chapter, for there it is Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness, and so it is with every believer; but here it is the declaration of God’s righteousness. Believing comes in, because, it being a question of revelation, God could only make Himself known in righteousness to those who believe. In chapter 4 we get the resurrection of the Saviour and our righteousness, and consequently the acceptance of man in the light of that. In chapter 3 God makes Himself known in righteousness in a way of His own, and entirely independent of man. He has set forth Jesus to be a mercy-seat through faith in His blood for the declaration of His righteousness. Chapter 3 is perhaps more than the blood-stained lintel; still, if we could conceive a person come as far as chapter 3, that person is sheltered by the blood; but it is difficult to conceive such a state, he would not have any light as to the fruits of victory. Victory comes out at the end of chapter 4, and chapter 5 brings out the fruits of victory. What is here is morally greater, it is what God is, and people need to be rooted there. It is in the blood that God’s [p. 47] righteousness is declared; faith is for us the way of it, but the mercy-seat is in the blood of Jesus. God thus vindicates Himself in respect of His past dealings, and it is the declaration of His righteousness now. When God is vindicated — justified in the eye of man — in our eye, then we are conscious of being justified: but the first point is, God is justified; the blood witnesses the righteousness of God. God could not overlook sin, but He vindicates His action in respect to man in the past, as in sparing David, for instance; and now fuller light comes out; He is righteous and the justifier of him that believes.
The law bore witness of the righteousness of God, in that if a man came near to God it must be by blood; he could not approach without blood. The prophets gave the strongest possible testimony to the righteousness of God in contrast with the sin of the people. They bore witness to His character, and showed that the sin of the people was intolerable to God, at the same time indicating the way of its removal. God was always righteous, no alteration has taken place in His character. He took care to bear witness to His righteousness before it came plainly out in revelation. No one could tell how it was coming out, but nothing could be such a declaration of God’s righteousness, as that God’s Son, the righteous One, should be made sin; the character of God has been vindicated in the cross, the blood is the proof of righteousness.
The resurrection is the expression of power and victory, but the foundation of God’s actings is in the blood; God’s power in resurrection comes in on that basis. “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him”. Propitiation is the great basis, sin dealt with according to the righteousness of God. Thus His righteousness has been declared, sin having been completely removed from before Him. John 16: 10 is the Spirit’s conviction as to the world in [p. 48] regard of righteousness, not the declaration of God’s righteousness.
Verse 22 is the bearing of this righteousness; it is not limited. All have sinned, so it is unto all, but its application is to all them that believe. The question of righteousness was all settled for God before the resurrection took place, it is not affected by resurrection. We have here God’s righteousness in favour of man when that righteousness had been fully proved. God has taken His own way of declaring it, when He might have made it known in judgment on sinners. Righteousness is now ministered from the glory, but that is not Romans 3. Here it is declared in the blood of Jesus. God raised Him and gave Him glory. He went to heaven, so to speak, naturally. He came forth to do a work, and when He had finished it, He went back to the place He came from. All the activity of God is based on righteousness perfectly established in the blood. The resurrection is the great triumph of God, not simply a question of righteousness. God has triumphed over sin and death. When the saints are displayed they will be set forth as the righteousness of God. Our justification and peace are the fruits of victory, but we could not have the fruits until the victory is there, and that we have in the end of chapter 4; but in this chapter we have the glorifying of God. When Christ died, God was fully glorified, and there could be no improvement on it for God. Nothing could surpass what was effected for God when Christ died, it was God’s fullest declaration of His righteousness, He was fully vindicated, but the resurrection was the testimony as to the Lord Himself. In a certain sense the value and glory of His Person are declared in His resurrection, and in His ascension.
The blood is the vindication of God in respect of the apparent tolerance of sin in the past, and also in respect of His present dealings with men. God never intended to set the first man up again. The state of [p. 49] accomplished, subsisting righteousness before God, in which justification places us, is inseparable from Him who is risen from the dead; but in the cross all was effected; the mercy-seat was established in the blood. The rending of the veil shows the same thing. It was rent when Christ died, not when He rose. God had been vindicated in the death of Christ, and we should all admit that resurrection is the consequence of that. It is not only that God has been met, but He comes out to declare His righteousness. It is what God is, He is righteous while He justifies. In the future a King will reign in righteousness; and at the present moment there is a ministration of righteousness, but it is all the effect of God having been vindicated in the cross; there could not be a ministration of it from Christ in glory otherwise.
