The theme of our meditation this morning as
we come toward the table of our Lord
you will find best expressed in Romans chapter
3 verses 21 to 24 and particularly the
phrase in verse 21 which goes a righteousness
from God a righteousness from God let me
read to you the three verses again but
now says Paul a righteousness from God apart
from law has been made known to which
the law and the prophets testify this righteousness
from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ
to all who believe there is no difference
for all have sinned and fall short of
the glory of God and are justified freely
by his grace through the redemption that came
by Jesus Christ this is one of the
most remarkable passages in the whole of the
New Testament probably because it contains so much
of the gospel within the compass of but
a few brief verses however we are not
going to look at it as a whole
this morning but simply at one main thought
that is brought out here and in order
to see that and appreciate that we have
to see it necessarily in its God-appointed
context.
The Apostle is speaking here of the salvation
that comes through Jesus Christ he is writing
about the righteousness that has come from God
against the background of his elaborate description of
human unrighteousness and of the total incapacity of
the human race to produce righteousness that would
qualify any man any woman anywhere to be
acceptable before God.
Those of you who are familiar with the
epistle to the Romans will remember that in
the first three chapters coming up to this
very point the Apostle has been at pains
to elucidate what from the divine vantage point
is the predicament.
You will pardon me I'm here to the
cold that is around too so if I
have some odd coughs just bear with me.
He has been describing the amazing predicament of
the human race the universal predicament of the
race and he has been doing so by
putting in turn all kinds of people the
three divisions of mankind as it were into
the dock in the court.
He has been charging them and finding them
guilty of failing to produce the righteousness which
the lawgiver requires.
It's a very elaborate exposition of the truth
of human sin and of unrighteousness but I
just want to summarize it briefly in order
for us to appreciate the good news that
he announces in our text but now he
says quite excitedly a righteousness from God quite
apart from law has been made known.
Now you and I are not going to
catch the joy of that the thrill of
that and we are not going to be
able to celebrate the wonder of it at
the Lord's table or now as we wait
upon his word unless we get the context
clearly.
The Apostle Paul has been as we have
said arraigning the three main sections of the
society of his day and charging them with
failure to produce righteousness before God.
No man no woman says Paul is right
with God all men everywhere are wrong in
spirit in attitude in the matter of guilt
in the matter of shame in the matter
of what we've done as well as what
we thought and desired we are wrong with
God things are wrong between us and God
no one is right with God by nature.
Now first of all he speaks of the
entire pagan populace of his day and he
shows us that the entire pagan world stood
under divine condemnation.
The reason?
He pinpoints the two things their ungodliness and
their unrighteousness.
There is a wrong attitude towards God and
there is a wrong attitude towards men.
They are not right with God they are
not right with one another.
Well did they not have any light?
Did they not know what was right and
wrong?
Did they not know how to be right
with God?
How to be right with one another?
Well says Paul the tragedy is they had
knowledge and all men today have a certain
knowledge of God but the knowledge they had
they suppressed they sat on it they squashed
it they did not obey it they did
not receive it they did not welcome it
they did not apply it they sat on
it and they refused it they suppressed it
they held it down.
There are certain things says Paul that can
be known about God from the starry heavens
above from the creation that he has made
from the rhythm of the seasons and much
else even he says his eternal power and
Godhood.
Certain things can be known but the light
they had they just did not receive they
didn't live by it and so their foolish
hearts were darkened and they just went more
and more into a life of rebellion and
unrighteousness.
And then you have that awesome catalog of
sins at the end of Romans chapter 1
which we blush to read.
All because says Paul the pagan communities of
his day and age refused to receive the
light they had and so they became guilty
before God subject to his condemnation and wrath
because they refused the light they had they
did not live up to it.
Any Brits in the dark folk whom the
some theologians and others have have referred to
as the pagan moralists of that day and
age.
There were some among the pagans who apparently
had a sense of right and wrong and
even presumed that they could put society politically
and otherwise in its place.
