Sunday Sermon: What Becomes of Our Boasting? (Romans 3:27-31)

You're listening to the preaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature teaching through a New Testament book, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to present our sermon series. Here is Pastor Gabe.

Justification by Faith in Romans 3

If you'll open your Bible please to Romans chapter 3. We are finishing up Romans 3 today as we come to the conclusion of what has been not only a very thorough description of our sin, the totality of sin and how it affects every person and every member of us, but then we have also heard a very thorough representation of the gospel, or at least the beginnings of a thorough representation, for we continue to hear this gospel proclaimed to us even after we get out of chapter 3.

We are going to finish up an understanding of this justification by faith that we've read about in Romans 3, and then next week when we get into chapter 4, we'll hear an example of this. Who is our example regarding being justified not by our works, but by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and the primary example that Paul gives is in Abraham, but that's next.

Week.

In the meantime, we're going to close chapter 3 with a series of questions. This is the same way that Paul had opened chapter 3, responding to his critics, those cynics of this doctrine of justification by faith, and just as he opened the chapter responding to some of those questions, so he is going to close this chapter the same way with three primary questions we're looking at here in Romans 3, verses 27 to 31.

In honor of the word of the king, would you please stand as I read here from Romans chapter 3. I am in the English Standard Version. The Apostle Paul writing to the church in Rome, hear the word of the Lord.

Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only?

Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means.

On the contrary, we uphold the law. You may be seated as we pray. Heavenly Father, as we come back to our chapter today, as we continue to read in this passage an understanding of justification by faith, I pray that this stirs in us such joy for the wonderful work that God has done for us through Jesus Christ our Savior.

We could have worked and worked and labored and labored and never come any closer to the presence of God than we were as wretched, depraved sinners. Because even through our works, that's who we still are.

The greatest of works that we could do and we would still be wretched and worthy of the judgment of God. But through the work that has been accomplished in Christ Jesus, we have been justified by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

We are declared innocent before God because of what Christ has accomplished on our behalf and has then imputed to us, clothing us in His righteousness that we may stand before God and be received by You as righteous.

Now Lord, in light of these things, what do we do? In light of having been justified by faith, how now shall we live? And we consider those things today as well as what will be spoken to us further as we continue this study in the book of Romans.

Bless our study this morning in Jesus' name, amen. In 1865 in Baltimore, Maryland, a woman named Elvina was sitting in the choir loft of her Methodist church reflecting on the sermon that she had just heard.

She was 45 but a widow. The conclusion of America's Civil War was still hanging in the air. The nation was as divided as it had ever been. Violence had come to the doorstep of so many families, especially there in Maryland.

Households were divided brother against brother, father against son, all over the right to enslave human beings. Elvina thought about just how wicked men can be. And yet Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came and died to pay the price for wicked sinners.

In fact, His sacrifice was so good, so total, so thorough, so gracious that there was absolutely nothing for us to do. Jesus paid it all. The pastor was in the middle of a long-winded prayer as Elvina wrote down some lyrics on the bulletin that she was holding.

After church, she showed her poem to the pastor, whose sermon so inspired her, and he was so impressed by what he was reading that he took it to the church organist and choir director, John Thomas Grape.

Well, Grape had just written a tune that he had just played in church, and he had called this tune, All to Christ I Owe. He had no lyrics for it. That was just simply the name of the tune that he had given to it.

So the pastor, George W. Schreck, worked both the lyrics and the tune together, and it became a song entitled, I Hear the Savior Say, though we would know it today as Jesus Paid It All. Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe, sin had left a crimson stain, and he washed it white as snow.

And it's that very sentiment that we're reading of here, even in the book of Romans, even as we get here to the end of chapter three, that Jesus paid it all, and all to him I owe, I couldn't possibly pay it back, he's given it all to me by his grace.

What sin had made of me, Christ has made me something new, and I am justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that has been given in Christ Jesus to be received by faith. Paul has made that declaration, as we've read here in chapter three, and as he's closing out this chapter, he's going to respond to some questions that have arisen from his critics.

These questions are nothing new. It's not necessarily that Paul is sitting there with his pen, and he's writing these things out, and he's thinking to himself, now what would my critics have to say about what I've just shared with these Christians there in Rome?

No, Paul's already heard this, especially from the Judaizers. Paul, you're trying to get rid of the law. Paul, you're trying to say that Jews and Gentiles are equal, and God is not playing favorites? And so, as Paul has heard these objections raised by his critics, he therefore brings up these questions at the close of chapter three, before going into the example of Abraham that we're going to have in chapter four, which, as I said, we'll get to next week.

