Romans 3:21-22. The initial phase of salvation, 3:21 and 22. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God that is by faith in Jesus Christ, to all and upon all those who believe. For there is no difference. In chapter 2, Paul explained that our final salvation will depend upon how we have lived our lives after we have been saved.
Now, in chapter 3, Paul turns his attention to the initial phase of salvation, which is through faith in Christ, apart from the law of Moses. It is also apart from our own godly works. This provision of salvation through faith in Christ does not represent a change in God's plans. Rather, God had intended this all along, for the law and the prophets had foretold the coming of salvation through Christ.
That is why Jesus told the Jews:" You search the Scriptures, and these are they which testify about Me." Chrysostom writes," Paul tells the Jews not to be troubled that this righteousness has just now been given. Do not be hesitant as though it is a new and strange thing, for both the law and the prophets foretold it from of old." That is by faith in Jesus Christ. As Paul has already shown, salvation does not come through the Mosaic Law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.
Irenaeus writes," While a person is outside the reach of the Lord's benefits, no one has power to procure for Himself the means of salvation. Therefore, the more we receive God's grace, the more we should love Him." Chrysostom comments further. However, what if someone should say," How are we to be saved without contributing anything at all to our salvation?" Paul provides the answer by showing that we too offer no small contribution toward our salvation. I am referring to our faith.
Therefore, after saying the righteousness of God, Paul immediately adds," By faith in Jesus Christ, to all and upon all who believe, upon all those who believe, for there is no difference." Paul once more repeats one of the main themes of Romans: There is no difference between Jew and Gentile. Both Jew and Gentile are saved in the same manner.
Through faith in Christ, that is why he says," For there is no difference, the need for repentance." As we have previously stated, Romans is not intended to summarize the entire gospel of Christ. One aspect of the gospel that Paul addresses only briefly in Romans is the necessity of repentance at our initial conversion. However, in other places, Paul taught that faith and repentance go hand in hand.
For example, Paul told the Ephesian elders," I didn't shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, teaching you publicly and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus." Likewise, Paul told King Agrippa that repentance was an integral part of the message he had been preaching.
I declared first to them of Damascus at Jerusalem and throughout all the country of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, doing works worthy of repentance. As the following representative passages show, repentance before baptism has always been a part of the gospel. From that time, Jesus began to preach and to say," Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Unless you repent, you will all perish in the same way.
It was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Peter said to them," Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Repent therefore and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out." Concerning repentance, Clement of Alexandria writes," Repentance then is a result of faith. For unless a man recognizes that what he has been addicted to is sin, he will not abandon it." Tertullian comments," Where there is no fear, there is also no conversion. Where there is no conversion, repentance is obviously in vain. Such repentance lacks the fruit that God requires us to produce.
Lactantius adds," God especially desires for men to be cleansed from their sins. Therefore, He commands them to repent. Yet to repent is nothing else than to profess and to affirm that a person will sin no more. Romans 3:23. All have sinned. 3:23:" For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." The emphasis here is on the word" all". The Gentile converts had no trouble recognizing they had been sinners. Yet, as Paul keeps reiterating, the Jews are in no better situation.
Chrysostom writes," The Jews may say, even if we have sinned, still it is not in the same way that the Gentiles did." For that reason, Paul added the words," All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." So even if you Jews have not committed the same sins as the Gentiles, still you fall short of the glory of God. However, do not be afraid. Paul is not saying these things to cause you despair. Rather, he says them to demonstrate the love of the Lord toward man. All includes Mary.
When Paul says that all have sinned, he makes no exceptions. Origen writes," Why do we think that the mother of the Lord was immune from scandal when the apostles were stumbled? If she did not suffer stumbling at the Lord's Passion, then Jesus did not die for her sins. For if all have sinned and lacked the glory of God, and are justified and redeemed by His grace, then Mary too was stumbled at that time.
He writes again," Of those who were without sin from the beginning of their lives, there cannot possibly be any." Clement of Alexandria adds," Christ alone is sinless." Tertullian speaks similarly." To the Son of God alone was it reserved to persevere to the end without sin," Romans 3:24 of being justified by grace. 3:24," Being freely justified by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." At the time of our initial salvation, we are freely justified by grace. This is the best news possible.
