Justifying the Wicked

Romans 3:24-26

We continue this morning looking at what Martin Luther called the chief point, and the very central place of the Epistle, and of the whole Bible. These six verses (21 to 26) are packed with content and nuance and we are trying this week and last to expose the truth in these verses in such a way that you will never again skip over them in the course of reading through the Bible. I want you to read each phrase and remember what it means. I hope that these sermons will allow the truths in these verses to shine.

I want to start this morning by borrowing from Romans 4 a text we will get to in a couple weeks. In verse 5 Paul makes a startling claim: God … justifies the wicked. Why is that so startling?

It is startling because in the Old Testament, God reveals himself as one who is opposed to justifying the wicked.

In Deuteronomy 25:1, God gives instructions about how to judge a dispute:
When men have a dispute, they are to take it to court and the judges will decide the case, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty.

God is concerned with justice and justice is served when the innocent are acquitted and the guilty condemned. In Proverbs 17:15 the point is made even stronger:
Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent—
the LORD detests them both.

It is not just that God instructs judges to acquit the innocent and condemn the guilty, God detests it when the opposite occurs. When the innocent are punished and the guilty walk away from their crime unpunished, God is angered.

In Isaiah 5:23 in a series of solemn woes, God says:
Woe to those …
23 who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
but deny justice to the innocent.

And in Exodus 23:7 God makes a declaration:
I will not acquit the guilty.

Isn’t that what we expect? Isn’t that what we want? We want justice to be served. We want the guilty to be held responsible for what they do. When someone robs you, you want that person to be arrested and made to pay for his crime. If someone kills your friend, it will be painful to see that man declared to be innocent and free to walk the streets.

God detests it when the guilty are acquitted and so do we.

John Stott in his commentary on Romans asks, “How is it possible for the righteous God to declare the unrighteous to be righteous without either compromising his righteousness or condoning their unrighteousness?”

God is a righteous God. He is the standard by which we measure righteousness. If God who is righteous declares those who are unrighteous to be righteous, what does that do to the standard of righteousness? To declare that the unrighteous are righteous means either that God is less righteous, the standard of righteousness he sets is not all that it appears to be, or that the unrighteousness of others is really not so bad after all.

Let’s say that a school said you needed to take certain courses and maintain a certain grade average if you wanted to get a high school diploma and so you work hard writing papers and taking exams. You do well but there are those who do not study, who fail their exams and don’t turn in their papers.

What would be the significance if at the end of four years the school said everyone could graduate and receive a diploma, even if they had not taken all the courses or passed all the courses?

What would be revealed is that the school never had a real standard and never intended to demand a certain level of academic performance. The standard that was set would be destroyed. The standard you thought was there never really existed.

There are a lot of people who want God to be like this. God has certain standards. There is a way in which he wants people to behave and ways he does not want people to behave. But people do misbehave. People do do things God does not like. These people want God, in the end, to say, “Hey, it’s OK. No one’s perfect. Come on in. I was just kidding about all that needing to be perfect stuff. What you did was not really that bad.”

In the US kids play a game called “hide and seek”. In this game one person closes his or her eyes and counts to 100 while everyone else hides somewhere. Then the one who closed his or her eyes has to find the ones who hid. Finally when the seeker gives up because some of the ones hiding cannot be found, he or she calls out, “Allie allie in free!” and everyone comes home. There are many who want God at the end to call out, “Allie allie in free!” and everyone will come streaming into heaven.

This is not how God is. God has not set up a shallow, superficial standard that can be bent this way or that. Righteousness is an absolute moral concept that cannot be minimized in any way.

There is not really a choice here. God cannot choose to let the unrighteous come in without first being made righteous. I have talked about this before, but let me remind you that as much as love is part of God’s character, so is justice. God cannot not love and God cannot not be just. A price must be paid for sin and the unrighteous may not enter the presence of God without in some way being made righteous.

So how can Paul say God … justifies the wicked? Even if God wanted to justify the wicked, he is unable to do so unless the price for wickedness is paid.

The unrighteous must be made righteous in order to come into the presence of God and the way this has been accomplished is through the work of Jesus on the cross. If it were not for the cross, there would be no hope for the wicked. There is no way the wicked could be justified.

The only reason Paul can say that God justifies the wicked is because of the cross.

So this morning we will look more closely at what Jesus did for us on the cross. The last part of this paragraph we began looking at last week and are finishing up this week mentions three words that we need to examine in order to understand what Jesus did on the cross that has made it possible for the unrighteous to become righteous, that made it possible for God to justify the wicked.

