The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee

Forgiveness of Sin Through Jesus Christ - 1

Note: See the Answer Key at the bottom of this page to fill in the blanks.

Overview:

Romans 3:21-31

We now turn to the ___________  _____________ of the Gospel, as Paul presents the only way out of the human condition of sin, which leads to separation from God, separation from other humans and estrangement from all of creation.  Paul’s solution is ____________  ___________. 

While all Scripture is inspired by God, the verses we are about to read have a particular significance, because it was through reading Romans 3:23-24 that Martin Luther, John Calvin and John Wesley each came to know the truth of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  Each was a Roman Catholic priest, who had lived a life of salvation through works, and found the approach lacking.  Although their ultimate living out of their response to the Good News of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus differed dramatically in the detail, we may safely say that Romans 3:23-24 are the “theme verses” of the Protestant Reformation.

Let’s turn now to the GOOD NEWS!

21But now God has shown us a different way of being right in his sight—not by obeying the law but by the way promised in the Scriptures long ago.

Paul has brought his readers to the conclusion (or at least he hopes he has!) that they cannot be saved by obeying the law.  Therefore, he shows them God’s  “different way of being right in His sight.”  This is a significant point.  Paul is not presenting His opinion, or best guess of what we must do to receive salvation or being right in God’s sight.  He is presenting God’s way.  The way is “not by obeying the law, but by the way promised in the Scriptures long ago.”   Paul wants his readers to understand that if they are students of God’s Word (which at that time would have included only the Old Testament) they will see that what Paul is saying was promised in the Scriptures “long ago.” In fact, he will make the case in chapter 4, that the life of Abraham is evidence of the life of righteousness through faith rather works, which God offers to each one of us.

 22We are made right in God’s sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done.

Paul states the means to being “made right in God’s sight” or being “saved” is “when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins.”  This is true “no matter who we are or what we have done.”

The New Living Translation here uses the term “be saved,” which is used by Paul in other places, but which is not used here.   A literal translation of Romans 3:22 is:

And the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ is to all the ones believing; for there is no difference;

Paul wants us to be clear that we CANNOT be made right with God or righteous through our own actions. It can only come through faith in Jesus Christ.  When Paul says, “for there is no difference,” he is leading into verse 23 where he is going to remind us that ALL have sinned.  It is from that statement that the NLT translates “no matter who we are or what we have done.”  Indeed, no matter who we are or what we have done—it makes no difference, because ALL have sinned….

23For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard.

Here is Paul’s succinct summation of all that has gone before in this letter to the Romans:   “ALL have sinned and fall short of God’s glorious standard.”  It is here that the necessity of Jesus’ coming into the world is ________________.  If we have not ALL sinned, then there is no necessity of Jesus coming to restore us to a right relationship with God, nor to save us from our sins.

APPLICATION POINT:  In a culture where everything is “relative,” where moral absolutes are no longer agreed upon at any level of society, the universality of sin as a starting point is crucial to establish.  Paul has taken two and a half chapters of this letter to establish that ALL have sinned and therefore, NEED to be saved.  If we forget that, or if we fall into our culture’s deception that we are all basically good, then we have no Good News to share.  Jesus didn’t come to “touch us up” around the edges.  He came to offer us a whole new life.  Anything short of that is not the Gospel of Jesus.  We must avoid, at all costs, the trap of our culture which says that we can work out our problems with a little more energy, a little more love, a little more intellect, a little more love, or a little more of anything other than the blood of Jesus Christ!

 24Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins.

This is the  ______________ of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.   We who are “dead” in sin, we who deserve the just punishment of God for our sins are declared “not guilty.”  (In traditional Christian language we are “justified.”  To be justified is to appear before God  “just as if I” never sinned!) 

How has God accomplished this amazing task?  Through Jesus Christ, who has freed us by taking away our sins.  Here Paul uses the terminology of a world where slavery was a reality.  He tells us that Jesus has “freed us”, or in traditional language “redeemed” us.  Jesus has paid the purchase price of our freedom from sin.  Paul will tell us in the next verse that the purchase price was Jesus taking the punishment for our sins upon himself to satisfy God’s anger.  As Jesus’ blood was poured out, the “price” of our redemption, our freedom was paid!

APPLICATION POINT:  Only those who feel the weight and burden of their sins experience the full impact of this “gift.”  The “bad” news and the Good News go together.  When we know the evil and the potential evil that lies within us, then and only then, are we able to feel the full power of the blood of Jesus.  Our culture’s downplaying of sin and evil, and actual endorsement of much of it has gone a long way to playing into building the Devil’s deception that we don’t really need to be redeemed, only “spruced up a bit.”  In his book The Gospel for the Person That Has Everything,”  Will Willimon rightly points out that the old Gospel message usually came from someone whose life was devastated by sin—alcohol or drug abuse, murder, or some other “major” sin, for whom the blood of Jesus changed everything.  Nowadays, Willimon points out, most of us are fairly “good” and materially prosperous.  That means we may not grasp the Good News quickly or readily, because we don’t see ourselves as “evil.”  Willimon’s response is that for the person who has everything, we must point out that it all came from God.  We must get the person to see that it didn’t all come through hard work, or through the person’s inherent goodness, but as a blessing from God.  There is much of merit in Willimon’s position, so long as we never forget that ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and that we are saved by the gracious gift of God’s kindness whereby we are declared, “Not guilty,” through Jesus Christ who freed us from our sin.”

25For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God’s anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us. God was being entirely fair and just when he did not punish those who sinned in former times.  26And he is entirely fair and just in this present time when he declares sinners to be right in his sight because they believe in Jesus.

