WWUTT 1203 This Was to Show God's Righteousness at the Present Time? (Romans 3:26)

WWUTT Podcast

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

It was kind of mysterious how God was going to bring about the salvation of his elect, Jews and Gentiles alike, but here on this side of the cross we know that in the fullness of time the plan was through Christ when we understand the text.

00:25

This is when we understand the text studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

00:30

Find all our videos online at www .wutt .com, as well as links to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

00:38

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. Well, we are on to the last verse of our section of Romans 3.

00:46

This is verse 26, but to keep it in context I'll start again here in verse 21, the

00:53

Apostle Paul writing to the church in Rome. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

01:10

For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom

01:24

God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

01:31

This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he passed over former sins.

01:38

It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

01:50

So, once again, God put his Son forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

02:01

All of these things that God had done to pay for our sins, to redeem us to himself, we receive the benefits, the transference of this righteousness to us, comes to us by faith.

02:15

Once again, back to verse 22, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

02:26

So God having atoned for our sins through the blood of Christ, gives us his righteousness by faith in Jesus, by faith in his

02:37

Son. This is, again, the beautiful message of the gospel, as I've said most of the days that we've been looking at this particular passage.

02:47

Part of that beautiful message is that we believe by faith. There's nothing that we do, and even if there was something that we had to do, we'd never be able to do it.

02:58

There's nothing that we can do to merit the righteousness of God. We cannot earn

03:03

God's favor. We cannot do enough works to bring us to the level of his holiness and his righteousness.

03:11

We would never ever get there. So any kind of message that says, you must do this, and then you receive this, would not be the gospel, because there's never good news in that.

03:24

We would never be able to do enough to get to the righteousness of God.

03:31

Oftentimes, when it comes to understanding the majesty and the glory of God, I point to the

03:37

Son. You look at the Son in all of its power, and how fantastically hot and bright it is.

03:46

You can't stand out in the sun on a summer day for too long, or you'll get burned.

03:51

And we're talking about the sun being 90 plus million miles away from us. And you stand out in the sun long enough, you'll get a sunburn.

03:59

You could even get cancer and die from being out in the sun too long.

04:07

I have skin blemishes on my body, because I was in the sun too long when

04:13

I was a kid, and now I'm starting to pay the price for that with some defects that are in my skin due to the extreme sunburns that I got when

04:23

I was younger. So you stay out in the sun, you're going to get burned, literally. If you look at the sun too long, you'll fry your eyes right out of your skull.

04:33

You can't even do it for more than a few seconds without causing permanent damage to your eyes.

04:39

God created the sun, the sun being 90 million miles away from us. You can't look at it, you can't stand out in it too long.

04:47

So who are you to think that you can approach the glory and the majesty of God?

04:56

Just considering the sun, how absurd is it for any of us to think we can be as good as God?

05:05

You cannot demonstrate power anywhere near the tremendousness of the sun.

05:11

If you were to heat a needle up, the tip of a needle, if you were to heat it to the temperature of the sun, you were to heat the tip of a needle to the temperature of the sun, it would kill everything within a thousand miles of it.

05:26

That's how intense the sun's heat and radiation are. And yet we as feeble little human beings, the peons that we are, we think that we can do enough good to stand in God's presence?

05:43

I mean, His holiness is so great, you can't even stand in His presence. You would be incinerated. His holiness and His glory is just that majestic.

05:52

Looking at those things that He's created and how powerful they are, you can't even match yourself against God's created works.

06:00

So who are you to think that you can stand in God's presence, that you can do enough to merit enough holiness, to have enough righteousness, that you would be able to stand in the place of God?

06:14

And so how utterly foolish is it for a sinful man to think that he can be good without God?

06:22

To think that you can be good without God is a statement of saying that you can be good enough to stand in God's presence, to stand in the holy of holies and stand there shoulder to shoulder with God and say, hey, what's up?

06:34

I am just as good as you are. That is such hubris. That is such pride.

06:41

It should be of little wonder to us why God would pour out

06:46

His wrath on sinful man. I mean, we should just look at that level of pride alone and go, man, why does

06:53

God just not smote us right now for any one of us roaming here on planet

06:59

Earth in the middle of a universe that is, what, 13 something billion light years across?

07:06

I think that I just saw a news report recently, some article had just come out that was saying that the age of the universe and even therefore the distance across has been off all this time.

07:21

I'm like, well, duh. I mean, how in the world do we even get that number anyway to fathom that the universe is 14 billion light years across because we can't send anything out there that many billion light years away in order to measure that distance?

