9/10/23 - Validated By God - Romans 3:21-31 - Pastor Jason Fritz

This is a rich sentence my friends...

For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. Romans 3:22-24

All are sinners. You might be familiar with the scene of ancient archers drawing back their bows and letting the arrows fly toward the target. If they missed the bullseye the crowd yelled, “Sinner!” To sin is to miss the mark. God has a standard of conduct and none can live up to it with any kind of consistency. We miss the mark every day and the fact is, on our own, we will never hit it. 

Therefore, Paul tells us that our justification is by God’s grace offered as a gift. While the gift comes to you freely it is not without cost to the gift giver. God gave his Son in exchange for your guilt. God put forward Jesus to be the propitiation, which is a big word that simply means payment. Paul reminds us that the wages of sin is death. Your wage was received by Jesus. His blood was shed in place of yours. Why blood? Because the life of a creature is in its blood. Once a year the sins of the people were absolved by the blood of an animal. But no more. Jesus died once for all. 

This atoning work of Christ is received by faith, not by works.

Many religions make this critical error. Even those who claim to trust in Jesus. For example Mormon and Jehovah’s Witness doctrine teach that Jesus’ death was essential… in getting things started. Now you must finish. Far from you is the cross of Christ and in between there is a path down which you must drag yourself. Hopefully, through your own efforts, you can grab ahold of that cross and say, “I made it! God, will you validate my eternal life ticket? My knees are bloody but I have attained salvation!”

Paul shreds this in two words: “grace" and “gift." The nature of a gift is that it is to be freely received. Imagine getting a birthday present. You open it and inside is the gift you’ve always wanted. Along with it is the receipt. You laugh and say, “You left the receipt with the gift!” But then the person giving the gift says you owe them that amount. If you’re paying for it, it’s no longer a gift. How many different ways can Paul explain that salvation is free - but you must accept it. You can choose not to, but why would you turn it down?