Oh mighty Cross! His sacrifice on Calvary has made that mighty cross a tree of life for me.
”Life – life In its abundance – true life is what I chose to bring to a world dying in its own squalor of sin. Against that dark background I raised a cross – a cross on which hung my beloved Son, His blood streaming down as He took the burden of the world’s sin upon Himself. That cross had and still has the power to bring life, true life to everyone who would look up at it and call out to Me. My promise is confirmed by the sight of an empty tomb 3 days later. In the same way I will give eternal life to everyone who believes. In the meantime there is abundant life in Me here on Earth as you wait and hope for eternity.”
Today’s passage – Roman’s 3:21 -26, is perhaps the clearest description of what Christ did on the cross in the whole of Scripture.
Let us take a step back to 1:17, the great statement of the gospel by Paul at the beginning of his discussion. It is all about righteousness. (For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last.) For two and a half chapters Paul has shown how every person on earth is unrighteous. So the question is, “How do we become righteous”? Paul’s sneak preview in 1:17 is that there is a righteousness from God which has been revealed. We now come back to that statement in 3:21.
That righteousness is apart from the law and has now been made known V 21. Secondly it is from God Himself but comes to us through faith in Jesus to all who believe v 22. Remember 1:17; the righteousness that is promised is by faith from first to last.
Then Paul reiterates the universal need “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. But now they have been justified. (The word for justified is the same as righteous, in other words to be justified is simply to be made righteous) v 23. This comes as a free gift by God’s grace v 24.
It is so important to grasp the concept of God’s grace at this point. Nothing we have done or can do affects how God applies His work to us – it is truly free depending on His huge attitude of love towards all of us. Our part is simply to believe and receive.
Now the key verses: (24,25) we are made righteous by an act of redemption (this is a transactional statement that Jesus has bought our freedom through His death) which came as a result of God’s act of presenting Jesus as a sacrifice on the altar of the cross. Now the NIV uses the word “atonement” which does not carry the full power of the Greek word which means “propitiation”. Propitiation is powerful word describing a turning away of the wrath of God from us onto Jesus. V 25.
Now comes the great revelation. The next vv show how God has always had this method in mind in dealing with those who had faith in Him in the past. There is only one way to receive God’s righteousness and those who died before Jesus’ life and death on earth were also all forgiven in anticipation of Jesus’ death in the future. He has always been just and this is the only way of giving His righteousness to any human being. This goes a long way to explaining what happened to all the saints in the Old Testament.
Now notice, this righteousness is imputed to us. In other words it is placed as a description of our state in the eyes of God. It is not necessarily a description of how we will live our lives from that moment on. The aim of God is that we start learning to live righteous lives from then on and the rest of Roman’s is going to help us understand what that means.
We can only marvel. Our plight is as black as the night until the morning sun rises with Jesus to bring our redemption and not only freedom and forgiveness, but full membership of God’s family, adopted as sons and daughters for all eternity. Wow!
God bless you all as you enjoy this advent season in anticipation of Christmas day.