Only Jesus Christ has fulfilled God’s standard of truth and righteousness with sinless perfection. Since we all sin and fall short of God’s glory and perfection, we are without excuse. Romans chapter 3 shows that both Gentiles and Jews must come to God through faith in Christ’s finished work to be declared righteous and just. In the first nine verses, we are shown our guilt and abject need. The Jew is guilty because they sin even though they were given the covenant, promise, law and oracles of God. The Gentiles are guilty because they are under the power of sin. In the next nine verses we are shown how sin has affected the whole human race.
Romans 3:10-18 NKJV As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.” “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of asps is under their lips”; “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; Destruction and misery are in their ways; And the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
This is a picture of total depravity before God.
Not only have we sinned, we are sinners by nature and are controlled by the power of sin. This is a picture of the hopelessness of humanity without Christ. The Good News is that God has provided hope and salvation in Christ.
Galatians 2:20 NIV I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
This the definition of the normal Christian life. We have been given a new life without condemnation in Christ Jesus.
Jesus Christ the Son of God is the only answer for every human need.
In all of His dealings with us, God takes us out of the way and substitutes Christ in our place. The Son of God vicariously died in our place to provide our forgiveness and justification. He was God’s substitute that was provided on the cross. He is our substitute within the holy place Who secures our victory. God continues providing the answer for all our needs by showing us more of His grace and provision in His Son.
Romans clearly discloses the sins we all have committed against God.
We stand guilty and are righteously condemned before God because of our own iniquity. All of our sins are brought on by the power of sin that is working against us. To the Jew, the legalist, and moralist, these words show the personal inability to be righteous before God. The Psalmist said “no one is righteous in God’s sight,” (Psalms 143:2).
Romans 3:20 NKJV Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
The Law sufficiently testifies of our guilt and sin. All of our works of righteousness and attempts to live in obedience to the law cannot break the power of sin. We all need forgiveness for sin, and deliverance from the power of sin. The sins that we have practiced have affected our inner man, conscience and the way that we think. Every aspect of our being has been impacted by the power of sin over our lives. The power of sin is that inward inclination toward sin. When that power is released to take action, we commit sin. We may seek and receive forgiveness, but then once again we sin. This appears to be a vicious cycle and battle in life. We want and need forgiveness from what we have done and deliverance from what we are.
How has God provided righteousness and salvation?
In Christ, God has provided a dual remedy from the power of sin that is in our lives.
First, He provides forgiveness of sins and then He gives deliverance from sin and its power through Jesus Christ. Through faith in Jesus Christ, God provides and applies the righteousness of Christ to those who accept it.
Hebrews 9:14 NKJV How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
The blood of Christ is able to cleanse an evil conscience. His blood and sacrifice can change the moral code that is written in our conscience. The evil, guilty, corrupted, weak, and seared conscience can be changed and cleansed to serve God.
Romans 3:23-24 NLT For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.
God made us just or righteous in His sight by applying the penalty for our sins upon the Lord Jesus Christ.
- Romans 3:24 — we are justified by grace — this is unmerited favor
- Romans 5:1 — we are justified by faith — when we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
- Romans 5:9 — we are justified by blood — Jesus paid the debt we owed
- Romans 4:24-25 — we are justified by the power that raised Christ from the dead
- Romans 8:33 — we are justified by God who reckons us to be righteous
- James 2:24 — we are justified by works that are the evidence of our faith.
When Jesus paid the ransom price for the debt of sin, we were redeemed and justified.
Romans 3:25-26 NLT For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, For he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.
The blood of Jesus was shed for our justification.
When by faith we take a stand in the blood of Jesus Christ, His blood deals with what we have done. His blood deals with what we are and disposes of our sins. His cross strikes a fatal blow to the root of our capacity to sin and we are released from the power of sin. The blood of Jesus Christ is the only agent that is able to deal with our sins and justify us in the sight of God. When God justifies the believing sinner, He not only acquits us of our guilt, He clothes us in the righteousness of God that is in Christ Jesus. As a result of God’s justification, we are enabled and made fit to stand before Him in heaven.
It is important to recognize the power of what God has done for us by justifying us and making us righteous in His sight.
There are three things that must be addressed in order for us to be justified and made righteous.
