©2000 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
|
7/2/00
|
The Two Witnesses
|
Romans 3:21
|
7/2/00 The Two Witnesses
I have only experienced a few incidents
of what I would consider to be sheer terror in my
life.
One of those incidents was in the late fall of 1992.
Sandee, Joni, and I were driving to Anchorage in
our little blue Subaru.
We'd bought it used just a few weeks earlier.
It was in great shape when we bought it,
just over a year old,
but the tires were a little smooth.
We were driving around Turnagain arm,
doing at least 60
when we came around a corner
and hit a long stretch of black ice.
There was a rock wall of mountain on our right,
a steep drop into the water on our left,
a car coming straight at us from the other
direction,
and I had absolutely no control of the car.
I can remember watching all of this happening
around me
and thinking to myself,
"I have just killed my wife and my daughter."
Sheer emotional terror...
Obviously we lived through it,
thanks solely to the kindness of our good God,
but the memory of that moment
continues to influence my driving to this
day.
Last week we ended our study in the book of
Romans
with a statement from Romans 3:19-20
that would generate a similar type of terror
within us
if we accepted the truth of what Paul was saying
and had no knowledge
of what was coming afterwards.
Paul concluded his first section of his letter to the
Romans
in which he presents his picture of the human
race apart from Christ
by saying:
Rom. 3:19 ¶ Now we know that whatever
the Law says, it speaks to those who are
under the Law, that every mouth may be
closed, and all the world may become
accountable to God;
Rom. 3:20 because by the works of the
Law no flesh will be justified in His sight;
for through the Law comes the knowledge
of sin.
Through the first 2 and a half chapters of Romans
Paul uses flawless logic
to bring the human race to the point
where we are forced to recognize
that on the basis of our performance
every one of us stands guilty
and justifiably condemned
in the presence of an absolutely righteous God.
Helplessness,
hopelessness,
and eternal despair...
But then, just before we ended last week,
we saw Paul open up a door in our dungeon,
a door we had not seen before.
It came in the form of those six words,
"But now, apart from the law..."
Today we're going to walk through that door,
out of our prison of judgement under the law of
God,
and into a world of life and freedom
that only God Himself could have
created.
The next 11 verses,
like so much of the book of Romans,
is a highly concentrated passage,
so we'll walk through it in 6 steps.
And step one comes in verse 3:21 where Paul says,
Rom. 3:21 ¶ But now apart from the Law
the righteousness of God has been
manifested, being witnessed by the Law
and the Prophets...
Paul does something in this 21st verse
that is intended to disarm
a very real fear that many of his readers will
experience
when they hear those first 6 words -
...But now apart from the Law...
You see, in the first half of this 21st verse
Paul does something
that has never been done before
in the world of human religious
thought and communication.
He separates two concepts
that had never been separated before,
two concepts that, to the human mind,
were absolutely inseparable.
And I want us to listen carefully
to what Paul is doing here,
because everything else that follows
hinges upon our understanding
the separation of these two concepts.
Paul says, But now apart from the Law the
righteousness of God has been
manifested...
In that single statement
Paul separates "the Law"
from "righteousness".
Prior to this point
the entire history of human religious thought and
understanding
has been based upon the inseparable union of
those two ideas.
Righteousness IS keeping the law of God.
That's what it means.
The LAW reveals to us how to achieve
righteousness.
Who is a righteous man?
He is one who keeps the Law.
How is righteousness measured?
It is measured on the basis of the law of God.
To separate righteousness and the Law
is unthinkable on the basis of human logic.
For Paul to say, But now apart from the Law
the righteousness of God has been
manifested...
makes about as much sense to the human mind
as for me to say,
"But now, apart from water
the Pacific Ocean has been revealed...",
to which you would respond,
"Right, Larry - now why don't you go get a
brain."
The Pacific Ocean IS water,
and righteousness IS keeping the Law of God.
And even those of us
who have been immersed in
Bible-babble for our entire lives
are not free from this struggle.
Following my now famous "Matrix" talk
I had an extended conversation
with a person who was experiencing
tremendous fear
at the thought of separating
righteousness from the law.
In that talk
one of the things I said was this:
And as we prepare for our warfare against sin in
this new life in Christ
we naturally assume that our acceptance by God
is still rooted in our ability to perform for
God.
