The Unchanging Truth

Guest (Male): Welcome to the unchanging truth, the verse by verse Bible teaching ministry of Dr. Jared Gilcher, lead pastor of Christ Community Bible Church in Arlington, Texas. Through the living and active word of God, the unchanging truth exists to encourage your soul, transform your life, and help you trust and treasure Christ as redeemer, savior, and king. Now, opening the scriptures and proclaiming the truth that never changes, here is Dr. Jared Gilcher.

Dr. Jerod Gilcher: I've said it lots of times that the deepest dilemma in the universe is how do hell deserving sinners get reconciled to God as the treasure of their soul? Right? And that's true, but there is a dilemma still deeper than that. And the dilemma is is how can God find sinners not guilty without dropping the charges? Or to use the words of verse 26, how can God be both just and the one who justifies the guilty? And what's the answer? Say it out loud. What's the answer? It is the cross. That is the answer. I mean, it's incredible.

Do don't you think that that God ordained a dilemma that only the death of his son could resolve? That God predestined a problem that only the murder of his son could repair? Not just our redemption, not just our salvation, which is massive, but God's vindication and reputation. And that is the burden of Romans chapter 3. And I want you to feel that burden. This should matter to us. This should mean everything to us. Cuz we care, don't we? We we not always in a bad way, but we care what people think about us. It matters to us that that our reputation be upheld, that we not be maligned, that we not be misrepresented, that we not be slandered.

We care about how we're perceived. And And to a certain level, that's fine, and that's good, and we totally should, but it should matter infinitely more to us that God be worshiped and adored, that people see him for the treasure that he is, that he be rightly represented because that is the deepest meaning of the cross, to repair the infinite damage done to the glory of God. So, here we go. Cosmic fact number one. Cosmic fact number one. The intention of Christ's death. The intention of Christ's death. That was all introduction. You're welcome. Starting in verse 21.

But now but now Paul says, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested being witnessed by the law and the prophets. And there's that phrase. Look at the text. There's that phrase, the righteousness of God. Do you see that? That is the most important phrase in the entire letter to the Romans because what that is is the solution for sin. That's what sinners need to be reconciled to God, the righteousness of God because you remember the problem. God is righteous and we are not. In the cosmic court of the king, we were all born legally, officially, judicially, and cosmically condemned.

And you know that the filthy rags of righteous deeds were never going to cut it. Right? Good deeds are the sin soaked good deeds of a sinner. They don't have the leverage. They don't have the buying power to to appease the wrath of God or redeem our soul. Right? And yet in his love, God made a way to find sinners not guilty without dropping the charges. God made a way where his very righteousness could be transferred to our account, cancel our guilt, and we be counted righteous and reconciled to God. That is the doctrine of justification.

Does that sound familiar? That is what sinners need. And yet the question is how does it work? How do we How do we get the righteousness of God? Verse 22. Even the righteousness of God, here it is, through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe. There it is. The righteous God made a way to righteously righteous the unrighteous, to declare them righteous and adopt them as sons. And you can see it there. Faith is the means. Faith in Christ is how we get the righteousness of God credited to us, which is massive. Faith is massive.

In fact, it is so massive, I'm going to preach an entire message next week on what faith is because when we put our faith in Christ, all the riches of redemption bought with his blood, including his very righteousness, became ours in full. Which is why Paul says at the end of verse 22, the righteousness from God is notice for all those who believe. Do you see that? It's for those who believe, which means it is a gift. It is given. It is imputed. It is credited. It is transferred to our account. And now the father sees us with the with the very righteousness of his son.

Which means no more guilt and no more wrath counted righteous reconciled to God. That's astonishing. But it sounds crazy, right? It sounds crazy. We've wrestled with this a number of times. How How can God pretend that we are righteous when the opposite is true? Right? And furthermore, how does the perfect obedience of another, namely Christ, get transferred to our account? It's just pretend. It's just monopoly money. We're We're just making this up. It seems kind of weird. And I said this before. Justification is only weird if we divorce it from the actual historical transaction of the cross.

Right? In other words, if we forget the wrath bearing sacrifice of Christ that made justification even possible, it's going to feel like pretend, but it 's not pretend. It's not a legal fiction. This is real. Look at verses 24 and 25. And this is the most important text on the cross in the whole Bible. He says we are justified as a gift by his grace. Notice through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God publicly displayed as a propitiation. There's that word mercy seat through faith in his blood. And that was a lot, but I hope you saw I hope you saw redemption and propitiation because those two things made justification even possible.