We do not have to earn our salvation. We do not have to live by the law of Moses. We do not even have to first demonstrate a godly life. In fact, we may have been living a wicked life up until our conversion, as were so many Gentiles. Yet we can still turn to faith in Christ and be freely given a righteous standing before God through grace. Our initial salvation is conditioned only on our faith in Jesus Christ and on our genuine repentance.
Cyprian writes," It is not necessary to pay a price either in the way of bribery or of labor. It is not as if our elevation, dignity, and power are begotten in us through elaborate effort. Rather, it is a gratuitous gift from God, and it is accessible to all. Origen adds," The strength of our will is not sufficient to procure the perfectly pure heart. For we need God to create it, therefore he who prays as he should, offers this petition to God. Create in me a clean heart." O God.
Origen explains further: It is advantageous for each person to recognize his own particular nature and the need for the grace of God. For he who does not perceive his own weakness and the divine favor, not having tested himself, nor having condemned himself in repentance, will imagine that the benefit conferred upon him by the grace of heaven is his own doing. And this imagination also produces vanity, which will be the cause of his downfall.
They must remember that it is not so much from their own effort as by the unspeakable goodness of God that they have reached the greatest possible extent of blessedness through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. What is the meaning of redemption? Origen explains, the word redemption, apolytrosis, designates something given to enemies in exchange for their captives, whom they then restore to their prior freedom. In short, redemption has a similar meaning to ransom.
Peter tells us," If you call on him as Father, who, without respect of persons, judges according to each man's work past the time of your living here as foreigners in reverent fear, knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible things with silver or gold, from the useless way of life, handed down from your fathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish or spot, the blood of Christ. One pet, 1:17-19, the meaning of grace. Many Christians today have been told that grace means unmerited favor.
They have heard that if we must first do something, then it is no longer grace. So it will come as a surprise to many Christians that this is not the correct understanding of charis or Grace. The early Christians, who spoke Koine Greek, recognize charis as an ordinary word. It simply means favor or goodwill. This favor or goodwill can be either merited or unmerited. Charis can also mean a gift.
Again, the gift might be given for no reason at all, or it might be an expression of appreciation for something a person has done. The gift might be completely unconditional. Or the gift might be conditioned on the recipient possessing certain qualities or taking certain actions. Either way, it is still charis. For example, Peter tells us, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble men.
One pet 5:5: The fact that God gives grace to the humble, but not to the proud, does not change the fact that His grace is still a gift. However, Peter shows that God chooses to give it to people based on their behavior or inner qualities. The early Christians understood our initial salvation to be a gift God gives to those who have repented of their sins and who come to faith in Christ. When we speak of initial salvation, we do not mean that this salvation is incomplete.
If a person died immediately after being saved, he or she would inherit eternal life. So the issue is not that our initial salvation is incomplete, but that it is only the beginning of the race. As Hebrews tells us, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that easily besets us, and run with endurance the race that is set before us. Our final salvation is also the gift of God. However, God gives it to those who have persevered in faith and walked in an obedient love-faith relationship with Christ.
Notice again what Peter said above. If you call on him as Father, who without respect of persons, judges according to each man's work, past the time of your living here as foreigners in reverent fear. So we have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ as a gift from God. However, this does not give us a license to live in sin. Rather, as Peter says, God expects us to demonstrate our appreciation for this marvelous gift by living a godly life thereafter through the power He gives us.
The early Christians readily grasp this fact. Irenaeus writes," In the exercise of His grace, Christ shall confer immortality on those who are righteous holy, and who have kept His commandments and have persevered in His love." He continues," God confers His gifts upon those who deserve to receive them." Clement of Alexandria writes," Rightly then, grace will super abound to those who have believed and who obey." This is all consistent with the biblical meaning of grace.
In his letter to Titus, Paul specifically states that grace comes with numerous conditions. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to the intent that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age. So grace teaches us to live soberly, righteously, and godly.