Now, somewhere in our training process
we will find ourselves saying,
"So what? Are you telling me that I will eventually
be able to reach the point
where I can keep the law perfectly?"
To which our Lord will respond by saying,
"No, eventually you will reach the point
where you realize you don't have to."
And I believe my phrasing it that way
caused the person I was talking with
to realize for the first time in their life
that I was doing the same thing
Paul is doing here in Rom. 3:21 -
I was severing righteousness
from obedience to the moral LAW of God.
And it scared them to death.
You see, we are comfortable
with a kind of "Christianity" that tells us Jesus
came in order to give us the power to keep the Law.
We understand that kind of thinking.
We understand a concept of righteousness
that is the direct result
of our faithful obedience to the written moral
law of God.
But listen to this:
2 Cor. 3:5 Not that we are adequate in
ourselves to consider anything as coming
from ourselves, but our adequacy is from
God,
2 Cor. 3:6 who also made us adequate as
servants of a new covenant, not of the letter
(of the Law), but of the Spirit; for the letter
kills, but the Spirit gives life.
I didn't write that, God did through Paul.
And he simply says,
as Christians we are still not adequate
as servants of the LAW.
And as Paul writes these opening words
to his presentation of the truths that have the
power to change our lives forever,
he knows the kind of fear we will experience
when we hear him separating
righteousness from the Law.
Such a separation causes all sorts of fear within us.
Are we all of the sudden talking about some other
standard of moral measurement here?
Is Paul trying to slip in a revised set of the 10
Commandments,
rewritten so that they are more politically correct,
and less abrasive and offensive?
Is he going to fudge a little (or a lot)
on THE LIST so that we now
have a better chance of making it?
And so, before he goes any farther,
he creates for us a word picture
to help us relax a bit.
The picture begins with that word "manifested".
It means "to make visible or to make clear,
to display in a way that is easily, clearly seen."
It's like this -
God has taken HIS concept of righteousness,
which, of course, is rooted in His own
absolute, perfect holiness,
and He has placed it directly onto center
stage
in a huge auditorium.
And then He has turned all of His spot lights
directly onto that righteousness
so that it can be clearly seen
for close examination
by all the world.
It is this righteousness that is being offered to us
through faith in Christ,
this righteousness that is apart from the Law.
But just so that we don't get confused
and think maybe this is some other kind of
righteousness
than the righteousness, the holiness
that God has been talking about
since the day of creation,
onto this stage
He then calls two groups of witnesses -
the LAW itself,
and the Old Testament prophets.
And the first witness, the Moral Law of God,
including the 10 commandments
and all the directives and moral laws that
flow from those commandments,
the LAW walks up to this Righteousness
standing on center stage
and the law examines it closely, minutely,
and then the LAW turns to us and says,
"This is the real thing!
This is the very same righteousness
that I have been talking about for 4000
years.
This is exactly the same righteousness
that would have resulted
if a person would have kept perfectly
every law of God
every second
of every day
of every year
from the instant of birth
until the instant of death.
This is the same righteousness
that would allow
the person who possessed it
to stand clean, and pure, and holy in the very
presence of God Himself,
without any fear of rejection,
or judgement,
or wrath.
I know this righteousness,
and I witness to you today
that it is the same righteousness
that would allow the person who
possessed it
to face the coming day of divine Judgement
without fear."
And then this witness,
this Moral Law of God,
goes on to assure the world
that this is exactly the same righteousness
it has been telling us we need,
but was unable to give us itself.
Then the Old Testament prophets step on stage one
by one -
Moses,
Isaiah,
Jeremiah,
Daniel,
each of those men in history
that God used to reveal His Law,
and to confront Israel with their need
to obey that law,
and each of those prophets
examine this righteousness
that has suddenly appeared apart from the
Law,
and they each confirm that this is indeed
the true, perfect righteousness of God.
So, in the first verse of Paul's presentation
of the good news of God for mankind,
he begins by telling us
that God is offering us a way to become
righteous,
a way to become as holy as God Himself,
and this offer of holiness
has nothing whatsoever to do
with our obedience
or our performance as measured by the Moral law
of God.
Do you know what this is?
This is the Junior High student in Algebra class
who is in Math hell for the entire semester.
From the first day of class
this boy is lost beyond all recovery.
