The Gift of Grace - Day 207 Month 7-25 Week 30-4
Today's Reading (Bible in 1 year)
2 Samuel 1:1-2:11, Proverbs 11:23-31, Ezekiel 13, Romans 3:21-4:25
The Gift of Grace
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). In other words, not one of us is innocent. Every one of us has lived outside of God's perfect will. That means none of us can stand before God on our own because we all fall short.
Yesterday I ended my writing by saying it sounded pretty hopeless, and Romans 3:23 certainly confirms that hopelessness. I am thankful it does not stop there.
The very next verse says we are “being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” By God's grace, we can be justified without personally receiving the justice we deserve.
Verse 25 uses the word propitiation to describe what Jesus accomplished. Some Bible translations use different wording, but I think this word captures the meaning well. Propitiation is an atoning sacrifice that satisfies God's righteous justice and turns away His holy wrath against sin. The justice we deserve is death because imperfect people cannot stand before a perfect God. Jesus' death was the sacrifice that allows us to stand before God with our guilt removed.
Syl and I led a weekly youth ministry called The Rock for several years in Beaverton, Ontario. The format was pretty simple. We spent time in the gym, played games, shared snacks, and then Syl and I would give what we called a God talk (a short talk about faith). Eventually, the students figured out when the God talk was coming. Some of them would rush through their snacks and head outside before it started. So we began changing the order every week, or we involved them in the lesson so they could not quietly disappear.
One week we turned the snack room into a courtroom. One student was the prosecutor, another was the defence lawyer, several were the accused, one was the judge, and Syl and I wrote scripts for each role. Everyone else became the courtroom audience. There was one final role.
Jesus.
You can probably guess where this is going, but it became a simple way to illustrate God's justice.
Every person playing the accused was found guilty. Some had committed what seemed like small offences, such as lying to their parents. It was a very strict courtroom, and every guilty person received the same sentence: death.
Then something happened.
Every time the judge, representing God, pronounced the sentence, Jesus stood and said, "Dad, I died for this one."
The guilty person would then stand behind Jesus, and from the judge's position, all he could see was Jesus. Justice had been served because Jesus took the punishment.
That raises an important question. Is everyone automatically justified? Chapter 4 answers that question. Paul explains that justification comes through faith. He uses Abraham as an example. Before the written law existed, and before circumcision became the sign of God's covenant, Abraham was justified by faith.
“For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness’” (Romans 4:3).
Paul also quotes Psalm 32.
“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.”
So let me bring this back to Romans 3. Can I do enough good things for justice to be served without faith? Maybe if my good outweighs my bad, God will accept me. Maybe I have followed God's law well enough that He has to let me into His kingdom.
Paul answers that question in Romans 3:27 and 28.
“Where then is boasting? It is excluded. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.”
Today we have reached the first stop on what many people call the Roman Road to Salvation. I know this has been a lot of heavy information, but it is also the foundation for everything that follows.
Today we learned that every one of us has sinned, and that Jesus made the only sacrifice capable of allowing us to stand before God. The next question is whether we will place our faith in Him.
Have a great day!
Steve
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