The Bible Study Hour

Guest (Male): The most important question in all of life is how do we get right with God? God has shown us his answer in the Bible, yet we still insist on our own hopeless substitutions.

Announcer: Welcome to the Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. James Boice, teaching you to think and act biblically. Today we continue our series on the book of Romans called The Power of Salvation. We've been learning how the gospel applies to all of our lives and to the lives of others. The book of Romans deals with some of the most basic problems of humankind. At the heart of our problem is the fact that we have suppressed the truth about God and gone our own way. We're going to learn about what this means in more detail as we turn now to Romans chapter 1, verse 16, and look at the theme of the epistle.

Dr. James Boice: In the 16th and 17th verses of Romans 1, we come to sentences which are the most important in the letter, and perhaps in all literature. They're the theme of the epistle, but they're also the essence and theme of Christianity. They're the heart of true religion. The reason this is so is that they tell how a man or a woman can get right with God, and in ourselves we are not right with God. We like to think we are. We compare ourselves with other people and we think that we're doing all right, but actually, as God reveals these things to us, we're in rebellion against him, and if we're in rebellion against God, we can't be right with him.

Moreover, not only are we in rebellion against God, but we are sinful in our rebellion and corrupted by our sin. We think we're pretty good again, but in the sight of God, who is the holy God, we are as loathsome as the most deformed, polluted individual we can possibly imagine in this life, and far more even than that. So we look to ourselves and our condition and we say, what can be done? The answer is nothing can be done, at least so far as our ability is concerned. But this is where this glorious gospel answer comes in, because the gospel tells us that although we're unable to do anything, God has done everything that needs to be done.

In the words of this text, he has provided for us a righteousness which is not our own, a righteousness which is his own righteousness, and he offers that to us as a free gift. We receive it not by working toward it, because there's nothing we could do to work toward it, but merely by believing God, by trusting what he has to tell us about this gift and the way it becomes ours. Now the point at which to begin is with the fact that we need this righteousness, and the place to begin in dealing with that is with the truth that we don't have this righteousness in ourselves. That's the point at which Paul himself begins.

Let me make that point in this way. Notice verse 17. It says, "For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: The just shall live by faith." What Paul announces here in chapter 1, in this statement of his thesis, what he's going to develop in the rest of the book, he begins to develop in the third chapter, verse 21. But now that raises a question, doesn't it? And the question is this: If Paul announces his thesis here and begins to develop it in the third chapter, what is it that occupies the space between 1:17 and 3:21? What is it that fills up the bulk of chapter 1 and all of chapter 2 and the first half of chapter 3?

The answer is a statement of our great need, the fact that we don't have this righteousness that we must have if we're to stand before God and not be condemned. There's another way of pointing this out. Notice verse 18: "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness." That is a parallel too, isn't it? Only it's an inverse parallel. Paul says in verse 17 the righteousness of God is revealed. In 3:21 he says the righteousness of God is made known. Now, in verse 18, he says, ah, but the wrath of God is revealed against human wickedness.

You see, what he's showing there is that we stand in great need, indeed, we're in peril, we're under God's just wrath and condemnation because of sin. It's only as we begin to recognize that in ourselves that we're open to receive the gift of righteousness that God offers us in condemnation's place. Now, in due course, we're going to study these middle verses that deal with sin, but let me point out that what is said in those chapters concerns all people. There's a certain kind of development in which Paul begins first of all to talk about those who are openly wicked and who glory in their wickedness.

He moves from that to those who consider themselves morally superior. They're people who don't do the things that the hedonists do. And finally to those who consider themselves even superior to the ethically superior people because they're religious people. They do all of the things that are laid out in the dictates of religion, in the law of God and other laws as well. He's going to show, as I say, a certain kind of development in dealing with people who might consider themselves to be in one or the other of those categories, but his point is that that description concerns every single one of us.

Even though we may not consider ourselves to be utter hedonists given over to a life of pleasure and sin, that is nevertheless what we're doing if we're not going in God's way. It's just a matter of degree. We may not be as far along that path as somebody else, but that's what we're doing. And even though we may be utterly sinful and debauched, we nevertheless carry within us that kind of innate disgusting human pride that says, well, nevertheless, I'm better than so-and-so. And most people, very few that don't, have some sort of religious sensitivity, and somewhere in the back of their minds or deep in their hearts, they think, well, I do certain religious things from time to time, and even though I don't live too well, nevertheless God certainly couldn't condemn me because of those things that I've done.

Paul's point is that all of that is an illusion. God does condemn us in our sin because we are in utter rebellion against him, even if we cover it up by our morality or our religion. You see, what he says we have done is to suppress the truth about him, and we suppress it in a lot of ways, sometimes by religion. God says he's revealed certain things about himself in nature, and that if we look at nature with an honest, open mind, we can perceive that, and it should be sufficient to lead us to turn from sin and seek after God. After all, if there is a God and he's supremely powerful, he must have made us. If he made us, we have responsibility toward him. We're not autonomous, we're not an end to ourselves. We should seek him out to see what he wants of us.