The teacher might as well be talking to the class in
some obscure Indonesian dialect.
Every night the boy tries to wade through the
assignment,
and every day he receives back
the previous day's homework
with every problem marked incorrect.
Every test contains a list of problems
for which the boy can't even begin to guess the
answer.
And then, on the last day of class,
the teacher passes out to each student
a sheet containing a list of all their grades
for the semester,
and their final grade for the course.
And when he receives his sheet
he sees on it
an unbroken list of A+'s
all the way across the sheet.
And another example -
this is also the father and husband
who has worked his whole life
earning just barely enough money
to meet the monthly needs of his
family.
Never has he been able to generate
even a little excess to put toward retirement.
And the day he turns 65
he receives a copy of his bank statement in the
mail
and sees on it a balance
of $14,000,000.00 .
...But now apart from the Law the
righteousness of God has been
manifested...
So where does it come from?
How does it happen?
Is it real?
Or is it just on paper - sort of a theoretical
thing?
Step 2 in our 6 steps through this passage
takes us into verses 22-24
where Paul reveals to us
this new agreement between God and
man
through which we become righteous
apart from the Law.
Rom. 3:22 even the righteousness of God
through faith in Jesus Christ for all those
who believe; for there is no distinction;
Rom. 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God,
Rom. 3:24 being justified as a gift by His
grace through the redemption which is in
Christ Jesus;
Now this step does not yet answer the "how" of this
new pathway to righteousness,
but it does explain what the offer is.
Paul tells us
that God is offering us His gift of righteousness
in exchange for our faith in the redemption
which is in Jesus Christ.
Paul uses three separate terms
to explain to us what God is offering us
in exchange for our faith in Christ.
He is offering us righteousness,
we are being justified,
and we are being redeemed.
We aren't going to make it much farther in this
passage today,
but I want to point out two crucial things about
what we have seen so far
before we stop for the day.
First of all,
God's offer of this righteousness of God,
this holiness,
this justification through faith
is not an add-on to the law system,
it is a completely separate,
alternative arrangement
between us and our Creator.
And Paul makes this clear
as he sets the two choices side-by-side in these
three verses.
We can choose to seek peace with God
and achieve holiness
through obedience to the moral law of God
and we'll find the result of all such efforts
is that on the basis of the law
all have sinned and fall short of the glory
of God...
Or we can approach God
through faith in Christ
and find ourselves justified as a gift by
His grace through the redemption which is
in Christ Jesus...
God does not do
what we consistently do in the world of
religion,
He does not mingle faith and performance.
And I'll ask you a question
that may provide the best example I can offer of
what I'm trying to say here
in the few minutes we have remaining.
Q. If you are a Christian,
having come to God through faith Christ,
and you go out this afternoon
and commit some hideous sin,
how will that sin affect your righteous standing
with God?
And the answer to that question
is found in another question -
What is the basis upon which
God says He gives us righteousness
and declares us justified before Him?
He says it is on the basis of our faith in Christ,
apart from works of the law.
So, if you are a Christian and you sin,
how will that sin affect your righteous standing
with God?
It affects it not at all.
There are lots of things said to us in Scripture
about the Christian's relationship to sin.
But never are we told
that our sin has the power to remove
the righteousness we have been granted by
our God
in response to our faith in Christ.
We were not given our righteousness
on the basis of our performance,
and we cannot loose it on the basis of our
performance.
That will make more sense
as we make more progress in understanding
the true nature of this righteousness we have
been granted by God.
And #2, the final comment I want to make
about what we've seen so far
is to emphasize that what God offers us
through faith in Christ
is not simply forgiveness of our sins,
it is true righteousness.
Here again,
this will make more sense
as we make more progress in understanding
how we have been made righteous,
but for now I just want to say that through faith
in Christ
we do not simply receive forgiveness for our
sins,
we actually, literally become holy as God
Himself is Holy.
I don't especially like this illustration,
but it may help.
Picture yourself in debt - BIG debt,
several hundred thousand dollars worth of debt.
Forgiveness of our sins
would be like someone stepping into your life
and paying off that entire debt,
bringing you up to a zero balance.
Being made righteousness
is like someone paying off the debt,
and then putting 14 million in your checking
account.
We're out of time
and well pick it up here next week.