They judged what was right and wrong there
were people like Seneca for example just to
mention one name who was always on the
alert to see evidences of hypocrisy of false
dealings and he spoke up and he wrote.
In other words you see there were some
among the pagans who had received some measure
of the light they had and the light
of reason that they had and on the
basis of this light they had judged that
certain things were right and certain things were
wrong.
Their standard of judgment may not have been
what we have in the New Testament nor
even what you have later on in in
some parts of the Old Testament but there
was a right and wrong as far as
they were concerned and they judged society they
judged the politicians they judged religious people they
judged everyone but says Paul here is the
rub they had enough light to judge other
people but they did not live up to
the light they themselves had telling other people
to be honest they were dishonest themselves telling
other people to speak the truth they were
not speaking the truth themselves so that the
most moral among the pagans was self-condemned
before God they showed that they had light
to judge others but they did not live
up to the light they had they too
clever though most of them were they too
were under the condemnation of God.
There is a third division very familiar to
us all the people of the Jews they
were the most favored of all peoples among
mankind they had the law of Moses in
their hands they had the teaching of the
prophets they had been nurtured on these things
for for years and years of time so
that they had a tradition of what was
right and wrong nevertheless says the Apostle Paul
we too or he was among them we
too are guilty before God for the light
that came to us from the law and
from the scriptures as well as from nature
outside and our consciences and our reasons inside
of us the entire spectrum of divine light
we have rejected and we're not living up
to it and so Paul comes to that
tremendous statement where he says that all have
sinned and come short of the glory of
God there is no difference he says between
the pagans and the moralists and the religious
Jews who reject the totality of the light
that God has given to them all in
one way or another have suppressed the light
they have and they've not been able to
live up to it let alone to the
full glare of divine requirements revealed in his
son Jesus Christ in some measure or other
they all knew that God required something but
they didn't produce it all were unrighteous all
were without the righteousness that God required and
brothers and sisters still requires all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God
and there is no different now that's the
background this threefold charge leads Paul to that
bold affirmation that there is no difference whatsoever
so that the just condemnation of God rests
upon all men alike there is no hope
of salvation from man himself whether it be
the pagan or the moralists or the Jews
we cannot save ourselves we are under the
judgment of God now so what so what
my friends so what now this divides us
into two if we are Christian men and
women who have discovered the message of the
gospel for ourselves and have begun to experience
it it's at this point we begin to
get excited O loving wisdom of our God
when all was sin and shame a second
Adam to the fight and to the rescue
came when we were incapable of producing righteousness
God took the initiative he didn't consult us
he left us in our sin to wallow
and he wrote he performed the whole thing
himself he was the architect of the plan
he was the originator of it it began
in his own heart in his own mind
and he did not consult one solitary human
being philosopher or otherwise and he devised a
means to bring back to him his banished
ones a way of salvation and this is
what Paul is announcing that which neither pagans
nor moralists nor Jews can produce but now
he says a righteousness from God coming down
from heaven to earth an imported righteousness has
been made known and it is freely imparted
to those who believe in his son Jesus
Christ our Lord it's all here it is
ready-made and it is brought into the
realm of our experience made possible by the
death and resurrection of the blessed Lord Jesus
Christ now the main doctrine that the apostle
is referring to here of course is the
doctrine of justification when we talk of it
in those terms it can it can be
a little bit forbidding to some people who
are not familiar with these terms but let
me just say this much about it justification
or the concept of a righteousness from God
justification is a term that was normally used
in the law courts of the day especially
in Roman law courts though not exclusively I
understand it is a forensic word and it
was used to describe a judge's acquittal of
a person someone has been charged with some
offense or other and when the evidence has
been heard the judge acquits him and says
