October 28, 2002
LifeWay Family Bible Series for Nov. 10
Salvation stems not from our desires, but God's
___Romans 3:1930
___By Rick Willis
___First Baptist Church, Roscoe
___The late D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once made a deep observation. He noticed that our usual view of salvation takes the wrong starting point. We start with our own desires instead of with God. "I want forgiveness of sins; I want peace of conscience and of mind; I want enjoyment and happiness; I want to be delivered from certain sins; I want guidance; I want this and that; and my whole conception of salvation is reduced to that level," he said. And his critique can be applied to non-Christian views of salvation as well.
___By contrast, the Bible starts with God in his unfathomable wonder and goodness.
___There, salvation is not just a way for me to feel good. It is the miracle of being embraced by the Holy Creator of the universe as his own child. Without the least denial of my total human failure, salvation is the demonstration of God's triumphing love.
___God doesn't grade on the curve
___In Romans 3:1930, Paul contrasts human-centered works with God-centered faith.
___A good way to understand "the law" in Romans 3 is as the revelation of God's pure and absolute standard for every area of your behavior, speech and desires.
___Most people would admit they are not perfect, that their goodness is only relative to others who are morally worse. What people have a hard time believing is that God demands absolute perfection.
___The original readers of Paul's letter to the Romans had a hard time believing that, especially those who had the benefit of knowing God's commands in the Old Testament. The commandments God gave in the Old Testament are very important. They reveal the highest principles to live by. They show us how best to love God. They uncover our sins. But they were never intended to save us (Romans 3:20).
___Paul emphasized in Romans 3:1920 that the law, in the sense of the civil and religious statutes God gave Moses, was not just a token of superiority in the hands of the Jews. It was not a writ of moral bragging rights against the Gentile world. It was the standard by which God judged the Jewish world as well. The law held all people accountable to God. By the law's standard, all have failed.
___Paul had just quoted extensive Old Testament expressions of the universal taint of sin (Romans 3:1018). Again in verses 1920, he uses universal language: "every mouth," "the whole world," "no one" (literally "all flesh"). And his point comes to clearest focus in the well-known words of Romans 3:23, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
___Everything we touch is spoiled by sin. A serial sniper terrorizes communities in the northeastern United States. The criminal's depravity is obvious, of course. But what about the news media? Are all the reporters' actions free from the motivation of greed or vanity? Are the law enforcers or the courts perfect in their execution of justice? We see impurity infects every human institution--business, education, government, religion. Even Christianity in this world bears the fungus of sin, for some folks defend God's truth with the devil's tactics.
___One by one and all together, we disdain God's gift of life and fail to give him loving thanks and highest devotion.
___God gives salvation through faith in Christ
___Two uses of the word "law" appear in Romans 3:1930. One use signifies the Ten Commandments and Jewish ritual laws--Mosaic law--and the response to the Mosaic law is called "observing the law" (literally "works" of the law, 3:20, 27, 28). The other use appears in the phrase "the Law and the Prophets," and it means the whole Old Testament (3:21). The Old Testament contains not only the Mosaic law, but also the story of how Israel broke the law.
___Verse 21 says the Law and the Prophets testify to the true way of salvation, which is by faith in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus. The bare letter of the law could not reverse human rebellion; it was never intended to. God's Old Testament promise of a new heart and a new covenant was left unfulfilled until Jesus.
___The words "but now" in verse 21 signal a whole new era. Now in Jesus, God has entered the scene to demonstrate his justice and mercy all in one great saving act. Jesus alone has perfectly fulfilled God's requirements. At the same time, he indicted the human laws, religion and politics of the world that conspired against him to kill him. In the death of Jesus, God himself absorbed the judgment due the world. By his resurrection, God has promised salvation from the final punishment of sin.
___Paul's explanation is necessarily steeped in ancient Jewish imagery. The smoke from Mount Sinai and the blood from the tabernacle and temple still cling to the New Testament.
___Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of Romans 3:28 sums up the message well. "What we've learned is this: God does not respond to what we do; we respond to what God does."
___Questions for discussion
___
___
Get printer-friendly version of this story
Send this story to a friend
News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.
Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!/ Signup for FirstLook