Why are we here? What has he made us for? But we don't do that. If we did that, we'd be acknowledging someone who was superior to us, somebody who had a right to tell us what to do, and that's what we do not want to do. So what Paul says we do do is suppress the truth about God—that is, God's revealed truth in wickedness so we can go our own way. And it's for that reason that the wrath of God comes upon us. Paul sums it all up in the third chapter by a series of quotations from the Old Testament. He certainly could have said these things himself, but he wants to make clear that this is not a matter of his judgment upon the human race, but rather God's own judgment upon the human race.

This is how God sees you apart from Jesus Christ. "There is no one righteous," he says, "not even one." We say, oh, yes, but there are righteous people, and I am one of them, I am much better than so-and-so. C.S. Lewis points out in one place that we ought to be suspicious of that, if for no other reason than by the choice of the people with whom we compare ourselves. Generally, we don't take people who are really good because we say, well, we don't like them, they're sort of self-righteous religious types, we can't stand them anyway. We take people who aren't quite as good as we are, and we say, well, I'm better than them. And yet God says, whether or not that is true, you are still not righteous by my standard. You see, this is that matter of righteousness again.

There is no one who understands. We prove that by the comparison. When we say, well, we're all right, certainly God has to accept us as we are, we don't prove that God is wrong in his judgments, we simply prove that we don't understand things properly. We are condemned, we are unrighteous whether we think so or not. No one who seeks God. We say, oh, yes, but I am seeking God. It only shows that we don't understand spiritual things. You say, well, I go to church, of course I'm seeking God. Paul says you can be running away from God in church. It's one of the safest places you can be because it can inoculate you against the truth. You can say, well, because I'm doing certain things, because I'm going through the formulas, everything must be all right, and then you go out and live your own way. You haven't met with God at all.

Listen: "All have turned away, they have together become," not corrupted, not less than they could be, not those who have failed to reach their full potential, but "worthless," says God. "There is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes." We may not like that description. Who does? But that is the way God sees us. And because that's the way God sees us, that's the way it is.

So when we talk about the righteousness of God in the gospel, the first thing we have to recognize is that in ourselves we don't possess it. Now, that's where the gospel comes in because, as I've already said, it indicates that God provides for us that righteousness we do not have. But a number of things we need to see about it, and let me just look at them one at a time. First of all, we need to see that this righteousness that God offers us in the gospel is the righteousness of Jesus Christ himself. Later, he's going to say that it's a righteousness received through faith in Jesus Christ, which might lead us to think that he's merely the channel. But it's not a case of that.

Earlier, you see, he identified this with the gospel, and he says that the gospel concerns his Son, even Jesus. So the gospel is about Jesus, and it is in Jesus that we see, and it is from Jesus that we receive this righteousness. When we talk about the righteousness of Jesus Christ, we have to talk about it in two senses, and as you read books of theology, this is the way it's usually treated. The first is a passive righteousness, as it's called. It simply means an intrinsic righteousness, that righteousness that Jesus Christ has in himself because of who he is. He's God, and God is holy, and therefore Jesus is holy, so he is righteousness itself.

That's why he could say during the days of his flesh, speaking to his enemies, "Which of you can possibly convict me of sin?" They couldn't. He left them utterly speechless. Or on the positive side, he could say in relationship to his Father, "I do always those things that please him." We might tend to say, well, that's an arrogant claim. He says that, but how can we be sure that's the case? Well, we can be sure because during the days of his earthly ministry, God himself spoke from heaven audibly three times to say, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." So when Jesus said, "I do always those things that please him," he meant: In myself, I am utterly, totally, holy. I have never had a sinful thought in any way.

So that's what theologians call a passive righteousness. In addition to that, there's also what theologians call an active righteousness. And that means that Jesus actively and willingly submitted to all the demands of the law. You may recall that when he came to John the Baptist to be baptized, and John the Baptist didn't want to do it, recognizing the incongruity of him, a sinner, baptizing the holy Lord of glory, he said, "You come to me to be baptized? Why, I'm the one that should be baptized by you." And Jesus' response at that point was to say, "Suffer it to be so now, because thus it behooves us to fulfill all righteousness."

What was he saying? Jesus was saying, I have come as a man to fulfill as a man all the requirements of the law, and so by submitting to baptism, I publicly identify myself with that righteous way. And throughout his life in every respect, in every jot and tittle, in every minute requirement, Jesus fulfilled that moral law of God. Now, he didn't always do it in the way the people of his day thought he should. The leaders of his day had corrupted the law in the same way we corrupt what we know about scriptures, by whittling it down to a measure they can handle. They couldn't handle the law in spirit, so they decided to make it a way that they could handle. So they spelled out all sorts of little mechanical things which, if they did, they thought well, they obviously had kept the law.