Faith establishes law, because law has done its proper work, that which God intended it to do; it has borne witness to the state of man; and faith sees that consequently God has in Christ manifested His righteousness. It is of the greatest moment in the history of a man when God is justified in his eyes. Abel came with the acknowledgment that death was upon man, and that he could not approach God apart from death. Propitiation — the mercy-seat, is the great thought in this chapter. “In his blood” is connected with the mercy-seat. Faith apprehends that propitiation is “in his blood”.
The distinction between chapters 3 and 4 is plain: in chapter 3 we have God’s righteousness; and our righteousness, that is, as being accounted righteous, in chapter 4. The declaration of God’s righteousness must come first. We can only know God (accepting the truth of the fall), as He has been pleased to reveal Himself. The first thing impressed upon the conscience of a sinner is that He is righteous, nothing can be rightly apprehended on God’s side until this gets its place in the soul. His righteousness is declared, so [p. 50] that He is just and the Justifier of him that believeth. Thus we have God’s grace prominent in the third chapter, and our faith in the fourth, and thus are set forth God’s side and our side. The woman in the Pharisee’s house got the Lord’s forgiveness, that was His side; then His word to her was, “Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace”, that was her side. What link should we have with God’s side but by faith. Faith links those who believe with God and the world to come, for a man is not justified in relation to this world, he is accounted righteous in view of God, and of the world to come. The establishment of God’s righteousness has in view ultimately new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness will dwell. The problem then is, how can man be righteous with God? The answer is, in the sacrifice of Christ. The real point of the third chapter is, that the life of the man who was under judgment has gone in judgment in the righteous One; and the righteousness of God has thus been vindicated. We read, God has set forth Jesus “a mercy seat through faith in his blood”. Blood is the witness of death. God must look at man as under death, and the blood upon and before the mercy-seat was the witness of death accomplished to God’s glory. Man is fallen and the sentence of death is upon him, and the life that was under death must go in death. Who is the man that is justified? The believer; he is justified really because in Christ the life is gone. You must begin from God, and get the moral foundation of righteousness well laid in the soul; the foundation which God has laid is, that He has carried out His judgment, and the life that was under judgment has disappeared in judgment. The subject of righteousness is limited in chapter 3, God must necessarily be righteous also in His government, as in all His acts and ways; but the point in chapter 3 is the righteousness of God which is revealed in the gospel. The witness of the righteousness of God in [p. 51] respect of sin is in the blood. God is just and the Justifier of him that believeth; that is the attitude in which He is, He has not disregarded His own judgment, but it has been effected in the righteous One. He can now clear the believer, because the man that was under judgment is gone in the death of Jesus from before Him.
All that God does He does in righteousness; but Scripture does not in regard of redemption connect the thought of the righteousness of God with the resurrection of Christ; the One who died for God’s will was the Son of God, and it was impossible that He could be holden of death. Psalm 16 shows us the perfect Man, who had His delight and confidence in God, and He must go to the right hand of God. In Ephesians 1 resurrection is presented as the exceeding greatness of the power of God usward. If righteousness is connected with the resurrection of Christ in regard to redemption, it is looking at Him too exclusively as man. He could say, even in regard to the wickedness of man: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it again”. The whole Godhead had their part in redemption, and the Son had His part. It is quite true that He has taken the place of man, and we see Him as such in Psalm 16; but His resurrection is not presented in that psalm in connection with redemption. For His work, we must go to Psalm 40; there we have a divine Person come out to accomplish God’s will. In Isaiah 50, where it says, “he is near that justifieth me”, God vindicates Christ in answer to the act of Satan and man. Man crucified Him, and God raised Him; but the point in our chapter is the declaration of the righteousness of God in the gospel, not God’s answer to men’s acting. In this chapter the righteousness of God is declared in the fact that the man under judgment is gone in judgment; in the fourth chapter we have the power and victory of God in Christ’s resurrection, and in connection [p. 52] with it our righteousness. In 2 Corinthians 5: 21 “that we might become the righteousness of God in him”, sets forth, that, in the place we have in Christ in new creation, we are the declaration of God’s righteousness in having cleared us. The answer to Christ having been made sin is given in us. When we are there, we are witnesses of how completely we have been cleared, and so have become God’s righteousness in Him. Christ took by resurrection a place in glory according to divine counsels, but that could not be until redemption was complete, then He took the new place, and we come into connection with Him there; the application of righteousness is to us, not to Him, in 2 Corinthians 5.
