Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Romans.  Tonight is study #37 of Romans 3,  and we are continuing to read Romans 3:20-22:

Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: 

Again, God said, “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”  He also tells us in verse 22 that the righteousness of God is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all that believe.  God’s righteousness and justification is completely identified with salvation.  If you are righteous before God, you are saved, and the only way to obtain that righteousness is through the righteousness of Christ.  If you are justified in God’s sight, you are saved, because the only way to receive that justification is through the salvation that is in the Lord Jesus.  So it is all related to Christ’s work of redemption, the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ that was accomplished at the foundation of the world, according to the Bible, and it is imputed (counted) to us, if we are truly elect.  Christ bore our sins, paid for them all, and shed His blood on our behalf, and then the Word of God applied it to us.  And the application of Christ’s shed blood washes away all our sin, thereby justifying us before God. 

It is not our own righteousness through our works, but it is the righteousness of Christ: “…by the righteousness of one the free gift came …justification of life.”  It is not ours.  It was His justifying of us, and not our own justification based on anything we have done.  The Law does not allow for a sinner to say, “I will keep this Law, and I will believe on the Lord Jesus, and, thereby, I will be justified by faith.”  If anyone does that, it brings them under the curse (judgment) of the Law.  It is only Christ who is able to do “work” that leads to justification, and Christ’s work is seen through His faith, as we read that He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,  as the Bible illustrated what took place at the foundation of the world as the Lord Jesus went to the cross in 33 A. D., and as we read of His suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane and all the way up until that death on the cross. 

Christ died for the transgressions and sins of His elect.  They were laid upon Him, and He died for us.  His work was His obedience unto death, even the death of the cross.  Notice the word “obedience.”  One is obedient when one has been commanded to do something.  And the Father sent the Son into the world.  It was all done in the Godhead, and it was the plan of God that the Lord Jesus Christ be the Saviour, and it was done according to Law.  It is written in the Word of God, the Bible, as the Gospel plan of salvation, and Christ fulfilled all things according to the Scripture, thus doing the work.  The Bible also tells us in Hebrews 4:3 that these works were finished from the foundation of the world, so that is when Christ was offered up for sin.

Again, we see this statement as God is thoroughly destroying any possible attempt by man to get right with Him through the keeping of any Law in any way.  This passage has wiped that idea out, in verse, after verse.  God says that none are righteous because they cannot keep the Law.  None are good because no one can keep the Law.  The Law was not given to justify sinners so that in the keeping of it, one could obtain justification.  The Law was given to convict us of sin, to multiply our sins, to show us our sins, and to give us knowledge of that fact.  The ultimate purpose is to show the hopelessness of a sinner trying to keep the Law to get right with God.  And yet there is a solution.   We are told in Romans 10:4:

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

The Law, the Bible, will stop you from proceeding down the “road of works” to justification.  No matter what way you turn, the Bible will say, “Go no further.  You cannot gain entrance to God’s kingdom in this way.  You cannot keep the Law satisfactorily.  There is no way, and salvation is impossible with men.  It is not of the will of the flesh.  It is not of the will of man.”  At every turn, man is turned back.  “Do not go this way.”  It is the pathway that leads to destruction that so many religions and false gospels take as they convince their congregations to perform particular works.  That is the broad way that leads to destruction, but it is the narrow way that the Word of God gives sign posts for, again, and again: “It is not this way, or that way, but go to Christ.  Go to God and beseech Him for mercy.  Wait upon the Lord for salvation.  Turn to Him, and look to Him.”  

From whence cometh your help?  Your help comes from the Lord.  But it is always looking to God, like looking at the serpent in the wilderness who was a type and figure of the Lord Jesus.  Look to the God who has smitten you, and who can slay you, and whose wrath you are under; and who has the power to destroy you in your sins unless He would have mercy upon you.  You must look to Him, and keep your eyes fixed on Him.  Do not turn anywhere else, and, certainly, do not turn to yourself and works you might perform.  They are not only no merit or help to you, but they will just make matters worse.  “All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.”  They are dirty, rotten, filthy rags.  They are an unclean thing in the sight of God, so do not dare to come before God and say, “O, God, I have done many wonderful works in your name,” as those that would come to the door in the Day of Judgment, saying, “Lord, lord, open to us.”  And the response will be: “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”   Whatever works you did, or how many there were, or how great you thought they were did nothing.  They do not satisfy the Law’s demand for death. 