not guilty and the term this term was
used the judge justified him but you notice
that in those circumstances the judge would only
acquit and send back into society someone who
had been proved not guilty now the marvel
of the gospel is this as Paul announces
elsewhere God justifies the ungodly now get that
this should take our breath away the doctrine
of justification in the New Testament says that
God absolves and sends out of court back
into society as not open to any charge
against them not not the innocent for there
is no one who is innocent not those
who've done their best to live up to
the light they've had very few have done
that if any well who then the ungodly
the unrighteous the lost the perishing you say
how can that be well now it happens
on the basis of what God has done
in Jesus Christ our Lord and it all
generally comes under the title of this great
doctrine of justification let me simplify it for
our for our use this morning what it
means is this God in Christ has done
two things oh there are more than two
things but two things that I want to
refer to in relation to this aspect of
it properly speaking there are two sides to
this justifying work of God the first we
generally speak of as forgiveness or pardon you
see as we come before God we come
to use an Old Testament metaphor we come
clothed in the garb of our unrighteousness or
unrighteousness is and all our unrighteousness is no
all are what we think to be righteous
act they are as filthy rags what we
think is good what we think is noble
what we think is right and God should
accept it from the vantage point of the
throne of God is shot through with sin
and unworthy so that actually as we come
into the presence of God as sinners there
is nothing in us that that is really
righteous God in his mercy has opened a
fountain to cleanse us from all our sins
and as we enter into the experience of
being justified freely by the grace of God
the first thing that takes place whether we
are aware of it is or not is
this God takes all the filthy garments away
from us the best biblical term is the
one of forgiveness he washes us clean you
know anything of that my friend have your
eyes suddenly become open to the fact that
there is a fountain filled with blood drawn
from Emmanuel's veins and sinners plunged beneath that
flood lose all their guilty stay oh I
hope there is no one here who's got
so used to that that you don't inwardly
dance and are not inwardly moved by it
there is a fountain filled with blood that
cleanses the souls of men from sin this
is forgiveness the language is pictorial and metaphorical
and many of our contemporaries don't like it
but it represents a truth which is thus
biblically conceived and biblically announced and we must
hold on to it have you been have
you been to Jesus for the cleansing power
I remember one night as a young Christian
being tempted to rebel and to go the
way of all flesh again I remember walking
down the streets of a town Haverford West
in South Wales and hearing the Salvation Army
strike up a hymn this is what it
was have you been to Jesus for the
cleansing power are you washed in the blood
of the Lamb are your garments spotless are
they white as snow are you washed and
it turned me around like that and the
voice of God came after me and I
could not move for I knew that the
Lord had forgiven my sins and I could
not become entangled again in what caused the
cross of Christ for my redemption but that's
only the part justification involves this that Paul
actually pinpoints here that is in a sense
the negative aspect of it the taking away
of the sins that we are guilty of
the forgiveness but the major part is the
positive perhaps we should not say we should
not speak of the one that's major and
certainly the other is not minor but this
is the positive that the Apostle speaks of
in our text a righteousness from God has
been declared has been announced and it is
imparted to men when God absolves us we
are now looked upon not just as unrobed
of our sins disrobed of our unrighteousness cleansed
of our guilt no no no but positively
clothed upon God with the righteousness of God
himself and you see this is what makes
a Christian acceptable before God forgiveness is the
negative side of this positive the positive is
this brother and sister however young you are
in the faith God sees you this morning
clothed in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ you look at those garments you're wearing
men or women just look at yourselves and
see the stuff you're wearing this morning now
just think of them as symbolic of something
far greater far bigger far more precious you
believer are clothed in the sight of God
in the righteousness of God communicated through Christ
imparted by the Spirit God puts that to
your account and even though you may be
previously spoken of in scripture as ungodly unrighteous
unholy now in the beloved one in Christ
in his righteousness you are accepted one of
the verses that brought great a verse of