Romans 3:23 NIV For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…
On our part, God says we all have sinned. Second, sin constitutes a barrier to fellowship with God and brings a sense of guilt and estrangement from God. Third, Satan accuses us and says: “You have sinned.” The fact is we are all guilty before God.
Romans 5:8-9 NIV But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Him!
In order to bring us back to God, the Lord Jesus dealt with our sin and guilt by nailing it to His cross and covering us with His blood.
The blood of Jesus Christ can meet and defeat the attack and accusations of the enemy.
To live in His victory we must appropriate by faith the value and power of the blood of Jesus Christ. We overcome the adversary by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. That testimony is a confession of the fact of the death of Jesus as our substitute on the cross. Jesus died for me on the cross.
The power of the blood over our sins changes our standing before God.
When we stand in the presence of God, the Lord God omniscient sees the blood of His Son. It is not that God overlooks our sins, but He sees the blood. If we want to understand the value of the blood, we must see the estimation or value that God has placed on it.
In the Old Testament, God established a blood covenant.
That covenant provided a Day of Atonement to make an offering for sin. The blood of the sin sacrifice was taken into the Most Holy Place, and was sprinkled seven times before God. Only the High Priest could enter into the Holy Place before God’s presence. The High Priest was a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. He stood before God to present the blood that would cover and provide the redemptive work. It was a transaction between the High Priest and God. The blood was a sign and covering before God.
In the New Covenant, Jesus Christ our High Priest entered into Heaven itself, with His Own blood.
The blood of God’s Son was sufficient. In the Exodus (12:13) God said, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” Judgment was certainly coming because of sin, but God made provision for redemption. God’s holiness and righteousness was satisfied by the sacrifice and blood, for the sin of man. On the inside of each house were people who had sinned. They trembled at God’s judgment on Egypt, but they were exempt from judgment and wrath by the blood of the lamb. The blood of the lambwas God’s provision for escape, redemption and deliverance.
There is life in the blood.
The blood of Christ that was poured out for you and me satisfied God’s own righteousness. When God sees the blood of Christ, we receive life instead of the penalty of death.
We must accept the value that the Father puts on the blood.
When we believe that the blood is valuable to God, we can be assured that the debt of our sins has been paid in full and we are covered by His blood.
How does this affect our lives?
Hebrews 9:14 NKJV How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Hebrews 10:22 NKJV Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
How can we draw near to God with a true heart?
Jeremiah 17:9 NIV The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
God says the heart is desperately sick and beyond cure. If it is beyond cure, what hope is there for the sinner? Something must happen to give us confidence before God that we are powerless to do on our own.
Before God can do something with our conscience, He must heal our desperately sick heart.
Before God can cleanse our conscience, our heart must be dealt with. He must sprinkle our hearts from an evil conscience. We cannot feel good about our relationship with God or ourselves as long as our heart condemns us. This was the weakness of the Law. The Law shows our sin and points out our failures, and demonstrates how desperately evil we were. The Law made for a covering from judgment, but it was not able to change our desperately sick heart.
How can we have a conscience that is clear before God?
A clear conscience is never based upon our attainment or performance. It is a result of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ and the shedding of His blood. Our righteousness, standing, rest, peace and joy is in Jesus Christ. Any other approach to God will fail. The blood of Christ is our covering and guarantee. The blood of Jesus Christ is sufficient to cover our sins and make us clean before God.
God’s value of the blood of Christ has not changed.
The blood of Christ is sufficient to give us boldness to enter into the Most Holy Place and stand by faith before the Father.
Ephesians 2:13 NKJV But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
Hebrews 10:19 NKJV …having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus,
Hebrews 10:22 NKJV let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith
In the Law there was no approach to God without the blood of the sacrifice. The blood of Christ is our entrance into God’s presence.
Every time we come before God, it is by the blood of Christ.
By Christ’s blood, we can stand before a holy and righteous God cleansed and without condemnation. The blood of Christ is enough.
Should Satan attempt to accuse us before God and bring up our past sinfulness, God points Satan to the blood of Christ.
The blood of Christ answers every challenge of Satan. We must learn to take our stand in the blood of Christ.
Romans 8:33-34 NKJV Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
God is able to deal with our sins if we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Put your confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is able to redeem and save you from all of your sins, establish your steps and give you peace before God. Look to the blood of Christ our Savior.