Redemption is a ransom price. Propitiation satisfies the wrath of God. We were bought with a price that satisfied the wrath of God. And when we put our faith in Christ, the wrath and guilt for sin was gone and we received the righteousness of Christ. In other words, redemption plus propitiation equals our justification. Do you see? And that 's why it's real. That's why it 's real. I said it before. Justification wasn't some legal loophole or or clever way to cheat the system. This wasn't some kind of divine tax fraud where God pretended and played along and pretended like the debt was paid.

No. Our debt was paid. The wrath was appeased. And And And here we are fully reconciled to God. Romans 5:1 having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Tell me one thing. Tell me one thing in the universe that matters more than peace with God. Can you name one? If you're in Christ, name one sin. Name one sin that God still holds against you. Name one. If you're in Christ, name one sin. Name one to which you are still enslaved. There isn't one. If you're in Christ, name one person, believer or unbeliever who doesn't need to hear about the savior who paid the debt to set sinners free.

Do you see? And this is the savior to whom we belong. The question is Stay with me. The question is okay. What was the purpose of the death of Christ? What was the death of Christ designed to do? And maybe you think, well Jared, you just told us. The text just said it was our salvation. It was our justification. And And that is true. It was, but you see the death of Christ not only solved the problem for us. There was yet a deeper problem, a deeper purpose happening at the murder of the son. Verse 25 Look and behold very carefully.

God displayed Christ publicly as a propitiation through faith in his blood. Here it is for the display of his righteousness because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed. And there it is. Did you see it? The deepest meaning of the cross. Did you see it? It was the display of God's righteousness. That is why Christ came to die, beloved, not only to save the souls of men, but in and through that and even beyond that to display the righteousness of God. And And And therein lies the implication. If the goal of the cross was to display and demonstrate the righteousness of God, then that means that something happened before the cross that called his righteousness into question.

The way he dealt with sin or didn't deal with sin before the cross seemed to call his glory into question, that he's not a righteous God, that he's not a holy God, that he's not lofty and exalted and matchless and supreme, and that sin against him isn't an infinite outrage, but it is. He is righteous. Psalm 11:7 Yahweh is righteous and loves righteousness. Psalm 145:17 Yahweh is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his deeds. Do you see? God is righteous. And the divine design of the death of the son was the display of the righteousness of God.

What does that mean? Why does that matter? What is the righteousness of God? And had we had 2 hours, we could look at every single time the word righteous occurs and we would see that for God to be righteous doesn't merely mean that he's moral or that he keeps the rules. Now, listen carefully. For God to be righteous means that God loves his own glory as matchless and supreme. That is his righteousness. You see, as God, he must value supremely what is supremely valuable. And his own glory is supremely valuable. Thus, if God gives his glory to another or if he acts in a way that seems to call his glory into question, then he would for that very reason be unrighteous and cease to be God.

Why? Because he acts as though his glory is inferior. He doesn't seem to mind if his reputation is tainted, that it isn't that big of a deal if his glory is profane. Do you see? Which is exactly what everything before the cross seemed to do. God is soft on sin. And if sin's not a big deal, then God's not a big deal. And yet when Christ was on the cross in the brutal and bloody agony of that moment, not only to redeem wrath deserving rebels from destruction, but also in that moment he repaired the infinite glory of God.

And in that moment, God set the record straight, didn't he? Didn't he? The cross was a public service announcement for all the world that this is a God whose glory is supreme. This is a God who is righteous and holy and worthy of our worship. I see the book before the cross could be for us. It had to be for God. And it was for God. Which means the question is what happened before the cross that profaned his glory, which we have covered. But But notice how Paul puts it. This brings us to cosmic fact number two.

Cosmic fact number two. I call the deformation of God's righteousness, the deformation of God's righteousness. Because here is the problem. Even bigger a problem than our own sin and need for salvation. And notice notice how Paul frames it. Look at verse 20 starting in verse 25. God displayed Christ publicly as a propitiation through faith in his blood for the display of his righteousness. Here it is because in the forbearance of God, he passed over sins previously committed. Do you see it? That's the reason. That's the reason he needed to rectify his reputation because in his patience, in his loving forbearance as a God merciful and gracious and slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness, God passed over the sins previously committed.