a hymn that brought great comfort to me
when I was a young Christian and still
does near so very near to God nearer
I cannot be for in the person of
his son I am as near as he
now that's the scripture that's the doctrine of
justification in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus
cleanse of our sins clothed in Christ we
have access to the throne now in prayer
in fellowship even to the table of our
Lord and at last to the marriage supper
of the Lamb it's all ours for God
sees us clothed in the impeccable righteousness of
his son the Old Testament pointed forward to
it and some of the saints of the
Old Testament got it they knew about it
I like Isaiah chapter 61 for example where
Isaiah speaks of he puts it like this
certain people will be called oaks of righteousness
what a beautiful picture of a man oaks
of righteousness the planting of the Lord for
the display of his splendor brother that's what
you were meant to be in your office
in your work in your home an oak
of righteousness the planting of the Lord for
the splendor of his glory to exhibit his
righteousness given in Christ expressed in your life
later on Isaiah says or puts it in
the words in the on the lips of
someone he has clothed me with the garments
of salvation and arrayed me in a robe
of righteousness and Jeremiah speaks of the Lord
our righteousness who is your righteousness this morning
if you found yourself at the door of
heaven this morning if God called you away
from this life very early today before we've
come to the noon hour and you found
yourself at the door of heaven what reason
would you have to expect access or entrance
I tell you your own righteousness wouldn't take
you in your own church going wouldn't take
you in the fact that you're baptized or
have come to the communion table in and
of itself would not take you in but
I tell you something that would open the
pearly gates clothed in the righteousness of the
Lord Jesus if you can say the Lord
is my righteousness this is the basis of
Christian assurance that could be no Christian assurance
apart from this this is the concept represented
then by the apostle Paul here when he
speaks of a righteousness from God a righteousness
that comes originally from God is mediated by
the Son of God and accounted to us
made over to us Paul is very daring
in the way he refers to this especially
in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 21
do you remember how he puts it there
God made him that is Jesus Christ God
made him who had no sin to be
made sin for us so that in him
we might become notice the righteousness of God
he was made sin for us who knew
no sin and we who knew no righteousness
are being made righteous accounted righteous in the
righteous Son of God are you justified whose
righteousness have you on today your own filthy
rags that's not my term it's Isaiah's your
own filthy rags are the garments of God's
impeccable righteousness now it's no wonder then that
this has been the theme of many of
our songs we began we sang just before
the message this morning count Zinz and Darth's
great word Jesus thy blood and righteousness my
beauty my glorious dress read it through when
you go home and worship the Lord for
it this is something good this is good
news you see when there was no hope
for any man anywhere God has stepped into
the breach to provide a righteousness that is
acceptable before him Samuel John Stone late 19th
century he writes this hymn here are two
stanzas it is the voice of Jesus that
I hear his other hands outstretched to draw
me near and his the blood that can
for sin atone and set me faultless there
before the throne Oh great absolver grant my
soul may wear the lowliest garb of penitence
and prayer that in the furthest courts my
glorious dress may be the garment of thy
righteousness Wesley sung about the same thing not
only in our opening hymn but in another
with one stanza which goes like this accepted
in the well-beloved and clothed in righteousness
divine I see the bar to heaven removed
and all thy merits Lord are mine somebody
here this morning may be very much afraid
to die afraid of death afraid of the
after death afraid of the things that lead
on to death my dear friend listen here
Oh take this for your comfort this morning
accepted in the well-beloved and clothed in
righteousness divine I see the bar to heaven
removed and all thy merits Lord are mine
what more can you ask for we shall
be singing in our next hymn in a
moment or two mine is the sin but
thine the righteousness mine is the guilt but
thine the cleansing blood here is my robe
here we are again you see here is
my robe says Horatius Bonar my refuge and
my peace thy blood thy righteousness Oh Lord
but now a righteousness from God has been
revealed brethren I feel an urgency this morning
I would like to come to every pew
and ask you by name do you do
you know this righteousness men and women are
you clothed in this garb I don't care