07:36

So anyway, scientists are coming back now and saying, well, we're probably off on that number. And it's been within my lifetime.

07:44

I remember reading an article. I was in my 20s. I was either in college or I was in my early 20s.

07:49

But I remember reading an article about how scientists were coming out now and saying, hey, we got the number of the stars wrong.

07:55

So previously, it was this number. And they had some scientific notation. And then and then they're saying it's not that number anymore.

08:04

It's this number. So they've recalculated the number of stars that are in the universe. And here was the new number.

08:10

Stuff like this is changing all the time. Science just has no idea. The universe is so massive and so expansive.

08:17

We can't hardly fathom it. We can't fathom the distance. We would never be able to put a manmade object that could even leave our galaxy, let alone getting to the end of the universe to tell us how far across it is.

08:30

And yet we as little tiny little peon human beings living here on planet Earth think that we can ascend to the place of God.

08:39

It is so ridiculous. The level of man's pride and sinfulness is so awful.

08:48

And yet God shows love to us anyway. He shows love and mercy to us through his son,

08:56

Jesus Christ, whom he sent to die on the cross for our sins. Jesus Christ, the son of God, whose very words were spoken and brought all things into being.

09:07

When we read in Genesis one, God saying, let there be light. And it was so we find out in John one.

09:16

It was Christ who was the one who was speaking at the very beginning of all of time, bringing things into existence by the utterance of a word.

09:24

Christ was the one who spoke and brought these things to be. He was in the beginning with God.

09:31

All things were made through him. And without him was not anything made that was made.

09:38

That's John one versus two and three. And it's referring to Jesus Christ. He is the word.

09:44

He is the one that brought all these things into existence. Colossians one says the same thing. Hebrews one says the same thing.

09:50

Jesus is the one who created all things. His words were the ones that were spoken that brought all things into existence.

09:59

And his words are the words that are spoken to us that bring us to salvation. The gospel of Jesus Christ.

10:06

The life that occurs in you, your dead spirit being brought to life when you hear the gospel that comes about the same way that all things came into existence.

10:17

It's the speaking of the word of God. You hear God's word through the gospel spoken to you.

10:23

And when you believe it, you turn from your sin. You worship Jesus Christ. You're alive.

10:29

You are saved. And that's all by the word of God. The word of God that you heard and believed brought your dead spirit to life.

10:37

Romans 10 17. Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. So the word of Christ that brought all things into existence is also the word that brought your dead spirit to life and brought faith in your heart where previously there was none.

10:49

There was nothing. Now there's faith. Now there's there's love for God and and a desire to worship him and a yearning for him and a reverent fear of him and a desire to do holiness.

11:03

All of this has happened by the work of Christ in your heart. This is how much

11:08

God loves us. And we read in Psalm 8. I imagine this

11:13

David standing under the stars and just looking at the expanse of the universe in the canopy of heaven that is above him.

11:20

He says in Psalm 8 1. Oh, Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth?

11:26

You have set your glory above the heavens. And now that we've explored into space with all the technology that we have, we know that the heavens are are even way further out there than people knew during David's day.

11:43

So setting God's glory above the heavens, his glory is really massive. It's it's even more huge than people thought thousands of years ago.

11:54

You've set your glory above the heavens out of the mouths of babes and infants. You have established strength because of your foes to still the enemy and the

12:04

Avenger. Now here in verse eight, when I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him?

12:20

So once again, we're peons on a little planet, infinitesimally small.

12:26

That's not the word infant infinitesimally small, whatever the word is, you know what I'm trying to say.

12:32

So so itty bitty, teeny tiny in comparison to the rest of the universe. And here we are, little people on this tiny little dinky little witty bitty planet.

12:42

And who are we that God who created all of this massive universe would be mindful of us? And yet he is.

12:48

This is a demonstration of his love and his mercy that he sent his son to this tiny little grain of sand to even take on the likeness of sinful flesh.

13:00

And then after keeping the law perfectly, he even became sin for us. Second Corinthians 521.

13:08

For our sake, he became sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God and him demonstrating the love of God for us.

13:16

And when we look at the at the massiveness of creation, we should recognize how prideful we are to think that we can ascend to the level of God.

13:27

But also when we look at the massiveness of all creation, we recognize our sin and our pride against God.

13:33

And yet God sent his son to us in this tiny little place to to even take on flesh.

13:40

The word became flesh and dwelt among us. Also, John one. And he died for us.