And Jesus didn't do all those little mechanical things. He recognized them for what they were. It was human tradition—that's what he called it—the traditions of your fathers but not the law of God. And he said you corrupt the law by your traditions. So he didn't do that, but he did keep the law in its spirit. He kept the essence of the law so that in every respect he did what God expects of human beings. So Christ has righteousness in a passive sense, and he's the righteousness of God in an active sense, and it is this righteousness of Jesus Christ that is offered to us in the gospel.

That's the second point. Not only is this righteousness the righteousness of Jesus Christ and therefore a perfect righteousness which we see and know in him, it is also a righteousness which God gives us apart from any attainment or effort on our part. You see, that's what makes the gospel good news. If it weren't for that, well, to see the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ far from being good news, would actually increase our condemnation. It would plunge us into utter despair. You see, it's not merely through Jesus Christ that we have this righteousness, but it's in Jesus Christ that we see it.

When we look to Christ, when we study the scriptures, when we read the gospels and we see what he was like and what he did, we begin to understand what it is to be really good. And you see, to see that, if God doesn't offer that to us as a gift, only condemns us because we say, and we say rightly, how can I possibly be like that? I'd like to be maybe, and actually we fool ourselves in that because we don't even want to be. But even supposing we did want to be, we still can't do it. We can't be like Jesus. Try as hard as we like, we can't be like Jesus, and the harder we try, the worse it is. That was Martin Luther's experience, you understand.

Luther was a godly man. Luther was pious, he wanted to please God. That's why he left secular life and entered the monastery to save his soul by pleasing God. And he thought the way to do it was to become as righteous as you possibly could, and when he read the righteousness from God, he understood that that was the standard and it's a standard he had to live up to. And so he tried as hard as he knew how to be righteous. He did everything he could to keep the moral law, and he did everything he could to obey the law of the church. He was a model in his penance, so much so that his confessor father said, Martin Luther, stop all of this nonsense, it's not getting you anywhere. He was confessing all sorts of things hour after hour after hour.

You see, Luther tried to be righteous, but the harder he tried, the more elusive the goal became, and he found himself not loving God, though he knew he should love God, but actually hating God for making the standard of righteousness so impossible. And then you see, something happened in Luther's life. Luther began by the grace of God to understand this verse: "In the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed." He thought that meant, you see, in the gospel we see what righteousness is and that's our standard. That's what it seems to say. In the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed. So he thought he had to live up to it, and he said, when I thought about that, I began to hate God for the gospel.

It wasn't bad enough that he was terrifying us by the law, which we couldn't fulfill, but now he terrifies us by the gospel. He said, I hated God because of that. But then God showed him, you see, that that righteousness from God revealed in the gospel was revealed not as something that we're to live up to and attain by our own effort, but as something which he himself gives us freely. That's why it says "from God." It's given to us from God, and all we have to do is receive it. And when Luther understood that, it's as if the scales fell from his eyes and the shackles from his soul. His heart leaped up in joy, and he said it was by these words of the Apostle Paul that I passed, as it were, through the very gates of paradise.

You see, that's a wonderful thing. That's why in the Christian church, though we speak about sin and God's judgment, we don't speak about it in order to burden people with the law and its condemnation, but to say, look, God in his grace has offered the way by which normal human beings, sinful though they may be, may find salvation. So those are two things about this righteousness: that it's the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and that God offers it to us freely apart from anything we can do. The third thing, the thing Paul emphasizes here and also in chapter 3, is that the way in which we receive this is by faith.

He mentions it twice here, you see, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it's written: "The righteous will live by faith." And then in the third chapter, when he begins to develop this at greater length in those 11 verses from verse 21 to 31, he talks about faith eight times. It's obviously quite important. Luther at the beginning himself didn't understand what that was. He thought of faith as another work, something else to be done, you had to attain it, you had to measure up to it somehow. But he came to see that faith is merely receiving what God has done, just taking it, just trusting God when God says that he offers us this righteousness through the work of Jesus Christ.

Jesus did two things. He died in our place, taking the punishment of our sin so we don't have to be punished for our transgressions, and living in such a way that on the basis of that life and that righteousness, God now offers that to us. You see, it's a twofold transition. Our sin on Christ so he can die and suffer for it; his righteousness on us so we stand before God now no longer clothed in the filthy rags of our own unrighteousness, but in the righteousness, the holiness, the goodness of Jesus Christ. Since Paul talks so much about faith, it's worth taking a moment to explain what faith is. Faith is not mere intellectual assent.

Some people do talk about faith as if that's what it is, but it's more than that. It involves content, that's the first thing, because you can't have faith in nothing. You have faith in something, and in the case of the gospel, it's the very things I've been talking about.