There must be the shedding of blood.  There must be satisfaction for the offenses against the Law, and the Law declares, “For the wages of sin is death.”  Doing a handful of good works are actually not good works at all because you polluted them by attempting to get right with God through them.  God will not even look at it.  Like Cain, such persons will be banished, and they will be under the wrath of God for the thing they have done because man’s works are not acceptable to God.  But Abel’s offering was acceptable because he was not offering up his own work.  Abel was trusting in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ and His offering of Himself to the Father as the Lamb slain.  That is the only way that God will look toward a sinner and see that he is justified and righteous, as we read in Romans 3:21:

But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested…

It is without the keeping of commandments, or without (the work) of believing on Jesus.  It cannot be your belief because 1John 3:23 says, “And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ.”  The command is “to believe,” and that commandment is part of the Law of God.  But the righteousness of God is “without the law.”  As a matter of fact, it is manifested, “being witnessed by the law and the prophets,” as it goes on to say in Romans 3:21.  That is, the Word of God, the Bible testifies of the fact that man is justified not by the keeping of the Law, but by the righteousness of God apart (without) from the Law.  It is the truth that the Bible justifies sinners.  Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.  He did not come for the righteous, or those that think they can get right with God through the keeping of the Law.  He came for desperate sinners that have broken His Law and are guilty before Him, and they realize that they are under His wrath.  Their mouths have been stopped, and their only hope is the mercy and grace of God.  So it goes on to say in Romans 3:22:

Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: 

Here, we see that statement again that is a glorious Bible declaration.  It is something that has been in the Bible for almost two thousand years.  In the first century A. D. the Lord moved the Apostle Paul to write the book of Romans and the Epistle of Galatians.  This information was there for century, after century, but churches and their theologians could not see it.  It was closed up.  It was part of the information that the Lord kept sealed until the time of the end because at the time of the end He would save the vast majority of the elect, that great multitude.  And He intended to send forth a purified form of the Gospel like never before in the history of the world.  In order to do that, there had to be corrections made to the “mess” that the churches had developed and entangled themselves in concerning faith and salvation. 

What is man’s role in saving faith?  There are those who are very outspoken and direct, and they will tell you, “You have to believe.  Man is not a robot.  God gives us free will.”  They stay very much on the surface of things, we could say, and we can immediately see their error because these statements do not begin to harmonize with the whole of the Bible because God has an election program, and so forth.

But the Reformed churches saw that the Bible spoke of election and predestination.  For example, they realized from Ephesians 1 that the Scriptures stated these things.  It says in Ephesians 1:4-5:

According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

Along with this, they understood what was said of twin sons, Jacob and Esau, in Romans 9:11-13:

(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

According to God’s election program, He determined to save and love Jacob and to not save and hate Esau, and this determination was made before they were born, and before they had done good or evil. 

Ephesians 1 reveals that decision of God, as Jesus also said in John 15:16: “ Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you…”  And we can trace that choice of God to save His elect people to before the foundation of the world.  Before the world was created, God made choice.  God elected Jacob and all those that Jacob typified, the whole company of the elect.  And He did not elect the rest of mankind, as typified by Esau, and, therefore, salvation is not of works because man was not even conceived or born.  There was not even a world created when God performed the work of faith, and the Lord Jesus Christ took upon Himself the sins of His people at the point of the world’s foundation, and as the sacrificial offering for those sins, He was the Lamb slain.  He shed His blood, and died for those sins, and thereby payment was made for all their transgressions.  And God was obligated to save those certain ones, and no one else:  “Jacob have I loved, and Esau I have hated.”  God hated Esau because He still saw his sin.

That is the backdrop.  This is the basis of God’s salvation program.  So when the Lord says that no man is justified by the works of the Law, we must respond, “Of course not!  Obviously not.  No man can do a work to justify himself, as the works were finished from the foundation of the world.”  This is what we read in Hebrews 4:2:

For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them…

That is, it is referring to the Old Testament saints.  They had the same Gospel preached as we also received, the Gospel of grace.  Then it says in Hebrews 4:2:

… but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.

That is, the “faith of Christ” was salvation.  Then it goes on to say in Hebrews 4:3:

For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.

The context here has everything to do with the Gospel, with belief, and with the salvation of sinners.  The works that saves sinners and justifies them, making these individuals righteous before God, were finished at the foundation of the world.  And, no, it is not possible that it was done “in principle.”  You cannot finish a work “in principle.”  That is nonsense.  A work is something that is “action.”  There must be the doing of it.  You must have the commandment, and then you must fulfill the commandment, and then you have done (finished) the work.  But to say, “Well, God looked ahead and knowing what He would do, He decreed these things as He looked to the time when Jesus would enter the world and go to the cross.”  And that would be “in principle.”  But how then could the works be finished from the foundation of the world?  The works cannot be finished “in principle.”  It makes no sense whatsoever.  It only makes sense when we realize that this is connected to Revelation 13:8 which tells us that Jesus was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.  He did the works of faith at that point in eternity past for the sake of His people, thus making payment for all our sins.  Therefore all works associated with payment for sin were done and accepted by the Law at that point, and that allowed God to send forth the Gospel into the world to seek and to save only those certain people.