13:46

He let his creation put him to death for us and then rising again from the grave so that after having paid for our sins with his death on the cross, he then conquered death so that all who believe in him are justified.

14:02

We receive the benefits of the sacrifice of Christ, the benefits of justification, of sanctification, of glorification.

14:12

These things we receive by faith. And he also conquers the grave for us so that when we die in our bodies, our spirits will live forever with him in glory in a place that is imperishable.

14:25

We will be incorruptible, not even tempted by sin, nor will we decay.

14:32

Death will be no more. Sickness will be gone. All of these things will vanish. God has given us all of this by faith in his son.

14:39

We've received all of the benefits of the glory that God has bestowed upon the son,

14:46

Jesus Christ. We receive all those benefits by faith in him, and we become fellow heirs of his eternal kingdom.

14:53

Verse 26, all of this was to show God's righteousness at the present time.

15:01

So these things have now been accomplished through Christ. And we who are on this side of the cross are now looking back over the course of redemptive history and seeing how

15:11

God was working through all of these things to bring about the salvation of his elect,

15:16

Jews and Gentiles alike. And all of this was going to be through the cross of Christ.

15:23

In Colossians 1, 19 and 20, it says, for in him, in Christ, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

15:39

The cross is the pivotal point of all of cosmic history.

15:45

Everything revolves around the cross. All of all of time before the cross is looking toward it.

15:51

All of time after the cross is looking back at it. God is is bringing all of these things together, his plan of redemptive history through the cross of Christ across at Calvary.

16:03

So you think of, I mean, how insignificant we are standing on planet

16:08

Earth as compared to the rest of the cosmos. And yet God even zeroed in on one tiny little place there in Israel outside of Jerusalem on a mountain called

16:21

Golgotha, where he was going to erect a cross and sacrifice his son upon it. And that place right there is where all of cosmic history revolves around now.

16:31

Now, not a physical place, but what was spiritually accomplished through this through the blood of the cross.

16:38

God is reconciling to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

16:48

And all of this to happen, all of this comes about through the fullness of time. Consider these words in Galatians 4, 4.

16:55

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive adoption as sons.

17:09

These words in Ephesians one verse. Oh, starting verse seven.

17:14

In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will.

17:31

According to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

17:44

And then I'm going to read verse 11 just because in him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.

18:05

All of this to the praise of his glorious grace. But how much God had considered us.

18:11

David, again, praying in Psalm 8. What is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him?

18:20

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

18:26

You have given him dominion over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

18:40

Oh, Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

18:46

The Lord had considered us, though we had sinned against God, he would have been completely right and justified in just wiping us out in our pridefulness in thinking that we could be good without God.

18:57

God, I don't need you anymore. I'm just fine on my own in this ridiculous pride.

19:03

God could have wiped us out. But in his mercy, he did not, but sent his son to redeem for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

19:15

God considered our situation. He sent his son to atone for us. He has called us to walk in righteousness and do all things to the praise of his glorious grace.

19:26

And we will share with Christ's inheritance forever in glory. All of that bound up even in this word that we've read here in Romans chapter three, verses 21 through 26.

19:37

All of this was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he, God, might be just and the justifier.

19:45

God is the one who is just. God is the one who is justified. We do nothing. He's done everything.

19:50

Again, the good news of the gospel is that he has bestowed upon us all of the wonderful treasures of his glory by faith in Jesus so that he might be the one who receives all the glory and credit as just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

20:10

All glory be to Christ, our King. Then in verse 27,

20:16

Paul says, then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. There's no place for us to boast for all the glory and praise belongs to God.

20:26

We'll come back there next week with Romans 3, 27. Let's conclude with prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the goodness and grace that you show to us.

20:35

And I pray that in light of the things that we've considered today, we just praise you all the more. We see the love and the mercy that you have shown to us in that while we were yet sinners,

20:45

Christ died for us. You would have been completely right to remove us from existence, to just say,

20:53

I'm done with all of this and destroy us outright because of the sin that we'd committed against God.

20:59

But in your love and your patience and your forbearance, you passed over former sins.

21:05

You gave to us your son who has died for us and redeemed us that we may become worshipers of God, from rebels against God to worshipers of God.

21:17

And may we continue to endure in this until the very end. There is no other way that we can be saved except by faith in our

21:25

Lord Jesus Christ. Keep us steadfast and sure in this faith that we have received by God who is merciful.

21:33

It's in the name of Jesus that we pray. Amen. Gabe will be going through a

21:43

New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book. On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers.