The Righteousness of God

(Romans 1-11)

We have a lot to do today, so I’m going to jump right into it. If you were here last year, you know that all last year we were in Paul’s letter to the Romans, and we finished the book through chapter 11 (out of 16). Next week we’ll be jumping back into the letter at chapter 12.

But if you’re joining us for the first time, that means you missed the first eleven chapters of this letter. And even if you were here last year, it’s been over two months since we were in this book. That’s a long time.

So here’s what we’re going to do today… We’re going to do an overview of the first eleven chapters of the book of Romans. I know that seems like a tall order, and it is, but it may not be as complex as it seems, because for all its theological depth, Romans is a remarkably coherent letter. It has a very consistent and contained message that is simply applied in unparalleled theological depth to a specific situation.

So I’m going to give a quick reminder of the situation in which this letter was written, in order to get a grip on the context, and then we’ll dive in. I won’t read every passage, obviously, but as we dip in I’ll read a selection of passages that should, hopefully, give us a feel for the letter so far. Of course this won’t even come close to really covering everything Paul says, so I would encourage you to read Romans 1 through 11 this week (if you didn’t already do it in your community groups), and if you’re interested in any specific portions of it, all of the twenty-eight sermons we did on chapters 1 through 11 are available on the church’s website.

Context

But first, a bit of context.

When Paul writes this letter, it’s been a little more than twenty years since the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Christian church is gaining traction all over the Roman empire; churches are being planted all over the place, and more and more people are coming to faith in Christ.

This same thing, of course, is happening in the city of Rome itself.

We know that the apostle Paul didn’t plant this church; he likely doesn’t know anyone there personally. He’s hoping to go there soon, on his way to Spain, but first he needs to go to Jerusalem to deliver money that he had collected for that church (cf. Rom. 15.19-32, Acts 19.21). Paul likely sent this letter to the church in Rome in the care of a woman named Phoebe, whom we’ll meet at the end of the book, as a way of introducing himself and his ministry, so that they would support him in his work in Spain.

We also know that this church was composed of both Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. At the root of their particular challenges was their multicultural nature.

The Roman church was probably a Jewish church at first: Jews were converted to Christianity, and began meeting in homes, and more and more people joined them, until finally, they had a church. And of course, because this was Rome and it was mostly Gentiles around, Gentiles began to come to faith in Christ as well, and joined the church.

Here’s where it gets tricky. Around A.D. 49, the emperor Claudius exiled the Jews from Rome, because of strife stemming from Christianity (we see as much in Acts 18.2). So all the Jews had to leave. But the Gentile Christians were able to stay and keep the church going during that time.

So for around five years, the church in Rome was likely an exclusively Gentile church. But then, when Claudius died in A.D. 54, the Jews were allowed to return to Rome. So suddenly these Jewish Christians were thrust back together with the Gentile Christians who had been running the church in their absence, and significant questions about how to do things arose—mostly questions about how to live together as Christians who were both Jewish and non-Jewish.

This context (along with other, socioeconomic factors) would have produced a lot of questions. Can we be in good standing with God by obeying the Law of Moses? What does the salvation of Gentiles mean for the future of the Jews as God’s people? Should the Gentiles observe the Law of Moses like the Jewish Christians do?

Paul treats all of these questions and many more; he uses them as a springboard to expose the essential elements of the gospel he preaches.

1. The gospel is the revelation of God’s righteousness (1.1-17).

And he begins his letter with a kind of summary statement of what that gospel actually proclaims, what it shows—so that’s where we’ll start. I have five points today, five central truths that Paul lays out in chapters 1 through 11.

The first is quick, because it’s the statement Paul will flesh out in the rest of the letter, and it is simple: the gospel is the revelation of God’s righteousness. Romans 1.16-17:

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

This term “righteousness” is a tricky one to define, because it can include a lot of different realities depending on the context. God’s righteousness is, first of all, his perfect moral character—in God, there is no sin, no deception, no injustice. He is perfectly holy, perfectly just, perfectly “righteous.” This creates a problem for us, because we, human beings, are not perfectly righteous—we are inconsistent, unholy, unjust.

