Chapter 3
v.1 Having said that then, you may ask me, “Well, do we have any advantage at all in being Jews? Are we to cancel out all the privileges that the Old Testament says that we have?”
v.2 No, I believe you do have advantages. But those advantages are a great responsibility because the chief of them is that you know the scriptures of Truth. You are the custodians of God’s Law, it is into your hands that they were committed.
v.3 Then you might say, “Well … because of the disobedience of the Jews – does that mean that what God said concerning the nation is now wiped out? That His purpose is now cancelled with the Nation?”
v.4 Is not God faithful concerning His word?
I will answer your assertion later. Let me make this general statement concerning God’s promise. He is a God of Truth, and every man is a liar. The Scripture testifies to this. We cannot question God.
v.5 You might say then, “If the unrighteousness of Jews commends (by contrast), the Righteousness of God (which you speak of as our need), why then should God judge us? Seeing that our unrighteousness highlights His Righteousness?”
v.6 Now I say that this is your way of putting it. I don’t like to put it that way. I speak as a man here, but I want to tell you, it is absolutely wrong to put matters like that, for you and I know that God will judge the world. Will He not do that properly? I want to answer you very broadly and generally here, and I will later develop these arguments, I will not accept your present form of reasoning.
v.7 Well, you might say, “If the Truth of God hath abounded more through my lie, unto His Glory, why am I yet judged as a sinner?” Your argument is that, if through your disobedience and the fact that you are a liar, this illustrates by contrast the glory of God, are you not helping the cause of God?
v.8 This falacious and perverse reasoning has even been attributed to me, because I preach the Righteousness of God above the righteousness of the Law. We have been accused of teaching – “Let us do evil that good may come, because if man cannot work out his own Righteousness to gain the Kingdom, but needs God’s Righteousness, then the more evil we do, the more opportunity we afford God to demonstrate His Righteousness.” I, Paul, say this — that people who reason like that — their condemnation to death is absolutely justified.
v.9 Well, you may say, “You have dismissed our arguments. Are you saying that we, that is the Jews, are no better than the Gentiles. Are you saying that?” Yes, I am saying that! And I’ve proved to you before by history, that Jews and Gentiles are not different — they are all under sin. National distinctions don’t affect the basic instincts of human nature. But you might not accept the witness of history. You might look at history differently.
v.10 But I know what you do accept – and that is the Scriptures. It is written there, “There is none righteous, no not one” (Jew or Gentile).
v.11-19 Do you believe that? The six Scriptures which I now advance illustrate that the whole of mankind, indeed the whole of man is perversely equal. His throat, tongue, lips, mouth, feet, eyes, whatever he is constituted as, the senses he has been given, he exercises illicitly and wrongfully. He does not control himself – he cannot control himself. As much as he would like to control himself, he finds that he cannot do so, and so he has abandoned himself. We find therefore, the world is in such a situation as it is. These six scriptures as well as others illustrate what I am saying concerning this history. If you feel by looking at these six scriptures that there is in them a discrimination between the sinner and the Righteous and therefore I am wrong, please note that in all of them it speaks of the innate sinfulness of the heart of man, whereas, by contrast it speaks concerning the Righteousness of God. Check the context of each! I conclude therefore on the basis of these scriptures, that what I have said is true, and I will not withdraw it. There is none righteous, no not one. (i.e. without God). This is what I have been trying to say all along – that God has to come into the affairs of mankind to save man from himself. Well, this poses another question, does it not.
v.20 You may say, “Well, knowing that man was going to act this way, wasn’t it silly for God to put him under Law? What purpose would the Law possibly have then?” The Law had a very great purpose. It was to bring man to see the state into which he had brought himself and that having seen this, he might take positive steps to bring God into his life, to lift him above himself. It was to show man that he could not boast like you have been boasting, to teach man to keep his mouth shut because he cannot keep Law (v.19). It was to prove to all the world, not only the Jews, who had the Law, but also to the Gentiles, that all men who flout the moral principles of God will be subject to His judgement according to their degree of responsibility.