The great point in chapter 3 is this, that God has not abandoned one single iota of His judgment, for it has actually fallen upon man, but on the righteous One who took man’s place; and now God has come out fully, and can bless man according to His counsels. All is clear before Him. Man’s status was that of a sinner, so the apostle says, we have before proved that they are all under sin; the man that sinned and came short of God’s glory has gone in the judgment of the cross. God maintains His righteousness in the cross in respect of man, and of his state as a sinner, all is gone in death. You could have nothing according to divine counsel unless the whole state of man as a sinner had been met in righteousness. Our new state is according to counsel before sin came in. We are God’s righteousness because Christ has been made sin. God has been so completely vindicated in respect of sin and His judgment on man, that He can now set those who believe in Christ in glory, and He will do so according to His purpose. Romans 3 is the one chapter in Scripture which speaks of the declaration of God’s righteousness; God declares it “in his blood”. Redemption is sometimes used for deliverance, as in the case of Israel, but in this chapter it is [p. 53] evidently connected with the blood, so in Ephesians we have, “Redemption through his blood”. It is brought in there to show that God’s counsel is revealed consistently with His righteousness, He could not carry it out so as to compromise Himself.
The real force of the passage (Romans 3: 25, 26) is that God has set Jesus forth a mercy-seat in the power or virtue of His blood, to declare His righteousness. Morally God is on the mercy-seat in Christ, the blood having met the whole question of sin and man’s state. Thus has God vindicated Himself in His dealings with men, both as to the past and as to the present time. Man’s universal state has passed in review; he has been proved a sinner, whether Jew, heathen, or philosopher; then comes the revelation of God’s righteousness, and now God is free to carry out the purpose of His will. All were under sin and exposed to judgment; justification could not be established for us in resurrection if judgment upon man had not first been executed in the cross.
Eternal purpose gives us our place with God; if God’s righteousness is brought in as giving a place, it proves too much, for all would have the same place; but God puts every family in the place which He has purposed for them. (See Ephesians 3: 11.) God’s righteousness was completely declared when Christ died. Then Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. He is declared Son of God with power by resurrection; in that verse the thought of His raising Himself may be hidden, as we read in John 10, “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again”. This last passage is a very important one; it shows that the relation of divine Persons is of love rather than of righteousness. Who would speak of righteousness simply as between the Father and the Son? It is the Son who says “my Father”. Righteousness might be a question as between God and man in reference to [p. 54] Christ, but in redemption the divine Persons in the Godhead all acted in perfect accord; and each divine Person was involved in the work. “The glory of the Father” conveys a different thought from “the righteousness of God”.
Righteousness is in contrast with sin. In chapter 3 the man is gone from before God, but not from before us. It is often a long time before we see that the man who is gone for God is gone for us. There are three figures in Israel’s history of the death of Christ: (1) the blood on the lintel; (2) the Red Sea; (3) the brazen serpent. In Egypt it was a question of the righteousness of God, that is, of the blood. At the Red Sea the enemy’s power is annulled; and in the brazen serpent man’s state is dealt with; but all three types were included in the one death of Christ. As to the full value and efficacy of the blood, we should have to go beyond the scope of this scripture (Romans 3), it would take in the whole scene of glory; but in these three types we have the completeness of Christ’s work. It paves the way for what comes afterwards, the introduction of everything for men in another Man. God’s victory and the fruits of His victory are set forth in the last Adam. God makes known His victory in another Man, and we are given to enjoy the fruits of that victory.
It has been said sometimes that blood meets guilt, and death meets state. There is truth in this, but blood is the witness of death, and the terms are often interchangeable. Man could not approach God apart from death; the blood looks at God’s side. It was the meeting of guilt in the death of the offender, the man is gone, and the blood is witness of it. On the cross every moral question was settled for God in Christ, and death came in and closed up all.