Romans 3:25," Christ, our mercy seat, 3:25 whom God has set forth to be our mercy seat through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of past sins through the forbearance of God, whom God has set forth." We should remember that this entire merciful arrangement for our salvation had been purposed or foreordained by God.
When God had foretold that He would make a new covenant with His people, He had said," I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." Showing that the Gentiles would also be included in this promise, God had also announced," My house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples." As Paul states, by displaying His bountiful mercy in this manner, God declares His righteousness to be our mercy seat.
Many English translations render this verse as whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood. The Greek word translated as" propitiation" is hilasterion. This word is used 30 times in the Old Testament and twice in the New Testament. In the Septuagint, it always refers to the mercy seat that served as the cover of the Ark of the Covenant. In the New Testament, it is used in the subject verse and in Hebrews 9:5. The latter verse describes the Ark of the Covenant.
Above it were the cherubim of glory, overshadowing the mercy seat. So naturally, the early Christians understood Paul to be referring to the mercy seat in the subject verse also. After all, every other time hilasterion is used in Scripture, it refers to the mercy seat.
For that reason, William Tyndale appropriately translated this passage as" whom God has made a seat of mercy through faith in His blood." Origen writes," Throughout the epistle, the apostle draws heavily from the storehouse of the law and the prophets." Let us inquire then where he found the term" hilasterion," and from what source he acquired this designation. I recall that in Exodus, the Lord spoke to Moses and gave him instructions as to what he needed to do.
First, the Lord instructed him to build an ark with rings on its sides and with poles. Afterwards, God told him to construct a mercy seat, hilasterion of pure gold. Origen is referring to the passage in Exodus, where God said to Moses," There I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim, which are on the Ark of the Covenant.
Concerning all that I command you for the children of Israel," Origen continues," It is clearly evident that the apostle found the term hilasterion mercy seat" in this passage, and he has used it in his present letter, of which he is presently speaking. Evidently, the mercy seat described in Exodus pictures none other than the Lord our Savior. Theodoret comments on this verse," The mercy seat was a golden covering which lay over the ark, having at either end the figure of a cherub.
From there, the mercy of God was manifested to the high priest in His priestly services. Accordingly, the Holy Apostle teaches that the Lord Christ was the true mercy seat. For that ancient seat was but a type of Him. Chrysostom adds," Paul calls it a mercy seat to show that if the type had so much force, how much more would the reality?" Just as the ancient mercy seat represented the place of mercy for the Israelites, faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ is the place of mercy for Christians.
For the remission of past sins, Paul continues to enumerate the wonderful gifts we receive through grace. One of these gifts is the free forgiveness of our past sins. We do not have to first atone for these sins. They are freely forgiven through grace. However, notice that Paul only speaks of the remission of our past sins. When we are initially saved, God does not pre-forgive our future sins.
Clement of Alexandria explains," God gives forgiveness of past sins." However, as to future sins, each one procures forgiveness for himself. He does this by repenting, by condemning the deeds He has done, and by imploring the Father to blot them out.
That is why Jesus taught us to regularly pray," Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." Jesus also said of our future sins," Forgive and you will be forgiven." John declares," If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." So grace continues to be present throughout our Christian walk here on earth. As Christians, we continue to have access to the throne of mercy. Christ will continue to blot out our sins if we truly repent of them.
Yet Christ places conditions on this continuing forgiveness. One such condition is to confess our sins and repent of them, as John says. Another condition is that we forgive those who sin against us. Jesus says," If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." Origen comments," Perhaps a man upon hearing these things in Romans 3 may become careless and negligent in good works, hearing that faith alone is sufficient for justification." My response to this is as follows: If a man lives unrighteously after justification, he has obviously despised the gift of justification. No one receives the pardon of sins, so that he may think he has been given the license to sin again.
For pardon is given for past sins, not future ones, through the forbearance of God. Paul says that this whole arrangement comes through the forbearance of God. Forbearance means patient endurance or restraint. Origen points out that, as a normal rule, God does not immediately punish people when they sin. Rather, He patiently waits to give the sinner time to repent and be forgiven.