So, the first question, simply, that comes up is, what becomes of our boasting? Like, what do we have to boast in? The second question that comes up is, at the beginning of verse 29, is God the God of Jews.

Only?

Is he not also the God of Gentiles? Asking this question of these Judaizers who would say that, hey, he's our God, he's not their God. Really? Are you sure about that? Is that even what we find in the law, in the Old Testament, that he's the God of only Jews?

And then his last question becomes, verse 31, do we then overthrow the law by this faith? Because, again, the Judaizers are going to be out there saying, well, you're saying we're just getting rid of the law.

Apparently, we don't have to do anything, because we're justified by grace through faith. So, what is it that we have to do? So, do we just throw the law out by this faith? By no means, Paul says, on the contrary, we uphold it.

What does that mean? We'll get to that as we consider these three questions. So, once again, first of all, the question that is also the title of our sermon this morning, what becomes of our boasting?

And that's where we'll spend probably most of our time this morning. Number two, is God the God of Jews only? And then number three, do we then overthrow the law by this faith? And my appreciation to the Baptist Apostle Paul for giving me a three-point sermon with these three questions this morning.

So, number one, what then becomes of our boasting? Who can boast before God about their goodness? And if you've been with me since chapter one, then I hope you understand quite thoroughly.

The answer to this question.

Now, this is still a summarizing statement after everything that we've read up to this.

Point.

Remember that the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. That was Romans 116. We have heard that all have sinned, Jew and Greek, and fallen short of the glory of God.

But all, Jew and Greek, are justified by his grace as a gift in Christ Jesus to be received.

By faith.

Is that rain?

That's rain.

There we go.

Sorry, well, what is that pitter-patter? Somebody was very rapidly turning pages or something. So, do either the Jew or the Gentile have anything to boast about? Are the Jews able to boast because they kept all the rights of Moses?

No, on the contrary, they as a people have broken the law of God at every point. The Jews stand as a witness that even with the law, they were still sinners. They were especially sinners because they were lawbreakers.

So, they most definitely have nothing to boast about. How about the Gentiles then? Well, we didn't have the law written down to break it. So, we're not as bad as you are, right? But as we saw demonstrated in chapter 2, the Gentiles could not even live by their own.

Standard.

They can't even boast by their own rules. So, who is anyone to say that they can be holy before God? Neither the Jew with the law nor the Gentile without the law has done anything sufficient for their salvation.

The last line we read last week in verse 26 was this, that God is both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. He is just to forgive us our sins through the sacrifice of His Son. He is justifier in that He gave His Son to be the sacrifice for our sins.

Jesus paid it all. So, our boasting is excluded. We have nothing to boast in, in ourselves. As Paul said to the Corinthians, because of Him, you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption so that as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.

Next, Paul asks this, still connected with that question, what becomes of our boasting? And he says it is excluded by what kind of law is our boasting excluded? By a law of works? Like, did we finally get it right?

We finally worked it out? Was it by Moses or any other kind of law? Did we finally attain to a perfect obedience? No, because if that were the case, then we'd have something to boast about,.

Wouldn't we?

There is, there's still this doctrine that exists even among some Protestants, a doctrine of entire sanctification that we can actually manage to attain on this side of heaven, our perfect sanctification, even before we go and join God in glory.

Dusty's up here nodding his head because he was raised in exactly one of those denominations that was teaching that sort of thing. So can we attain to this perfect sanctification? We can actually be totally sanctified and therefore no longer be sinners at all.

We will never sin again before we get to eternity with God. Will we ever attain that? There was this guy that was attending Charles Spurgeon's church, and he believed this. He thought that he could attain to this perfect sanctification and was listening to the teachings of Wesley, of John Wesley, and that was where he came to this conclusion.

And he thought he had actually achieved it. I am perfectly sanctified. And was arguing with Spurgeon over this to the point he even invited him out to lunch and said that I can convince you that I am perfectly sanctified and that this doctrine of entire sanctification is a real thing.

So Spurgeon is sitting there at lunch and he's listening to this man drone on and on about himself. And Spurgeon's just sitting there going, I can already tell this man is not entirely sanctified because he's already all about himself.

But Spurgeon is looking for a good illustration that he can reveal to this man that he's not actually as sanctified as he thinks he is. So at some point, Spurgeon just grabs his glass of water and throws it in the man's face.

And the man jumps up from his chair and he's, what are you thinking? And starts chewing Spurgeon out right there in the middle of the restaurant. And Spurgeon said, see, there's that sinful man right there.