So the second layer to God’s righteousness—and the primary one for this letter—is that God’s righteousness is not only his own moral character; it is what God has done to save sinners while still upholding the standards of his holy nature. Simply put, it should not be possible for a holy God to save sinners, because letting sinners go unpunished for their sin is—or should be, by our way of thinking—inherently unjust. But that’s exactly what he did: he found a way to both punish sin and save sinners.

And that’s what Paul’s going to explain a little later. The fact that God did that, and the way that God did that, is told in the gospel. The gospel is the revelation of God’s righteousness.

2. God’s righteousness judges sin (1.18-3.20)

For the first eleven chapters of the letter, Paul is going to explain that righteousness in great detail, by giving us an account of several things God’s righteousness accomplishes. And the first thing we see is that God’s righteousness judges sin.

Paul starts in chapter 1 by showing us that humanity, in its totality, has rejected God. Romans 1.18-20:

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Although we see the world that God created, and we see his attributes clearly manifested in creation, we do not acknowledge him or worship him as God.

So what does God do? He gives us up to our sin. He lets us be the sinners we are.

At least, this is how things go naturally. This is what we naturally want, and this is what we deserve. And Paul wants to really insist on this point, because the Jews and Gentiles in the church in Rome will both have a tendency to hear Paul talk about God judging sin, and side-eye the other group sitting on the other side of the room: “Did you hear that, Jews? He’s talking about you.” “Did you hear that, Gentiles? He’s talking about you.”

But no—Paul is clear that he’s talking about everyone: those Jews who adhere to the law of Moses (the Jewish law, the means by which they were made “right” before God), and those Gentiles who don’t. No one is righteous, he says in chapter 3, verse 10, quoting Psalm 14—no one has ever managed to be righteous on their own, or by means of their own obedience to any standard. No one is that obedient.

This is why the law of Moses can’t save the Jews—it’s not that the law is bad; Paul insists that the law good. But human beings are unable to keep the law. So the law ends up condemning them instead of saving them. That’s what he means in 3.19-20, when he says,

19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

When human beings stand up next to God’s standard of holiness—which up to this point had been revealed in the law of Moses—we always find ourselves lacking. God’s righteousness means anger against our sin, and that anger is right—it is just—it is righteous. His righteousness judges sin, and no human being can stand up to it.

3. God’s righteousness saves sinners (3.21-4.25).

But that’s not the end of the story; God’s righteousness doesn’t just judge sin; it saves sinners. 3.21:

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

So this is the unexpected aspect of God’s righteousness; it’s the thing none of us ever could have predicted. This is why for the first four hundred years of the Christian church, they were concentrated almost entirely on this question: how does a righteous God save people who have sinned and fallen short of his glory?

There’s a scene in the film Batman Begins where Bruce Wayne tries to disappear in a bad part of Gotham City. But he can’t do it, because he’s walking around in a $3,000 coat. So what does he do? He offers to trade coats with a homeless guy on the street—he takes the man’s filthy, ratty coat and puts it on, and gives the man his pristine, warm, expensive coat.

Imagine our lives—and Christ’s life—like coats. What Christ did was essentially trade coats with us. He took our dirty, torn coats—rendered useless because of our rebellion against God—and put it on, and he gave us his absolutely perfect and beautiful coat, and put it on us. So when he presented himself before God, God looks at his coat, and identifies him as the criminal who usually wears it, and punishes him; and when he looks at the coat we’re wearing, he recognizes that the coat belongs to his Son, and he rewards us as sons and daughters.

God justifies us—that is, he declares us righteous—by his grace as a gift. How can he do this? Because he put Jesus Christ forward as a “propitiation” by his blood. The word “propitiation” means something that satisfies God’s divine wrath. So he didn’t just push our sin aside; Christ took our sin on himself, and God actually punished our sin in Christ.

Often we say that Christ “paid our debt,” the debt we owed because of our sin. And that’s true; but it’s much more than that. He didn’t just pay our debt. He took our place. In a very real way, he became us; he became our sin (cf. 2 Corinthians 5.21); he became the very thing that God hates. So God, being just, poured out all of his righteous anger against our sin, down to the last drop, by punishing Christ on the cross.

