Verse by Verse Study of Romans 3:21-31
We all get off track at times and lose sight of what matters most. It’s good to go back to our roots and refocus. Are you a Christian but notice that your gaze is slipping, and that your walk with Jesus could be closer? This message is for you! Have you asked, “What is salvation?” and you don’t know the meaning of God’s grace? This post is for you!
We are finally going to be talking about God’s Good News, the gospel message of Jesus Christ! The best Bible verses about faith are right here in the book of Romans!
From Judgment to Justification
From the beginning of Romans until now, Paul has been constructing a solid argument for who needs salvation and what we need salvation from. Now he goes into careful detail about God’s plan to save us and how we can have intimacy with God. Paul begins with these two words: ‘But now’ which give us such a wonderful transition from the judgment of Romans 3:20 to the justification of Romans 3:21.
‘But now’ lets us know something NEW is about to happen. God has made a New Covenant, and this New Covenant (unlike His Old Covenant with the Jewish nation) is a promise for all people, both Jews and Gentiles.
Apart From the Law
Verse 21 says that it ‘was promised in the writing of Moses and the prophets long ago’ which speaks to the continuity of God’s work in the Old Testament; this was His plan all along. And verse 21 also tells us that God’s plan of salvation does not demand ‘keeping the requirements of the law’. This might be confusing and might lead you to believe that we don’t have to obey the law anymore, or that’s it’s acceptable to be unlawful, but Paul will explain his meaning behind this in verse 31.
Before we get to verse 31, let’s look at how the New King James Version (NKJV) words this verse, which uses the phrase ‘apart from the law’. Apart means separate, or a separate entity, from the law; having nothing to do with the law. As we learned in Romans 2 and the first half of Romans 3, the law cannot save us. It only points out our sinfulness (Romans 3:20). But God offered his plan of salvation through Jesus Christ, a plan that is apart from the law: apart from our own earning or deserving, and apart from our own merit.
In the Old Testament, the Old Covenant provided a legal relationship with God, based on earning through obedience to the law. But through God’s New Covenant, a new kind of relationship has been made possible that cannot be earned, and this relationship is an intimate one. It’s established through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Who Is This Covenant For?
Verse 22 tells us that it is for everyone who will believe, no matter who we are. The NKJV says is unto ‘unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference’. There is no difference, no matter who we are. The worst kind of person is no different than you or I. We all have been given the same invitation to receive salvation. God’s love and forgiveness is so deep and wide (Ephesians 3: 18-19). He offers this free gift of salvation to all. He wants to have an intimate relationship with everyone. This is why I said that these are some of the best Bible verses about faith, about hope in hard times, and about overcoming life struggles!
Verse 23 re-affirms why there is no difference among us – for everyone has sinned and we all fall short of God’s standard.
The universal statement of verse 23, we all fall short, is answered by a universal offer in verse 24 ‘Yet God in His grace, freely makes us right in His sight‘. Everyone falls short, but everyone can be justified freely by his grace. Everyone can receive salvation.
Justified Freely
There are three important things to mention in verse 24:
1. The word freely is an important word. Because we are so sinful, the only way we can be justified is to be justified freely. We can’t purchase our salvation through merit or good works. If it wasn’t made free to us, we couldn’t have it at all! We are justified freely by his grace – his undeserved favor, given to us without regard to what we actually deserve.
2. The second thing to mention in this verse, can be seen more clearly in the NKJV, which says ‘being justified’ freely by His grace. Justification is through Jesus Christ. Salvation is only possible because of the work of Jesus. God cannot give us his righteousness, make us right in his sight, apart from Jesus. To be in relationship with the Father, we must have a relationship with his Son, Jesus Christ.
3. Another important aspect of this verse gets missed in the New Living Translation’s (NLT) wording, as it simply says, ‘He did this through Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins’. If you were new to all this you might ask, “How did he free us through Jesus?”. And the key word, which both the New International Version (NIV) and King James Version (KJV) use, is redemption. The NKJV uses a similar word called propitiation.
What Does Salvation Mean ?
We have been justified freely by God’s grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ. What is redemption? It means to buy back, and it involves a cost. The origin of the word came from the release of prisoners of war on payment of a price which was known as a ransom. The act of doing this was called redemption, or to redeem. This idea of redemption means that Jesus bought us back. We are God’s creation – we once belonged to him – and he is buying us back through his Son.
Verse 25 tells us how Jesus bought us back. Sin could not go unpunished. Our sin. We have a debt to pay, and Jesus paid that debt with his own life. I really love how the NKJV words this verse, which just adds a deeper understanding of this passage:
‘Whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith’.
A Substitute Sacrifice
Propitiation means a substitute sacrifice. Jesus, by his blood (which means by his death) was a substitute sacrifice for us. Jesus was judged in our place, which allowed God to demonstrate his righteous judgment against sin, while sparing us the sinners who actually deserved judgment. As the popular hymn proclaims, Jesus Paid It All!