These three words of the cross are printed in the bulletin in the section where you can take notes if you so desire.

The first of the three words of the cross is redemption and is found in verse 24.
[all] are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus

What is redemption?

Justification is a word that comes to us from the legal world and redemption is a word that comes to us from the world of the marketplace.

When I was growing up, my mother used to save S&H green stamps. Each time she shopped, she was given little green stamps which we then pasted into a book. When the book was full, we would go to the redemption center and exchange the book for some kitchen appliance.

The appliance was ours but it sat in the store until we could pay the price for it and redeem it with the book of green stamps.

In Exodus 13, Moses gives instructions to Israel about the dedication of the firstborn to God.
Redeem every firstborn among your sons.
“In days to come, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him, ‘With a mighty hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.  15 When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the LORD killed every firstborn in Egypt, both man and animal. This is why I sacrifice to the LORD the first male offspring of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn sons.

The firstborn of animals was offered as a sacrifice but the firstborn son could be redeemed. He could be bought back by an offering of money, five shekels of silver as stated in Numbers 18.

In Exodus 21 there is a discussion of what to do if a bull gores a man or a woman to death.
“If a bull gores a man or a woman to death, the bull must be stoned to death, and its meat must not be eaten. But the owner of the bull will not be held responsible.  29 If, however, the bull has had the habit of goring and the owner has been warned but has not kept it penned up and it kills a man or woman, the bull must be stoned and the owner also must be put to death.  30 However, if payment is demanded of him, he may redeem his life by paying whatever is demanded.

The owner deserved to be put to death but could redeem himself by paying a price for his life.

There are also sections in the law of Moses that talk about redeeming land and redeeming dwellings. In each case, the person, house or land is redeemed by paying a sum of money so that what was restricted can now be freed.

What is the redemption that came by Jesus Christ? Because of our sin, we stand condemned to death. Paul spent his letter up to the verses we are looking at this morning talking about how each of us deserves the wrath of God. Because of our sin, we are on death row, waiting for eternal death.

But a price has been paid for us so we may be set free. We have been redeemed. We deserved to die but we were redeemed. And we were redeemed not by a price we paid but by a price Jesus paid for us.

The firstborn had to be redeemed with a price of silver. What is the price that had to be paid for us to be redeemed?

The sin offering in Mosaic Law was paid for by the outpouring of blood. In Leviticus 17 the law reads:
the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.

Money was not paid out for a sin offering. Only blood satisfied the law. In Leviticus 4 there is a description of what one must do if he becomes aware he has sinned.:
He is to lay his hand on the goat’s head and slaughter it at the place where the burnt offering is slaughtered before the LORD. It is a sin offering.  25 Then the priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar.  26 He shall burn all the fat on the altar as he burned the fat of the fellowship offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for the man’s sin, and he will be forgiven.

Blood must be poured out to satisfy the law and that is the price that had to be paid to redeem us. We have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus.

And so we come to the second word of the cross, atonement.
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,  24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.

The Greek word that is translated in the NIV as atonement is ?????????? and John Stott in his commentary suggests that a better translation for ?????????? is propitiation. So Stott prefers the verse to read God presented him as a sacrifice of propitiation, through faith in his blood. Why change a word we have some chance of understanding, atonement, for a word we may never before have heard of, propitiation?

Atonement carries the meaning of bringing into harmony, reconciling. And this is what Jesus did for us on the cross, bringing us into harmony with God. But Paul is making a slightly different point which is why Stott prefers using the word propitiation. To propitiate is to appease, to bring to a state of peace or calm. Propitiation is the act of appeasing the divine wrath of God for sin, allowing God’s wrath to disappear and be replaced by an experience of his love and peace.

Atonement describes what has been done. Through the death of Jesus on the cross, his blood poured out for us as payment for our sin, we are reconciled with God. But propitiation gets at the heart of the problem. Our sin incurs the wrath of God. God is angered by our sin and the word propitiation makes the point that Jesus’ death on the cross removed God’s anger from us. It took away the wrath of God so we could experience his love.

I’m not sure why translators use atonement rather than propitiation. One reason may be the familiarity of the word. But there is also a reaction against portraying God as a god who needs to be appeased. It brings to mind pagan gods who are angered and need to be appeased by some offering of fruit, vegetable, animal or even human sacrifice.

Have you ever seen any of these grade B movies where the lovely virgin is bound and being carried up to the rim of the volcano to be offered to the god of the volcano so that the god of the volcano will not erupt in his anger against the people who live in the nearby village and then the hero jumps in, cuts her cords and carries her away to life and freedom? Is God a god like that whose anger needs to be appeased?