He was just asleep.

All he needed was a splash of water to wake him up. So no, we cannot attain to this perfection before we reach glory. That is that work of sanctification we will continue to be in as long as we are in these bodies.

The Apostle Paul even said in Philippians 1 .6, I am confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it at the day of Christ. So we certainly desire to attain to that perfection, though we won't get there until we get there on the day of glory.

And so if it is not by a law of works that we are justified, then how is it that we have been justified? And Paul says, no, but by the law of faith. Now, if anything else that I read this morning, that is by far the trickiest line.

So we've come to understand that we're not justified by the law, but now all of a sudden Paul throws in there, but you're justified by the law of faith. Well, then we are justified by a law. But fear not, this is not as tricky as it seems.

It's also the easiest line this morning to explain. As Charles Ellicott notes, the law of faith is simply another name for the gospel. The law of faith is just simply the gospel. As we read in Romans 3 .23, 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 God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received, how?

By faith. Did we have to stand there at the foot of the cross and grab some blood off the cross and cover ourselves with it? And that was the only way that we were going to be justified? Well, then we're in trouble because does anybody have a time machine?

The way we receive this justification. All of the benefits of the propitiation of Christ's sacrifice that was made by his blood when he died on the cross for our sins. All of those wonderful benefits we receive by faith.

By trusting in him and believing,.

Knowing, and worshiping him because Jesus paid it all. As we read in Ephesians 2 .8 and 9, which was part of Rebecca's testimony when we heard it a couple of weeks ago, for by grace you have been saved through faith.

And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. That is the gospel truth. We believe by faith and are saved. It is not by our works. It is not by our own doing.

So that no one can boast in it. It is not by works of the law, but it is by the law of faith. The law of faith is as much a law under the new covenant as works were a law under the old covenant. Does that make sense?

You have to believe.

You can't not believe and still be saved. So it is a law. You have to do this. If you think about in 2 Thessalonians 1 where the apostle Paul talks about Christ coming back, returning with his angels in flaming fire to inflict judgment on those who, what?

How does Paul word it there in 2 Thessalonians 1? Who did not obey the gospel. Obey the gospel in what sense? They didn't believe. They did not heed the call to believe and so be saved. You must have faith.

But you don't manifest faith by your just conjuring it up. Okay, fine. I have to believe. Bang!

Now I believe.

You just concentrate and then you do it. It's something that God works in you. And we just heard that in Ephesians 2. By grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God.

It's not God believing for you but he works in you to believe. And it is a requirement that you must believe. It is a command. But it's not something you accomplished. God has changed your disposition from someone who was in rebellion against Him to someone who now desires Him and desires to please Him.

So you believe and you obey because God has caused you to obey. Again, he's not believing for you. He's not obeying for you. But he has caused you to believe and therefore obey. And I'm just using the language that scripture uses.

Ezekiel 36, 25 to 27 says, I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses and from all your idols I will cleanse you and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh or very simply a softened heart and I will put my spirit within you and I will cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

You have to be good but that's not the gospel. That's not good news. That's actually bad news because you couldn't do enough to be holy. You couldn't do any good to be holy. So Jesus came and did all the good and by faith in Him you are holy.

That's the good news. You are justified, declared innocent before God by faith. So a law of works is not good news but the law of faith is good news. The law of faith is the gospel. Ephesians 2, 10 goes on to say, for we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

So there are good works for us to do but that comes after the believing by faith. Then our good works become the evidence of our faith not the cause of it so that we have no room for boasting. Jonathan shared this a couple of weeks ago when he shared his testimony that when he started to believe there became some evidences, things that he knew that he had to start putting out of his life because he believed by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Evidence that his heart was being changed by the work of the Holy Spirit within him. And that continued work process of sanctification continues in every single one of us as we submit ourselves to Christ by this law of faith.

Verse 28, for we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Now we're not going to get to this in the near future. We get to this much later but I'm going to go ahead and say this now.

Our being justified by faith is not the end all be all of our faith. Okay, we love the doctrine of justification by faith especially as we're formed and it's certainly important because Paul is talking about it here and spends a great deal of real estate in the book of Romans talking about being justified by faith.

It's at the heart of the letter but justification is just a means to an end. We are justified. We're declared innocent before God and it's not by our works but even greater than justification. Yes, believe it or not there is something that's even greater than justification.

Even greater than this is adoption. We are made sons and daughters of God by Jesus Christ through faith. And I've encountered this before where I have talked to Christians who've been Christians for a long time 10, 20 plus years and when asking them how they're doing in their Christian walk I come to find that there's actually no joy in them or very little joy, very little rejoicing and it may be one of any number of reasons.