The Law was not designed that it might, as Law, give men eternal life, for by the deeds of the Law, no flesh shall be justified. Rather the converse. What do we find by experience? the knowledge of the Law only convinced the man that he was a sinner. Far from being justified before God, he found himself estranged. Now I am coming to the pith and marrow of my argument. We see now the Righteousness of God made plain, apart, or away from, the Law.
v.21 As a matter of fact, not that it is different from the Law in that sense, but the very Law itself witnessed, along with the prophets, that there was to come another form of Righteousness which the Law could not give mankind. The Law then is not in opposition to God. God’s Law was written by Him that it might endorse His point of view.
v.22 That Righteousness which is of God can only be appropriated by faith – and that faith is manifest in the life and in the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and because faith goes beyond the boundary of Law, it is available unto ALL —both Jew and Gentile. It is available unto the Jews, who had access to faith, and the Gentiles to whom faith was delivered, because there is no difference.
v.23 Why? Because all have slimed and every man has come short of the glory of God. When one measures sin by its contrast to the “Glory of God”, what man has not fallen short!!
v.24 We could not be justified by the Law, but I will tell you we can be justified freely (i.e. spontaneously) by God. Free in the sense that a man is not asked to be perfect. He can be declared righteous, even though he may commit sin, but if he has faith and leans on God’s grace, He will freely forgive him, but only through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
v.25 Why is it in Christ Jesus? Because it was he whom God sent forth, made of our flesh, then crucified to declare God’s Law against it to be right. He who acknowledges in faith this to be just has God’s righteousness imputed to him for he agrees with God. A righteousness clearly apart from the Law.
The Mercy Seat, hidden behind the veil of the Tabernacle, seen once a year by one man, with blood sprinkled upon it, was typically speaking of God’s Grace in the power of forgiveness, a typical demonstration of God’s righteousness yet hidden in the Most Holy. But Jesus Christ has been clearly and openly demonstrated and shown to all the world as the True Mercy Seat, out there on top of Golgotha, for all men to see, that they might look up and witness the righteousness of God in condemning the innate desires of the flesh in a body of a sinless man.
v.26 What would He declare? God’s righteousness. He knew that there was not intrinsic value in his flesh, that as a Son of Adam, he could not in any way contribute to his perfect obedience. If so, he would not have held it up to ridicule, surely? Did he not have power to resist arrest? Did he not have the power to escape the cross? Were there not twelve legions of angels? But the Scripture must be fulfilled, God’s Law must be upheld, and the Law required that he admit, and frankly confess that all flesh, including his own, was grass. If such a declaration be made by a righteous man, should we not accept the condemnation of God upon us, who because of our nature, are actual sinners? Yet you talk about being justified by Law? As if the working of Law could eradicate sin! The remission that God offers in this man is for sins of past history. We cannot do anything about them — they are gone! Time does not allow us to go back. Man is therefore, forgiven on no other basis than the forebearance of God.
I repeat —Jesus Christ declared God’s righteousness. He did it for this reason. That God may be seen to be just in calling for the condemnation of the propensities of flesh which were in Christ Jesus, even though he never exercised them. Therefore whosoever perceives the principles declared in the sacrifice of the morally righteous man, and comes to believe in the power of God demonstrated in and above the flesh, God will justify such a man.
v.27 We therefore conclude two things. That a man is justified by the faith apart from the deeds of the Law.
v.29 Now, springing out of that fact, we might now pose the question; Is then God exclusively the God of the Jews?
If all men are sinners and all need God’s righteousness, then all are reduced to a common level, seeking a common salvation. Seeing that all men need to admit their failure and their inability to live up to the Law, God is not then the God of any particular race on earth, who may commend themselves to Him by their obedience! If all men therefore are categorised as sinners and God is prepared to save them, he is obviously the God of the Gentiles also! It is absolutely necessary that He is.
v.30 God is one. His very unity demands he treat with all men on the basis of one principle! Do we think, therefore that the one God who is so separate and distinct from flesh would have two methods to save two branches of mankind? The unity of God would deny it. So we say that the Jews, having the oracles of God in their possession can be saved by faith, and that the Gentiles who have not the Law will be saved by the same faith as it is presented to them.
v.31 We categorically deny that we make void God’s Law. We will not admit that we are against the Law. We rather claim that we have understood the Law better, and by the application of it, have established it.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One