Romans 3 — Justified Freely by His Grace

Today’s Passage: Romans 3

Two chapters have now dismantled every claim to self-righteousness, the pagan world and the moralist and the religious insider alike. In this chapter Paul reaches the floor of his argument and then the hinge of the whole letter. First he silences every mouth with a chain of witnesses drawn from Israel’s own Scriptures, until the verdict stands plain: there is no one righteous, not even one. And then, into that silence, comes the word the whole letter has been straining toward. But now. Apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, and it is not earned but given, freely, by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ, whom God set forth as the place where His wrath and His mercy meet. Every ground for boasting is taken away, and the door is opened wide to Jew and Gentile alike.

As you read, hold this: Every mouth is silenced, and God justifies the ungodly through faith in Christ.

Romans 3:1–8 (BSB)

¹ What, then, is the advantage of being a Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? ² Much in every way. First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God. ³ What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness? ⁴ Certainly not! Let God be true and every man a liar. As it is written: “So that You may be proved right when You speak and victorious when You judge.” ⁵ But if our unrighteousness highlights the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unjust to inflict His wrath on us? I am speaking in human terms. ⁶ Certainly not! In that case, how could God judge the world? ⁷ However, if my falsehood accentuates God’s truthfulness, to the increase of His glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner? ⁸ Why not say, as some slanderously claim that we say, “Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is deserved!

The objection is inevitable: then what was the point of any of it? Paul refuses both of the easy errors. He will not say the privilege counted for nothing, and he will not say it was a guarantee of acquittal. The chief advantage, he answers, is that Israel was entrusted with the very words of God. Then he presses to the deeper question: if people prove faithless, does that unravel God’s faithfulness? “Certainly not!” Human unfaithfulness is only the dark backdrop against which the faithfulness of God shines the brighter. Let God be true and every man a liar.

Then comes the cynical twist: if my sin makes God look good by contrast, is He not unfair to punish me, and should I not sin all the more so that grace has all the more to display? This is the oldest abuse of grace there is, and Paul will not dignify it with a long reply. If God could not justly judge sin that happens to magnify His glory, He could not judge the world at all. To the slander that the gospel teaches us to say “let us do evil that good may result,” he gives one blunt verdict: their condemnation is deserved. Grace is never a license to sin.

Romans 3:9–18 (BSB)

⁹ What then? Are we any better? Not at all. For we have already made the charge that Jews and Greeks alike are all under sin. ¹⁰ As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one. ¹¹ There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. ¹² All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” ¹³ “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The venom of vipers is on their lips.” ¹⁴ “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” ¹⁵ “Their feet are swift to shed blood; ¹⁶ ruin and misery lie in their wake, ¹⁷ and the way of peace they have not known.” ¹⁸ “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Now Paul reaches the very floor of the argument. “Are we any better?” Not at all. All alike are under sin, which means not merely that they are guilty of particular sins but that they are held under sin’s power, as a people held under a ruling authority. Then the chain of witnesses begins, Psalm 14 first of all: there is no one righteous, not even one. The repetition is relentless and deliberate, and it leaves no exceptions and no remnant of the self-sufficiently good.

The catena sweeps the whole body into the indictment, from throat and tongue and lips to mouth and feet and eyes. Here is a throat like an open grave and speech like the venom of vipers, and the root of it all is named last: there is no fear of God before their eyes. The trouble is not that people lack information about God. It is that they will not reverence Him. The list leaves no clean place anywhere for a sinner to stand.

Romans 3:19–20 (BSB)

¹⁹ Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. ²⁰ Therefore no one will be justified in His sight by works of the law. For the law merely brings awareness of sin.

Here is the verdict of the whole first half of the letter, and it is a courtroom image: every mouth is silenced. The defendant has run clean out of arguments, and the whole world stands accountable before God. The law, far from being the way out, is the very thing that closes the case, for no one will be justified by works of the law. Its God-given work is not to rescue but to diagnose. The law is the mirror that shows the smudge on the face; it was never the water that washes it away. This is the deepest point of the long descent, and the very next verse is where everything turns.