It could be because they've never really let go of their sin so they're still feeling guilty and plagued by sins they had committed decades ago even as Christians and even as believers they know I believe by faith and I've been justified and I know I'm going to get into heaven but why would God want somebody like me?

How can I be good enough considering all the things that I've done in my past and struggling therefore to understand that you've been more than justified.

You've been adopted.

You're a son or daughter of God.

He loves his children.

And as a good loving father wants to spend time with you he does more than just love you.

He likes you.

Which is crazy to think about because you can love somebody you really don't like. You'll cry at their funeral but you'll never go on vacation with them but God both loves and likes you would take you up in his arms as a father does their child.

There are many more wonderful glorious benefits to being justified than just being justified. Justified is the moment of our conversion. Adoption, sanctification, glorification all those things that come as a result of our being justified are still the wonderful part of this journey that we continue in with Christ until the day that we enter through those wonderful gates.

So we are justified by faith and not by works of the law and let that be a joy to you not only in that moment but something that you continue to rejoice in as you walk by faith. For as we read back in Romans 1 17 the just shall live by faith.

So that's the first question that Paul responds to here in Romans 3 27 what becomes of our boasting it is excluded. There is nothing for us to boast in and again as said in 1 Corinthians let he who boasts boast in the Lord.

So what is the next question then that comes about? In verse 29 or is God the God of Jews only? We hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law one whether Jew or Gentile. Is God the God of Jews only?

Verse 29 literally the question here is does God just belong to the Jews? If you think back to the time when the Jews came into the land of Canaan and they drove out the pagans from before them even conquering cities and wiping out entire groups of people by the instruction of God because their sin had become such a stench before God that God was using the Jews to become the judgment upon this pagan people and as the Jews are being sent in there to take the promised land the reminder of the law is given to them that you have one God here O Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one you will love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind with all your strength Deuteronomy 6, 4 and 5 because as the Jews were coming into this land they were coming among a people who had a bunch of gods and they had a God for everything whatever their interest was whatever their fleshly desires were whatever they had their hand in whether it was artisanship or agriculture or anything else sailing so on and so forth there was a God for every one of these things and we pray to our gods in order to be blessed and saved and furthermore their gods were very territorial so the God that I worship here if I go into another land there's another God that I have to worship.

But the Jews were to recognize.

That the Lord God is the God and the only God and he is not territorial. That you worship him here but you worship another God there. You will worship the Lord your God always with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

God is not just a God for the Hebrew people though. It was this people who were descended from Abraham.

That he chose.

Called out of slavery unto himself. We read this morning in Sunday School too. In the book of Exodus he called them to himself he has set them apart for himself and through this people would come the Savior.

But that Savior would be given for not just the Jews. He would be given for all mankind. And as God was God not just of the Jews but even of the Gentiles in the Old Testament. So it is the same in the new covenant.

God is the God of Gentiles. Also verse 30. Since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith the circumcised being the Jew the uncircumcised being the Gentile we are all justified by faith.

We all get adopted into the same family. There are not his and her sidewalks there's not them and their water fountains. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. As we sing in the old hymn we are one in the spirit we are one in the Lord.

They will know that we are Christians by our love for the love that God has shown to us. We show to one another. Back to Ephesians 2. Again this time verse 14. For he himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.

Ephesians 3 6. The Gentiles are fellow heirs members of the same body and partakers of the promise of Christ Jesus through the gospel. Ephesians 4 4 through 5 there is one body and one spirit just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call one Lord.

One faith.

One baptism one God and father of all who is over all.

And through all.

And in all and back to that reference in Ephesians 3 6 that verse actually begins by saying this mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs members of the same body and partakers of the promise of Christ through the gospel.

So why was it a mystery? Because beforehand the Jews did not know how God was going to reconcile Jew and Gentile to himself. I mean we read about it in the Psalms that God is going to be exalted even among the nations nations being a reference to Gentiles.

But how is God going to be exalted among the nations?

The Jews thought.

He's going to make Israel great and then whoever honors Israel God will bless. That's what they thought. But it's not through this nation or an ethnic people group that God brings people into his kingdom.

It is through the king who came through that people Jesus Christ and through him. Now that mystery which was kind of unknown to people under the old covenant has since been revealed. The Gentiles are fellow heirs.

It's not that the Jews are just the heirs of this kingdom. The Gentiles get to be heirs of the kingdom as well through the promise of Christ Jesus that is given to us in the gospel. It is by faith and it is through faith.