In other words, he he overlooked him. He He swept him under the rug, or so it seems. Don't worry, Adam, you're forgiven. Here's a pair of pants. And don't worry, Israel. You offered a lamb. Now we're good. Don't worry, David. You said you're sorry. Now you're forgiven. That That doesn't add up, does it? That That doesn't make sense. That's the scandal of glory. Because what did Paul do? Or what did God do? Paul says God passed over the sins previously committed. Do you see that? The word passed over literally means to disregard, to let the guilty go free.

Right? Other than the flood, other than the the global flood, God rarely acted in a way that demonstrated that sin against him was an infinite outrage. That's a problem. John Piper puts it like this. Listen carefully. This is This is a It's a It's a It's a pretty meaty quote, but but hang on if you can. This is really good. He says the problem when God passes over sin like he did for all of history from Adam until the cross, when God passes over sin is that God seems to agree that those who despise his name and be and uh that God agrees with those who despise his name and belittles his glory.

God's relative silence on the evil of the world and his constant willingness to either forgive at will or extend forgiveness in exchange for such a very small sacrificial payment seem to condone the low assessment of his worth. In other words, all those years and centuries and centuries before the cross in all the nations of the world, sin looked small and God looked cheap. Even in Israel. Even in Israel. I mean, do do you think the Jews were the only ones who offered sacrifices for sin? All the nations did that. All of them did. In fact, many of the sacrifices they offered were greater than Israel's in the sense that some of them even offered human sacrifices for sin.

And the point is, and this is really crucial, hang on here, the the the the point is God never required a payment for sin that seemed to show the glory of his worth. He never went public in a way that demonstrated how infinite sin against him really is until the cross. Right? Until the murder of his son. And then God declared that that is how much sin matters. That is how much my glory matters. That is what it took to repair my righteous reputation. Now it's true. It's true. God could have done the same thing, repaired his righteous reputation if he sent everybody to hell.

Right? That That would have done the trick. Just Just blow the whistle, show up in his wrath, show up in vengeance, send all of us to the lake of fire all at once. That would have done it. Then we would have seen the righteousness of God. But clearly that was not God's decree. It did not delight the heart of God to destroy us in that way. And our church before time began, God made a plan to save sinners from destruction. At the cost of the life of his son, God made a way to both display the infinite glory of his beauty and deliver wrath deserving sinners all at the exact same time.

The question is could you do it? Could you do it? Could you Could you worship a God who didn't value his glory as supreme? Could you? Could you worship a God who agreed with sinners that sin against him isn't really that big of a deal? I mean, isn't there something deep in your soul that that reverberates with joy at the God centeredness of God, that God is not man centered, that God is God centered? And yet in being God centered, he does what's best for man. That's the most loving gift that God can give, namely himself.

Which brings us then to cosmic fact number three. Cosmic fact number three. The vindication of God's glory. The vindication of God's glory. And here it is. Here it is. The great two birds, one stone of the universe where wrath and mercy met together and solved the deepest problem, God's reputation and our redemption. Look at verse starting in verse 25. Look for the vindication of God's glory. God displayed Christ publicly as a propitiation through faith in his blood. Why? For the display of his righteousness. Why? Because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed.

Notice verse 26. The grammar's kind of gnarly, but he's saying the purpose of the death of Christ was for the display of his righteousness so that now in the present time, he would, here it is, be both just and the one who justifies, the one who has faith in Jesus. Do you see it? That's the deepest meaning of the cross. Two birds, one stone. God repairs his righteous reputation. God redeems wrath deserving rebels all at the same time. It's incredible. That's what he means when he says that God is just and the one who justifies the one who has faith in Jesus.

The righteous God made a way to righteously punish sinners, righteously punish sin and pardon guilty sinners all at the same time. Because there, beloved, there and now those the hours of agony and torture of the cross, God repaired the damage to his glory and delivered wicked sinners to the praise of his glory. And that is the deepest meaning of the cross.

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us for the unchanging truth, the verse by verse Bible teaching ministry of Dr. Jared Gilcher and Christ Community Bible Church in Arlington, Texas. At Christ Community Bible Church, we exist to prize, portray, and proclaim the supremacy of Christ as we trust in his word and wait for his return. We hope today's teaching has encouraged your soul and helped you trust and treasure Christ as your redeemer, savior, and king. If you're in the DFW area and looking for a church home, join us for worship Sunday mornings at 10:30. To learn more about the mission of the church, meet the pastoral staff, or plan a visit, go to ccbiblechurch.com.

You'll find ministry services and additional teachings there as well. Just click on the resources tab to get started. That's ccbiblechurch.com. Join us again next time as we open the scriptures together and proclaim the truth that never changes. This has been the unchanging truth.