Coming to Easter, I think it prudent to be reminded of who Jesus is and what He means to us. His Incarnation, ministry on earth, death, and resurrection; what exactly does that mean for us? How can one man’s death cause such a ripple in culture that 2000 years later, we’re not only still talking about Him, but His church is still growing? And how should that affect us and change us as a group of people?
The short of what we’ll be looking at today is what we call a model of Atonement. Well, what is that? What is atonement? It’s a strange word, but the meaning is quite simple: the action of making amends for a wrong or an injury. In Christian terms, it’s “the reconciliation of God and humankind through Jesus Christ”. Repeat. But how does this reconciliation occur? How is the relationship between God and humanity restored? And what does that look like? That’s the goal of the Atonement models. There’s a lot of them, only a few of them are up on the screen. And each has their biblical merit. Collectively, they paint a beautiful mosaic of God’s revelation. But for this morning, I’m going to focus on what we find in Romans.
Now, Romans was written by the Apostle Paul. The only recorded meeting between Jesus and Paul is found on his road to Damascus in Acts 9. So Paul didn’t spend a lot of time following Jesus prior to His ascension. In fact, we know very little about what Paul was doing prior to Christ’s resurrection. What we do know, is that following his conversion to the Way, as they called it back then, Paul spent many years reflecting on the life of Jesus and learning from the disciples among others. And he became perhaps the most influential missionary of Jesus. It was his largest work, written to the collection of churches scattered throughout Rome, that we find this morning’s text. Here we find three questions that Paul is addressing:
1. How the righteousness of God is revealed in the present time.
2. How justification is now possible for all who believe.
3. Why God demonstrated His righteousness in this way.
21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.”
In other words, the righteousness of God has been manifested through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. It’s different to the law, what we find in the Pentateuch, being the first five books of the Bible. But, Paul is also clear not to disregard the law – the revelation through Christ is indicated and indeed foreshadowed in the law. Someway, somehow, through Jesus Christ, God manifested His righteousness in a new, fresh, distinct way.
So, what does this mean?
First thing to look at is the idea of righteousness. What is that? The original Greek word, dikaiosunē, in a broad sense, refers to the state or condition of something or someone as they ought to be. In reference to God, it emphasises the condition and virtue acceptable to God. So when we talk about the righteousness of God, we’re talking about the virtues and condition not only of God Himself, but also of what God upholds and accepts to be the standard.
Secondly, we now understand that God has revealed his condition in a distinct way from what was known in the past. This new revelation doesn’t do away with the Old Testament and the Old Covenant where God made promises to the People of Israel. Paul makes this very clear when he says that the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it. Despite being a new revelation of God’s righteousness, there is a clear link and continuity throughout salvation history that cannot be ignored. If the Old Testament didn’t foreshadow and prophesy about Jesus Christ, how could we know that He was indeed the Messiah?
This revelation came through Jesus Christ, and it is only through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. And here Paul briefly hints at something important. He uses the words all who believe. In God’s Kingdom, there’s no difference between a Jew or Gentile. No difference between a man and a woman. No difference between a child and their grandmother. No difference between a business owner and the homeless. No difference between race. The only parameter is whether you believe. Paul goes on.
“For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”
Lot of big words in there. Paul makes a clear, blanket statement. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is no distinction, that applies to every single one of us on this green earth. If you’re alive, you’re a sinner and you can’t attain the glory of God. Why? Because we do not have the condition of God. We are stained by the fall of Adam and Eve and nothing we do can change that. That’s our plight. That’s the issue that stands between us and God, yet despite that, it is God, not ourselves, who provides the solution. Indeed, this solution, Paul tells us, is the justification of all who believe, according to His grace, through the redemption found in Jesus Christ.
So, what is justification? If we look at the original Greek text that Paul used, dikaioumenoi. You’ll notice it’s very similar to the word for righteousness that we discussed earlier. The idea of justification is that righteousness is imputed upon you. You are declared and made righteous. So when we’re talking about justification, we’re talking about the idea that God declares us, those who believe through faith in Jesus Christ, as acceptable to God’s Holy standards. No longer do we miss the mark. But how does that happen? How is it that through Jesus Christ our nature shifts from unacceptable to acceptable? Well, Paul continues, and he talks about redemption that is available through Christ.
We all know what redemption means. You walk into a store and see a nice shirt. You can’t grab it and walk out. You have to purchase it. And here’s the beauty of the Gospel. It’s not like paying for the shirt with a credit card or cash. Yes, the store can and does happily accept the payment. But that’s an act we involve ourselves in. The funds are only available to the store due to our action. If we liken the Gospel to a gift card, the store already has the cash. All we need to do is present ourselves and be available. Our ability to receive the gift is entirely on the hands of the person giving the gift – and that is God Himself through Jesus Christ.