So you see, he didn’t just wipe our sin away. He burned it up. He punished it to the fullest extent of his power. It’s impossible for us to understand the depth of Christ’s suffering for us.

But that’s only half of it. God didn’t just take our sin away by punishing Christ for it; in exchange for our sin, he gave us the perfect, sinless life that Christ lived for us. So it’s not only that he doesn’t consider us sinners any longer; it’s that when he looks at us, he sees the righteousness of Christ which was given to us, and so considers us righteous.

All of this happens as a free gift, that we take hold of by faith. When we see the depth of Christ’s sacrifice, it becomes quickly obvious that we can’t do anything to add to it, or subtract from it. All of our effort is like a drop of water in the ocean. Christ’s gift is so monumental that all we can do is receive it by faith.

And Paul goes on, in chapter 4, to explain that it has always been this way. Even before Christ, human beings were not made right before God by their obedience, but by faith. He gives the example of Abraham, the Jewish patriarch, and he references the Old Testament, showing how Abraham was declared righteous by faith, and not by obedience.

The point of this is, it is not our own obedience that saves us; it is only God’s grace in Christ, which we receive by faith.

4. God’s righteousness gives us hope (5.1-8.39).

So God reveals his righteousness in the gospel; God’s righteousness judges sin; God’s righteousness saves sinners. Next (and this is a big one), God’s righteousness gives us hope.

I really wish we had time to go back through all of chapters 5 through 8, which are among my favorite passages in all of Scripture. In chapter 5, Paul brings everything he’s said so far to this shattering truth—this work of Christ actually does work. 5.1:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

To put it simply, knowing we have peace with God through Christ, knowing that God no longer holds our sin against us, changes us. It changes what we want, and it changes how we live.

And that’s where he goes in chapter 6. It may be tempting for us to imagine that somehow God’s grace will apply to some people but not others. We look around and see people whom we would consider “good people,” and we think, “Well of course God’s grace applies to her—she’s awesome. I’m not awesome. You don’t know what I’ve done, or what I’ve thought, or how often I’ve rejected God.”

But no—Paul spends the last half of chapter 5 showing how completely Christ triumphed over sin, and then he applies that work to everyone who has placed their faith in him, by showing that his grace is more powerful than sin. Chapter 6, verse 5:

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

So there is a mental commandment here that he’s going to flesh out in chapter 7: consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

In other words, the reality is that we are no longer sinners: we have been declared righteous by God through faith in Christ. “Righteous” is what God says about us; that’s what he calls us. If there was a stamp on our spiritual birth certificates, “righteous” is what it would say about us.

But we see that in practice, we’re not all that righteous yet. We still have struggles, we still have moments—or even periods—of disobedience. And Paul’s saying, “Don’t let your practice define your identity. Let your identity—what God says about you—determine your practice.”

But Paul knows that this is hard to do—even more, it’s hard to believe. Why? Because even though Christ has changed our hearts and our desires through faith, the one thing he hasn’t changed yet is our bodies, which are still used to sinning. Anyone who’s tried to quit smoking, or to stop biting their nails, knows that habits are incredibly hard to break. And the deeper the habit, the harder it is to break.

So because we struggle to stop sinning, it’s easy to assume that we’re doing something wrong. Paul identifies the difficulty of this struggle in the second half of chapter 7. Romans 7.14:

14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

I love that he said it like this, because there is not a single Christian who has ever lived who doesn’t identify with the self-questioning he expresses here. How can I believe that I am no longer a sinner when I see sin in me?

This is why he gives the command in chapter 6, v. 11: consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. If we look at the practice of our lives, we will instantly become discouraged, because we’ll see everything in us that still needs changing: all of the sinful habits our bodies have still not managed to shake.

That is why he reminds us at the beginning of chapter 8:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

So you see, he points us back to Christ: if we look to what Christ has done, instead of at our own inadequacies, we will remember that we couldn’t save ourselves, and we can’t save ourselves now. We need him. We need the work of Christ, and we need the work of his Spirit to apply the work of Christ to us.