Romans 3:21–24 (BSB)

²¹ But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, as attested by the Law and the Prophets. ²² And this righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no distinction, ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

“But now.” Two small words that turn the whole letter on its hinge. After three chapters of descent into a stopped and silenced mouth, the dawn breaks. The righteousness of God has been revealed, and, most wonderful of all, it is revealed apart from the law. It is not earned and not climbed up to but simply given, and it comes through faith to all who believe. There is no distinction among them, for no one is too far off to be reached and no one is near enough to skip the one door of faith.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and then comes the hinge of it all: they are justified (δικαιόω) dikaioō, pronounced dee-kai-OH-oh. Strong's G1344, to declare righteous, to justify, acquit. This is the great verb of Romans. Dikaioō is courtroom language, meaning to declare righteous, to acquit, to pronounce a person in the right. It does not mean to make someone inwardly good but to issue a verdict over them, and it belongs to the same family of words as dikaiosynē, the righteousness of God. The astonishment of the gospel is hidden in the grammar of verse 26, where God is shown to be both just and the one who justifies the ungodly. A human judge who acquits the guilty is a corrupt judge, so the whole of 3:21–26 is Paul’s answer to how the righteous Judge can declare the unrighteous to be in the right without ceasing to be righteous Himself. The answer is the cross: justification is not God pretending that we are good, but God, on the basis of Christ’s blood, rendering a true verdict over all those who are united to His Son. James will later use this same verb, but he is answering a different question. Paul stands here in God’s courtroom, asking on what basis a guilty sinner receives the verdict “righteous,” and his answer is by faith, apart from works of the law; James is pressing a further question, how anyone would know that such a faith is real, and this house has taught on James in that way already. Romans does not take back a single word. Article 7 is settled here: we are justified by grace through faith alone in Christ alone. , the word dikaioō again, freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. The very people who all sinned are the ones who are freely declared righteous, and not because the charge against them was quietly dropped but because the ransom for it was fully paid. The word freely and the word redemption stand together in the same sentence, for it is free to us only because it was so costly to Him. There is no praise too high for a grace bought at that price.

Romans 3:25–26 (BSB)

²⁵ God presented Him as an atoning sacrifice in His blood through faith, in order to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance He had passed over the sins committed beforehand. ²⁶ He did this to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and to justify the one who has faith in Jesus.

This is the theological summit of the whole letter. God presented His own Son as the hilastērion (ἱλαστήριον) hilastērion, pronounced hee-las-TAY-ree-on. Strong's G2435, propitiation, mercy seat, atoning sacrifice. This single word is one of the most freighted in all the New Testament. Hilastērion means a propitiation, a sacrifice that turns away wrath and restores favor. The BSB’s “atoning sacrifice” is not a softer substitute for that idea; it is the very same claim. In the Septuagint, hilastērion is also the word for the mercy seat, the gold lid over the ark, the place where on the Day of Atonement the high priest sprinkled the blood (Leviticus 16:14–15). So Paul is saying that God presented Christ, publicly and openly, as the true hilastērion. The mercy seat of old was hidden away in the dark of the Most Holy Place, seen by one man on one day of the year; now the real mercy seat is set forth in broad daylight upon a Roman cross. This house does not soften the word or leave its meaning open to debate: hilastērion is no vague moral influence, and it is not God merely showing us how much He loves us so that we will try a little harder. Article 5 is settled here. Christ shed His blood as the perfect and all-sufficient sacrifice for our sins, and His atoning death is the only ground of our salvation. He is at once the place where God meets sinners and the sacrifice whose blood turns away the very wrath that their sin deserved. , the true mercy seat, the atoning sacrifice whose blood turns away wrath. And Paul tells us why the cross was necessary, for it was not only to save us but to demonstrate His righteousness. For age upon age God had passed over the sins committed beforehand, and the cross is where that long patience is finally vindicated and the unpaid bill of the ages is settled at last. The result is a sentence that should never grow old: God is shown to be just and, at the same time, the one who justifies the person who has faith in Jesus. He is not just alone, nor merciful alone, but both together, in one moment and in one place. The cross is how a righteous God can righteously declare the unrighteous to be in the right, and before such a mercy the heart can only bow and adore.

Romans 3:27–31 (BSB)

²⁷ Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of works? No, but on that of faith. ²⁸ For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law. ²⁹ Is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, ³⁰ since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. ³¹ Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Certainly not! Instead, we uphold the law.

Now the conclusions fall one after another. Boasting is excluded, and Paul does not soften it but shuts it out entirely, because faith contributes nothing that a man could ever boast of. A person is justified by faith apart from works of the law, and verse 28 is the very sentence that would one day light the fires of the Reformation. And because justification comes by faith and not by pedigree, the one God justifies both the circumcised and the uncircumcised by that same faith. The gospel that humbles everyone equally is the gospel that welcomes everyone equally.

Then the last objection: does grace make the law worthless? Certainly not. The gospel does not discard the law but upholds it, for the law’s demand was never simply waived. It was satisfied in full in the One who was presented as the mercy seat.