what you're wearing in your pews physically but
I do care whether you wear this or
not you will die without this you will
perish without this without this you and I
are lost whose righteousness are you garbed in
before God you have none of your own
my friend if scripture is true but here
it is but you say how does it
become mine I can't expound this now but
I can say two things the righteousness from
God comes through Jesus Christ to all who
believe see that's why we have the bread
and the wine points away from the preacher
the minister the pastor points away from the
elders points away from the church I have
nothing we were we were not there in
a sense we were but actually we were
not historically we were not it had nothing
to do with us Christ died and if
you go on in this passage it says
that God set him forth to be a
propitiation for our sins God did God did
something and the whole basis of this great
good tidings is this that God has given
us his son to be our Savior to
do all that was necessary to bring pardon
and then peace and to bring righteousness and
with it assurance God has done it all
and it comes through Jesus Christ you can't
bypass Jesus Christ I sometimes meet people who
want to bypass Jesus Christ friend you can't
do it he is the way he is
the truth he is the life no man
comes to the father but by him you
have to come to him for pardon you
have to come to him for peace you
have to come to him only through him
you get righteousness and then there's this other
little word I can only mention this freely
freely isn't that wonderful I know some of
your people are very rich and if I
was asked to preach this morning that you
know you got to put your hand in
your pockets and check of ten thousand dollars
twenty thousand dollars some of you could do
that you pay for it some of us
couldn't it may be equally difficult for some
of us to realize that you this is
priceless and especially if you are rich and
you're accustomed to paying what you get paying
your way and you may tend to get
a little proud and you're not prepared to
receive a gift and friend there's no other
way to receive this freely freely the Queen
is here there is a little story about
the Queen around Buckingham Palace many of the
workers of Buckingham Palace were members with us
in Westminster Chapel where I was before we
came here there is a little story about
the Queen when she was a little toddler
playing with some girls from the neighboring school
who had been allowed into the Buckingham Palace
gardens and in process of in process of
talking and playing and whatnot this little visiting
girl saw some flowers that really took her
fancy and she turned to now our Queen
and asked her do you think I can
buy some of these flowers for my mummy
she's not very well today and the Queen
is a tiny little girl about eight or
nine if I remember correctly stood on her
two hind feet and said oh no she
said no one buys from my daddy but
I'm sure he'll give you some and she
went and she ran to see her daddy
and her daddy said yes you'll give her
as many as she likes and somebody went
out to cut the flowers you see he
doesn't sell but he gives my God does
not sell what money have you got to
buy from him where's your currency your righteousnesses
my dear friends how many of us keep
the Lord's Day holy let alone seven days
in the week how many of us keep
the Lord's Day where are we going from
the table today freely
he gives that word is used also of
our Lord Jesus in John 15 25 it's
the same Greek word where Jesus said they
hated me without a cause now it takes
three English words to translate the one Greek
word without a cause and it's the same
word that appears here in Romans freely it's
translated let me put it like this he
justifies us freely out of his grace without
any cause in us no cause in us
everything in us requires him to condemn us
and judge us there is no cause in
us for our justification before God none at
all not even our penitence not even our
faith there is nothing we can do to
earn it without a cause in us he
loved us he gave his son who gave
his life and atonement and the spirit comes
to us to give us the Christ and
with the Christ his pardon and life and
right you understand the Apostles excitement I can
but now when there is no one righteous
anywhere but now a righteousness from God has
been revealed and men receive it freely is
it yours I don't need to assure you
that clothed in that righteousness you're accepted at
his table you may not be a Presbyterian
you may not be a Baptist I don't
know what you are doesn't matter but you've
come to God through Christ and you've received
freely of his bounty no man can say
you may come come and in the words
of our Lord remember me the peace of
God which passeth all understanding keep your hearts
and minds in the knowledge and love of
God and of his son Jesus Christ our
Lord and the blessing of God Almighty the
Father the Son and the Holy Spirit be
with you and upon you remain with you
always amen