Here’s Paul’s logic (and it is ironclad): if Christ did all of that to save us, he won’t stop with the job halfway done. If he began this work in us, he will finish it. There is no condemnation for us if we are in Christ; the Spirit has set us free from the condemnation of sin. And so if he began that work, he will finish it. Chapter 8, v. 11:

11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

If he saved us, he will make us holy. If he saved us, he will enable us to put our sin to death. And if you’ve been a Christian for any amount of time, you can see it. We can all point to all the ways we are still far from the mark. But with a little effort, we can also look back at our lives and see how we have changed since we came to faith. We can see progression. We can see what God has done in us.

If he started this work, he won’t stop. If the Spirit raised Christ from the dead, and he lives in us, then he will give life—not to our souls, not to our hearts, but to our bodies: these weak bodies still under sin’s influence. He will make us grow in him.

Knowing that this doesn’t depend on us, but on him, is what gives us hope—and that is how Paul ends chapter 8, starting in v. 31:

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

5. God’s righteousness applies to all peoples (9.1-11.36).

There’s one last piece that we need to see, but to understand it we need to come back to the context of the church in Rome. Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, living together in a body of believers. The Jewish Christians in the church are undoubtedly rejoicing about the hope they have in Christ, as well they should. But at the same time, they're also thinking, “But what about my Jewish family and friends who aren’t Christians? God said the Jews were his chosen people. Does salvation in Christ mean that God has rejected his chosen people?”

That’s what Paul explains next, by showing how God’s righteousness applies to all peoples—both to Jews and to Gentiles.

The first thing he does is to show that God has not rejected Israel. Chapter 9, v. 6:

6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.

To put this simply: from the very beginning, God said this was how things would work. God never said that being born a Jew automatically meant that you were a child of God. He already explained this in chapter 5: even Abraham was not saved because he was of a particular ethnicity, but because he had faith in God. The “children of the promise” are those who share in Abraham’s faith, not Abraham’s blood.

God paved the way for Israel to have that faith, and many of them did. But not all. If any member of the people of Israel is not saved, it’s not because God has rejected his people, but because that person has rejected God.

This is what he spends chapters 9 and 10 explaining: Israel, collectively, has rejected God, but God has not rejected them. He has chosen a remnant—a certain number of Israelites who would believe in the Savior whom God promised to send, Jesus Christ.

Then, in chapter 11, he turns to the Gentiles—how are they a part of this salvation?

Paul describes God’s plan as a huge tree, which he built out of the people of Israel. Those Israelites who rejected Christ—whom Paul describes as “branches”—are cut off, and the Gentiles who have accepted Christ—whom Paul describes as “wild olive shoots”—have been grafted in to the tree.

His point is this: neither the Jews nor the Gentiles have any reason to claim they are more legitimate as Christians because they are Jews, or because they are Gentiles.

In chapter 11, v. 17 (he’s speaking to the Gentiles now):

17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, 18 do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. 19 Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” 20 That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. 22 Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.

And here’s the great news: God has a plan—still mysterious, I admit—to redeem a great number of the Jews, and bring them back in to his salvation. V. 23:

23 And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. 24 For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.

Conclusion

This is all mind-blowing, of course, and we can struggle with thinking through how it all works for hours (as we did: we spent months talking about all of these things). But the central message is still the same: all of salvation is from God. The gospel is the manifestation of his righteousness: his righteousness which judges sin, which saves sinners, which assures us of the hope we have in him, and which applies to everyone who has faith in Christ, no matter who we are or where we come from.

That is why Paul ends with this magnificent doxology, starting in v. 33 of chapter 11:

33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

34  “For who has known the mind of the Lord,

or who has been his counselor?”

35  “Or who has given a gift to him

that he might be repaid?”

36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

This letter could easily end there—honestly, Paul could have ended with chapter 8—and we would have more than we needed to get us through the rest of our lives.

But Paul does not stop there. Beginning in chapter 12, he’s going to take all of this and ask one simple question: Since these things are true, HOW SHOULD WE LIVE? What difference should these truths make in our lives, as individuals and as a church?

That is what he will spend the next five chapters answering, and that’s what we’ll begin exploring next week. But for now, I suggest we simply sit under these truths, and ask God to let them weigh on us. Let’s end today as Paul ends chapter 11: at simple amazement before the goodness and wisdom and grace of our God.