God’s anger toward sin does need to be appeased but let me come back again to the point I made earlier. It is not that God sees sin and chooses to get angry. God’s wrath toward sin is not a choice he makes, it is a consequence of his character. It is impossible for God to not be angry toward sin.

There should be no embarrassment for Christians to acknowledge that God is angered by sin and that his anger needs to be propitiated. A sacrifice must be made so that God’s anger, his wrath can be removed.

There are two major differences between pagan sacrifice, carrying a virgin to throw into the volcano, and the propitiation accomplished by Jesus death on the cross.

The first is that we are not the ones who offer the sacrifice. In the B movie, the villagers carry the virgin up the mountain to throw her into the molten lava. The villagers have to offer the sacrifice to the god of the volcano in the hope that it will be effective and the volcano will not erupt.

But in the case of Jesus, it was God who offered the sacrifice that would appease his anger. God himself offered the sacrifice so that he might be appeased.

In the case of the god of the volcano, the villagers could never really know whether or not the sacrifice had worked. There was always uncertainty and fear. But we know that God loves us because he is the one who offered the sacrifice making it possible for us to receive his love.

The second difference is that God himself provided the sacrifice. In the B movie, a young maiden is picked from among the young women in the village and then carried up the mountain to be thrown into the molten rock. The sacrifice comes from the people needing to appease the god of the volcano.

But in the case of Jesus, God not only offered the sacrifice, he himself provided the sacrifice. There is in fact no sacrifice we could offer that would appease the wrath of God. God did for us what no person could do. God made possible what is impossible for anyone other than God.

Do you doubt that God loves you? Consider this, that God, in order to appease his wrath, himself offered the only acceptable sacrifice so that we could receive his love.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.

The third word of the cross from these verses is demonstration.
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,  24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—  26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

The work of Jesus on the cross not only achieved justification for the wicked, it not only redeemed us by payment of the blood of Jesus, it not only served to propitiate or appease the divine wrath of God toward our sin; the work of Jesus on the cross publically demonstrated God’s justice.

God revealed his character, he made clear to all that he is a God of justice. If there was ever any question about God being just, now history recorded his demonstration of justice.

Paul answers an unasked question. If it is true that only through the death of Jesus can we be made righteous and that to be made righteous we must be redeemed by the blood of Jesus, what then about all those who came before Jesus?

How was it that God called to himself Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel; Elijah and Elisha; Ruth and Boaz; David and Solomon? By what price were these sinners redeemed? Whose blood was shed for their sins? For these and many others whose names we do not know who called on God for help, how was God’s wrath toward their sin appeased?

Paul’s answer is that God held back his judgement, leaving the sins of these people unpunished until just at the right time Jesus paid the price of blood for the sins of those who had come before him. No charge of injustice can be made. All sin was paid for on the cross. Past, present and future sin was redeemed by the blood of Jesus on the cross.

God’s justice is not hidden. It has been publically revealed. Jeremiah asked God a question:
Jeremiah 12
You are always righteous, O LORD,
when I bring a case before you.
Yet I would speak with you about your justice:
Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why do all the faithless live at ease?

The answer is in the cross where justice is demonstrated. All sin, the sin of the wicked and the sin of the innocent was redeemed on the cross and all who put their faith in Christ are able to be made righteous in the eyes of God through the blood of Christ poured out for them.

We, all mankind, were in an impossible situation. Separated from God because of our sin. We were unable to offer any sacrifice that would appease the wrath of God and open up the way for us to receive his love. There is no price we could pay that would redeem us and save us from eternal death. We were without hope and then God himself, creator of the universe and every living and non-living thing in the universe, offered himself to be the sacrifice that would die and pour out his blood to satisfy his own divine justice.

God made possible what was impossible for us and so we are grateful. God’s wrath has been satisfied and now we are free to revel in his love.

I went to a wedding yesterday where a pastor spoke from Song of Solomon. He quoted a verse from chapter 4
All beautiful you are, my darling;
there is no flaw in you.

This is a verse that speaks of a husband’s love of his wife and yet we can say that this is also how God speaks of us. The New Testament talks about Jesus being the groom and the church his bride. And so this verse can speak to us about how God sees us.

Because of the cross, because of the blood of Jesus poured out for us, God sees us this way and speaks to us:
All beautiful you are, my darling;
there is no flaw in you.

God justifies the wicked. We have been redeemed by the blood of Christ. We have been set free to experience the love of God. To God be the glory, great things he has done.