Now don't be confused by that where Paul uses that language there in verse 30 God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. This is just Paul being the brilliant wordsmith that he is.

So both of those terms are interchangeable. There's no essential difference between them. Paul is just simply saying by faith through faith we come to salvation through Christ Jesus. So that's the second question.

Is God the God of the Jews only?

Third question.

Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? That's verse 31.

By no means.

Paul says.

Or in the Greek it is it is the strongest expression of opposition that Paul can make to a bad idea. It would be like the equivalent of saying no, no, a thousand times no. And remember that because that expression actually comes up several times over the course of Romans as Paul responds to these objections.

By no means.

On the contrary we uphold the law in that question. Do we overthrow the law of this faith? It would be like saying do we make void the law? Do we render it useless? Believing by faith. Do we destroy the moral obligation?

Do we prevent obedience by the doctrine of justification by faith? Nobody has to obey anything anymore you just need to believe. By no means Paul says. On the contrary we uphold it or as some of your translations might say we establish the law.

As said by the 19th century American theologian Albert Barnes by the doctrine of justification by faith. By this scheme of treating people as righteous the moral law is confirmed its obligation is enforced obedience to it is secured.

This is done in the following manner Barnes says.

Number one.

God showed respect to it in being unwilling to pardon sinners without an atonement he showed that it could not be violated with impunity that he was resolved to fulfill its threatenings.

Number two.

Jesus Christ came to magnify it and to make it honorable. He showed respect to it in his life and he died to show that God was determined to inflict its penalty. As I've heard some theologians say if you want to see the love of God look at the cross.

If you want to see the wrath of God look at the cross. Because the righteous requirement of the law is seen even in that the son of God was crucified was put to death for our sins crushed under his hand as said in Isaiah 53.

And so number three Barnes says. The plan of justification by faith leads to an observance of the law. The sinner sees the evil of his transgression. He sees the respect which God has shown to his own law.

And he gives his heart to God and yields himself to obey his law. All the sentiments that arise from the conviction of sin that flow from gratitude for mercies that spring from the love of God. All his views of the sacredness of the law prompt him to yield obedience to it.

The fact that Christ endured such sufferings to show the evil of violating the law is one of the strongest motives prompting to obedience. We do not easily and readily repeat what overwhelms our best friends in calamity.

And we are brought to hate what inflicted such woes on the savior's soul unquote as I've heard Ray Comfort say of this. Now that I am in Christ Jesus I would not dare to do again those things that put my best friend Jesus Christ on the cross and killed him.

I want to stay far away from those things for which Christ died. And my love and adoration for what Christ did on my behalf drives me to want to live righteously. And we're able to accomplish it because Christ has given us his righteousness to do so.

Consider this sentiment recorded by hymn writer Isaac Watts. Probably his most famous hymn is Joy to the World. You know that one.

He also wrote a lesser known hymn.

This hymn is so lesser known in fact it doesn't have a title I think it's just known by like hymn number 102 in his collection of hymns. But there's a lyric that goes like this. "'Twas for my sins my dearest Lord hung on the cursed tree and groaned away his dying life for thee my soul for thee.

Oh how I hate these lusts of mine that crucified my Lord those sins that pierced and nailed his flesh fast to that fatal board. And so it is by faith then that we uphold the law. Not that we overthrow it not that it means nothing anymore.

But now our desire to please God through faith in Jesus Christ what becomes of our boasting it is excluded. It's nothing. There's nothing for us to boast in. Let he who boasts boast in the Lord is God the God of Jews only.

No of course not. He is the God of Gentiles. Also do we then overthrow the law by this faith. No by no means my Genoita. No no a thousand times. No on the contrary we uphold the law. And so we have not only a declaration of the gospel that is given to us here but we even have application at the same time that we would continue to do those things that are pleasing to the Lord putting away in our flesh those things that are sin that the Bible just very simply calls sin.

And we desire to do those things that are pleasing to the Lord to give you something in words something that you actually hear as application and not just leaving it to concepts of don't be sinners but instead be righteous.

Let me just very simply state to you what is said in Galatians chapter 5 regarding the works of the flesh versus the fruit of the spirit I say to you walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the spirit you are not under the law.

Now the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality impurity sensuality idolatry sorcery enmity strife.

Jealousy.

Fits of anger.

Rivalries dissensions divisions envy.

Drunkenness.

Orgies and things like these. I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God but the fruit of the spirit. The fruit of the spirit is love.

Joy.

Peace.

Patience kindness.