In these two verses Paul makes a vital point about the motivation behind Jesus’ death on the cross.  Certainly Jesus died for us out of love for us, but we must not jump too hastily to Jesus death on the cross only as an act of love, especially a sentimental love.  Paul points out that “God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God’s anger against us.”  Jesus death on the cross was the only action that could _____________  God’s anger for our sins.  God is a holy and just being.  He cannot tolerate sin.  Therefore, out of love for the sinner, He sent Jesus to die in our places—His life for our lives.   It is the blood of Jesus shed on the cross that wipes away our sin.  God had established in Old Testament times that the shedding of blood was the only solution to human sin, the only means to forgiveness.  The Old Testament sacrificial system was based on the shedding of animal blood to satisfy God’s anger for human sin.  In Jesus, the shedding of one man’s blood, became effective in eliminating the need for any additional blood sacrifices.  While the mention of the blood of Jesus was prevalent in hymns of two and three hundred years ago, it has fallen out of favor in modern Christianity.  That is often due to our failure to accept that we are all sinners, all deserving death.  The reality is that the blood of Jesus is mentioned more than thirty times in the New Testament, always as the means of our salvation and forgiveness of sins.

As Watchman Nee Points out in his book The Normal Christian Life,  It is the Blood of Jesus Christ that takes away our sins.  This is a commonly accepted Christian doctrine, but the full impact of it is incredible:  it means that when God looks at us, He sees no sin in us.  He sees the blood of His Son, Jesus, and affirms that we are “not guilty.”  To accept, understand and live the reality of the blood of Jesus being poured out for the forgiveness of our sins, is to be “born again,” to become a new person, because in that moment we become “dead” to sin and alive to all that is good!  (Much more on that in our study of chapter 6!)

27Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on our good deeds. It is based on our faith.

Here Paul states one of his common themes:  we have no reason or ability to boast about our acceptance by God.  Why?  Because we have done NOTHING—no thing—to bring it about.   Our “acquittal” is not based on any good work.  It is based on faith alone.  The three rallying cries of the protestant reformation were, “Scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone!”  The Roman Catholic Church had added tradition to scripture, and works to grace and faith.  The Reformers read the words we are reading and realized that salvation has nothing to do with us, or our works, or the establishment known as the church.  It has everything to do with Jesus Christ, His grace to us, our faith in Him, and the truth He has given us presented in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.

APPLICATION POINT:   Here is a major stumbling block for many people:  If I do anything good it is God’s doing in my life by grace, through faith in Jesus.  If I do anything bad, it is my fault—sin is always my responsibility.  How can it be fair that I get NO credit for any good thing, and ALL blame for every sin of my life?  The fairness is in this:  Jesus Christ DIED, shed his BLOOD, to take away all the sin, evil and blame from our lives.  He takes all the punishment before God for our sin, justifies us, so that when God looks at us, He sees only goodness!  Imagine what it would be like if we BELIEVED this truth:  There is now NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!—really believed it, and didn’t just give it verbal assent.

Some have asked, “What would you attempt for God if you knew you couldn’t fail?”  That question is the wrong question.  The question is, “What would you attempt for God if you believed that He sees you as perfect already?  What would you do if you honestly believed that for every failure God’s grace is sufficient for you to start again—every time?”  A life without failure isn’t biblical—ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  As we shall see in chapter 7, sin continues to be a struggle even after we receive the salvation offered through the shed blood of Jesus on the cross.  What is biblical is a life with total reliance on the saving work of Jesus Christ, a life that is unafraid of failure, and which turns to the blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of sin with total assurance.

28So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law.

Paul concludes this section with a simple summation of the reality he has just explained:  “we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law.”  Our salvation, our righteousness comes from faith in Jesus Christ, not from any work we perform, not from any obedience to the law.  The works and the obedience come as a response to our salvation, a way of saying thank you for all God has done in our lives.  The salvation, the righteousness is a gift.

29After all, God is not the God of the Jews only, is he? Isn’t he also the God of the Gentiles? Of course he is. 30There is only one God, and there is only one way of being accepted by him. He makes people right with himself only by faith, whether they are Jews or Gentiles.

Paul reminds his readers once again that they are all saved the same way, whether they are Jews or Gentiles—because God is the God of all people.  There is only one way of being accepted by God---through faith in the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

 31Well then, if we emphasize faith, does this mean that we can forget about the law? Of course not! In fact, only when we have faith do we truly fulfill the law.

Paul offers one more succinct summation of the reality of the new life Jesus give us by paying for our sins on the cross.  He points out that we cannot conclude from the reality that we are saved by grace through faith, that we can ignore the law.  In fact, Paul states, “Only when we have faith do we truly fulfill the law.”  We may ask, “Which law?  The Law of Moses?”  Yes and No.  Certainly Paul means for those who have received salvation, who live by faith in Jesus Christ to faithfully obey the teachings of the Bible.  Obviously, though, Jesus’ death on the cross has changed the necessity for observing animal sacrifices.  Paul has already argued (and argues in many of his letters) that the Jewish ritual of circumcision is not effective or necessary as an act of obedience to the law.  Paul wants us to recognize that as we live by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit we are not “under the law,” but will live in obedience to it.  He makes this case most clearly in Galatians 5, where he points out that once the Holy Spirit is in charge of our lives we will not succumb to the sins of the flesh, but will produce the fruit of the Spirit.  Here Paul is satisfied with reminding us that once we have received salvation through faith, we will “truly” fulfill the law.

ANSWER KEY:  good news, Jesus Christ, established, heart, satisfy

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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from either the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, © 2006 (after Dec. 2, 2007) or the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, © 1996 (before Dec. 2 2007). Both are used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189, All rights reserved. New Life Christian Ministries, Inc. holds CCLI Number 1966192.   Individual copyright information is provided for words of praise songs and hymns used in the Daily Bible Studies.

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