But how does that work? Paul talks about it in this way: “through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” Propitiation is a rich theological word and it’s really the nucleus of this whole gift of justification. If you go to Bible College, at some point or another, they’re going to talk about the Greek word hilastērion. And that’s the word that’s often translated into Bible’s as propitiation. But what does it mean? It’s not a word we encounter regularly and that’s because our culture has moved past the idea of appeasement – which is the turning away of wrath or indignation. I briefly mentioned that there is continuity between the Old Testament and the New. This specific word is one such example. Hilastērion is used twice in the New Testament. The other passage is found in Hebrews 9:5, where it’s often translated as mercy seat. Both directly relate to the Lid of the Ark of the Covenant and the Jewish practice called the Day of Atonement. Anyone heard of that?
Let’s go for a walk down memory lane. You’ll find the passage about the Day of Atonement in one of the least read books of the Bible, Leviticus 16. Inside the Holy Place, the very inner section of the Tabernacle and in latter days, the Temple, you would find the Ark of the Covenant. Here’s one artist’s rendering of what it may have looked like. During the Day of Atonement, the High Priest would sacrifice a bull and one of two goats as sin offerings. The bull for himself, the goat for the nation of Israel. The High Priest would then sprinkle some of the blood of each animal on the lid, an act of atoning for the nation’s sin. Using the language we discussed earlier, the sprinkling of the blood would restore the condition that humankind could not grasp, it restored the nation’s union with YHWH. So, returning to our text in Romans, Paul is saying that Jesus’ blood is the atoning sacrifice for all who receive by faith. The language he uses is not bound by time. Where once the Day of Atonement was an annual event, in the words of David Peterson, through the shedding of Jesus’ blood on the cross,
“Christ is now the decisive sin offering for all who believe”.
David G. Peterson, Romans: Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary, (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020), 195.
It is the blood of Christ, that allows us to have peace with God, to be justified in God’s eyes. But of all the ways God, the Creator of the Universe, could return the peace between us, why did He choose the death of His Son? If God is all knowing and all powerful, why not find another solution? Paul continues:
“This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
It comes down to two key lines. Let’s look at the first one: in His divine forbearance He passed over former sins. God, the Creator of all we see, all we feel, all we taste, all we hear, all we experience, is fully sovereign. He’s in control of everything in this life. We could certainly spend a whole sermon talking about that alone, but in this condition, Paul argues that through the blood of Christ, God passed over former sins. By shedding Jesus’ blood, God exercised divine patience and restraint to essentially ignore, overlook, or even forget the condition we are humans experience. Remember the language from before, God’s righteousness becomes imputed upon us. Often, we look back at the Old Testament and we can be tempted to think of God as easily angered. But that’s not the case. He shows divine forbearance, meaning He’s slow to anger, His judgement is perfect, and He gives us our space to make our own life choices. Through Christ, God overlooks our condition. When we have faith in Jesus, we become Children of God, and we receive and experience the fullness of God’s love for humanity.
And Paul’s second line is equally important: God’s demonstration of righteousness occurred this way so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. It’s a fine line here. As we look back on the Old Testament, there are many rules, rituals and regulations God calls for the nation of Israel to follow. And when talking about continuity between the New Testament, the Gospel era, and the Old, it’s important to remember they meld together well. With the relationship between Jesus and the Day of Atonement, it highlights that God isn’t interested in leading us up the garden path. The Old Testament was not wrong. The sacrifices and all that occurs there, whilst it may seem odd to us today, it still highlights and reveals truth about God. And that truth is continued, indeed fulfilled, through God’s Son, Jesus Christ.
And here we could delve into a deep discussion about the divinity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity, but suffice to say that as God’s Son, it enabled God to offer salvation and sanctification to humanity, whilst upholding and maintaining His own righteousness and perfection. Through Jesus, God could be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. And that’s the key to this whole discussion. Theories are great, but if it isn’t personal, what’s the point. So as we reflect on the Christian story, the Great story of the world as it is now and is yet to be, we see that following the fall of Adam and Eve, humanity has been in a spiral of rebellion against God. And yet, with patience, God continued to reveal more about His character, to bear witness to His glory. Through Jesus Christ, God in human flesh, He found a way to maintain His own righteousness, but also give us the gift of righteousness. We can have friendship with God, because of Jesus. [Pause] So this morning, do you have faith in Jesus? Do you have a friend in God?
So, some practical application. If you know Jesus, if you follow Jesus, where too from here? Grow the relationship, deepen it. Spend time in prayer. If you’ve got busy days here’s an easy spiritual discipline you can use daily. It’s called the examen. Often used at the end of the day, the examen is used to review the day, and align yourself with God. Firstly, give thanks to God for all that He did throughout the day. Perhaps give thanks for a specific thing that occurred. Then as you begin your reflection, ask the Holy Spirit to guide you and draw you closer to Christ. Ask questions such as this: where have I felt joy today? What troubled me? What was challenging? Did I get a chance to pause and rest? Have I noticed God’s movement in any of this? After this time, respond to God, and reflect on where the next few days, weeks and years may lead. Make a conscious decision about how you wish to move forward into the next day. Walking in step with the Holy Spirit. This process can be long or short. Every day is different. And there isn’t a better way to finish the day than to realign yourself with Christ.