The second half of verse 25 tells us that God held back punishment for those who sinned before the time of the cross. Now this doesn’t mean he held back punishment for all those who sinned before the time of the cross. Rather, those who trusted in the coming Messiah, their punishment was held back. Under the Old Covenant, those who looked forward in faith to the coming Messiah, had their sins covered through animal sacrifice: a sort of I.O.U or temporary covering that was then fully paid for later by Jesus on the cross.
Verse 26 tells us that God, who is all knowing, planned to include those who had faith in the past, in Jesus’ work on the cross. In doing this, God demonstrated his fairness and justness. I love how the NKJV says that God was both ‘just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus‘.
To justify someone, or the act of justification, is the legal verdict proclaiming someone “not guilty“. God both proclaimed that we are not guilty, yet punished our guilt through Jesus death on the cross. Only God could find a way to both punish and pardon the guilty.
How to Have a Closer Relationship with God
Verse 27 tells us that we have nothing to boast about – there is nothing we have done to be accepted by God. It wasn’t earned by obeying the law or good works. We simply must have faith (or believe) that God has freely given us this gift through Jesus Christ. This sounds too easy, doesn’t it? But God wants to be in an intimate relationship with us, he’s not trying to make it hard. It’s free and it just takes faith!
Paul repeats himself in verse 28 to drive this point home: we are made right with God through faith, not by obeying the law or being a good person! Faith in what or whom? Faith in Jesus and his work on the cross. Faith that his death paid the price for our sin in full – past, present and future.
Grace Refuses to Recognize Pride
Despite knowing this, our sinful nature hates being justified freely by God’s undeserved grace, because grace absolutely refuses to recognize our imagined merits and gives no place for pride. We are our biggest hurdles in coming to Christ. We want to believe that we, or at least most of us, are inherently good and deserve credit for our goodness, intelligence, or hard work. To accept God’s free gift of salvation requires a heart of humility and repentance.
We can have a relationship with God when we humbly repent and submit to God’s authority. But that is SO much easier said than done! Reading Romans 3 can help us to refocus our attention on God, but we also need to realize that we can’t make these changes on our own, no matter how hard we try. We can only do it through God’s power and strength. It is through God that we can successfully humble ourselves. He is the source of all life and breath.
To have a relationship with God requires total dependence on him. But we don’t like being dependent, do we? I don’t know about you, but even as a young girl I fought for independence. I never liked asking for help, and I didn’t want to depend on anyone but myself. Sound familiar? But this mindset and heart condition works against a closer walk with God.
Verses 29-30 tell us that there is only one God, and the way of salvation is the same for all people and cultures, for all time. Some religions are based on the idea that they have a new message or manifestation of God, and that God has somehow decided that Jesus’ death is no longer necessary or not as effective. The Bible is full of verses warning us of false prophets and false gospels. Galatians 1:6-9 tells that if even an angel from heaven preached any gospel other than salvation by grace through Jesus Christ – ‘let them be cursed‘.
Through Faith We Establish the Law
Verse 31 asks an important question, and this is now Paul’s explanation that we talked about earlier. To paraphrase: if all we need is faith, can we forget about the law? Paul’s answer is, ‘Of course not!‘. The NLT says that ‘only when we have faith, do we truly fulfill the law.‘ The NKJV says ‘through faith we establish the law‘ and the NIV says, ‘we uphold the law‘. God gave us his laws so we would know his standard – how he wants us to live – and although we can’t possibly live perfectly sinless lives, when we have faith in him, we should try to live according to his ways and please him.
And guess what? This is another key to having a relationship with God. We need to follow and obey his ways and do the things that please him. But God’s commands and the things that please him are good, and good for us. God only commands to stay away from sin and do good deeds because he knows that they can harm us. God’s motives are always love and kindness.
Two Kinds of Laws
Now when the Bible talks about the Laws given to Moses, there are two kinds of laws given to man: general laws, and laws that were specific for the Jews. The laws given specifically to the Jews, God’s chosen people, are not the ones we are talking about here. The general laws, or commands, found in the Bible apply to all people. It is by these laws that we can know God’s standard.
While this isn’t a study on James, if you’re interested in reading further, read James 2. But in a nutshell, it talks about how our deeds, or good works, is proof of our faith. If we truly have faith, it would be evident in our lives through our good deeds. Do we truly have faith in Jesus Christ, and call ourselves one of his followers, and not do good? (James 2: 14-26).
If you don’t know Jesus personally, or have drifted away from him, I pray that you will encounter him; and not only that, but pursue him, as he pursues you and wants an intimate relationship with you. God’s grace is sufficient to forgive anyone of their sins and allow them to enter into a relationship with him.
Book Recommendation:
God Does His Best Work with Empty by Nancy Guthrie is a wonderful book that explains how God uses our feelings of emptiness and longing for something more, as an opportunity to find him and be filled with his presence. We see the low points and places of despair as the worst places to be, but God sees them as a launching pad to send us towards him. To seek the only thing that can truly fulfill us!
Leave a Reply